Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages • Hacker News Board

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#251

Post by intended » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #177

caseysoftware wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife was a political reporter in DC, covering the Hill, the Pentagon and White House at various times. One time we were watching CNN and they mentioned a briefing at the Pentagon and she noted she was in the same one. Halfway through the coverage, she jumped up and said "that's not what they said!" I was confused.. she went back to her bag and handed me her notebook which contradicted their coverage. It's not uniq…

This conversation has progressed for a while without anyone mentioning that the sentiments expressed are essentially in support of Trump's accusations of fake news. So we can have a conversation on HN in support of Trump's "fake news" and in recognition of severe bias in media that would indicate "fake news" isn't as much a slur as it is a matter of fact statement. What am I missing?

Becuase trump attacks facts which people know are true from multiple corroborated sources.

But even that is wrong.

Firstly fake news is exactly that - actually fabricated websites designed to look like “the Sacramento beast” or what have you, filled with content that will sound legitimate to an American conservative and trick them into clicking on ads.

That’s fake news and it’s actually not even news, it’s more like surprise literature/acting to con people.

Trump on the other hand argues for example that he has the biggest crowds, when he doesn’t by every device that recorded images of the subject.

Fake news is in this case is just a term that relies on the audience to impute meaning to it.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#252

Post by onli » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:03 AM UTC

tinfins wrote: post #224

onli wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you think stores should just keep a huge backstock of fresh produce just in case an extreme weather event or some other rare issue hits? Strawman. I said nothing of the sort. I'm taking the article at face value. The article reports that regularly, stores of your chain are understocked that much that you are losing money and customer loyalty. It is not saying those are special rare issues. Now, there are two opt…

I jumped ahead there and left a step of my reasoning out. The article describes a lack of backstock, due to OTS, causing out-of-stocks when stores have to miss a delivery or two. But if you assume that the vast majority of these issues were in fact caused by unpredictable events, then the only possible solution would be to keep large amounts of extra stock at all times, which is worse for the customer and the company…

Ah, now I think I do understand your position. Best of luck :)

Edit: Just to clarify, the connection with the control scheme and the supply issues as laid out in the article is that it forces employees and store manager to blindly follow the system. Employee protection laws in other countries would prevent "three strikes out" schemes, if the strikes are for "infractions" as small as having one of 400 boxes facing the wrong side, which is one example in the article. That just wouldn't fly in a german court of law, for example, where something like this definitely would end up.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#253

Post by z3t4 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #37

tinfins wrote: post #7

I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. The author seems to have talked with 10-20 disgruntled employees at a few stores nationwide, and a few customers on top of that. Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Food…

> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show b…

Knowing the facts while the news reports the wrong ones - is a perfect moment to write a blog/article yourself about it.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#254

Post by burfog » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

intended wrote: post #251

meri_dian wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation has progressed for a while without anyone mentioning that the sentiments expressed are essentially in support of Trump's accusations of fake news. So we can have a conversation on HN in support of Trump's "fake news" and in recognition of severe bias in media that would indicate "fake news" isn't as much a slur as it is a matter of fact statement. What am I missing?

Becuase trump attacks facts which people know are true from multiple corroborated sources. But even that is wrong. Firstly fake news is exactly that - actually fabricated websites designed to look like “the Sacramento beast” or what have you, filled with content that will sound legitimate to an American conservative and trick them into clicking on ads. That’s fake news and it’s actually not even news, it’s more like…

Crowd images don't tell the whole story.

There is grass on the National Mall. During the Obama inauguration, people walked on it as you would expect. The damage cost several $million to fix. In photos of the Trump inauguration crowd, notice that the sparsely-occupied area is white. It was covered in translucent boxes to protect the grass. (the boxes were borrowed from stadiums that use them for events like concerts) The boxes can be walked on, but people would hesitate. They are not inviting like grass. This kept many people out of the photos.

Another issue is that the central area of the photo was blocked off into different security sectors. Due to violence, entry was often blocked. Many people showed up for the inauguration but were unable to get to where they could see it, which would be the empty areas of the photos.

In the usual pair of photos, the Trump photo is cropped relative to the Obama photo. The physical area seems to differ by roughly a factor of two.

There is also the question of time when the photos were taken.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#255

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:34 AM UTC

ReinholdNiebuhr wrote: post #70

Increase investment into labor costs. Hire people who actually know a thing or two about cooking (that would mean hiring people with culinary training, not just people who perform well in the interview process.) You can convert pretty much all that's going to waste into sellable products on the store shelves. You might have to sacrifice consistency over time in that, your stock or broths made in house will differ per…

[deleted]

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#256

Post by Moter8 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:34 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #152

ReinholdNiebuhr wrote: post #70

Increase investment into labor costs. Hire people who actually know a thing or two about cooking (that would mean hiring people with culinary training, not just people who perform well in the interview process.) You can convert pretty much all that's going to waste into sellable products on the store shelves. You might have to sacrifice consistency over time in that, your stock or broths made in house will differ per…

In our local Tesco, in a relatively poor UK city, the saving on "last day" food is about 10-20%, it used to be much higher. Presumably they're more wary of self-cannabilising. Except bread products after 8pm, it's almost never worth buying the reduced items now. I imagine they have much more waste. Mind you most ready food retailers, like Greggs (high-street bakery) don't do reductions preferring to dump unsold food…

In Germany it's common that food that doesn't look like it's still worth the full price gets discounted. My department works on the discount label printing and I've visited a store to test it out.

In the mornings an employee looks through the fruits and vegetables, trashes spoiled stuff, but also picks away some and discounts them for 30-50% or so, depending on how good it still is.

It is usually gone in 20 minutes, some seemingly poor people got cheap food thanks to this.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#257

Post by RyanZAG » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:48 AM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #218

meri_dian wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation has progressed for a while without anyone mentioning that the sentiments expressed are essentially in support of Trump's accusations of fake news. So we can have a conversation on HN in support of Trump's "fake news" and in recognition of severe bias in media that would indicate "fake news" isn't as much a slur as it is a matter of fact statement. What am I missing?

Fascinating, isn't it? Almost like people believe the same thing said very much the same way but from a completely different source. Thanks, I'm here all weekend. ;)

It's not the same way though, is it? Trump has the whole 'average American' speech pattern down. Headline grabbing, 'high energy', and a call to action.

> FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

He doesn't use the intellectual tone when he talks about it.

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows.

For a certain type of person -- the type that reads HN -- this scholarly style is what we expect. It lays out the biases and beliefs we hold in a manner we expect. It backs it up with some seemingly solid logic that we can relate to. We've all seen at least one badly written scientific article where we know the facts better. So we take it as fact and agree with it.

Is there any difference between them? Of course not, they're saying the same thing, but in a different linguistic style. It does take a bit of work to recognize that as most people have fairly deep biases towards linguistic style that are difficult to suppress. As an exercise to prove this to yourself, try sum up the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in a way that would appeal to a non-academic.

Here's the interesting part: Trump picked up this linguistic style only in the last few years. While we don't like it, his voter base probably wouldn't have voted for him if he started his sentences "briefly stated". Know your audience, often the presentation of your argument is far more important than the argument itself.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#258

Post by yorwba » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 9:50 AM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #240

robryan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah stores must spend a lot of time on manually marking things down. Plenty of room for innovation, would just need to move to digital price displays.

Actually, as a customer, I can confirm that all the Whole Foods Markets I’ve seen do have digital pricing displays for most things - they are based on e-paper technology. But you don’t want prices changing between the time a customer has picked up a product and the time they get to the checkout. And then there’s the whole problem of the in-store prices not matching the published circular prices. So, lots of issues to…

If the price drops between picking up an item and paying for it, I don't think anyone would complain.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#259

Post by ithkuil » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 10:21 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #236

kbenson wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's because the only way to get through life in this day and age is to pick some people you accept as authorities on sobjects, and listen to their opinion and use it to form an initial basis for your own if you haven't already got one. The trick, which people seem to be generally bad at, is: a) limiting the scope of authority you attribute to someone b) not immediately discounting contradictory evidence but…

Or just judge them by their actions, not anything that is said. Examine their voting record, lobby donations, and primary information and action. Decide from there.

At some point you have to trust some sort of authority that provides you with those records, along with the required context.

Re: Whole Foods employees reveal why stores are facing a crisis of food shortages

#260

Post by michaelmrose » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 10:36 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #254

intended wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becuase trump attacks facts which people know are true from multiple corroborated sources. But even that is wrong. Firstly fake news is exactly that - actually fabricated websites designed to look like “the Sacramento beast” or what have you, filled with content that will sound legitimate to an American conservative and trick them into clicking on ads. That’s fake news and it’s actually not even news, it’s more like…

Crowd images don't tell the whole story. There is grass on the National Mall. During the Obama inauguration, people walked on it as you would expect. The damage cost several $million to fix. In photos of the Trump inauguration crowd, notice that the sparsely-occupied area is white. It was covered in translucent boxes to protect the grass. (the boxes were borrowed from stadiums that use them for events like concerts)…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-media/white-hou...

The physical area is virtually the same. They merely appear to be taken from slightly different vantage points. Both show the area where you might reasonably expect people to observe from. They are taken at the same time of day differing by a matter of 5-20 minutes.

You aren't even nitpicking your statement about the area differing by a factor of 2 is a clear lie designed to sow doubt. Please don't bring your alternative facts here.