When I heard that milk jugs are being redesigned for better efficiency, I felt a sort of witless glee. Part of that is my usual response to efficiency. And also because most of my high school employment was in the local Kroger, stores #444 and #432 (I still remember that…?). I mostly did night stock, but also spent one summer in the Dairy section. Although throwing crates around in the heat of the shelving moment is really fun,¹ dealing with crates is a chore, every single day. Some days I would have killed for a nice waist-level pallet of jugs, rather than a 7-foot tower of crates. There’s also a good audio slideshow about the square milk jugs and some of the problems the customers are having. [via austin kleon]
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1. Plenty of reasons I really liked stock work (lots of trade-offs, but still noteworthy): I got to work alone, but plenty of joking and yelling back and forth. I could yell or sing when I wanted. I got to walk around. There were very few irate customers at 3am, unlike a Saturday afternoon bagging groceries. There’s also a good bit of healthy destruction involved (wielding a box cutter, breaking down cardboard, tossing damaged product out in the aisles, etc.). And on most nights, things looked perfect when I’d leave in the early morning. I love that severe contrast. Make an absolute mess when I’m working, and then polish it to something where no one can tell it was any different.