Friday, February 16, 2007

Retail Stores

I am a manager at a retail store (Target), of the cashier checklanes to be exact. One of my co-workers is on vacation, so I was the one who put in an order this week to headquarters explaining what kind of supplies that we needed. We just happened to be running low on plastic bags, so naturally, I ordered them. You would not believe the cost! I spent roughly $4,000 on plastic bags. The plastic bags that people will put merchandise in, mostly merchandise in which they do not need, and then discard who knows where: in the garbage, in their cabinet, on the side of the road...
Every time that I visit the blog I notice the ticker at the top with the estimated bags consumed so far this year. Because of this, I have decided to conduct a little experiment of my own tonight. In the random times that I get on a checklane, I am going to count every bag that I give out. I'll write it down, along with the amount of transactions completed, and then I will update you on just how many bags are given out per transaction. Granted, I do not run register for the full eight hours. If I did, the number of bags would probably be too many to count, however, I think that this is a reasonable task which I will complete and get back to you. It really makes you think.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

Ashley,

I'm blown away by your posting. I'm so impressed by your initiative that I'm speechless.

What you did goes right at the heart of this project. That is, now that we're aware of this issue, we're seeking knowledge (i.e., $4,000 to purchase one order of Target bags) to understand this issue more fully, and in doing so, we're becoming empowered (i.e., counting the number of bags given at a check-out line) to make a change in our community.

This is outstanding! Thank you for sharing this experience with us.

By the way, I would love to see the numbers that you collected from your experiment. I'm thinking that we could use those numbers in class so that everyone would know about your findings.

Brilliant work!

Cheers,
Michelle

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree. This is a fabuluous idea and I would be curious to know the results too. By the way, are you the Ashley that was at the family math activity today? It was great meeting you and working with you!