Big Bird

Giant Eagle is a supermarket chain of around 200 locations mostly within Western Pennsylvania and Northeastern Ohio. The chain has made some inroads into other parts of those two states, West Virginia and Maryland. A few of the stores are designated as Market Districts which are quite large and have expanded selection and expanded departments to match. Giant Eagle also operates Get-Go gas stations and a string of Valu King ⇒ discount supermarkets that was repurposed from the company’s acquisition of Tamco {Safety Pride}.

As a customer, I only think of Giant Eagle as a grocery store. I get the impression that company brass want the company thought of as something more considering how many non-food items like gift cards, pharmaceuticals, and flowers are given prime placement. Try as Giant Eagle might, I will continue to spend my money at various businesses.

I have lived in markets where Giant Eagle was the dominant grocery store, and also in markets where there is competition. Early on, it was my only reference. Later on, I was able to see that the selection tends to include a wider variety of the fewer products that they stock. For example, Giant Eagle will either have 10 varieties of quinoa or 0.

Lack Thereof

Most Giant Eagle stores are corporate owned and employ non-union labor, but there do exist some franchised stores and also some stores that have unionized labor. This particular “team benefit” was provided to Donor & Receiver Brian* at a corporate-owned, non-union Giant Eagle. This shirt was not the only team benefit that he received, but it was the only benefit that he ever successfully donated to me. He later offered me his uniforms of which I had no interest in wearing to his chagrin.

There were no such team benefits at the unionized franchise store I worked at as a stock clerk and bagger. I understand that the industry standard for supermarket profit margin is about 2%, but I would have liked to received some sort of promotional material from the franchisee beyond a paycheck. The union that represented the workers at that store was United Food and Commercial Workers Union ⇒. There was never a strike or a worthwhile collective bargaining agreement during my time there; I was not even able to benefit from being a “part of the union team” or the dues I had to pay either.

Highlights

One Saturday, all employees were given the option to donate blood while on the clock. I took that option and in so doing was entered in a contest to win a 13″ color television. I won. The television is somewhere in my parents’ basement.

Rodney was a co-worker of mine that went out with quite the display of insubordination. Had Rodney simply refused to clean up some gum on the floor with more raspberries than were on sale in the produce department one time his quitting would have been garden variety. Rodney delivered the repetition word for word, calmly, and firmly inches from the general manager’s face. The manager was the type of manager that liked to rule by intimidation and passive-aggressive commenting. Rodney returning fire was the strongest display of minerals I saw while I worked there. The manager ended up cleaning the gum after Rodney walked away. When I quit, I just left a two-week written notice.