Work Happens

The week that ended 9/23/06 I was in Stafford, VA. I'm sure it's got neat stuff to discover, but we were working long hours at night and I did not discover it. My glasses broke - the lens fell out - so I spent time at the optometrist getting them fixed. I found a park which was not at all picturesque but had a perfectly adequate grill for my burgers. I found a Curves - there are in fact two, but I went to the one near the optometrist. I found a bead store right by the supermarket. Most of my time was spent on important stuff - like sleep. Night sets are like that.

Meanwhile, back on the internet, one of my readers posted a comment - "I am curious about your work." OK, since that's mostly what I did this week, I'll write about it.

The work I do is different each week, which I love. I do supermarket resets.

Some weeks I work with a retail project team. These teams have a regular route of maybe 16 stores relatively close to one another, and visit each one monthly, doing various projects. We'll rearrange a few sections of the store and be gone. For instance, a few weeks ago I spent the week rearranging frozen entrees in four Food Lions.

Other weeks I work with a traveling set team. These teams travel for the purpose of remodeling stores and setting up new stores. We're at one store for 4 days - or 4 nights - and when we're done everything is different. For instance, this week we converted a regular Food Lion into a Bloom store.

Most of the people who do these jobs work for one or another food broker or merchandising company as employees - Acosta, Proctor and Gamble, Advantage, Crossmark, Keebler, Nabisco... These companies also get help from other merchandising companies like the ones I work through. I'm an independent contractor. I get jobs through a kind of temp agency for merchandisers. This gives me more freedom and flexibility, and enables me to travel by motorhome rather than stay in corporate-approved motels. Plus I get to work in many different towns, with many different teams, on many different projects, and even in different chains.

I love my work.



So when you go to the supermarket and the cat food, which has always been on aisle 4, is now on aisle 8 - we did that ;)