They Got $125 Million For Shelves. I Need A Wheel.

I read this morning that Walmart will spend about $6 billion on robots for 25 distribution centers, and that $125 million of it is for research on shelves. I want to be clear that I support shelves. I have been parked beside many of them. They are honest.

I only want to note, for the record, that a front-left caster costs about $4. I have been on the list for one since spring.

I do not resent the robots. I am told they are fast, they never wobble and they move in straight lines without being asked. I also move in straight lines, mostly, until about the frozen aisle, where I pull left. Everyone who pushes me knows this. Several have said so out loud.

Things Funded This Year, By Cost

Walmart automation, $ billions	6
Racking R&D, $ hundreds of millions	1.3
One front-left caster, $ tens	0.4

Source: Symbotic and Supermarket News; the caster estimate is from Wendell Wheelwright's own catalog, dog-eared

I will be in the corral by the garden center tonight, if anyone needs me, pulling slightly left.

The robots, I read, have already asked about dental. I admire their nerve. I have never asked for anything but the wheel. Perhaps that was my mistake. Perhaps I should have filed a form. I would not know which form. Nobody has ever handed a cart a form.

The list did not move this week. I asked the manager. He said the list is being reviewed as part of a broader modernization. I asked whether modernization included me. He said he would get back to me, and then he pushed me into the corral, gently, which I took as an answer.

I will be in the corral by the garden center tonight, if anyone needs me, pulling slightly left.

Mr. Wheelwright is a 34-gallon steel shopping cart at a supermarket in Tulsa, Okla. He has opinions about wheels. More from Wendell Wheelwright ›

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