Good-freakin-gravy, it’s about time.
It’s Friday evening, and I’ve spent the day running
around getting some last minute items for the kiddo to go back for his senior year
at college. Still some items need to be
purchased – laundry detergent, paper towels, garbage bags. Everything else has been taken care of, for
the most part, anyway.
Today has been like the Odyssey of stores. Might as well cap it off with the true Crown
Jewel: a trip to the newly reunited Market Basket.
For any American living in a cave, non-union employees
and everyday customers of the multi-billion-dollar grocery store chain called
Market Basket spent six weeks bringing its crooked and greedy co-CEO’s and
owners to their knees. The rich board of
directors underestimated the loyalty of staff and patrons when it fired and
disowned a beloved CEO (a family member who had recently been ousted by the BOD)
because the board felt its members should be making even more money rather than
taking care of workers and customers.
After a long standoff and the revenue loss of approximately $10 million
per day (that’s right – per DAY) times six weeks, after a month and a half of
absolutely empty stores in support of a regional boycott, it is finally safely
to resume shopping at the best-run grocery store around.
We don’t need much, and we don’t really need any meat or
veggies, so we head to the closest Market Basket – at the North Andover mall
(though it’s actually in Lawrence). Upon
walking through the doors for the first time since school ended in June, the
first thing that hits us is the party atmosphere. The workers are smiling and going about their
business, and patrons are chatting in the aisles. The night manager smiles as I welcome him
back. “It feels like a store opening,”
he admits.
 |
| (Sky over parking lot) |
In a way, it is a store opening. It’s a store opening that will soon be free
of the corporate greed that caused average Americans to take a stand against
bad treatment and corporate raiders.
Soon all of the stores will be restocked and as ready for the customers
as we are to be returning.
Welcome back, Market Basket. But if you ever leave me again, we’re
through.
