Welcome to the absolute peak of modern corporate clown world, where grocery chains would rather dump mountains of perfectly good food directly into a landfill than suffer the ultimate corporate tragedy: a display shelf that looks slightly 'sad.' According to a former cashier's retail black-pill exposé, up to 40 percent of the food produced in this country goes completely uneaten. Meanwhile, food has become the single biggest occupant of our landfills, burping out up to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions while middle managers panic over whether the rotisserie display looks sufficiently 'glistening.'

Let's talk about the absolute comedy of the rotisserie chicken case. Store managers apparently believe that if a shopper sees a half-empty chicken display, they will suffer an immediate emotional breakdown and flee the store. To prevent this national tragedy, low-wage workers are forced to arrive before dawn to roast dozens of birds, keeping the case packed 24/7. In one classic example of corporate efficiency, a deli worker managed to roast his own arm maneuvering chickens into the oven and quit shortly after. The reward for his sacrifice? Sixteen perfectly good birds tossed straight into the dumpster at closing time.

It gets even better in the bakery section. Employees are forced to bake massive piles of fresh bread, only to chuck one or two entire shopping carts of it into the trash every single night. When asked why they are wasting hours of labor and raw materials, the answer from the corporate drone-hive is always the same: 'To make the shelves look full!' It is a system completely detached from reality, trading actual labor and resources for the pure aesthetic vibe of endless corporate abundance.

According to a USDA study, supermarkets are the absolute final bosses of food waste. About 31 percent of all food waste—a massive 133 billion pounds—happens right there on the retail floor. Why? Because the modern consumer has been conditioned to demand flawless, unblemished produce and pristine boxes. If a box has a slight dent, or if a strawberry isn't a perfect polygon, it gets chucked. Workers are literally ordered to trash entire carts of boxed salad greens and fresh berries two days before their expiration dates just to keep the shelves looking like a CGI render.

And don't even bother asking why they don't just give the food to hungry people. The corporate suits have already run the numbers, and they concluded that setting up a safe donation supply chain to get this food to food banks is way too expensive. In their own words, retail companies are in the business of chasing green, not feeding the population. It is cheaper to pay a garbage company to haul edible food to a landfill than to let a poor person eat it for free.