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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael The waiting in front of grocery stores is the most nerve-wracking aspect of the crisis. It's not uncommon to see 20 or 30 people standing in front of the store door, all spaced 6 feet (and often more) apart from each other, with the line stretching around the next street corner. In front of some stores, you can even see two separate lines extending in different directions: one for regular shoppers and one for so-called "Instacarters".
The latter are drudges of the company "Instacart," who shop for people who select groceries online using the "Instacart" app and then have them delivered to their door. The actual shopping is done by low-wage workers who run around the store recklessly, stare at their smartphones, and have no idea which shelf the requested products are on. After customer complaints, the stores assigned the Instacarters their own queue, and when a customer left the store, one person from alternating queues was allowed to enter. Then some stores limited the number of Instacarters in the store, and only when an Instacarter left the store was a new one from the Instacarter queue allowed in; otherwise, only regular customers were let in.
Now it is incredibly annoying to drive to a store only to see that the line is hopelessly long again, so some tech-savvy individuals set out to create a website as a remedy. In the https://storequeue.com, customers themselves can report how long the waiting time in front of a specific store actually is. The website displays all known grocery stores within an adjustable radius and the most recently reported waiting time. If you are standing in front of a store and the waiting time is accurate, you can report this by tapping the "Like" symbol. If it is not accurate, you can give a "Thumbs down" and enter how long you actually waited.
The whole thing only works, of course, if many people participate. It seems to be working well because recently, around noon, I saw that according to Storequeue, the waiting time in front of our otherwise totally overcrowded Trader Joe's was only 10 minutes. I immediately ran downstairs, got in the car, and drove there. I could hardly believe it, but there were really only three people in front of the entrance, and within five minutes I was inside. Out of shock, I made a few panic buys. I'm loving this top product!
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