Maybe it's just me, but a lot of businesses both big and small seem to be staffing themselves with the bare minimum number of people. This may be alright during slow periods, but the busy times leave the customer waiting in long lines or without someone to answer a question. More and more businesses have their employees multi-tasking all over the store. The person who should be there to answer a question gets called to work the register or the person who should be working the register is outside unloading a delivery. I know businesses need to look at the bottom line, but this trend doesn't present a pretty picture for our future economic outlook.

One of the positive aspects of large corporate stores was their large staff. There always seemed to be somebody around to answer a question and the registers were well staffed. Now you are lucky if you can find somebody to answer that question and many of the registers are empty with the hope that we'll use the self-checkout line, which even gets backed up from time to time. Some of these large corporate businesses have put many of the smaller ones out of business, so we now have nowhere else to go. Between this and the fact that they have the cheapest stuff, we will be at their mercy.

Even small businesses that offer the personal touch have been forced to scale back. It's not uncommon to see a small business manned by one person who has to answer the phone, answer questions, and work the register. For the small business this is a bad sign, the next step is closing their doors for good. Without being able to offer the cheapest price and now being forced to diminish service, the small business finds itself in a tough predicament.

Skeleton crews are not something we want to see in America. We should have an economy that is doing so well that businesses can afford to be over-staffed. As more and more businesses go this route, more people find themselves out of work or facing reduced hours. In a mostly consumer driven economy, it is a bad thing to take money away from the consumer. This trend will only make for an aggravating shopping experience and some stressed out workers who are forced to do more. In a society where there is already plenty of anger, we don't need to add more tension. Good service seems to be declining, at least for those of us who have to shop for bargain prices. The stores for the wealthy are plenty over-staffed and provide great service. I guess good service is going to become another thing that only the wealthy can afford.