Dead refrigerator

[chicken]

Yes, sudden, hoped-for heat waves can yield unexpectedly bad side effects. Friday was horrible.

Like rendering an old refrigerator/freezer unable to keep up against the tide of heat, whirring and blowing but keeping ice cream nice and watery, ice cubes completely melty, and yogurts gone bad.

Landlords away all weekend? Just did a big shopping trip on the morning, put the food in the fridge, and came back to a melty mess? Had to practically throw money down the drain cleaning up the mess?

Fun fun fun.

Comments

[keever.livejournal.com]

Our air conditioning situation is pretty much the same. I dream of someday having central air, which I grew up with. I was spoiled by that, plus I don't take the heat well.

It's interesting that the store is called Whole Foods there; I guess the regional name cutoff line is the border between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I've now lived in places where it's called Whole Foods (New York), Fresh Fields (Baltimore) and Bread and Circus (Boston). I wonder what the marketing data says that makes them change the name like that.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that the store is called Whole Foods there; I guess the regional name cutoff line is the border between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I've now lived in places where it's called Whole Foods (New York), Fresh Fields (Baltimore) and Bread and Circus (Boston). I wonder what the marketing data says that makes them change the name like that.

It is still called Bread and Circus here, because our original B&C was one of the original few stores ever (after the very original one in Cambridge with that insanely small parking lot of course).

But you know how corporate branding goes, the mother ship in Austin, TX keeps buying and swallowing, and putting their uber-name (Whole Foods) in larger and larger letters over the old (but still not taken down) "Bread & Circus" (or "Fresh Fields" as it is in my friend's home of Fairfax, VA just like Maryland).

The corporate branding thing also means you can no longer expect reasonable things to happen, e.g. regarding new stores. In the past, when the management was really local, they seemded to listen more. Now, when someone posts the inevitable, FAQ-y "please put a new store in South County" the local people have to put "sorry, the people in Austin decide stuff like that" (as if they even know where South County is). Then they go and put the new store 2 miles from the old one (not very effective geographical distribution).

So anyway, no, they never changed any of the names in a sense, they just keep making the uber-name larger and larger. I think officially all of them are supposed to be "Whole Foods", but the local, older Fresh Fields/Bread & Circus names are impossible to completely expunge -- I think there would be an uproar.

Compare to my home town (Ft. Collins, Colorado). There are three completely independent mom & pop health/whole food type stores there, and two chain ones (one of which is Whole Foods). There is so much competition that Whole Foods has to work a lot harder to please people. And there are a lot of things they have given up competing on, because they know people have strong loyalties to the mom & pop places. But here, the monster that is Whole Foods drove the mom & pop places right out of business.

Mind you I still prefer WF to Stop & Shop, but sometimes it is depresssing to think that even in the whole foods industry there is corporatization.

One good thing about the corporatization is better benefits for employees, I think. Anyway, someone I know who works there gets amazing chiropractic, massage, and other non-traditional health benefits that no other employer offers.

Enough rambling, though.