So on Friday, April 3 at 13.30 I arrived as agreed at the entrance gate of the retirement home Senevita. Promptly the door was opened and I was equipped with a mask and gloves. After a short discussion concerning the shopping list, I went to the supermarket to get the required groceries and products for daily use.
14 residents took advantage of the service which led to a respectable shopping list of one and a half A4 pages. Due to the unsorted product list, shopping turned out to be a real challenge. As a result, I was granted the opportunity to get to know 98% of the entire product range... Of course there were also products I have never seen before in my life!
So after one hour I made it through four shelves and I finished the veggies and the cold cuts. The procedure was about as follows: Resident A wanted two tomatoes - so let's go to find two tomatoes, put them in bag, weigh it, put a label on it and write the corresponding name on it. Next resident B wanted one tomato. This was done then also with other fruits like bananas, grapes etc.
Then I went on to the dairy products. Also in this section from yoghurt nature to coffee cream everything was on my list, of course also in different quantities! Apparently a resident also wanted to bake a cake and so I went to the baking department.From "figs without stones" to peeled almonds and whole hazelnuts, there were plenty of products on my list. The shopping tour took already two hours and I still had to buy drinks like 2 x 6 liters of mineral water, Red Bull Summer Edition Melon and some other small things.
But the most exciting shelves were still to come; namely the toiletries. As most of the residents are female, there were of course also some hurdles to overcome like night cream, normal day cream, skin cream, panty liners, sanitary towels etc. etc. It is obvious that I, as a male being on earth, was facing a few difficulties. But nevertheless I managed to get 90% of the items on the shopping list with great effort and perseverance. The missing products could be completed with the help of the kitchen staff in the retirement home.
Now I just needed to go without any damage through the checkout and to the car in the underground parking lot with the fully loaded shopping cart. At the checkout, I put on an incredible performance when packing up, to prevent the chocolate bunnies I had bought from falling off the counter and breaking. Who wants a broken chocolate bunny! You can certainly imagine how the counter looked like when I put the goods into countless bags. Of course the eggs and yoghurts should not be damaged either.
So I approached the last act of the adventure - returning and sorting out the products for the individual residents. Hereby I was helped by the staff and so we could finish the action after half an hour.
Now all the purchases were neatly sorted in Senevita bags ready for delivery to the residents. Some of them were very happy - others were not quite satisfied with the shopping. The five bars of chocolate at CHF 1.35 did not have the desired 70% of cocoa!!!
Finally, a short statement of account was made and at 17.45 o'clock work was done.
Last but not least I would like to mention that since we started working from home I haven't slept as well and deeply as I did that night!
Author: Stefan Spörri
Departement: Sales
Date: 16.04.2020
