The Devil’s Efficient Designs
I enjoy see the improvements that big companies like Wal*Mart & McDonalds make to their properties. I remember seeing the automated drink machine at a Mickey D’s in Altamont. I want to go around again just so I could see the drinks move around the carousel. I just remembered that McDonald’s was the first restaurant I remember to make the soda fountain accessible to patrons. Can we blame that change on the obesity problems in America? I know I probably wouldn’t fill my cup on my way out if I had to stand in line and speak with someone.
Yesterday I drove out to the new Wal*Mart in Murphysboro to buy house cleaning supplies and see what design changes had been made in this new store and how they compared to the new store in Marion and the remodeling in Effingham. The first and biggest change I noticed was the customer service counter directly to the right of the entrance as opposed to the middle of stores front line. The pharmacy was directly to the left of the main entrance but I had already seen this trend pop up in other stores. Another change I noticed was in the parking lot’s cart corrals. Instead of having two lanes where the first cart in would be the last out as carts are pulled out backwards, they had two lanes that went in opposite directions. When you looked at one of end of the corral you had an open side to put your cart in and the other lane had a sign telling you to fill up the open lane. The beauty of this change is that carts can but pushed out because the sign is on hinges. I can appreciate a feature like that since I pushed carts around at IGA for nearly a year.
I don’t care what you think about these large companies. They know how to evaluate what they have and make things “better” for their employees and customers. That adaptation is a characteristic I have recently realized my employer doesn’t possess.
