A Non-political Meat Essay

     Earlier today, I was at the grocery store I usually go to.  At the deli I asked for a pound of sliced Virginia ham.  I used to work in a deli, so I knew what the woman behind the counter was likely to do.  She put meat on the scale, got it to .86 pounds, added more slices and put it up to 1.05.  She added the sticker to the plastic package and handed it to me with a "Have a great day."
     Sounds like a fine transaction, right?  What could possibly be wrong with it?
     When I worked in a grocery store deli (different store) in the last century, I learned after many tries how to give the customer exactly the amount of meat and/or cheese they asked for.  Ask me for a pound of sliced roast beef--I gave them exactly that.  In doing this, I disobeyed the deli manager's directive: if someone, for instance, asks for a pound of meat, and what I put on the scale comes to, let's say, 1.1 pounds, give them the 1.1 and pretend like that's what they want.  Most people won't correct the worker in such a case.  This increases profits.  It also, I decided, deceives people and doesn't serve their expressed wishes.
     Since, I rationalized to myself, we're in the customer satisfaction business, why are we fucking with their minds?
     Today at the store, I didn't ask the deli worker to take a few slices off of the scale, but I've done so before.  One time, a worker, asked by me to bag a pound of their best (most expensive) sliced beef (quite good stuff), had 1.25 pounds on the scale, which would've cost me an extra two bucks or so, and anyway, that was more sandwich meat than I wanted.  I told her to reduce the pile, get it to a pound like I asked.  After three tries, she had it where her customer wanted it.  It takes practice, but getting accurate meat measurements on those scales can become a skill any deli worker should be able to acquire, except they're not encouraged by their superiors to be accurate.
     "The customer is always right," goes the saying, but only as long as they're sometimes willing to submit to being ripped off.

                                                                               Vic Neptune