A Very Ethnic Super Market
Dropped by a strange shop yesterday. It used to be a rice only place but now they have diversified into a very Sri Lankan fusion supermarket.
Starting off there is no air conditioning inside. Its very tropical, sweaty and dusty blending well with the outdoor roadside atmosphere. There are simple plywood shelves and many helpers running around. No price tags on individual items, this gets interesting later.
The background music is pirith (buddhist chanting) which is calming and keeps you in check.
The most interesting thing I noticed is the bar code guy. They have a basic cash register and no tags on items. So there is this guy behind the cashier that knows all the item codes in the cash register. He translates any item you give him into a code and the number of kilos, and he is very fast. No more delays with smeared bar codes.
‘At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They give the location, name, and everything else just by scanning the computer’s asset barcode or using the number beneath the bars.
Customer: “Hello. I can’t get on the network.”
Tech Support: “Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an outage.”
Customer: “What is that?”
Tech Support: “That little barcode on the front of your computer.”
Customer: “Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar …” ‘