Returning from Neverland

I’ve been pretty off-the-radar lately, with the move, work getting a bit crazy, and a budding relationship.  I’m not sure what to say, but I’ll mention something I’ve been thinking about lately.

I have a friend who worked for Target for many months, while between “real” jobs.  One day, she was telling me about how hectic her day was, with it being very busy, lots of the problems associated with the types of people who tend to work those sorts of jobs, and having problems with cashiers running out of the large bags.

I thought this to be a rather silly thing to have happen, since I presumed that Target would be not only master of its supply chain, but also of its supplies.

Turns out that they purposely limit the number of the larger bags given to cashiers, since their availability causes the cashiers to use them even when they’re not necessary.

It lead me to wonder about a) the price difference for Target between a large and a medium-sized bag, as compared to the profit per transaction, and b) human nature, and whether this phenomenon was just human nature, or a matter of cashiers being lazy.

It struck me as petty of the company, but I also recognize that within a retailer that large, there have probably been many people who’ve studied such things, and maybe it’s actually related to a tertiary factor, like the ease of stuffing unpurchased goods into an excessively large bag.  Something to ponder…