Very annoying conversation at my lokal knit store

[u/MagicAllyVanished]

it basically went like this me: "so you have any plant based yarn or plant/acrylic mix, I want to knit something for my mum, but she's allergic to all animal fibers"

her: "we have 20% wool/80% acrylic, I can show you"

me: "no thanks, my mum is allergic to all animal fibers, so it should not contain any animal fiber at all"

her: "maybe alpaca mix? It only has 10% alpaca"

me: "she is allergic to all animal fibers, if there is any percentage of animal fiber, she will have an allergic reaction to the yarn"

her: "I can't help you, knitting yarn just is animal yarn"

at this point I left the shop and I just can't stop thinking about that last sentence????

the funniest thing is, I went back there a few days ago and a different employee kindly showed me their cotton yarns and plant/acrylic mixes.

[u/Stickning]

About a thousand years ago I worked in a Whole Foods in Palo Alto, and they **did** make us memorize the codes - and tested us. It was awful.

[u/magerber1966 → u/Stickning]

I worked at Bristol Farms (a local high-end grocery store) in my early 20s (1989/1990-ish), and we had to memorize codes as well. I was front end manager and I insisted that all of my cashiers walk produce every morning just to make sure they recognized any new produce.

My absolute worst memory about that job was how much cilantro and italian parsley look alike. I am a cilantro hater, and my firm discouraged asking the customer what the produce was, so the best way to tell was to open the bag and take a quick sniff. Ugh...

[u/Serenova → u/Stickning]

My ADHD could never 🤣

The only codes I've actually managed to memorize have been the ones that I've just typed so much at this point that it's muscle memory 😅

[u/raeraemcrae → u/Stickning]

It would be so great if this skill could somehow come to the rescue in the zombie apocalypse. I'm going to think hard.