Picture this:

You’re starting a job in retail for a store that will open in about 3 months. The company gives you three weeks of training – remember, this is retail, the LCD of the business world.

After three weeks of training they send you – no, wait, I mean they drive you – to a store in another city every workday, so you can practice on a cash register in a real store with real customers, with an experienced employee there to help you.

This goes on for months, until the new store opens.

The name of that store?

Wegmans.

Yesterday, I spent an hour at the Wegman’s Hiring Office on Carlisle Pike, and it was impressive.

I remember starting a job at a department store when I was in high school, and I think I got 10 minutes worth of training. And I don’t think anyone mentioned the “kill for the customer” concept that drives service at Wegmans. Or ideas like “effective listening” and “continuous learning.”

It’s not just the cashiers who get trained.

Bob Roebuck, certified executive chef and chairman of the board of the Harrisburg ACF, went to work for Wegman’s a few weeks ago. He already knew how to pan-sear tuna.

But he’s in training at a store in New York, and will be until he comes back here to help plan the Seafood Bar at the Wegman’s in Silver Spring.

A business writer here described the store they’re finishing on Carlisle Pike as “the Versailles of grocery stores.” It’s 115,000 square feet of space and will be largest grocery in the Harrisburg metro area.

Wonder if it will shake up the market any?