New Home Depot hours

[Admiral]

Going to be tough reaching into every plumbing fitting box and every bolt bin wiping every piece down that has been fondled.

Gloves.  Harbor Freight as of last friday had beaucoup boxes of 5mil nitrile gloves available.  I picked up two.

[daddo]

I have run every senerio through my head of going to the store (The box store for example and the contamination is present) without contaminating yourself, your packages, wallet, credit card, car/truck door handles, steering wheel, keys and so on, with or without gloves. Unless you follow each procedure of touching anything with a spray or delay or change of gloves, you will bring the contamination with you. The difference is whether the contamination makes it to your eyes, or nose or mouth in the next few hours and how active it is.

 I've watched a lady remove her gloves at her car. The incorrect way she did it: if her gloves were infected, her hands were then infected but she thought herself safe.

[EightFingers]

Maybe they’ll clean the bathrooms

[cams2705]

Although every retailer is stressing their commitment to cleanliness in regard to COVID-19, I think the change in hours is more due to profitability than sanitizing the store.

I would say that a large retailer like HD or Lowes have a minimum number of employees that have to remain in the store in order to operate and maintain a certain level of customer service.  Additionally, they most likely have a sales model that ties the amount of foot traffic that walks in the front doors during a certain level of sales/cash flow.  Retail stores usually require their labor to be at or below a certain level of sales/cash flow each hour to remain open.  When I worked at McDonalds over 20 years ago in high school, labor had to remain below 15% of sales each hour (preferably below 12%) and you either had to send workers on breaks or cut them loose for the day to maintain profitability.

For HD alone, I always see their stores are much more crowded first thing in the morning (i.e. contractors making purchases before heading to a job) than later in the evening).  This decision is purely profit based.

[chrisntam]

Although every retailer is stressing their commitment to cleanliness in regard to COVID-19, I think the change in hours is more due to profitability than sanitizing the store.

snip

For HD alone, I always see their stores are much more crowded first thing in the morning (i.e. contractors making purchases before heading to a job) than later in the evening).  This decision is purely profit based.

I agree.

Grocery stores are cutting their hours, saying the add'l time is needed to restock shelves and clean.  Well, they may be cleaning, but every time I go to Kroger, the dam shelves are nearly empty.  No pasta, no beans, no paper, barely any soup.  We're not hungry though...

[Woodworm!]

We have people in our office park, doing a through wipe down of everything, the scary part is the lady who cleans the bathrooms is always talking on her phone wearing gloves. Hello, your a haven for germs!

[Admiral]

Well, here in NJ they are going to close all retail that is non-essential.  "Essential" hasn't been defined just yet, but would likely be just gas, food, drugstores and banks.  Doesn't look like HD or Lowes will make the cut.  Since Walmart and Target expanded to offer food a while back, they may be the only general merchandise retailers left standing in this state, and then there's Amazon.  Interesting times we are living through........

[Robert Adams]

I agree.

Grocery stores are cutting their hours, saying the add'l time is needed to restock shelves and clean.  Well, they may be cleaning, but every time I go to Kroger, the dam shelves are nearly empty.  No pasta, no beans, no paper, barely any soup.  We're not hungry though...

             Haven't been into a grocery store in months. We do our monthly big shopping at the beginning of the month at Sams and a store called Town Talk that sells test market failures, restaraunt stuff, damaged pallet stuff etc. I get big packages of the Arbys bacon dirt cheap there. It's better than the good stuff at grocery stores and super thick. We will get bread and milk etc through the month as needed. We usually have enough food of various types to last at least a month. Might be odd stuff and missing something at the end but it's food. Bought several boxes of angelhair as they were on clearance for $2 a month ago.

            I went to Braums yesterday and their shelves were pretty much full of inventory as usual. Grabbed 2 gallons of milk paid and walked out in less than 2 minutes with no one in line. All the suckers are at the grocery store...

            I'm going to grab a case of hot dogs and pretzels next week at sams to keep inventory levels decent as no one realizes the food at the cafe can be bought and is a fair price as well as filling and has needed calories. I would not recommend anyone buy vegetables unless it's in a can of you are going to cook it. Meat is the food of choice(sorry vegetable eaters). Hopefully I can get a brisket as stocks get repleneshed as it's good weather to smoke. 

                I do fast food restaraunts so that means I have nothing to do for the next year or more. Better half is a flight attendant as is daughter. The better half will be fine but daughter will be close. Depends on how many of the seinor mammas take the leave of absences and retire. The vast majority of them are age 60+ and they are the prime target for this to hit them hard. Maybe they will take this as a hint that it's time to finally retire. Besides these past retirement people really need to think of those below them. They can retire and be fine, the people below them can be laid off and they are now screwed for life. So hopefully they will stop being selfish, retire and let the next generation be secure in their lives. 

        
              As for depot I have made a few trips for house stuff. Talked to one manager and he was saying their daily numbers are at about 80% still. Anyone remember when Home Depot was open 24 hrs. We had one that was up until somewhere in the early 2000s. Only bad part was the prostitutes etc that would show up late at night.

[Admiral]

Well, here in NJ they are going to close all retail that is non-essential.  "Essential" hasn't been defined just yet, but would likely be just gas, food, drugstores and banks.  Doesn't look like HD or Lowes will make the cut.  Since Walmart and Target expanded to offer food a while back, they may be the only general merchandise retailers left standing in this state, and then there's Amazon.  Interesting times we are living through........

They released the list today, and at least in NJ home improvement stores were allowed as essential.

[Robert Adams]

They released the list today, and at least in NJ home improvement stores were allowed as essential.

             Seems in most states that home improvement, autoparts, grocery,take out/delivery food, supply houses,gas stations,tool stores and farm stores are considered essential. Funny as those are the only store I really shop at so that means pretty much all businesses are considered essential businesses. So for me it's business as usual as to the stores I go to. 

                The better half got her schedule for next month and she has all south america trips on it. If they don't get cancelled and there are no restrictions I will make the trip with her. No reason not to.