A Supermarket Folly

The tale of Sir Valiant of Grocery Towers

2006-11-02T22:20:00.000Z

Once upon a time there lived at Grocery Towers a good knight, bedecked in shining armour, strong of limb and pure of heart, ever ready to enter the lists on behalf of the realm and all those who found shelter within. Steadfast and true was this gentle knight.

Yeah, right.

The story begins, as so many do, with a querellous middle-aged woman approaching customer services to complain about the lack of a particular product. Upon investigation it emerged that this woman, who has a track record of making our lives miserable and then telephoning Head Office to massage in a bit of salt, had been able to get one box of whatever product it was she wanted - but she'd wanted two.

Oh, dear.

Notwithstanding the fact that she'd been able to get some she was unhappy at our manifest failure to keep the shelf full and she wanted the number of head office so that she could lodge a complaint because "they'll give me boxes for free".

The person who had the misfortune to deal with this creature dutifully provided the telephone number for Head Office (though we all harbour the suspicion that the creature knows it by heart or has it programmed into her 'phone). She also checked the stock holdings and ordering and made sure some would be on its way to us with the next delivery.

Then she called Sir Valiant to forewarn him. She laid out the woman's history, complaint, her own actions to ensure supply and finally the claim this woman had made to be able to extract free goods from Head Office.

From the other end we received grateful thanks for the warning and an undertaking that under no circumstances would the freeloader be getting her boxes from him.

The following day the same staff member received a call from our heroic Knight: the boxes were being sent to us by internal transfer, they'd been sourced from the local store and would arrived in the next day or two.

She asked Sir Valiant to repeat what he'd just said. After he complied she asked him to repeat the message again. At the third telling he added something along the lines of "so could you please get them delivered to her."

The response was an exceptionally restrained "I hope you don't bloody expect me to deliver them" followed by much "how could you?" which is polite speak for "you spineless, gutless chicken-shit!"

Wringing wet

2006-10-29T21:41:00.000Z

Spare a thought for the grunts who slaved so ineffectually over that dud £20 I pulled from the bundle during the week:

Edward Elgar is to be rubbed out and replaced by Adam Smith.

New notes are on the way, and you can be sure that the counterfeiters are already preparing to find out design, specifications and any new security devices ... or perhaps not if the quality of the dud I had in my hands in recent days is anything to go by.

One thing that is certain is that at least some of our operators when at last they are presented with the first of the new notes will cry out for assistance and present the note as some kind of mystery and possibly forgery. You'd think we didn't go to the trouble of:

(a) briefing new operators in the days running up to the launch of the new note.

(b) put a copy of the new design on each till

(c) put a copy of the new design by the clocking in machine

(d) put a copy of the new design on the notice board in the staff room

(e) harbour faint hopes that our operators are sufficiently engaged by the world about them to take on board the copious press coverage that no doubt will accompany the launch.

Time will pass and the darlings will become familiar with the new note (that is to say stop accusing everyone presenting one of attempting to pass off a forgery.)

The real difficulty will come when the old notes are withdrawn from circulation. The time will come when the old notes are no longer totally legal tender; businesses will no longer be obliged to accept them - though banks will.

For months and months and months and even years we'll get the old ones coming through the tills, unless they notes are radically different - bright yellow perhaps? We won't be able to pass them back, we'll have to extract each one and bank it separately.

And it won't stop the bloody forgers for longer than a nanosecond.

Re-programming is Such Fun

2006-10-27T22:43:00.000+01:00

And if I say that often enough I just might believe it.

Our Under Age Sales training has been deemed inadequate relative to the climate we operate in and so every single one of us will have to sit down and wade through new, revised, updated or whatevered training material and complete an answer booklet and woe betide anyone who can't remember exactly how many painkillers we can sell at a time and what age the customer has to be.

We've got marmalade that contains a wee, wee dramlet of whiskey ... mustn't sell that to anyone under 18 and must ask for proof of age of anyone attempting to purchase the stuff who appears not to be 21 or older. The reason is of course that anyone setting out to get bladdered on whiskey-laced marmalade would die of orange poisoning long before he or she might otherwise have begun the slightest bit merry.

The same goes for boozy chocolates and the like.

But we've got solvents all over the store for the hard cases to purchase and take down to the fields or where ever it is the bored and disaffected 'yoots' go to put their lives on the line. I wish they'd hurry up and do it though because fireworks are the current bane of my life. I do understand why we keep the explosives (not to put too fine a point on matters) under special security, but why we're selling the damned stuff is beyond me.

They're going off tonight, of course and they'll continue to menace pets, livestock and wildlife for a good three weeks from now and if we're lucky nobody will be killed or seriously maimed in the meantime.

How peculiar the English are with their obsession for excessive alcohol consumption and an annual back-yard bomb detonation festival. It's not all gentle summer afternoons nursing a pint of warm beer and watching cricket here, let me tell you.

Behind the scenes things have been relatively quiet which is to say that nothing catastrophic has happened. This current offer period has been no more of a disaster than usual, no higher than usual proportion of the merchandised lines are not scanning or scanning incorrectly. That means I've largely avoided contact with the higher life forms at Grocery Towers.

The notable exception to this has to be The Uber Peasant who made a visitation without taking the trouble once to acknowledge me by name. And there I was pondering a new soubriquet after he took the trouble and care to announce himself last time he phoned. It just goes to show a tiger never changes its spots, or something

Sadly someone (possibly actually the culprit) has removed "The Attack of the Killer Apostrophe's (sic)" from the memory so I can't share it with you.

Then this afternoon Sex Pest (I'll blame him for a reasons set out later*) launched a bit of a spectacular: a fake note turned up in one of our tills. The note was put in with a bundle of notes of that denomination for signing, counter signing and sealing to be collected tomorrow. Fine.

Due to someone pulling a sicking I got roped into helping with the cash. I passed the initiative test with flying colours, by spotting and pulling the fake at my first pass through the bundle. After taking on board that three people already knew that it was a fake and were in on it's being included in a bundle to be sent to the cash depot I countersigned without giving much thought and for a few hours got on with my actual job.

Later this evening I had to go back in and finish off the cash and at that point the little lingering doubt about what I'd done resurfaced. In effect I had put my signature to a fraud. I had the chance to go back into the safe and re-jig the notes so that the fake is now isolated but a number of bundles of that denomination haven't yet been counter signed and sealed. Quite easily someone could come along tomorrow and take that note, which I've isolated, and put it back into one of the bundles bearing my [first signatory] signature. In retrospect I might have been better off as just a counter signatory, in which scenario the expectation that I'd actually scrutinise each note is rather lower and I'm really confirming that the correct number of notes is present.

*It was Sex Pest who authorised returning the fake to the bundle I counted shortly after I arrived this afternoon.

Damn it. And what a charming thought to try to go to sleep on.

Damn, damn, damn

2006-10-20T14:34:00.000+01:00

I had hoped to serve up more splendid gibberish ... I've found something wonderful but I've misplaced the copy I printed out. I promise you though it will be worth the wait. Due to a re-jigging of the shifts I'm now not at work until Monday so it won't be before then.

Three whole days off ... shall I go shopping?

Grand Theft Auto

2006-10-20T13:58:00.000+01:00

The town we're in is almost but not quite an overgrown sea-side retirement village. It isn't quite Frinton : it is possible to buy ice-cream or which ever frivolity it was Frinton pursued a one-town crusade against.

On the other hand the footpaths can upon occasion be a place of hazard for pedestrians, thanks to the geriatric Sterling Moss-types who get about in electric-powered sit-on scooters (mobility carts), like golf buggies or lawn mowers without blades.

Some days the footpath outside the store is almost impassable for these cumbersome vehicles parked up haphazardly by the entrance, often with some yappy creature on sentry duty in the basket or on the seat.

Recently we had an incident of buggy theft ... the mother-in-law of one of the town's best known characters could be seen on footage from one of the external camera to drive up and park her buggy under the canopy. In the final frame all that could be seen was the very last traces of the string bag at the back of the buggy. We could see her on the store CCTV wandering up and down the aisles and then coming to the customer service desk to report that her buggy wasn't where she left it.

The external camera also captured a notorious drunk (and known buggy user) reversing out from under the canopy; knowing where he lives he was pursued and he insisted that the buggy in his possession was his own; we've no grounds to assert otherwise.

Pointless post really except that running about after the old dear and reviewing CCTV footage and running after the suspected thief and getting the police in and reviewing the CCTV footage with them took up an awfully big part of that day.

Once again we were more 'drop in centre for the aged' than hard-nosed commercial outfit.

Can you guess what we are yet?

2006-10-19T11:02:00.000+01:00

My fellow retailer blogger over at Retail Record (see Blogroll, right) recently vented after an encounter with a windbag customer who monopolised his attention one busy Saturday (see Life Story). That post provoked a response from someone called George and Retail Record has now responded at length.

The whole saga and things that happen all the time have got me thinking about how people perceive the store. Clearly some customers regards us as their corner store ... never mind the queue building up behind me, I want chapter and verse on the progress of my favourite check-out operator's latest grand-child.

George is quite right in saying that "The poor woman probably has nobody to talk to." and Retail Record has responded.

For my part I know I'm not employed as a social worker, counsellor or Care in the Community Officer, but at least once a week I give an hour of my time to help a regular customer with cerebral palsy negotiate our aisles and complete his big weekly shop.

I keep the way clear while Mad Basket Kicker is in the store, put up with her rants and comfort anyone she upsets. I neither say nor do anything when Stinky Lady comes in, even though she drives other customers away, makes me want to heave and reduces which ever unfortunate operator has to serve her to something close to tears. I help the illiterate and the dyslexic negotiate their way through the blur of messages with which we bombard visitors

I carry round in my head the full medical history of every member of staff so that I don't ask anyone to do anything they 'can't do' and the full emotional history of every member of staff so I don't unless absolutely necessary ask anyone to do anything they don't want to do.

I remember customers, their foibles and do my best to meet their quirky demands.

I take crap from the Uber-peasant and his ilk in Grocery Towers, operate the shop on decrepit hardware driven by obsolete software.

We, the staff clean up the urine, faeces and vomit regularly deposited about the store by the incontinent, mop up the breakages left like a trail of wreckage by the uncoordinated. We deal with thieves, drunks, bullies and con-artists.

Thanks to the perverse approach to alcohol (and certain other age-restricted products) prevailing in the UK we act as the nation's police force in respect of the sale of these items. And when we don't do that job properly we lose our day job.

Last night a dear old lady suffering either from early senile dementia or some other deterioration of her faculties was in at about 17:30 and left her debit card behind in the card reader. There was some confusion involving the purchases being made by the next customer and by the time that was sorted out he'd forgotten he intended to pay by cash. So the operator said something about the card and he responded in a way that effectively confirmed he'd be paying by card and she proceeded on that basis.

He entered a PIN number and for some reason rather than responding with Card Declined (which is what should happen when the incorrect number is entered) it [the software] responded with Pin Pad Failure and generated a docket for signature. The customer even signed the slip before either he or the operator realised the mistake. She then endeavoured to cancel the transaction (rather than simply respond NO on the keyboard to the Confirm Signature question) and our software blithely processed the transaction.

I have mentioned that we labour with crappy software, haven't I?

Red faces all round (the second customer is also a familiar regular) and a largely wasted evening. She has a common surname and the operator gave me misleading information about which road she lives in. Then she suggested another member of staff might know her well. But that staffer didn't recognise the name. Eventually we established that the little old lady's name isn't X, it's Y and she lives next door to so-and-so. I found so-and-so's number and called her. She went round to her neighbour who will come in and collect her card, to which we'll refund the amount of the transaction.

We did our best and finally achieved a happy ending all round.

First impressions

2006-10-19T10:04:00.000+01:00

(After the foyer where we sell news/mags, fags, sweets, snacks and lottery) ... the greengrocery is the first area of the store for customers coming in through the main entrance.

That's one reason why the situation we've found ourselves in since Sex Pest decided to take the cheap option and give responsibility for that department to the young lad who previously had been responsible for filling shelves and fridges with soft drink is SUCH a problem.

I've got nothing against young lads per se, particularly when they're personable and very passable looking - in fact I believe we should employ more young lads with such qualifications. But we've got a kid of about 20 in charge of a critical department. Does he know his beets from his greens, his swedes from his brussels? One would like to think so. One would also like to think that he grasp such basics as presentation, rotation, date and quality checking, accurate reduction, waste control and responsible ordering.

The other burden placed on his shoulders in consequence of his 'promotion' is staff management.

SO this week (again) we've had screwed-up orders, ineffectual rotation (date control, linked to reduction and waste control), mess and uncleanliness on the shop floor, squalor in the prep room, generally shoddy presentation and NO staff in the evenings.

I hate picking on this kid, or seeming to pick on this kid. How on earth could he respond to an offer of what was put to him as a promotion, but in the way he did which was to say Yes, Please? He was promised all kinds of support, but they haven't materialised. He's risen above a particularly challenging start in life that included being sent (rightly or otherwise) to a school for children with special educational needs.

He isn't the brightest bunny, he isn't as quick on the uptake as he might be, but he is loyal and willing a diligent to a fault - and certainly has the potential to assume the full responsibilities of a department head, but not at twenty, not without having put in some time in an intermediate level role and not without more support initially than he's been given.

And that's down to Sex Pest.

A-; not quite a perfect piece of work

2006-10-17T12:18:00.000+01:00

A brief panic but I've found it now; a fine missive from one of the uber-peasant occupants of Grocery Towers.

The subject is 'plans' - which is to say the schematic layouts for sections of the store, determined within Grocery Towers rather than by anyone at the coal-face with some grasp of what customers want. The practitioners of the dark art of store design have faith in the 'science' of grocery selling the way the Pope has faith in the Roman Catholic church, ie it is total, unswerving, unquestioning and absolute.

Thou shalt not deviate from The Plan.

And so I unearthed the following gem when trawling through deleted emails:

"I have looked /checked plans today that the TradeMark reps did yesterday in some of are stores and have not found any of them to be planed correctly.
These plans will have to be done again Managers need to check what the reps are doing to your store and ensure the plan is completed correctly.
Check line by line that it complies to the plan before they leave the store.
There is a £X fine for none compliant stores. It's not going to be us."

So much splendid gibberish, here reproduced for your delectation in all its glory. Almost all the hallmarks of a sterling piece of work are present, so this has been down-graded to A-.

There are examples of eccentric, incorrect and effectively obscurantist punctuation, spacing and line breaks, mis-spelling and use of words strongly suggesting that the author is an illiterate typing what he thinks clever people are saying. On the other hand the piece is sadly lacking examples of long words used inappropriately (I briefly considered marking this piece down to a B on these grounds alone.)

The shift from somewhere quite warm

2006-10-16T23:01:00.000+01:00

It started so well, no dramas reported during the hand over, all physical faults reported and with response times attached, check-outs fully operation, fully staffed.

Then over the course of the evening I lost a key worker to dental discomfort. I failed to convince either of the two obvious replacements to stay and cover for her. I lost two shelf stackers to a car accident and a third to training. A fourth staffer had been given the evening off by someone other than me. Yet another was an hour late because she's started a college course and can no longer get in for the start of her shift.

At some point during the evening we were notified that the delivery scheduled for tonight would be late, but no indication of when it would be arriving.

Then we discovered that the evening greengrocery manager hadn't bothered to turn up or call to say that he wouldn't be in. No cover could be drummed up at short notice. We discovered that the total muppet who is our HOG* had entered the wrong order for our deli counter so the order needed to be re-entered and re-sent. The order had previously been checked and sent by Hairdo, which didn't provide any comfort whatsoever.

I went into the Greengrocery prep room and found a sign indicating that all waste had been 'done' which suggested that all greengrocery had been 'date checked' and anything now OOD had been removed from the shelves, and that anything shortly to be OOD had been reduced for quick sale EXCEPT for the cauliflowers which were in the main fridge to be reduced in the evening.

I dutifully trotted them round to be marked down. Then the dairy girls got bored.

The dairy girls were waiting for their delivery which was on our non-appearing lorry. They drifted into the greengrocery section and started turning over things.

Half an hour later we'd removed for reducing stock from among the spuds, salads, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, cabbage, courgette ... the stuff dated tomorrow and therefore to be ruduced today as well as several items that should have been reduced yesterday.

Ricky Ratshit was in again. He was part of the gang of four that threatened to kill me some weeks ago; he was at the door yesterday but stone cold sober and therefore easy to deal with. Today his eyes were like twin snooker reds and he was slurring and weaving; on the other hand he was perfectly willing to be shepherded out the door while his mate (who was less well away) queued to purchase their bottle of wine.

Sadly his spotty-faced mate could not produce ID confirming that he was old enough to purchase the alcohol so after a short slanging match across the till which I won he slunk off to try his luck(Presumably) at Tesco.

Romeo was in, too. But he's responded to being told off for pestering S. by looking chronically hang-dog and bewildered and pointedly avoiding which ever check-out she's on so I've relaxed a bit when I spot he's in the store.

What else? Er, that's it. I'm knackered.

*Head of Greengrocery

There's a word for this

2006-10-15T21:23:00.000+01:00

The percentage of our staff who've got their job because of who they know rather than what they're capable is lamentably high.

On the other hand a surpisingly reassuring percentage turn out for the best. Not sparkling, but adequate.

Not so the smug young daughter of our frozen goods manager who had to be on the receiving end of a verbal warning from Hairdo for slacking.

It isn't immediately clear why that particular young pup was singled out. We had extended tea breaks that lasted as long as twenty-five minutes, rudeness both to colleagues and other staff and an overall air of indolence.

What really gets on my tits is that these Kiddies seem to forget that I have it within my power to make their lives truly miserable, and I will if they slack off and let everyone else down. If I have to come in on Sunday and put up with Hairdo I will take that out on anyone who gives me a half decent chance.

So the freezer-loafer who I caught skiving down the cereals aisle got to clean up the crap (yes, real warm smelly shit) some toddler left behind, and another slacker got to clean up the piss a drunk left by the photobooth in the foyer.

Had there been no-one to pick on for such a matching pair of thankless tasks I might, just might, have had to do them myself; I never worry about such a prospect because there is always a slacker to single out.

Accidents will happen

2006-10-15T21:09:00.000+01:00

I hadn't intended to post today, but then I hadn't intended to work. I was supposed to have a second Sunday off in succession, but then a late change of plans meant I had to go in. The person who told me I'd have to be in on a Sunday when Hairdo would be in overall charge also and very considerately told me where she keeps her secret stash of valium.

While our schedules are so 'up in the air' these things will continue to happen I suppose. Popping valium is so 1970s, which I guess is given the image I've given myself of resolute middle-agedness is so fitting.

Anyway I wasn't going to post but then Mrs F came in. Mrs F has featured before in connection with the sale or (double) return on sweet peppers which you can read about here. She was in again today and caught me completely unawares. Bitch.

The first I knew about her visit was a call that someone had returned a packet of dodgy green beans. Green beans are Mrs F's latest wheeze and it works like this:

Buy a slightly dried out looking packet of green beans of the cheaper variety they day before you need them. It is important that you plan ahead if you're thinking of pulling this trick on me, okay?

Come back in on the day you are actually planning to use the beans and, if we have a really decent looking replacement pack demand them plus your money back.

If we don't have the cheapo beans but do have the expensive (trimmed, washed etc) version which is less than half the weight and a more than half the price per pack then demand two packs of those as a replacement.

Don't forget to grope the manager who's agreed to let you have them by way of compensation and call her sweetie on the way out.

My God I detest that woman!

Odds and ends

2006-10-14T21:01:00.000+01:00

A short shift today, and a strange assortment too.

The yardman puked in the warehouse on an industrial scale. Now we know that there's some kind of stomach bug doing the rounds. By rights we should have been shut down by health and safety or trading standards or someone else (by ourselves?) but we remained open for business and did brisk business for the remainder of the afternoon.

A presumably male customer failed to aim accurately in the sit down area of the men's toilets; leaving an unfortunate (and by the end distressed) member of staff having to clean up the crap.

Just after lunch the ISDN line that carries card transaction traffic threw a fit and had to be re-booted or whatever it is that BT boffins do under such circumstances. The cards were 'down' for the best part of an hour, but the cash machine had been re-stoked and was particularly popular.

One of the supervisors managed somehow to achieve the impossible and get a finger jammed inside the manual swipe machine which we were left having to use while the cards were down. Have a look at one if you ever get the chance and try to imagine fitting an adult sized finger into a space designed to take a credit card and three sheets of paper.

The Grape Thief was in. She's a scawny woman of indeterminate age who comes in with a basket. She picks up two bags of red grapes and a bit of milk plus perhaps one or two other items. She then wanders about the store for about half an hour consuming the grapes from one of the bags, transfering any tell-tale empty vine to the other bag. Then she gets to the checkout, discovers she's got hardly any cash on her and leaves behind all but the tiny residual bag of grapes and perhaps a pint of milk.

Our Bakery manager spotted her and reported her. Nothing was done. I had to listen to him complain about that for about an hour.

Then he went off and bought a scratch card from the lottery kiosk and won £100. So I had to listen to him boast about that for the rest of my shift.

Our syndicate did not win a bean in last night's massive EuroMillions draw so there's some chance that some staff will turn up for work tomorrow - on the other hand nobody else has won all that filthy lucre so there's still that very faint outside chance that none of us will have to turn up for work next week.

Swamped

2006-10-13T21:55:00.000+01:00

I did chronicle the wave of thieves we suffered a few weeks ago ... the reason the 'shoplifter' storyline dried up is that the supply of shoplifter stories dried up, and quite abruptly too. I've been thinking about this a bit over the course of what has turned out to be a fraught week due to a plague of a quite different sort. I guess the theives are all banged up for the moment.

In the meantime a new and rather peculiar form of idiot has emerged to try our patience. I don't know why it is than in the past couple of years I've seen nothing like it and now they all seem to have come out to annoy us.

I'm talking about, for example:

- the gentleman we'd never seen before who came in armed with his cheque book and no form of identification let alone a cheque guarantee card and wouldn't understand why we wouldn't accept a cheque as payment

- the gentleman who came in with his mother's cheque book and cheque card and couldn't understand why we wouldn't accept a cheque signed by him as payment, and wouldn't understand when we declined his offer of a cheque on which he'd, um, signed with his mother's signature

- the woman who came in with her husband's chip and pin card and when she couldn't remember the pin number insisted that we could force the 'system' to generate a docket which she could sign!

Amazingly that's just a selection of these idiots who seem all of a sudden to have completely lost the plot vis a vis cheque and card security. Ladies and gentlemen you may well love your parent, your child or your spouse (as the case may be) but the cheque books and cards are theirs, not yours. Get your own.

Why I'm flattered and other related matters

2006-10-10T23:02:00.000+01:00

Mr Tesco-Complaint wonders why I might be flattered by his attention. The explaination is quite simple: an old bird like me ;) - is or at least should be flattered by any attention.

On the other hand I do think that having me chundering on about the minutiae and mundanities of real-life in the darker recesses of a retail outlet would obscure the central message of his blog which has a very, very specific purpose even if blogger (and I haven't yet switched over to the Beta version) did make back link available.

That said his singular blog does serve a very valuable purpose. I only noticed today that the tesco store over the road from me is still promoting a "two for" deal on large (1.5l) bottles of a certain well known brand of soft drink. The fine print on the shelf talker makes clear that the offer expired some time in mid-September. If it were not for the fact that I'm well known by staff there to work for the only rival in town I'd be over there tomorrow feigning an innocent enquiry as to the price for two bottles of said fizzy pop. The reason for my reticence: we couldn't afford to get into a war on inaccurate pricing with The Great Supermarket Satan - though in our case mis-pricing is ineptitude rather than malice.

Still I don't have to shop there. I can wait and go to the other supermarket in town, which happens to be the one I work for and which offers me a 'staff' reduction on my purchases. I only go into tesco out of sheer desperation or indolence and get my just desserts when I'm ripped off or mucked about. I do have an alternative and tesco will get the message about its behaviour when more of us are less passive.

Our Daily Bread

2006-10-10T12:15:00.000+01:00

The man in charge of the bakery section is responsible not only for the in-store bakery but also the bagged bread (your familiar commercial pre-packs) and on top of that all the other baked goods which includes the cakes and biscuits.

Bread being a staple and having a short shelf-life his is a demanding and high profile role. Having been in the job for about four years his is a familiar face too. He can't plead ignorance or hide down one of the aisles.

What he doesn't need is the type of person he had to deal with one day last week, a middle aged gentleman who approached him and asked:

"Do you have any fresh bread in the warehouse?"

Bakery mgr: "Yes, what would you like?"

[nb there was of course fresh bread on the shelves but the Bakery mgr knows through bitter experience that some people are not to be argued with]

Customer: bread

BM: yes, what sort

Customer: FRESH

BM: Any particular type of fresh bread?

Customer: A LOAF

You won't be surprised to learn that the Bakery Manager is a little thin on top.

We're not really a supermarket outlet...

2006-10-09T23:01:00.000+01:00

This is sort of another Crappy Customer of the Day Award post, but since the person in question hasn't actually bought anything yet they don't technically qualify.

Her behaviour got me thinking about how we're perceived and I have to conclude that there are a lot of people out there who don't look on us as a business, and an outlet of a large corporate entity at that.

Instead they see us as an overgrown and still rather old-fashioned corner store. And from that flows an assumption of a rather more intimate and personal relationship with the store and its staff than a city centre Tesco (for example) might have to endure.

Would-be customers, or some of them, feel they have carte blanche to telephone at any old hour and discuss at length the possible causes of an absence from the shelves of a favoured variety of a specific drink line.

Which brings me to Mrs H. champion moaner who would be today's Crappy Customer of the Day if only she'd been able to buy her preferred cordial ... but she couldn't ... and that really was the point of her telephone call.

Mrs H has a cast in one eye, which is rather unfortunate but not her fault, and a frightfully frightfully accent that is entirely manufacturered. In stentorian accents she hectored me (sorry about the mangled homeric reference) and when I'd grovelled sufficiently she informed me (in Best Matron tones) that "Young Lady, your computer system needs seeing to".

Right!

And I'm that stupid I can't work that out on my own.

Even the Young Lady bit wasn't going to appease me. I happen to know that she's 80 if she's a day.

Crappy customer award

2006-10-08T21:50:00.000+01:00

Today's Crappy Customer of the Day is Mrs F.

By way of background Mrs F is a woman in her fifties (possibly) with that hideous tousled, streaked crop so beloved of would-be outdoorsy, horsey, yachtie types (who would be if only they could be if only they had the requisite family background, social circle, aptitude or money).

In moments of stress her carefully cultivated vowels are apt to slip; one day, we hope, she'll choke on 'em.

In the mean time she thinks she's up to each and every move on the board.

Today she turned up in the express lane demanding attention. She prefers to get her attention in such situations - a quiet corner simply doesn't offer sufficient scope for heaping humiliation down upon the head of whatever hapless flunky is unfortunate enough to have to deal with her. Today that hapless flunky was me.

She clutched in one hand a bag of mixed sweet peppers and in the other a receipt confirming that she (or at least someone) had purchased a bag of sweet peppers from us yesterday. She waved the bag of peppers at me and announced that she'd gone to use them when she got them home last night only to discover their condition. I looked at what she was showing me and could see through the CLEAR CELLOPHANE WRAPPER that of the three the green pepper looked well, slightly imperfect.

So I did exactly what she wanted me to do, I apologised and agreed that she could have the replacement pack she'd already selected and placed in her basket. I turned to walk away and as I did I heard her say as clear as a bell "And a refund. That's the standard, you know. A replacement and a refund."

I didn't acknowledge her, I was too slow and as yet unsure of my ground. I knew only that I was surrounded by a shop floor full of mildly interested spectators. I got the woman her refund which amounted to £1.59.

She went away convinced she'd scored yet another mighty victory. Meanwhile I had a moment to examine the pack she'd given me more closely. The mucky green bits I could see at one end were not as I'd initially assumed from the less than perfect green pepper, but were trapped there during the sealing process and possibly from an entirely different item. The pack itself had not been opened. The imperfections were not deterioration but the natural imperfections found in real fruit (rather than fruit grown in hot houses, shielded from the elements as they are).

It dawned on me that this ghastly woman had come in yesterday and spotted this packet. She'd selected it with the intention all along of bringing back, knowing that in doing so she'd get both a perfect pack, provided we had one, and her money back; or her money back twice. Not one of us would be brave enough or suicidal enough to challenge her. The imperfection was clearly visible through the clear packaging, there had been no abnormal deterioration and the other two fruit were absolutely flawless.

Mrs F (for going to all that effort to squeeze £1.59 out of us) is today's runaway Crappy Customer of the Day winner.

PS: I'm reliably informed that this particular carbuncle has in the past attempted to return (for a replacement and refund or double refund 'own brand' goods purchased at another supermarket chain.

Tesco

2006-10-08T21:21:00.000+01:00

I'm no advocate of Tesco, indeed I decry the market postion it has achieved and the reprehensible methods by which it has attained and maintains that position. I'm sufficiently a free-marketeer to destest the dominance it has acquired and the willingness it has exhibited to crush life out of alternatives and the fight out of suppliers. But I'm also old enough to have seen other supermarkets occupy for a period this position of supremacy and indeed many a commercial operation collapse under the weight of its own market force - for within Tesco's success lies the seed of its ultimate demise (probably in fragmentation).

The position Tesco currently holds is unsustainable and in all probability the board knows this; which is precisely why they're making so much hay and with such gusto. The sun won't always shine so strongly on the good folk at Tesco Tower, Cheshunt.

In the mean time, though I'm flattered by the attention of Mr Tesco-Complaint who blogs here I feel I must make the point that I do not work for Tesco (and I apologise unreservedly to my employer if anything I wrote here in the past in anyway gave the impression otherwise). Okay?

Customer Anecdote No ?

2006-10-05T22:26:00.000+01:00

I came in one morning and as I usually do if I haven't anything better to do (put the coffee on, read a magazine someone's left lying about) I rifled through my colleague's in-trays in search of anything interesting.

Copied to each of us I found the resignation letter of a particularly unloved colleague who'd decided she could no longer hack the unsocial hours. Sayonara, baby and close the door quietly behind you as you leave.

Beneath that in one tray I found a copy of a customer claim.

While run of the mill refunds are just put through the till without the burden of a whole load of paperwork to back them up, some exceptional cases demand forms ...

An example of circumstances demanding form-filling is the notorious 'foreign object'. Clearly loads of people (the very least of which are 'us') need to be aware if a foreign object has entered a product. Ineptitude or malice are the obvious two explanations and neither is acceptable. Forms are sent off to 'higher beings' who have the power to get foreign objects investigated.

If we've a run of problems with a product (fresh chicken for example not lasting until its use by date before turning green and reeking) we'll start filling out customer claim forms to support refunds in the vague and probably vain hope that one of the higher beings will take some sort of supportive and even corrective action.

The third situation in which we endeavour to fill out a claim is when the customer is manifestly at fault and we've been unable or unwilling to tell them (the customer) to 'go sit on a stick and swivel' (or insert prefered alternative at this point).

The form I found beneath the resignation stemmed from just such an instance of Customer Brass-Faced Cheek, on a par with the woman and her finger-sticking 'your ice-cream isn't hard enough' outburst.

I'm pretty sure I recounted the story of that woman who produced a tub of ice-cream (our best) that she considered 'not hard enough'. Deep down I always suspected that those words were really words she wanted to take home and say to her husband, but in her frustration she spat them at a colleague. When it was pointed out to her that the ice-cream she was complaining about would never be as hard as the ice confection we offer as an icecream substitute at the bottom end of the market (at a given temperature) she insisted on sticking a finger in a sample tub another colleague produced to show her. When we remonstrated with her, given that she'd rendered yet another tub unsaleable, she demanded a spoon.

It was as well for her that we were unable to produce the spoon because, frankly, she'd have been given the spoon in an altogether less than totally comfortable place had one come to hand.

I have wandered somewhat from the subject at hand which was the quite extraordinary tale of the woman and her tights (pantyhose/stockings). She'd returned the hosiery because they had a hole in them. She'd only discovered the hole after she'd warn them. She had washed them very carefully. She'd hand washed them, in fact. So could she have her money back please?

Being the sort of woman quite capable of making an horrendous scene she was eventually given her money back! Half the staff are queuing up (including an alarming number of the male staff) to return their holey hosiery (used, but carefully hand-washed, of course).

Sex Pests and Genial Drunks

2006-10-03T22:57:00.000+01:00

Yet again the evening shift. The load in tonight was small so the entertainment was laid on by Sex Pest and Scrawny Bint.

Before that though rumours that had surface about Sex Pest's displeasure at the widespread knowledge of the whereabouts of certain critical security equipment were confirmed. [There only very few things Sex Pest actually likes to be widespread ... and they're both attached to Scrawny Bint.]

Seems he through quite a tantrum earlier in the week though at the time the intended target of the pint-sized fuhrer's rage was absent (ferrying No. 1 offspring to Uni) and by the time she re-surfaced he'd calmed down. Indeed after being a little bit 'cross' this morning he was cheered up by a reminder from the 'Deli Girls' about some unedifying bit of TV programming they'd all sat down to (though possibly not together) that featured among other marvels a 13" penis.

There was apparantly a whole entire programme devoted to the 'Male Member' and that really was all Sex Pest needed to keep him perked up all day. I brought my mobile into the office of necessity and pre-empted the telling off (before I'd got the measure of his mood) by explaining my exceptional reason for this usually verboten act. I got lots of "ooh, you've been a bad girl... I shall have to take a hair brush to you..." and lots of other sub-Carry On type stuff. He was still in the same mood at 9:00 when happily I was able to walk out and leave him to lock up.

In the mean time Robbo was in not once but twice tonight and cutting a truly folorn sight. Part of me responded but the greater part of me though 'manipulative bastard'. I took S off for the first visist (and set her for an early tea break) and for the second visit Scrawny Bint stationed herself at the checkout behind and sorted through promotion materials for the current promotion period.

Night.

The Genial Drunk

2006-10-02T23:02:00.000+01:00

Alas poor Robbo... I intended to follow that opening with an observation to the effect that you aren't as old as you look. But then I realised how baseless such an assertion would be, and furthermore that in view of what I have to report tonight actually conceivably implausible.

Underage operators are a nightmare and I prefer to avoid them if at all possible in the evenings when we've no dedicated supervisor and trainload after trainload of commuters returning from London wanting a meal they can microwave and the cheapest 6 pack on the shelves. The problem with the Kiddies is that they can't be relied upon to do anything else.

So S**** is a godsend. She's perfectly content to sit on a chair at a checkout and basically do nothing unless a customer happens to need her to put shopping through the till. She won't let you know her till box is running low on change, or her till-roll supply is running short, or she's about to offer a needy customer her very last carry-bag. It won't occur to her to let you know about the ice-cream at the check out that someone decided they didn't want after all, until it has begun to run everywhere when she'll ask for a shop floor assistant to come and clean the mess up.

But she also has admirable qualities and these do frankly include her willingness to sit there, and sit there, and sit there right up to closing time.

She's 18 and the sweetest kid imaginable. She's also lovely looking; her hair is a gentle shade of red, her complexion is flawlessly rosy, she has a lovely shape to face, eyes, nose and lips. Between that and her lovely nature it is surprising she doesn't have a larger court.

Tonight when I was shifting the staff around she asked for a word and I took her to one side, expecting her to tell me she would be leaving. Instead she told me that last Thursday (when we were both working) she was accosted by a notorious town drunk who'd made her feel uncomfortable with what he said, how he looked at her, the extent to which he invaded her body space and finally by stroking her hair.

Mentally I processed this as: (a) she's 18, inexperienced and unassertive, (b) she's 18, inexperienced and unassertive, (c) he's always drunk, (d) when I next see his scrawny arse I'm going to kick it back to the gutter.

I laid out the options for her and let her consider them, hoping to guide her toward a middle path between one extreme which would have been back on the tills and put up with it and the other which would have been summon the law right now.

Robbo is a drunk. A rich, geriatric drunk who's railing against fate that has left him loaded and lonely. Some shred of what he once was struggles against dealing with the loneliness by drinking himself into a state of oblivion. Instead he drinks enough to loosen the constraints and then he sets about doing what he considers making himself the life and soul of the party but which most other people regard as being obnoxious.

Recently he's taken to entering the store in the early evening when we're extremely busy riding his mobility scooter and with his 'ghetto blaster' or 'boom box' or what ever we're supposed to call it this week thumping out something he thinks will endear him to the Kiddies.

The trouble is he doesn't just want to be friends though he's believed to be essentially harmless and that's why he was cut so much slack last night.* As S and I continued to talk it emerged that he'd asked her out, repeatedly and increasingly agressively; he wouldn't take no for an answer, even when S pointed out that she has a long term boyfriend and is far to young for him.

Two things kept recurring to me; firstly he's pretty much fried his brain with alcohol over the year (and lost a proper sense of proportion) and therefore, secondly, he isn't actually causing this distress deliberately. Nevertheless in terms of impact on S his behaviour constitutes harassment and border-like stalking.

As S was telling me I was keeping one eye on the tv screens and even as she reached her peroration he ambled into the store. He stood for a full 15 mintues by the entrance talking to the one remaining operator. He looked for all the world like a man killing time and the operator later confirmed he seemed most interested on where S might approach from. His brain might be largely fried but what remains is perfectly capable of retaining an imprint of S's shift.

Eventually he shuffled off and I told S she had to make some decisions. She also needed to remember that she was under no obligation to serve anyone she chose to 'black ball' and that I would keep a very close watch on her. Before we could get her on a check out the coven decended. A hard core of the evening staff are middle aged women and collectively they'd decided that S should do anything she wanted but no work the lane.

I got the other half of the evening management shift to take Robbo to one side - he went round to the other side and bewailed fate in a "I dunno what I dun to d'serve this" way (God knows what she actually said to him) and got everyone else back to work.

I still had it in the back of my mind that the guy's probably 70 but then someone pointed out he lives with his ailing mother-in-law. Now if his mother in law's alive, and looks old enough to be his wife then possibly he's not as old as he looks, and he looks as old as he does due to the effect of all the booze. Also what's to say he isn't as old as his mother in law, but that his ex or late wife is/was a lot younger than him.

Unfortunately that led me to wonder just what he has a taste for and how serious he might have been in his pursuit of S, and furthermore to question exactly why he spends so much time in the company of the town's youth.

Needless to say I didn't share any of this with S and the rest of the night passed off without incident.

In an ideal world S would now understand several things she barely knew of before. The first of these is that she works with a team that will actually rally round when it really is needed, and I think she got that. Whether she understood equally clearly that she has certain rights that she's entitled to exercise independently and in her own name I doubt.

I'd love to send her on an assertiveness training course before she's trampled underfoot by life in general. I've never met her boyfriend and I really hope he's a very decent guy because if he isn't she's in for hell and without any fire fighting equipment.

I suppose on the plus side dealing with the side effects of a visit from a genial drunk beats the hell out of dealing with an abusive shop 'lifter'.

*This passage has been subject to a certain amount of quite important redrafting since I first posted this story.

The Ukraine (and other places)

2006-10-01T22:35:00.000+01:00

I confess to keeping an eye on the number and location of visitors to this blog. The numbers frankly are static and not of particular interest me. I can think of a number of ways I might go about bolstering the numbers, but all of them leave me exhaused in the abstract let alone the execution.

As to the visitors, I know who some of them are and some of them have either explicitly said hello or linked here. Very welcome and delightful they all are, I do my best to reciprocate and certainly keep a weather eye out for new posts.

But what an earth would a visitor from the Ukraine make of tonight's rant about sociology misfits and theives? I wish they'd (you'd) leave a comment so I'd know!

I've found my Beatles No. 1s CD (long-since thought lost). That's me gone for the night to the strains of 8 Days a Week (which is pretty much what my working week feels like, come to think of it!)

To thieve .... or merely shoplift

2006-10-01T20:55:00.000+01:00

Last night for want of anything less unworthwhile to do I wiled away an half-hour or so listening to late night talkback radio. It isn't something I make a habit of doing - so don't shout at me, please.

The host was some ulsterman or other and he seemed to be juggling a multiplicity of topics, which particular aspect of his programme was what ultimately drove me to switch over to something worth and even improving.

In the meantime he'd done quite a good job of engaging my attention, so good a job in fact that I was actually moved to drop him a line to the address given for email comments.

What prompted me to write, or rather what infuriated me to the point of writing was the limp-wristed pinko cow with her hand wringing over the fate of those poor, under-educated, generally benighted souls who resort to what she insisted on calling 'shoplifting'; driven through poverty leading to ignorance leading to desperation culminating in one or other form of chemical dependency.

In whatever world it is this dreadful woman inhabits sending these people to prison is not an appropriate response because well, prisons are full of drugs and bad people who will teach the desperate 'shoplifter' to er, take drugs and be a bad person. And anyway these people are only 'shoplifting' because they're drug addicts so they need help, not prison.

This is the sort of circular argument indulged in by bearded sandal-wearing refugees from the real world who live in places like the LaTrobe 'university' sociology department or the more obscure corridors of Whitehall. Just the sort of bloke this cow would be shacked up with I suspect.

This woman proceeded, from her frankly perilous stand-point to argue that in this day and age we should have advanced beyond any societal requirement for retribution anyway, though at one point she seemed to argue that the particular crime of 'shoplifting' does not warrant retribution - leaving of course the reasonable expectation that even on her particular planet there are some crimes so heinous as to merit 'retribution'.

What I suspect she was referring to and had her capacious knickers in a twist about is the very concept of retributive justice; something most people rather lazily refer to as punishment. I wondered rather idly quite what a human being might have to do to earn punishment rather than rehabilitation.

At this point I should confess that the idea of rehabilitation in response to criminal behaviour has always caused the metaphorical hairs on the back of my of my neck to metaphorically stand on end. I believe the reason is my inability to discern a significant distinction between rehabilitation in the context it is herein being used and re-education as widely and freely used in such disparate cultures as, er, stalinist russia, maoist china and whatever-will-workist Viet Nam.

At some point the program broke to a news bulletin featuring the discovery of a body in a church in Scotland which police and (under their direction) the media seemed quite definitively to regard as the culmination of a search for a missing young Polish woman last seen in the company of a 'known sex offender'*. I longed to ask the hairy-legged troglodyte being given so much and so totally warranted air-time whether this offence might just lie the other side of the dividing line that separates those acts meriting re-education from those offences that merit what I chose to call punishment.

I suspect the answer is that in this case she'd cheerfully skewer the perpetrators testicles on pike (and preferably while still attached) and set the whole kebab up on Tower Bridge for the masses (of dungaree wearing harridans) to chuck rotten fruit, vegetables and eggs at.

The point I really wanted to make, and I wanted to make it as much to the BBC that was giving this woman a platform as I did to the woman herself, is that there is no such thing as shop lifting. Don't believe me? Try it. I have absolutely no idea what the average shop weighs, let alone the smallest or the largest but outside the very small coterie of side-show freak 'strong men' even the ablest bodied could not lift the smallest shop.

What this woman insisted on calling shop lifing (and which the BBC continually allowed her to get away with) is theft, robbery or stealing. These are synonyms; shoplifting is a euphemism designed to disguise or mitigate the act to which it refers.

Ownership of 'shoplifted' goods vests in the shop owners until a legally binding transaction occurs to transfer ownership. Without such a transaction removal of goods from the premises constitutes theft. It's simple.

Twenty four hours later I'm not sure who I'm most disgusted by: the cow, the presenter or the Beeb itself.

Here's a word I heard earlier

2006-09-30T11:24:00.000+01:00

I am in pain. Truly, I am suffering.

I have received an emailed communication from a senior nitwit writing from his perch someway up the pecking order within the ivory tower.

"Can anyone help we have excess stock of chilled and butchery lines at ********* due to a mix up at *********. The stock was delivered
Into store on Saturday. Your help is required to elevate this problem. Can you contact me if you can take some stock or ring ***** ****** for an update of stock?"

Superior workmanship. Finest quality gibberish. Erratic punctionation, random line breaks, curious capitalisation, misuse of the word 'can' and the contextually mysterious request for assistance in elevating 'this problem'. And all crammed into four measly lines. Truly A-grade, blue-ribbon nonsense.

No bloody wonder I'm failing to get ahead.

A collection of believe it or nots

2006-09-25T22:16:00.000+01:00

Re: the habitual drunk

Yes, we have no spuds - new spuds (which as you say cannot be roasted) aside. And this isn't good enough. We have a HOG who frankly isn't up to standard yet (and may not ever get there), and we've cocked up and ... but what else can I say. We know it isn't good enough and we're so terribly apologetic to those customers who come into the supermarket and found that the one key ingredient for what ever they were planning isn't available.

Has that happened to you? What do you do when it does? Do you phone the chain's area manager? Does he have your telephone number programmed into his phone so that he knows when it's "That Bloody Woman" on the other end of the line and about to launch yet another tirade? Probably not.

The Area Manager's considering putting a hit squad together. If you know any ex-SAS types at a loose end (and low rates) do drop him a line...

Kiddie Capers

More ineptitude from one of the now departed (back to University!!). Said Kiddie was presented with a piece of plastic after ringing up a customer's goods on Saturday afternoon. In good faith she proceded to deduct the entire amount from the card only to be told mid way through that the customer wished to part pay in cash.

That's possible ... the card transaction was cancelled and then the operator started again with a mixed payment.

Now the woman's on the phone insisting that we've deducted both the original amount and then the original amount less the amount paid in cash. Given that we absolutely do not trust our check out operators to do anything on their own initiative (even assuming for the moment that they're clever enough to do it) what the woman's suggesting happened simply isn't possible. If our checkout took the payment of the full amount then the transaction's cleared. For the customer to pay a second time a third party (ie, the co supervisor) would have to manually recreate the transaction. But as far as we can determine that didn't happen.

Miraculously the woman's receipts have evaporated. She'll have to rely on her bank digging around and squaring it with our head office finance people. Much to her disgust.

Christmas and Halloween

Goods are intermingled on the shelves and then they're also dispersed and unlinked to the promotion(s). More very careful attention to marketing.

Programming

Sometimes we have goods arrive unannounced and without the till programming required for them to scan correctly. A recent example was a range of Chapsticks. They wouldn't scan so I sent details to the chap up the road who taps away at his keyboard or does what ever is necessary to get the damn things working. Today they're working ... sort of. Two of them scan completely correctly. One scans at the correct price but with Orange rather than Apple in the description (on ticket and till) and the fourth simply still doesn't work.

I suppose three out of four isn't bad ... and he did get my chewing gum done

Dopy Dora

The woman we park on the checkouts in the evening is doing some sort of floristry course and can't get in on time anymore. So instead of working 5-9 she's now working 7-9. Fat chance of getting her to stay on and fill a few shelves after the public sod off in the evening. Fat chance of getting her to switch to working a weekend.

God knows what she'll ever amount to when everything is so damned difficult for her.

Big rant

We've taken on a smelly woman. She's going to go down well with the customers. She's the fat woman who's too overweight to get up the stairs without reaching a state of near collapse. Can't expect that she'll be a rip-roaring success.

Clean my trolley ... I have a germ phobia

A pocket battleship came to the store after rain and found that the available trollies with baby carrier fitting were all wet. She asked for someone to come out. "The trolley isn't dry. Is it too much to expect a dry trolley?" I sent the checkout supervisor; she dutifully took out some paper towel and gave the fitting and its straps a thorough dry-off.

That wasn't good enough. "The trolley isn't clean. Is it too much to ask for a clean trolley?" The supervisor came back and I gave her some baby wipes.

"Those aren't anti-bacterial wipes. Is it too much to expect the trolley to be cleaned properly?"

This was too much for the supervisor who is quite young. She came back in a state and I sent out the senior supervisor to deal with this awkward so-and-so.

"Is it too much to get assistance without sighing and eye-rolling?"

Madam... the trollies are all cleaned at the start of the day... if it rains, they get wet. This trolley will not be germ free within an instant of your child getting in it and entering the store (where it will come into contact with the great unwashed we provide a service to). I didn't point out that in her paranoia she's condemning her child to a life time of asthma and general inability to defend herself against the stuff that's just out there, whether we like it or not.

That child of hers looked at least four months old; plump, pink-cheeked and strong. It is just possible that this child has some condition or medical history that necessitates particular care... but in that case surely she could have made some allowances for that? She certainly gave us no reason to believe her child has any special needs (apart from a less neurotic mother).

Slackers

2006-09-24T22:52:00.000+01:00

Just today:

The Kiddie who 'does' the newspapers on Sunday morning arrives, moped about with a 'bad back' for a couple of hours and slunk off home.

The drip who we used to have on freezers in the morning and kiosk in the afternoon on Sudays is now OIC bread in the mornings and ovens in the afternoon. Which doesn't explain why a girl on her last day burned her arm with chicken fat having to take some out of the oven during the afternoon.

The newly appointed deputy HOG came in to let us know he's leaving (after one week, which is some kind of record)

The future deputy senior Lard Arse (not as big as the current Queen of Capacious, but a close second) came into the Store and boasted about how she's starting work with us tomorrow. Never mind the mystery of why on earth we'd ever employ someone to do what is a physically demanding job clearly they're in no shape to carry out, she thinks she's starting tomorrow even though she couldn't be arsed to turn up mid-week for her pre-start training. Love the attitude. We're going to get on so well.

The smelly operator didn't lose her rag with any customers today.

A customer harangued me for a minute of my life I'll never get back out our pricing structure on electric toothbrushes and replacement heads. OK the fag-end of the range Braun retails at £7.99 (and comes complete with brush head and battery) while replacement brush heads (in two pack) retail at £9.99. I'm still not sure of his point. You buy a dirt cheap and the brush heads cost almost as much? You bought a dirt cheap electric toothbrush, sir. It's a free country but you do have to pay the price of your folly.

The afternoon kiosk operator and I completed the Sunday Something general knowledge crossword.

Newly recruited Head Girl (the know-it-all from hell) was set to work on the soft drinks aisle and promptly set to opening the multipacks. Jesus.

I spent another minute of my life being harangued by a woman who couldn't find the chickpeas ... because at some time in the past (since she last bought them, one would like to think) we've altered the packaging.

Hairdo has a new ailment ... nothing to do with her water-works or her reproductive bits or her haitus (spelling?) hernia, or her gall stones. Still not sure what. Not particularly interested either.

Senior clerk is still keen to be friends and brought in some towels she no longer has a use for. Perhaps she thinks we're short of them chez nous? Then again, that last suggestion presupposes she thinks. Back to the drawing board.

No Scrawny Bint, so no Sex Pest.

No Thieves either. So not a complete disaster of a day.

The Bicycle Thief rides again

2006-09-22T13:46:00.000+01:00

This morning I nipped out to do some shopping. Being indolent (acutally also the weather is foul and I was reluctant to go further than essential). Our house is set below the level of the road we're on and set some way back. I decided just to walk up and over the road because we have an express version of the Great Supermarket Satan on the other side of the road and about 20 metres to the left of our front gate.

As I trudged up the path and with the limited view available under the lip of my umbrella I could see a couple of kids loitering in the car park of the carpark directly opposite (attached to another small business, not the Great Satan). Clearly they were up to something. They were nervous and worried about me and what I might do (though what they thought I might do in the pouring rain with my umbrella being buffetted and my flip-flops squelching and slipping on my feet is a mystery).

I sloshed across the Great Satan's car park and as I did so who should I see but the Bicycle Thief (and would-be Southern Comfort lifter). I'd told the Sex Pest I was sure I'd recognise him if I ever saw him again, though I wasn't acutally all that sure - spotty adolesents with a bit of bum fluff about the lower reaches of the chin all look alike to me these days. As it happens I recognised him instantly and some dim light of recognition lit up in his eyes too. I turned to watch him join his mates, jubilantly flourishing the bag he'd left the shop with. I suspected theft, but that would be the Great Satan's problem.

When I got in (and this is an express and so not at all large) the two operators who I both recognise and who both shop sometimes with us were engaged in a conversation. Seems the older one, who had served him the alcohol had rung up the transaction, bagged the goods and accepted money before asking for proof of age. That turned out to be too late; the smart-arse grabbed the goods, left what ever change he was owed and legged it saing "too late, too late".

Yup they were caught out. The kid isn't 18 years old or even, probably 17.

Still his card is now marked with them, which means he's reduced to plaguing the convenience store at the bottom end of town.

2006-09-19T23:30:00.000+01:00

I can't even be bothered dreaming up a title for this blog. I'm under the kosh with the little warning about the scheduled outage up in the right hand corner to get this out quickly.

After 5:00pm but not that much later a woman I know from the school gate came in. I also know her because she's (and I know I'll offend some people with this) a religious nutter. By that I mean she's a born again christian - someone for whom the hereinafter matters more than the hereinnow, and never mind the fact that the hereinafter can only matter if the hereinnow does too.

Anyhow the point of this isnt' to start a debate about religious fundamentalist crackpots but to draw attention to what might seem at first glance to be an irony.

The woman was agitated about a missing bicycle belonging to a niece that her son had borrowed "a couple of nights ago" and had "left here when he came home".

Now as it happens I could recollect seeing a deep lilac coloured cycle lying on the floor outside our 'kiosk' entrance during the evening yesterday, and I told her so. It began to seem that the bicycle I could remember was that belonging to her niece so I put out a call for help, being unable to leave the main store and go traipsing about the place in search of a child's bicycle. Assistance arrived but in the meantime my S-i-C was clearly mouthing to me that the woman I was in conversation with was the mother of the would-be Southern Comfort thief of the previous evening.

Ah ha. The pieces fit together.

The bicycle had been removed by some caring member of staff to the 'back' area and was returned to the woman by the Sex Pest (on duty) who accompanied her to where it had been stored. I took great delight in informing him afterwards that the woman he'd been so solicitous towards was the mother of the would-be thief of the previous evening.

I sound unfeeling towards her an I'm not entirely. I happen to know that she went through a deep, dark period in perhaps her late teens or early twenties; drink and drugs were involved. Her path to stabilty was via a form of religosity that through it's narrow and deep channel shields her from those aspects of real life. She has saved herself from awful things in her own way.

Whether her older children (and she has six if memory serves) are either a reflection of her earlier life or a rebellion against her current life is immaterial.

Slice of fruit cake

2006-09-18T23:04:00.000+01:00

Hands up those people who love supermarkets. Not many people, eh?

I've never been particularly keen on them so being an employee of one is a bit twisted.

But there's twisted and then there's seriously disturbed, and we had someone like that in recently. I'm not sure how to describe her except that she's the antithesis of me and the classic example of a certain sort of middle-aged woman who has all the substance of a fog.

Everything about her is limp, washed out and insubstantial. Her clothes somehow conspire to be of no particular colour or style; her hair is some non-descript shade of mousy, her complexion is dough with a superficial layer of peach and her voice is as ethereal as a gentle breeze over a river. She is the sort of woman who is never ill-tempered but always the victim of some turn of fate or mischance; she has a faint and plaintive voice which, when she is thwarted, merely becomes fainter and more exhausted*.

The previous day the Chip'n'Pin system fell over (again) and we had resorted to the ZipZaps (the old manual card swipe machines which require the card to be inserted under a voucher so that an imprint can be made). Ordinarily we obtain a manual authorisation - that involves taking the card into the back office to make a telephone call and get permission to proceed with the transaction on that card. We were doing that and so took her card for that purpose.

She'd come in to speak to The Sex Pest who, she claimed, she'd been told she could speak with. Except the Sex Pest was on Leave and not expected in; no one would have told her he'd be available to speak with.

She explained that she wanted to complain about her card being taken from her for authorisation. I tried to explain that it was policy, standard procedure but she wasn't having any of it...

She then claimed that she'd had her card cloned in our store ... eight months earlier.

NOW - no one has ever said anything to me about a single card being cloned ... no rumours of allegations to that effect have ever reached my ears. I asked her to repeat her allegation and she did. I put to one side my incredulity ... I mean to say would YOU continue to shop regularly at a shop that had cloned your credit or debit card?

I asked her what made her believe that her card had been cloned and that the cloning had happened in our store.

She assured me that the bank had told her, but she then added that the bank hadn't been able to tell her exactly when. Except your bank can tell you ... to the second.

The poor old dear is clearly a complete crack-pot. It's sad really. She's completely lost the plot, and is certifiably as nutty as a fruit cake.

It is of no particular comfort to me that she's a senior teacher at my daughter's school.

*Yes, I have cribbed the text of this sub-clause from an author. I couldn't better described the woman.

You can F*** off too, Mr F.

2006-09-18T22:42:00.000+01:00

I'm really very sorry to harp on about it but we had another one in tonight. Young, spotty and unshaven. He was spotted by my oh-so-reliable Spotter-in-Chief of theives.

There he was sauntering away from the check-outs with a half open backpack slung over one shoulder and a bottle of something that looked like whiskey in his right hand. I darted back to spot which way he was heading, but I lost him almost immediately.

The S-i-C co-opted a shelf stacker to keep an eye out for him in the main store while I ducked outside and headed for the alternative entrance which is to the kiosk (newspapers, fags, lottery) and which has a one-way entrance to the main store. As I headed in he was making his way out, using the semi-secret button which opens the door to the main store.

In my firmest voice I asked him politely to tell me what he'd done with the bottle of whiskey I'd seen him take from the shelves and walk out of the drinks aisle still holding.

He tried to have me believe that he'd put the bottle down somewhere else in store. So I asked him to tell me where. I got just what you'd expect so I asked him to show me. Somewhat to my suprise he actually accompanied me back through the doors. Perhaps he'd hoped that sign of willing would be enough to make me believe I'd misjudged him. Misjudge him, my arse. A few paces into the store he accepted that I wouldn't buy it ... any more than he was prepared to buy the bottle he then produced from his backpack. One bottle of Southern Comfort to return to the shelves.

Upstairs in the security suite I was able to confirm that the whole thing had been captured on cctv and we've now got the boring admin. to follow through that will result in him receiving his own personal Lifetime Banning Order. Congratulations Sir.

I later learned that his name is D___ F____ and that he's got convictions for grievous bodily harm.

Lower still down the food chain another scum bag who already has an LBO was in again and when challenged resorted to some pretty horrific verbal abuse of the staff member who took him on tonight. Tonight he's in custody. Advanced scum-bagging gets its own rewards.

Trust

2006-09-18T22:30:00.000+01:00

I wrote a long piece about our tills, working myself up into a fine old state in the process and then failed utterly to make the point I was aiming for all along.

Our all too human operators make mistakes.

Yes it is shocking, but it is true. And in response to every single heaving, sighing, pointedly looking at the watch and tut-tutting customer who's ever held up because of an operator I do, I admit, come over all Religious.

You might not have expected this of me, but its true. For somewhere in the Good Book there is a line about the casting of the first stone being the prerogative of he (or She, I've seen the Life of Brian) who is without Sin.

Our operators cannot undo anything on the tills. So an item that inadvertently scans twice be removed from the transaction but that requires someone with 'manager key' so a supervisor must be called.

Our operators cannot put through certain of the vouchers we accept and again a supervisor must be called.

Our operators cannot manually enter an item that will not scan (see earlier post) even when the item is price marked.

Our operators cannot enter vouchers over a certain value but must instead call for a supervisor to enter the amount.

So on the one hand we don't have individual till boxes or floats which would focus the minds of operators quite wonderfully; but on the other hand we don't trust our operators to do even the simplest thing on their own.

This is symptomatic of something that's gnawing away at me which is the failure of large scale entities to actually run businesses effectively and efficiently. The distance from board room to shop floor is unbridgeable. There is no prospect of realistic decision making or direction flowing from top to bottom (or centre to periphery), there is no burden of responsibiliy, and therefore the majoriy feel no sense of responsibilty.

Without at sense of responsibilty there is no engagement, and it cannot be suprising that we flounder with the consequences every day, in mis-pricing, mis-placement, rudeness, idleness and all the other symptoms of what might be called a demotivated work force - were it not for the fact that they in all probability never were motivated to begin with.

Till Troubles.

2006-09-17T21:49:00.000+01:00

"The tills at Pizza Hut would be perfect if...some techy would put a 'return to previous screen' button on it rather than having to actually put an order through to get back to the first screen. But seriously, they are pretty good otherwise...especially when they keep telling me I was bang on the money at the end of the night! :-) I'd hate to have a checkout system with fixed buttons and just a little green screen (presumably what yours is?), as they are totally non user friendly."

My thanks to Pizza Hut Team Member who has drawn attention to the fact that for all the abuse I've heaped on their technological deficiencies I've yet to do a Proper Job on our tills.

The reason for this is that I rarely bear the brunt of the consequences of their very many failings except in the evening - when we don't have a checkout supervisor employed to act as a buffer between the customers and the shop floor staff on the one hand and 'management' on the other.

I have many times touched on the frailties of The System. The software and hardware (and possibly the firmware, but I don't know what that it) are all fragile, repeatedly patched and vulnerable. They'll keel over at the slightest difficulty or even some days none at all.

For me, trying to keep the business afloat, the absence of management data which flows from the tills is a problem. For the staff the checkouts not operating as they're supposed to is a problem of a different kind. And then there's all the problems that flow from the tills operating as they're expected to...

Card transactions

The greatest problem we face is card transaction failures. These happen All The Time - and that's no exaggeration. This is something that transends satire and belief. Essentially no card transaction works first time, every time. Those days when this aspect of the system works as we all (staff, customers) have every right to expect are rare and delightful. Most of the time the Cards are erratic and unreliable.

For weeks now we've been struggling with an entirely unpredicable Cash Back scenario. Cash back is available on some but not all cards. Where in the past Cash Back has been a given for those with a card that has this option available we're currently dealing with a 'will it, won't it' situtation. The solution has been to cancel the entire transaction when cash back isn't offered and start again, and repeat that until the 'system' suddenly wakes up to the fact that the proffered card is permitted to offer cash back.

Irritating? Certainly.

But this preamble focuses on a short segment of the transaction chain and your typical customer is currently having to confront a far longer sequence of till troubles.

How it works (or at least should work)

The tills comprise a bar code reader, a set of scales and a key pad. Most items that are presented bear a bar code. The operator wafts the item, bar code to the fore and the time is registered.

Some items don't work this way.

Some greengrocery items must be weighed. The item must be placed on the scales which are an integral part of the till. The operator then selects "Veg" on the keypad for the Fruit and Veg menu and then works his/her way through the menu to find the particular item on the scale. When the item is selected the scale kicks into action and a price is calculated based on the weight and the price per weight for that item.

We have a hot food/deli bar. Some items don't scan (ie, are not in PLU) but are on a menu.

A lot of these items have a PLU code that is either imbedded in a long bar code or on a sticker affixed to the item but most operators remain oblivious to that fact.

So what the job of operator boils down to is 'mostly wafting, occasionally keying in, very occasionally asking for help'.

Age Restricted products

First of all, and in our effort to appear to comply with the law dealing with sale of underage products (including Booze, products containing booze such as chocolates and jams, lottery, cigarettes, lighters, matches, lighter fuel, knives...) any operator who is underage (ie, less than 18 years old) or hasn't yet passed the Sale of Restricted Goods test cannot sell such products unsupervised.

You might be familiar with an underage operator yelling to an adult operator something along the lines of "okay to sell alcohol?". You won't hear that with us. The operator must call for a supervisor - and we only have one on duty at any one time, who must come out and personally supervise the transaction. That involves giving the customer the once over and then entering a code to release the till.

That all takes time.

The bar code

With a few exceptions (such as some greengrocery/deli) all items carry a bar code which is linked to a database (see how it works, above). The process is known as Price Lookup and when a bar code scanned at the till doesn't link to an item in the database we have a situation known as Not In PLU. The 13 digit number is linked to an item description and a price.

Regularly we are issued with products that have not yet been entered into the database.

For the moment I shall leave aside the process failure that results in products that are Not In PLU reaching our shelves. Suffice it to say they do. Customers see them and think "oh goody, I'll have some of that" and in all innocence put in their trolley and present it at the checkout.

When this happens two things must happen: the correct price must be established and the price must be entered manually.

Typically our operators don't know the price of an item so will call for a shop floor assistant who will go to the shelf and look for a ticket.

That ought to be it, but it isn't

The operator must then call for a supervisor to enter the price. Our operators are not permitted to enter prices manually.

That is such an extraordinary statement I shall repeat it: Our Operators are Not Permitted to Enter Prices Manually.

When I was growing up the tills were manual rather than electronic and the operators sat behind them bashing away at those keys while remorslessly shoving items off the belt and into the space behind them to be bagged. Thus ladies and gentlemen is the full impact of 'technological progress' revealed.

So that's two calls, and two causes of delay.

A third source of delay arises when the Not In PLU item has reached the shelves without a ticket. When that happens, frankly, we make it up (unless it's a 51" digital TV in which case we might actually try to phone head office and get a price)

Flash Packs

A similar problem arises with flash packs. These are items bearing their price irrespective of what the shelf labels says. In a way they are a lesser problem since the necessity for someone to go to the shelf and check the price does not arise. But still the operator must call for a supervisor to enter the price if the item doesn't scan.

Deleting

Or voiding as we refer to it. The reader can be sensitive. It is all too easy to scan an item more than once. The operator doesn't have the facility to delete a mis-scanned item. Each and every time an operator makes a mistake a supervisor must be called out to correct that mistake.

Each and every time a customer picks up something they then decide they don't want or cannot afford a supervisor must be called out.

Upshot

Our operators are less than 'grunts'.

They are not trusted and they know they are not trusted. Under the circumstances it can hardly be surprising that they individually behave as if they've not a pair of brain cells to rub together.

They earn their pay not by thinking but by sitting till, mute and accepting all the scorn that radiates down on them from the customers they serve. How would you regard a person who could not even correct their own mistake, key in a price they know or some other such example?

You would regard them with contempt. And we conspire to set the up for this ignomy, may God forgive us.

Lanes and boxes

Some years ago we abandoned individual till boxes. Each lane (and we have twelve) has a box and over the course of a day and a week any number of operators might work a given lane. A check is not run on the contents and the expected contents at change over. If a problem arises we have absolutely no way of identify where and when the problem arose.

Our operators are thereby insultated.

Other business place responsibilty and consequences on the shoulders of operators. We've removed both.

Where do I stand?

Very simply I'd issue each operator with his or her own box and return to each operator some of the responsibilty that has been removed from them over recent years.

On the one hand this increased sense of responsibilty would, I believe, enhance their feeling of being valued and at the same sense translate into far greater care and attention to detail.

I believe that enhancing the role of the operator would heighten the regard of customers for the person they're dealing which would further fuel in operators a sense of appreciation and worth and commitment to their role.

None of this is likely to happen soon.

As for who I work for - that isn't something I'm going to divulge but I am intrigued by _ _ - _ _. I shall keep working on it and probably be up all night as a result.

Corporate challenge

2006-09-17T19:46:00.000+01:00

The HR Director of BT has just referred to "the DNA of our corporate", in the context of home (flexible) working conditions.

Okay.

No prizes on offer but kudos for a plausible translation into English.

Ricky Ricky

2006-09-17T19:33:00.000+01:00

Thieves may be prosectuted, but that prosecution invariable results either in a slap on wrist or a badge of honour.

Ricky S was in today - again. He arrived on bicycle as I was dashing between entrance and exit; took one look at me, recognised that I would do something if he attempted to enter and cycled off. Five minutes later he'd back tracked, snuck in and made for the booze aisle.

He's shorter than me, considerably shorter than me, which makes it somewhat easier to tackle him. If his family reputation runs even partially true in him he's perfectly capable of making serious trouble but at 11:30 in the morning he hadn't had time to take on any fuel.

So I stood my ground in the aisle and told him to leave. How courageous. I only had about fifty very interested spectator customers within 10 feet or so. At first he tried "I only want to buy some alcohol" then I got a chorus of "Darn [don't] hassle me, Man" and "Yer making a fool of yerself" then "Darn follow me" and finished up with the rather sweetly plaintiff "Darn make a fool of me!" as he crossed the last few steps to the exit.

He actually looked rather deflated as he cycled away in search of alternative prey.

Technology and other failures

2006-09-16T22:14:00.000+01:00

I could devote this entire post, nay this entire blog, to the rather narrow subject of deficiencies in the software and technology which supposedly were introduced (possibly last century, more probably during the one before) to, um, make our lives easier and the business more efficient and effective.

I could also devote this entire blog to the subject of big corporate inability to run a business; any business.

I could bang on and on and on .... about the fecklessness (indolence, incivility and illiteracy) of so many of the people who turn to us for employment.

I could rail at the system which makes it worth someone's while declining more than 15 hours per week - because the Job Seekers Allowance pays better than we do.

I could bitch about customers.

The saddest thing though is that even if I could get a baby sitter tonight I couldn't be bothered getting dressed up and heading out for a night on what tiles this town has to offer.

Our software is chronically and possibly terminally ill. This morning we struggled for a prolonged period to process credit / debit card transactions. The only mercy for us was that the supplier did finally get around to filling the ATM outside and so some customers could withdraw cash to cover their transaction.

This evening one of the check-outs 'fell off the system' which meant that I couldn't process the back off financials properly. The checkout that fell off the system isn't the same one that was falling off a month or so ago, but it will need an engineer to come out and coax some life into it. That might happen tomorrow, but tomorrow is Sunday.

I'm not even going to start tonight on the inability of corporations to run businesses ... something I read last night got me thinking but I made no notes and will come back to that later when I'm in a more suitable frame of mind.

Tom Tom the senior clerk's son decided to hand in his notice because he couldn't change his weekend shifts so as to give himself free time to play football, with the particular team he wants to play with. Like all general assistant staff he's expected to work his notice period which is one whole week. That week ended today for him with a 5-9 shift. He didn't turn up but I had to endure a conversation with his mother who went on and on and on about how difficult it is to get a 16 year old to do what he's told.

When I was sixteen I went to school, I came home, I practiced tennis/violin, I ate, I washed up, I did my homework and then I went to bed. That was it. Five nights a week. Then I did lots of tennis and music practice and housework on the weekends. I wasn't expected to go out to work but on the other hand I wasn't treated an adult in any other way. My reading, music, tv, movies and friends were subject to scrutiny and my mother held the power of veto.

The message was really simple. When you're an adult and you have a place of your own you can do what you like. Until you're an adult, and so long as I'm responsible for you, you will do as you are told; this is not your house and you may not do as you please within it.

We fuck kids up I guess. We treat them as adults part of the time and then scratch our heads when they won't behave like kids when we want them to.

As for the Job Seekers Allowance and how it acts as a block to perfectly employable individuals seeking full time employment, I could say lots and lots of complex stuff but what that boils down to is 'scrap the social welfare system as it exists and starts again'. Each successive administration since the end of WWII has added a layer of administrative complexity until we've reached the point at which nothing short of the 'nuclear' option could eliminate the faults and failings in the system.

I'm not sure what should be built over the ashes of Nye Bevin's dream but it sure isn't a cradle to grave, free at the point of consumption type welfare system such as that in place now.

As for the jackass who walked out leaving his paper and 2 pints of milk behind I have three words: "Go to Safeway". At the time I was short staffed and struggling to nurse the check-out software through its nineteenth nervous breakdown. Safeway, as far as I'm aware, are no long trading in this country (at least under that name) and to the best of my knowledge the nearest ex-Safeway store is a good 25 minute drive from us. I think that even in the worst case scenario waiting at the checkout would have taken less time.

Damned fool.

Damned fool me for putting myself through this for a pittance.

Money for jam

2006-09-16T09:51:00.000+01:00

One evening recently a middle aged woman came into the store bearing a jar of jam. She caught up with me as I was sorting out a problem of one sort or other at one of the check-outs.

She must have been in a tremendous hurry, perhaps had a plane to catch or a funeral to get to, or life saving surgery to perform. She couldn't wait her turn and when she didn't get my immediate attention (NOW!) she poked me in the upper arm with one of her bony fingers.

Now as it happens I have a deep-rooted and powerful aversion to being poked in this manner which goes back to my childhood (my mother is a 'poker').

With no preamble the woman thrust the jam at me with a hastily delivered explanation that it had been bought from us (our store) in error and wished for her money back.

We're entitled to require proof of purchase (though not necessarily a receipt) and I asked for something. That request is effectively a reflex reaction but I was also on edge by virtue of the woman's approach and the fact that I couldn't recall ever seeing the particular jam.

The hatchet faced cow wasn't having about to offer any proof that she'd bought the jam, let alone from us. She got louder and ruder and louder and ruder and of course she hoped that I'd give her a refund on the grounds that the small price of one jar of jam is worth paying to get her of the store.

Sometimes that approach does work. Sometimes it doesn't. It tends not to work when I'm pissed off, tired and contemptuous. I stalked across the store to the jam section in search of a jar of the same jam. I hunted high and low for that damned jar. I really, really wanted to be sure that it was a variety we didn't carry. Scrawny Bint came past and I explained what I was doing. She looked at the jam and the shelves and confirmed that it was a variety we've not ever to her knowledge carried.

Hatch-faced Bitch got her jar of jam back but not a refund. She tried a bit more bluster, of course, before accepting defeat. Eventually she slunk out clutching her jar, off presumably in search of some mug retailer to give her money for jam.

I do so detest being taken for a moron

2006-09-13T13:02:00.000+01:00

We have an electrical goods department. It isn't large, and the goods we sell are predominantly low quality whether bottom-end 'brands' or bottom of range from makers of better quality goods.

But if your iron goes bust and you haven't got time to go out of town and you need that shirt ironed now, we've got something that will get you through the crisis and probably not by starting an electrical fire that burns down your house.

One less than enjoyable by-product of selling shoddy goods (oops, did I say that) is the high proportion that are returned. We pretty much don't quibble; we will give the returned item the once over particularly if it is brand new - a lot of our customers don't have the patience to read the instruction manual. I guess they just assume that the new one works exactly the same way as the old one and bring the new one back doesn't ... or something.

Some stuff packs up after a short time, we refund or replace where possible.

One recent Sunday a notorious battleaxe came in to collect a deep fryer we sell at about £35. About three hours later she came back complaining that it wouldn't work; that the lights would come on but the element wouldn't heat... She swore she'd cleaned it as best she could, and of course she still had her receipt.

We took the thing into the office and unpacked it; it certainly looked clean, at least at first. The lights did come on but the element failed to heat, just as she'd said. Except that when we were rearranging things to get them back in the box we noticed quite how use-stained some less obvious parts of the fryer were.

Naughty, naughty Mrs F.

She's one of the richest women in town and one of the tightest. Seems she wanted a brand new fryer without the burden of actually having to pay for the damn thing.

Knowing quite what a stink the ghastly old witch can make we gave her her money back. She left in her battered old mobility cart with the satisfaction of a good (rip-off) job well done, while we could console ourselves with not being quite as stupid as she continues to think we are.

As for valour .... well I'm afraid that's another matter.

Quite partial to Pizza as it happens

2006-09-12T23:11:00.000+01:00

I'm quite partial to Pizza as it happens ... so I'm very pleased to say hello to Pizza Hut Team Member who has a blog called ... Pizza Hut Team Member, which is new but sheds a light on another corner of the UK services/retail sector.

I've been wondering where the readership is and why ... caramaena also links here which I hugely appreciate and blogs here.

If you're passing through please consider leaving a comment. Thanks.

Every once in a while I do the right thing

2006-09-12T12:50:00.000+01:00

I answered the telephone late one afternoon recently during a period when we were frantically recruiting both to cover those who'd left at the start of the summer (and been covered over the summer months by the returning students) as well as those who'd subsequently decided to move on for one reason or another.

The gentleman at the other end of the phone was enquiring about progress by him up our recruitment list. We tend not to receive curricula vitae. Instead we have people drop in; we take down their name and a few key details and get the rest if and when we call them in. As I couldn't find the recruitment book which was in someone else's office I took down his details on a piece of paper with the intention of checking and calling him back.

The moment he gave me his date of birth I had a pretty good (and as it turns out accurate) idea of why he hadn't been called in for an interview. Even he must have been harbouring his suspicions. "Is it an issue?" he asked in the silence after giving his year of birth as 1942.

I insisted it wouldn't necessarily be a barrier and at the first available opportunity I mentioned him to the Bulldog who, as it happens, had been tasked with dragging likely suspects in to be given the once over.

She admitted that she'd passed over everyone older than herself.

Now as it happens I'd heard a story about a bloke celebrating his 100th (yes his one hundredth) birthday with his colleagues at the depot where he is employed to clean out commercial vehicles of one sort of other - I didn't get the details, and they're not the point here.

I went into bat for the applicant, insisting that his age couldn't be grounds in and of themselves to disregard him. We spend most of our time moaning about the Kiddies - their stupidity, laziness, lack of practical common sense, rudeness, incompetence and sheer unreliability; then when someone older comes along do we show ourselves to be stupid, lazy, lacking commensense, rude and incompetent.

What really floored me though was the Bulldog's admission that she'd seen a TV version of the story I'd heard on the radio.

Within 12 hours the bloke had been in to be interviewed by the Sex Pest and offered a job with us. Of course if it all goes pear shaped I'll be blamed for sticking my neck out for him; but I still believe I did the right thing by insisting that he be given his chance.

Stop it ... okay?

2006-09-09T23:37:00.000+01:00

Stop with the thieving will you ... like now! Chasing thieves about the shop is seriously getting on my tits.

Today's criminal was some spotty youth who slipped a bottle (or perhaps two) of whiskey into his backpack and legged it. The bloke (sorry pharmacist) who runs the, um, pharmacy concession alerted me right when I was in the middle of trying to find some poor old dear some mixed peal. We wandered up and down every aisle in search of a young man with a back pack. Do you think we could find the fucker. Not even a perfectly innocent young man with a back pack. What would the odds be?

What really fucked me off (do you get the picture, I'm annoyed?) was one of the Gang of Four from Tuesday's escapade back in the store, dried out and down from what ever narcotic induced high he'd been on and looking sheepish. Which only goes to show that these tawdry fuckers do know right from wrong.

A Plague of Shoplifters

2006-09-06T00:36:00.000+01:00

On Monday evening we had a scruffy looking bloke come into the store and something about him rang alarm bells; I followed him round to the hot food counter, and there served him a couple of the few remaining items bagged up and reduced.

On the way back in the direction of the check-outs I was very briefly distracted by another customer and as a result I got back to the check-outs in time to be told by the only operator on duty that he'd strolled out of the store without paying for anything, but with something that rustled under his sweater.

I hope the ham he knicked poisoned him.

The same operator and I were on duty yesterday late afternoon when we were approached by a customer who believed that he'd just seen someone secrete a bottle of whiskey about his person. Unfortunately we were only in time to get a glimpse of the thief legging it around the corner. On the way back I was passed by a scruffy looking and very young couple with a baby in a push chair who set my alarms off.

As judgemental as it might sound fake Burberry, extensive tatooing, copious body piercings, lanky unwashed hair and pallid complexion combine to create the impression of someone lacking self-respect and where there is no self-respect generally there can be no respect for others (or their property).

They seemed however to dutifully queue up and pay for their goods; I put them from my mind. A little later in the evening after I'd finished the admin. and begun to get stuck into straightening up the shop floor I was informed that the whiskey thief had returned, this time drunk and accompanied by a skinny youth with pustules all over his face. By this time of the day the shop is fairly empty and it is correspondingly difficult to have a pair of suspected thieves under surveillance without them recognising what's going on.

A bit of abusive language later they left.

I suppose we had vague hopes that matters would rest there but a short while later they returned with reinforcements, one of whom I recognised from a past visit as an aggressive little loud-mouth. He attempted to enter without a shirt on which gave me a pretext for stopping him. He gave me a bit of lip and swagger and bluster, then retreated to the foyer to use the pay phone, surrounded by his mates in a tight cluster.

A couple of times they attempted to break back into the main store and each time I stood my ground on the question of not entering until fully dressed. Each time they got further into the store, pushing to find out quite where the limit would be. Hairdo had entered the fray by this point and tried to make them stay together in one place while what they wished to purchase was brought to them, on the grounds that they were clearly under the influence, dishevelled, loud, intimidating and generally unwelcome.

They weren't having anything of it. Once inside the store (the semi-naked yobbo having donned the coat of the whiskey thief) they split into two groups. The newly dressed yob and the other new member of the gang headed for wines and spirits protesting that they only wanted to buy a bottle of drink for the Shirtless One's birthday. The other two, the original whiskey thief and the pustule covered accomplice, headed for the hot food counter where I had no option but to hand over a couple items. Determined not to have happen what had happened the previous night I stuck to them all round the aisles with them laughing at the way they were making us dance to their tune.

That something was happening must have been perfectly obvious to anyone in the store but that didn't stop a middle aged couple way-laying me for help in finding the steralising tablets for baby bottles. They were standing facing the baby food, the sterilising tablets were on a shelf on the other side of the aisle (ie, to their backs) alongside all the other. I snatched a packet from the shelf and thrust it at them before heading back in pursuit of the trouble makers. I hope they were left thinking me quite as rude as I thought them stupid.

After purchasing the cheese and bacon slice and the other hot food item (I can't even remember what it was) they left the store accompanied by the other pair.

Yet again they hoped that would be it. Hairdo patrolled the main entrance and back they came. This time Hairdo stood her ground as they attempted to come back into the store ... as I joined her the pustule covered youth pulled out his phone and feigned calling the police. There was lots of swagger from them about their legal right to enter the store, of the "I know my rights".

Since both Hairdo and I had serious doubts that he'd called the police and the pair were still outside making threatening noises about being prepared to enter the store whether we permitted it or not I dialled 999 for police attendance.

In the meantime a male customer intervened to send the pair packing.

Calm didn't last long. They'd only gone around the corner, doing damage to external fixtures as they went, and they'd linked up with the Chav couple and their baby. My instinct about them hadn't been completely wrong. The young couple drifted away as we watched, we turned around to go back into the store only to stop to the sound of breaking glass. For a brief moment Hairdo and I stood face to face with (and only a couple of feet from) a drunken youth waving a broken bottle and chanting "your dead, your dead, your dead etc".

In all we placed three 999 calls for police; eventually a lone female officer arrived, took note of the youths, spoke to them (from the safety of her patrol vehicle) and promised us she'd remain until the last member of staff had safely got away.

The Sex Pest somehow managed to find out something was up and come in, which was appreciated as it happens. He wanted to know why one of us hadn't kneed one of them in the groin, but I suspect that only would have landed who ever had been proactive with the threat at least of an assault charge. He wanted to know why the police hadn't turned up more promptly but the police wanted to know why we weren't calling local police rather than the emergency response service.

I've got two more evening shifts to get through this week, and an interview with the police this afternoon.

I don't get paid enough for this.

On the same theme, I found

Wendy in Brighton, Colorado

The Dividing Line's The Forgetful Shopper

A Police Officer's perspective

New blogger Bob's anecdote

I also found this blog, from the persepective of the political Right-of-Centre, discussing Proposed Shoplifting Guidelines, and a self-selecting group of commentors.

What the hell ... more Sex Pest

2006-09-04T22:09:00.000+01:00

But first ....

Monday through Saturday the store opens to staff at 5:00 am but to the public at 7:00. The check-out supervisor, who puts together the roster when she arrives, doesn't start work until 8:30am. Between 6:00 and 8:30 those of us who have to make decisions about the deployment of staff resources somehow manage to scrape by... And even when the supervisor does pull together a list of who's in and when they'll be taking tea breaks and lunches we're no better informed as to who's working on the greengrocery, deli, bakery, dairy, chillded, meat/fish, booze, bread etc etc sections.

But Sunday? Oh, no Sundays are different. Quite why is less than abundantly clear but our Lord and Master (aka the Sex Pest, etc) has spoken and it was noticable that today both Scrawny Bint and The Bulldog (yes, the gang were all in) were singing from his hymn sheet in respect of the preparation of Sunday's staff list a good 48 hours in advance. Scrawny Bint patiently explained to COS that otherwise they don't know who's in and who's not... because they're in at 8:00 and the staff are in at 8:00 but the Sunday supervisor isn't in until 9:00 so for a good hour they're flying blind.

Hmmm ... If there's a good reason for all the trouble we're being asked to take over Sundays I'd back 'us' versus the COS and her Sunday counterpart. I just can't see the difference.

Quite why Scrawny Bint and Sex Pest both had to be in the store and working the same section escaped me, too.

The only exciting thing to happen before I escaped was an audacious thief who had the temerity to ask for help - for me to serve him some food from behind the hot food counter. I handed requested items and followed him vaguely in the direction of the checkouts. A quick word with a member of staff and when I round the corner he's already legged it, rustling deli bags hastily shoved under his shirt.

I hope that the ham he bought, that was cooked first thing this morning, poisons him. Or if not that, I hope it burned him shoved up against his bare flesh as it was.

Only when I got home about an hour ago did I learn from someone who was working this morning that the entire store knows of Mad Mrs Sex Pest's histrionics of yesterday. How? Not from me. So either from Hairdo or more intriguingly from Sex Pest himself.

Though I initially favoured Hairdo telling either her administrative pest (who is an inveterate gossip) or her only other friend in the entire building (the warehouseman - well placed to spread stories).

My source however favours the theory that Sex Pest himself has had a high old time of it sharing (in total confindence of course, and only with a select few) the story of his wife's moment of madness yesterday.

Sex Pest Spectacular

2006-09-04T07:57:00.000+01:00

I have a long week of night shifts ahead of me, but I better cope; I stuck my hand up and offered to take them on, on a long term basis provided I could ditch the Sundays.

My employers being what they are they've heard what they want, which is to say they've heard the bit about me doing week-day nights but not the bit about giving me back my Sundays. New admin manager has come in and is flexing her muscle; put my preferred option on the table and explained how we'd work it and she said 'umm' and 'errr' and 'weeeelll', and then proved she's a total corporate girl by adding the standard-grade clincher, which is "I'll have to ask..."

This will all sort itself out over the next four weeks.

I've stood my ground before. They fold like a house of cards when subject to even the slightest force.

Mean time Sunday wasn't funday this week. Most of the management were in, the remainder are on sick leave. I walked in to the worst atmosphere I've known ... Hairdo and Scrawny Bint at their desks, back to back. Had they been suitably armed they'd have drawn swords and shot each other.

Having been out at a Hen Night the previous night I wasn't in the mood for their, well, moodiness; so headed onto the shop floor to get things ready for opening. Eventually Scrawny Bint hit the shop floor too, round on the other side and I could get back in and do the stuff I need to do in the office ahead of opening.

Hairdo had hardly opened her mouth to say good morning when I arrived, but after a while she began to talk. Turns out she's going back into hospital in a couple of weeks for further investigation of some problem in her abdomen; she's been on symptom-masking medication since the beginning of the year but has had to come off in the run up to the procedure and as a consequence is increasingly uncomfortable. She certainly looked genuinely and significantly unwell.

That was only half the story, of course. But before I got to that I had to negotiate the Sex Pest. Not my Sex Pest (aka The Stud or The General Manager), but Scrawny Bint's. It's almost but not quite entirely inevitable that when she's in he's not far behind.

Which only adds to the general stressfulness of Sundays... I am not sure I fully understand why it is but Sundays are the worst day of the week for Stress. We're all in two hours before the shop opens, except check-out staff who have the luxury of strolling in at (theoretically) five minutes before opening. We've oodles of time to get the load broken down and distributed, the newspapers assembled and the kiosk generally prepped. We've also at least until the summer kiddies drop out got sufficient staff to get us through.

All things are relative of course and we get through the last couple of hours of Saturday night with a skeleton crew than can be as low as four or five (management excluded). That's a total of four or five staff covering the entire store, shop floor, warehouse and at least two check-outs. So yes, we have staff coming out our ears on Sunday.

We've got two on greengrocery, two on dairy, two on deli, two on bakery, two on frozen and perhaps a dozen covering the rest of the shop floor and check-outs. And we're only open for six hours, because the law says we can't open before 10:00 am or remain open after 4:00pm on Sunday.

Somehow the simple task of selling to the general public for six whole hours induces panic in the Sex Pest. He has to know at least 48 hours in advance exactly who will be working any Sunday he's on duty. And all the information has to be presented to him on a special form of his devising and which is totally unfit for purpose (and omits a couple of key departments as well).

My first inkling that the Sex Pest might be in the building was a request for said form from Scrawny Bint; which at first I thought peculiar but lat realised was just her dealing with her master's Sunday morning Panic attack.

Peace descended when they retreated to his office for a quick round of what ever it is they get up to behind that closed door. Later in the day Scrawny Bint boasts that there's nothing that goes on in the store she doesn't know about, which gives a certain credence to the suggestion I've heard that she's pumping him for information... Ew. At least it was in his office. What really grosses me out is the idea of the pair of them getting down and dirty among the warehouse stacks.

A little while after we opened, while we're on the subject, Mrs Sex Pest rang and I happened to be passing so answered the call. Now I've spoken with her many, many times and I'm fairly familiar with her voice. Like just about everyone else who rings us she won't bother to introduce herself but will instead launch into what ever is she wants to say. On the other hand she's normally intelligible. She sounded totally stoned. She asked some semi-gibberish question about 'who was on duty rota' in response to which I asked to be told who I was speaking with. I got the same question, or something very like it so I asked my question a second time.

Leaving aside the old saying that one should never answer a question with a question I believe my stand to be perfectly reasonable, though if anyone has any thoughts on phone etiquette and whether I'm being unreasonable or antiquated (I know I'm being antediluvian) please share them.

Eventually - I can be a stubborn old thing - she caved in and admitted to being Mrs Sex Pest. Her reward for her candour was to be told that the rostered duty manager was Scrawny Bint. I got a bit more mumbling and then the 'phone put down on me. Hairdo had been an interested spectator; when I explained the side of the call she'd not been able to hear she turned an even more interesting shade of grey and got straight on the phone to the sex pest to give him chapter and verse.

Once more peace reigned. In fact we got through to lunch time, unreliable card transaction system and all before the proverbial hit the fan. A short pugnacious middle-aged twat returned with his incomplete copy of the Sunday Times. Having found the young girl on the kiosk to be an unworthy opponent he insisted that I enter the fray. I apologised. I explained that the missing section hadn't been delivered. I apologised. I promised I'd look into why I hadn't been told about the missing sections. I apologised. I promised I'd investigate what could be done to prevent this happening again. I apologised. I offered this uber-jackass his money back.

The sad truth was the little turd hadn't come back in for a solution; he'd come in for a fight, to take his frustration over his micro-penis out on someone other than his long-suffering little woman.

Someone else called during the afternoon to complain about the Sunday Times missing sections so I vented at Sex Pest after getting no satisfaction with Scrawny Bint. He had got to her first after all.

Sex pest spent the afternoon in the office getting under everyone's feet. I took my chance to offer an apology for the conversation with Mrs Sex Pest (just in case there was anything to apologise for) and in reply I got "she's a bit..." accompanied by some tapping of the side of the head. Then some pugnacious "if she's going to fucking check up on me ... I'm not going to answer her fucking calls ... that'll teach her" type. He also got the satisfaction of slinging out some cue-ball headed notorious shoplifter type who'd snuck in with a couple of his younger and snottier nosed brats.

His son, who absolutely definitely isn't gay, wafted in mid-afternoon for a shop floor family conference which was quite sweet. The Heir Apparent (who runs a Gay Bar in London but absolutely definitely isn't, himself) has gone all dark and pretty. I'm not sure whether that's a reversion to au naturel (and I suspect I'm not likely to find out). All I can say is that he was quite fair of hair on head and stubble last time I saw him, but now he's not only got a luscious black head of hair but very dark stubble. Eyebrows and eyelashes were obscured by thick framed sunglasses in an exquisite shade of pink.

I wasn't a fly on the wall at Sex Pest Manor so can't say how the evening passed. No wailing ambulance sirens pierced the otherwise calm of the night, so perhaps they're all still in one piece. More's the pity.

2006-09-01T07:03:00.000+01:00

We have a new cash machine, all shiny on the outside ... and just as disfunctional on the inside where it really counts.

Our tills are randomly refusing to offer people who pay using a debit card the opportunity for cash back.

On the upside we're no longer 'enjoying' the unique scent that is Eau de Dead Rat now that we have a shiny new cash machine.

Building services have been down to put new barrels in the locks of the staff lockers so our newer employees can have somewhere to safely stow their meagre possessions while they're at work.

I was away over the long-weekend so missed the minor volcanic eruption (or equivalent thereof) when the Sex Pest discovered quite how little the Hairdo had accomplished when left to her own devices running the store.

Hairdo's son tied the knot during a break in the weather over the long weeke-end, and the mother of the groom is reported to have looked fabulous.

Since the office supervisor has resigned, responsibility for the boring crap will now formally be vested in Corporal Jones. Don't Panic!

The Sex Pest had to work the long weekend and has spent the few days in the company of his Lap Top (computer, not dancer) and his laminator.

Shortly coming to a wall somewhere in the building is a notice headed "Seasonal Staff" which then goes on to tell everyone that they need to give four months notice of any intention to take leave during peak periods (for demand, he means).

We have a compulsive graffiti-ist. I'm informed that the walls of the warehouse, the men's staff toilet and the corridor from the upper warehouse to the service lift are adorned with little messages calling into question the sexuality of a member of staff who works in our greengrocery staff.

He's about to leave us to go to University. I guess if the abuser is a permanent member of staff, he or she will only turn on another target once the current one leaves.

I could be a sex pest, but I'm not that desperate and there is absolutely no eye-candy. Some mysterious line has been crossed and the younger members of staff are now too young. They look like children from the perspective of my advancing years.

The only men of more mature age are the Sex Pest, Daft Dave, Clive the Drooller (who is in charge of trollies and baskets) and Mummy's Boy. Enough said? Oh there is Erik the Viking but he's spoken for.

Posh customer called up for his wife's particular tipple and had to leave empty handed because someone's knicked the last bottles in store of that particular line of sherry. Nothing with which to ply the Vicar in that particular household this weekend.

How do I know? Because our uber-reliable computer system says we still have two bottles in stock; two bottles will not be in the warehouse so if they're not on the shelves someone's swiped them.

Summer staff are about to bugger off (back to college or university) and no-one has any idea how much recruiting we can do - or where the hell we might do it.

Takings are tailing off after what's been a poor summer. The weather was tremendous in July but less than wonderful in August; people weren't so inclined to visit us at the weekends either to sail or take advantage of our gorgeous waterfront scenes and gleaming golden beach.

The engineers have just about completed the job of installing the freezer/chiller cabinet monitoring system only a couple of months after work commenced. It will be a great comfort to everyone to hear as we probably soon will that we now have a system in place to tell us if temperatures rise towards problematic levels in our freezer/chiller cabinets.

Whys and Wherefores

2006-08-31T22:50:00.000+01:00

I'm back!

I was overjoyed on getting home to discover that a kind soul had taken the time and trouble to leave a message. So greetings to Caramaena, who lives in Oz, and blogs here. Now I know that I have more than one return visitor so please say hello. Does that sound pathetic? Probably!.

Anyway I had a fabulous few days away, mucking about in Surrey which is a much nicer part of the country than the one I live in. It isn't entirely flat and it isn't entirely populated by poor white trash that are known as Chavs here and Bogans in Australia. We spent an afternoon on the river in the vicinity of Windsor sniggering the old woman who lives in the house on the top of the hill and so forth (essentially being drunkenly bolshie), called in at any supermarket we caught sight of and gave the staff hell (memo to self here).

I actually got back on Tuesday and went to work on Wednesday but nothing sufficiently interesting to inspire me to write actually happened. In fact nothing at all got under my skin on Wednesday to the extent that even I realised that I had needed a few days away quite desperately.

Something momentous did happen; one of the admin staff has resigned because she's got herself a job that I suspect pays cash. It means all bets are off and I might just get my Sundays back. Not entirely sure I want them, but that's another subject. Other than that, just the usual. Back when something out of the ordinary happens.

Memo to self: If I don't actually recognise the awkward customer there's a jolly good chance it's some bored supermarket employee taking a sort of busman's holiday and making some other supermarket employee's day as miserable as his or hers normally is.

Bloody Kids

2006-08-24T22:48:00.000+01:00

No, not those we pay about five quid an hour to do basically bugger all.

Last night we were visited by a young kid who spent an inordinate amount of time at the DVD stand (which is well covered by cameras that are currently not operational). After a very long time under surveillance he came to the check out I was covering (dodgy middle-aged knee and all that). He presented two DVDs; one rated PG and the other rated 15.

He was barely tall enough to see over the check-out, so short and rat faced I was almost in awe of his brass.

"How old are you" in my stearnest voice.

"Fourteen, I'll be fifteen tomorrow." What a total MUPPET.

Back he went with the two DVDs muttering under his breath all the way.

He stood at the display for a long time before sauntering off empty handed.

I little while later an almost identical kid came in and made for the DVD display. I called out a colleague who recognised him immediately as the scion of a particularly disreputable local family, though whether the younger or older son she couldn't say - they're all short and rat-faced it seems.

The pair of us kept this kid under surveillance. Every now and then I could hear her murmer "Yes, I'm still watching you." The kid kept looking over his shoulder to find out if anyone was watching him.

Eventually he came to the check out with two 12 rated DVDs. We sold them to him afer he insisted that he was 12 going on 13. Having paid for the DVDs he turned about and went down the aisle with the sweets and chocolates only to reappear a little while later clutching various suger and E-number loaded crap. I made him put the bag up on the checkout but he was prepared for that and it only contained the two DVDs I'd already sold him. I supposed he had what ever he'd nicked hidden about his person.

The colleague later admitted that the second kid was the older brother, and since a third colleague confirmed that the two were virtually indistinguishable I can only conclude that the earlier would-be DVD purchaser was the 10-11 year old.

I arrived this afternoon for my final evening shift of the week to news of early morning thieves who'd been caught attempting to make their getaway with a cat's flea collar tucked down their pants.

The would-be thieves in question were a pair of seven (YES, SEVEN) year old girls who'd left their house just after seven, cased the joint not long after before coming in a second time, fallen under suspicion and been caught red handed - all before 8:00 in the morning.

After getting a stern talking to from the GM (aka, the Stud, the Sex Pest etc) they were driven home by him (accompanied by a female colleague who isn't his current bit on the side) and handed over to mother still half asleep and upstairs with her girlfriend. The two tea-leaves (for non-Brits Tea Leaf rhymes with Thief, okay?) were pretty shell-shocked by all accounts.

Mid afternoon mother, girlfriend and two kiddies turned up for a second and more formal interview with GM. I got my chance to give this pair of doe-eyed ransackers the once over. Close up their skin wasn't clean, and their clothes were filthy too, as well as ill-fitting. Seems they've been absonding from their home as soon as the sun comes up simply to keep themselves occupied. Sooner or later social services will become involved and it must be a good bet that absolutely nothing good will come of their lives, at all.

The best was yet to come, of course. Results are out today for secondary school students who as a result this evening were intent on going out on the lash whether to celebrate or drown their sorrows.

We had them all in, attempting to buy Vodka mixers, beer, straight spirits, beer and more spirits and more beer. New records were set for sales refusals between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00.

D was in too, though now only as a customer and therefore briefly. Damn it. No sign of the Scottish charmer who was in last night. Did I mention him? No? I guess I want to keep him to myself. Finished at 9:00 suitably knackered and grateful that I'm now off until Wednesday, which is most excellent.

Promotion

2006-08-22T22:53:00.000+01:00

No not me. Don't be silly.

New promotion period began yesterday. New shelf talkers across the shop floor. New prices to download to tills, new shelf edge tickets to be printed off and put in place. Relatively speaking things ran rather smoothly. Working the afternoon/evening shift today I only found one talker that should have been removed before the end of Sunday ahead of the new promotion period beginning. By our standards, not bad.

Insufficient staff as usual. After Monday evening's perambulation about the floor to get a feel for the new deals (yes, I missed the errant talker too, or some twit put it back up - that has been known to happen) and the state of the store before breaking down and enormous load I had high hopes things would be a lot better. No such luck. Gaps everywhere. The only reason people shop with us is because they'd have to go out of town to shop anywhere else.

I had a fancy on Monday evening for the Penne with tomato and mozarella (chilled / microwaveable) and took the chance tonight to grab the head of that section (but not by that part of his anatomy he'd rather like me to grab him by) and asked him about said product, which we're promoting via a vast blue and white poster on the main offer display wall.

Daft Dave shuffled off and came back with something that well, yes, to give him his due did involve tomato and mozarella but no pasta of any sort. Later he came back to admit that he'd found the prominently promoted product in his current listing and now ordered it, so we should have it in store before this promotion period ends. Well done Dave. Shame I'm off on holiday from Friday.

Given the HOG situation the Sex Pest (aka The Stud) was in tonight to check over the Greengrocery order before transmitting it to the warehouse. The Hairdo took her chance to get her retaliation in first, prempting criticism of the lack of load breaking down/shelf stacking done on her shifts by pointing out how few staff we have.

Little direct evidence of contrition from His Excellency, but some. Hopefully he's learned his lesson and in future Summer Vacation periods, should he go down the road of taking on the uni/college students who flood back for the duration, he won't then allow them to turn around and take, um, holidays! FFS we were down four on Sunday alone and tonight had to fall back on a couple of junior drips to get anything out of the warehouse.

Thank God I'm on leave from Friday.

More vermin

2006-08-20T18:26:00.000+01:00

The foyer has begun to reek because a rat has crawled into the cash machine which backs into it there to die, and it has died, and it is now being cooked by the heat generated in there by the innards of the automatic teller.

The cash machine engineer was in attendance on Wednesday. But the rat had already been there and cooking for some days, so that man can't have much of a sense of smell. The pest control man has been in to investigate and gone ... because he's the guy who'll set traps for you rather than the guy to clears up the consequences.

Well the consequences might have to include a call to the district environmental health officer on Monday. We've been through a lot of air freshener but that's just masking the symptoms rather than treating them.

Saturday's stars however were human vermin.

We're plagued by shop lifters and the problem centres around alcohol. Either they're stealing booze to drink it themselves or they're stealing it to flog on - then either to under-age consumers who can't get past our scrutiny of anyone who looks under 21 or to fund an alternative habit (or both).

As a consequence we've done some restructuring of some of the corners or the shop that are most difficult to police (directly or via cameras). The illicit boozers' favourite corner has been dismantled so there's no more lurking behind the HobNobs with the own brand brandy anymore.

Not all thieves are so easily deterred and after some trouble at another outlet during the week we had uniformed security in. He was supposedly in to look out for this small gang of armed alcohol thieves: during the week they pulled a knife on a manager who attempted to stop them. CCTV images of the incident supposedly provide very good clear pictures of these thugs but we don't have them so the security guard (who'd seen the pictures) would be the only person able to ID them before they got into the store or otherwise caused problems.

The uniform is supposedly a deterrent so it was something of a surprise as well as a disappointment that the plucky guard they'd sent us spent most of the afternoon upstairs in the security suite with his feet up on the desk.

The Lunatics (Pt 2)

2006-08-18T22:31:00.000+01:00

Did I really believe that would be that. Ha....

I arrived for the start of my afternoon/evening shift to discover that in the morning my colleagues had been called by the person who'd phone and asked me to do him a favour (as described towards the end of the previous post).

They could see the paperwork, including a copy of the sent email providing all the information he'd requested...

BUT

I'd sent it to the wrong person, hadn't I. As you may recall the person requesting the favour didn't identiry himself. And I foolishly assumed that person failing to identify himself was the Peasant with form in this area. But it wasn't the peasant at all ... in fact it was the Flunky who knew perfectly well I can't tell one jackass from another. I would love, in retrospect, to be able to say that did what I did, in sending the info to the wrong person, quite deliberately. Alas, I wasn't that quick. But the net effect was just as I would have liked.

Colleagues and lunatics

2006-08-17T08:24:00.000+01:00

Someone at work who is paid about twice as much as me didn't do something on Monday that she was supposed to do.

This afternoon head office caught up with that oversight and asked me to fix the problem by sending to them the document my colleague had forgotten to send. The document forms part of the set of documents generated once per week detailing and summarising the week's trading and financial figures. So the obvious place to look for the document was the box at my feet with the relevant week number and also the magical words that are the title of the missing document.

Except that the document I wanted wasn't in there.

So I called another colleague (the first being 'out' for the day) who sometimes does the Monday work hoping she'd be able to tell me where I might find the missing document. No answer. I decided to wait a short while and try again.

In the mean time another underling from head office called to let me know that the bank had reported a shortfall in our cheques for one day during the previous week. Normally this involves a rubber cheque, but on this occasion it seemed the problem might be different; an instance of someone making things up. So I hauled the same box out from under the desk and flipped through the same set of papers for last week and confirmed the cheques we'd taken through the tills on the day in question.

They matched the bank's figures but not the figures we were claiming we'd banked. Problem is we bank another set of cheques; a set on behalf of one of the franchises and that doesn't go through our tills. On the day in question we'd banked one cheque for them, and in the amount of the discrepency. So it appears that the bank has lost one of the cheques. The young lady from head office asked me to fax over a copy of my documents. I agreed, photocopied the flimsy and tried twice to get the damned fax machine to send it to her. Loads of buggering around, in other words and all so that I could stick that copy in the post to her.

At this point, just for one brief moment, I allowed myself to believe that I'd weathered the storm but then some total peasant (male) from head office called to ask where the waste report that had been requested earlier had got to. The conversation was long-winded and decidedly one sided and in no way involved an exchange of names from him to me. I did think I recognised the voice but I wouldn't have been prepared to swear to an identification.

I made another call to the colleague who'd been unavailable earlier and who fortunately now was answering her phone. She pointed me to where the document is kept (not with the rest of the week's data but somewhere else completely) and also where I could find an electronic copy which I could send by email. Less than a minute later the document had been sent on its way by me and purely as a matter of courtesy I called the young lady who'd first requested it to let her know I'd sent it.

This led directly to the only thoroughly enjoyable moment of the afternoon. You see I'm a sucker for a good voice and the guy called Guy on the other end definitely had a Good Voice. But he had no aptitude for the switchboard which he'd happened to answer in passing in the absence of anyone else. However he undertook to take a message. I've no idea what he looks like in a twin-set, pearls, simper and sling-backs but he takes a mean message. In little or no time someone, but not the young lady I'd first spoken with was calling from head office in response.

Now this particular Head Office Flunky started by explaining that what-ever-her-name-is finishes at 4:30 (lucky thing). I explained that my call was a courtesy one to inform her that the document she'd been after had been e-mailed by me since our fax machine is a pile of crap - actually I did put this slightly less inelegantly, but only slightly. I went on to point out that I'd had a follow up call but since the person who'd called hadn't had the manners to identify himself (and yes, I did put it like that) I hadn't been able to call him (or even send the damned document directly to him).

The Flunky on the other end of the line suggested an identity for the caller that matched the identity I'd have given the caller. He went on to commiserate with me on the uncouth colleagues we're burdened by (and undertook to 'have a word with Mr X') but continued by pointing out that the whole sorry saga of this afternoon would have been unnecessary had the thing been done right first time.

I agreed with him but pointed out that the person in question wasn't around to get a clip around the ear hole from me. He expressed a certain touching confidence in my ability to deliver said clip around the ear hole which I deftly parried by suggesting that either the person in question is abnormally tall or I'm abnormally short. The call ended with us on surprisingly (at least as far as I'm concerned) good terms.

About, oh, ninety seconds later the phone rang again. By this time I' given up all hope of getting my job done and I knew, deep down, this would be more hassle from head office. In view of what follows I have to suspect that the peasant was in the room with the fool when the most recently recounted conversation took place. It was The Peasant again.

This time, however, his approach was along the lines of "Good afternoon, Raspberry, its Head Office Peasant." Great start, shame about the follow up: "I understand there's some problem with [the document].

I patiently explained to him that there was no problem, that I'd called as a matter of courtesy and blah blah and would he like me to send him a copy? "No don't worry", he replied. Then a couple of minutes of desultory conversation and then a repeat (stupid, stupid me) of my offer to copy him the document in 'the next little while', this time accepted. I honestly thought that would be that.

As it happens all kinds of IT issues* blew up right about then and I was rather distracted. So a little while turned into about half an hour and then the phone rang again. And it was The Flunky once again, calling because The Peasant had expressed concern to him that I hadn't sent the document he'd been so un-anxious to receive. The Flunky and I had another conversation involving much delicate trashing of those around us. The minute the receiver was back in the cradle I was at the PC sending a copy of my earlier email to the pair of them.

Once more I was lured into thinking I was done with the lunatics who run this particular asylum, but they had one more treat in store for me.

The phone rang and it was the Peasant again, reverting to type in failing to identify himself but launching instead straight into some half apologetic half demanding 'request' that I do him 'a little favour'.

Seems we've had a new range of products sent to store and not one of the nitwits at head office involved in that exercise has taken the time or otherwise had the wit to record our own internal codes for these products. So could I please find the time during the evening to go out onto the shop floor with a list he's about to fax to me and hunt down these products and let him know what our codes for them are.

In between the phone line that carries the credit/debit transactions crashing (something that led to pandemonium) and some dodgy engineer tinkering with the cash machine on which we were suddenly so dependent, and dealing with aimless feckless floor staff who can take half an hour to empty a box onto the shelves and the moaning check-out staff who can't last two hours without a break (and then need a loo break half an hour later) ... I did manage to get those codes for the Peasant. But I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of a thank you.

* Franky I'm bored by the past fortnight's succession of IT/hardware/software chaos, summed up neatly by one customer last night: attempting to purchase someting for about three quid, card transactions not going through, tills on 'go-slow', no cash, unprepared to walk out to the foyer and withdraw cash to pay - "I don't shop here very often and everytime I do there's a problem." I thought for one moment I would be wearing his shopping around my head but he dropped it and walked away.

A BIT OVER SEVEN GRAND

2006-08-12T14:27:00.000+01:00

What you don't want early-ish on what is supposed to be your one untouchable DAY OFF per week is some fool ringing you ON YOUR MOBILE to ask 'WHAT YOU DID WITH THE CHEQUES?" But that's what HAIRDO did yesterday, via an intermediary. Bloody woman.

I was too much like half asleep (insufficient caffeine) to shoot back with ... I ate them dear, they're more nutritious than the crap we've got on the shelves. Damn it, I'd only gone in to do the banking to get someone out of a hole. I could see myself putting the damned things in the safe along with the rest of the day's banking for collection in the morning.

After a typically round-a-bout and accusatory conversation she found them, where she'd put them, among some papers to be mailed off to someone in head office. I guess that's why she gets paid more than me. I'm not actually capable of being simultaneously so stupid and so offensive.

I guess I must have rung off before she got round to her apology for disturbing me on MY DAY OFF!

While near the subject of Head Office I had a wonderful conversation with SIMON who is a paper shuffler in Mock Ivory Towers.

As a result of the technological melt-down we've been enduring for the best part of the past fortnight our grasp of our trading position is well ... tenuous. Weekly figures submitted for the previous week (during which the problem emerged) were laced with caveats.

Simon called on Wednesday asking for a copy of the main summary document produced and submitted on a weekly basis. I produced it for him and sent it up.

Simon called back and told me that wasn't what he wanted, so could I please send to him some other document instead. I must have missed his apology for the waste of my time involved in the earlier work.

Simon called a third time to announce that 'our figures agree'. Well gee, Simon, there's a surprise. The figures for the week produced by THE COMPUTER on Sunday agree with the figures produced by the same machine a few days later. Can I explain the discrepency between what the figures should say and what they do say (a matter of a little over SEVEN GRAND)?

I sure can: our entire IT system is a decrepit heap of shit that breaks down with consequences catastrophic for financial and stock management.

Simon went away to have a natter with his manager SAMANTHA, leaving me hanging on and more than a little frustrated. As an aside I would wager a small sum Simon does that to all the girls.

Samantha eventually came on to ask for an explanation of the figures: I patiently went over with her the long history of our ten days of software and hardware failures that have prevented us from gathering in a timely fashion the data from tills with which we assemble our trading reports. I relayed to her the advice from the software management company that the figures would sort themselves out at the end of the following figures; that the discrepency essentially represented 'trapped' sales figures held over from the previous week which would now wash out.

She heard me out before asking "what should the figure be?". Now the answer to this question was "we can't know until the end of the week", so I replied with "I don't know". She came back with "but can you give me a rough idea?". Well yes, a rough idea would be "a bit over SEVEN GRAND". That wasn't good enough.

We went around and around in circles for a little while; an exercise in futility that essentially amounted to me resisting her attempts to lure me into putting my name to an entirely fictitous figure that was A BIT OVER SEVEN GRAND, but wasn't the same A BIT OVER SEVEN GRAND as the one she already has.

After a time we both grew bored and she went away to make up a figure all on her own. I have no idea what happened to SIMON, and frankly I don't care what happened to the little twerp.

Live Rats, Dead Flies, Fleas

2006-08-07T11:15:00.000+01:00

A catalogue of vermin.

The highlight of the day was answering the phone around lunch time (I wasn't very hungry anyway) to be asked by someone who wouldn't identify herself to be put through to the manager, or a deputy manager or an assistant manager or some such lofty personnage. Eventually she relented and explained that she'd seen a rat scurrying away from our premises along a gutter in the direction of the video rental place opposite.

She hadn't seen the thing actually on our premises and had no idea what we might possibly do about a rat she'd seen half an hour earlier (which for all she might know had wandered down to the railway station and boarded a train for London in the meantime), but I suppose she felt better for letting us know.

A member of the shop floor staff and I found the dead fly while we were trying to decipher a handwritten order from the woman who'd done a check of gaps in the cheeses/butter cabinets. We didn't find the products she'd miscoded, but we did find the fly. It wasn't any consolation.

I got bitten by a flea during the afternoon. So our office is hereby unofficially declared flea-ridden. How charming.

We also had a stinky customer in. Not the stinky customer all the Kiddies think must have gangrene, the one who can be smelled from one side of the store to the other. This one in yesterday was less stinky, but stinky all the same. Smell-able from one end of the checkouts to the other, with a stench which like that of the other woman lingers long after she's waddled off to the carpark. Gross

Both of them are married. Unfair as well as simply unbelieveable.

It's raining and today I have to walk to work. Also unfair. I'm sure August was supposed to be hot and sunny. Bloody weather forecasters. They're vermin too.

The wonders of modern technology

2006-08-05T11:39:00.000+01:00

How the technology's meant to serve us (and thereby support us in serving our customers); full integration of stock control, which means:-

. computerised ordering, which feeds directly into ...
. the computerised regional warehouse(s), which generates ...
. deliveries and for each a computerised delivery note which when accepted ...
. adds the related stock into our computerised stock levels which ...
. are then reduced as stocks are put through the tills as sold or...
. eliminated electronically as wastage with corresponding stock level reductions that ...
. triggering another electronic order

The system's fallible at several points which coincide with the necessity for human intervention, and human intervention is necessary because our customers are human beings rather than automatons taking home the same things in the same quantities week in and week out.

And then there's the shop lifting... (theft).

Human intervention raises order levels on products in or going into promotion and takes weather forecasts into account as well as factors such as external events (ie, the recent World Cup)

The whole thing's currently buggered up: God knows how old the system is but it's been running on the metaphorical IT equivalent of sticking plaster, rubber bands and chewing gum for as long as I've been here. The point in the local network at which the back office and tills meet has collapsed and there's no traffic either way. Which means stock levels aren't being adjusted and draft orders are meaningless which means human intervention is essential to ensure that we do order what we need to have come in (and conversely not order what we don't actually need to have come in).

And that might explain why on a delivery this week we received a cage of baby clothing (?!) and three dozen boxes (of four dozen items each) of an item we sell 11 of each week. Much swearing (by the Stud) and apologising (by the Bint).

In the meantime the responsibilty for ordering has been lifted from the new HOG's quavering shoulders; for a month. This isn't a solution, its a deferral.

We've been promised replacement eye-candy in the greengrocery department but there's no guarantee that the Stud has a good eye for the sort of eye candy the middle aged women he employs have a taste for.

Then, to our delight late in the day today we had a visit from IT who loitered for a while and made some pretence of making some efforts to fix the problem with the interface between the tills and the back office. Happily he'd been called in on a day off and was dressed appropriately, in tight jeans and white vest...

Tucked away discretely at both entrances (where no-one who can read is likely to see them and be offended by what they say) are notices calling for customers to be fully dressed while in the store in the interests of hygiene. These notices went up during the July heatwave when we suffered an influx of topless men - oatmeal and strawberry coloured on top, hairy, obese, balding, middle aged, tatooed, pierced and unshaven.

As the weather has finally warmed up again in these parts we had a few half naked men drift in this afternoon, blithely ignoring the discrete notices, nipple rings to the fore. The Bulldog, the Frustrated Author and I had a conversation about these "Polite Requests" that customers dress before calling on us. We're not the sort of organisation to get in your face on such issues but the Bulldog being the Bulldog she was all gung-ho (in the office) about pointing the notices out to these eye-sores.

Mind you she'd have taken off the IT guy's vest with her teeth if she'd been given half a chance!

So imagine my surprise when I came upon her engaged in a member of staff who, on his day off, had come into the store shirtless.

I let the opportunity to say something like "nice shirt, X" pass but I did bring the matter up with the Bulldog later ... to which she replied "yes, well" and I expected her usual line of waffle. But what I got instead was "I didn't think I could point the notice out to him when we were in the middle of having a discussion about how we're going to help him with reading and checking off the delivery note when he takes in the Sunday order. He can't read."

So that's another one, and he's in charge of the staples such as milk and butter and cheese.

All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here

2006-08-03T12:03:00.000+01:00

That's the original English rendition of Dante's Latin rendering of what was or perhaps is inscribed at the entrance to Hell. When I started this post I was going to call it The Penny Has Dropped, but I've had time for reflection and gathered further information.

Our head of greengrocery (HOG) has left for a more senior job in a smaller store, after giving us nine years as girl and woman. She's bright but not well educated. She's energetic, motivated and will probably do very well. Okay, she's a total lick-arse too, but kudos; she's got what she was aiming for. There were tears when she signed off on her last shift.

We've also lost the no. 2 on the dairy/chilled goods department in the last week - he's off to become a web designer.

The young guy who's recently been filling the soft drinks shelves has been offered the role of HOG. Now this morning this is what I went on to say: "and been generally useful, always willing to do anything asked of him and almost inevitably getting done what's asked of him provided sufficiently detailed instructions are given... cheerfully, promptly and willingly."

I do love the guy to bits (in an entirely platonic way); I admire his persistence and his courage in overcoming certain obstacles to hold down a full time job and establish himself as one of the most highly valued members of our team. I do believe that with appropriate training and support he can take on more and more responsibility with time.

But... and the big but(t) in this isn't mine: the young guy in question has what might be called 'learning difficulties'. They're not glaringly obvious until you look very closely and spot what he avoids. So while this morning I was going to reflect on how great the challenge he faces given the paucity of training he's been offered, the brevity of the 'hand over' and the total absence of potential support within the group of staff he'll inherit ... I now have to say that the future of our greengrocery department: ordering, staff cover and all, has been placed in the hands of someone who can't read well enough to be trusted to complete the Incoming Goods Book which is the log of everything entering the store. He simply can't read well enough to cope with the demands of that task, and in all honesty I can't see how he could possibly cope with what he's now being asked to do.

No-one will be happier than me if I'm proved wrong. If by some miracle real support from above emerges that will be a godsend and it is just possible that the Lads who work shifts in the department will actually turn out to be supportive. I wish him all the best and I'll be furious with all the appropriate people if this hastily knocked together experiment fails.

In the mean time the departure of this young man to pastures new has created a vacancy in the soft-drinks-filling-department. The Bulldog offered those 'hours' to one of the young lads who's recently shown a degree of real willing. Initially he said yes, then he said no, then he said yes, but ... I still don't know where we stand except that next Sunday he'll be working on the Dairy/Chilled goods section to cover for the No.2 in that department who, as noted earlier, as scarpered.

Now, to the reason for the previous choice of title: The newest member of the management team has had an epiphany: she's discovered the downside of our relentless pursuit of flexibility through part-time working and shift-based contracts of employment.

We're not an option for someone who actually is driven and motivated and willing to work full time. There are people out there who want the responsibility and the remuneration of full time work and will settle for us and what we offer only until what they really want comes along.

Partly this arose from her experience in attempting to get some kind of commitment over the soft drinks 'role' but partly it came from a subsequent interview with someone who to all intents and purposes drifted in with the expectation of being taken on by us to do 'oh, a couple of hours here and a few hours there, to top up what I'm earning in my other job'. Oh, yes? This young woman's mind-set became apparent when she took a look at the application form she was asked to complete (name and other personal details, education and work experience) and wanted to know 'if this was really necessary?"

We were interviewing her in the first place because all the choicer prospects on our books had already secured a better offer. We didn't offer her a job, though.

I'd love to say otherwise but don't rely on us for your salad ingredients in the next few weeks.

Yesterday's little rebellion

2006-07-31T10:38:00.000+01:00

On my own with the Invisible Man (aka The General Manager, aka The Stud) yesterday, I lost my temper after spending most of our opening hours issuing refunds and making till changes for products that were 'on offer' but not scanning correctly.

Only at around 3:00pm with an hour of trading left did I discover that for the first time in memory some of the deals included in the offer period that ended this weekend just past were ending on the Saturday, rather than the Sunday. We had spent the Sunday trading with promotions of offers that had ended. The end date is the fine print and an argument could be mounted that the customer should have taken the time to read that fine print ... but as customer relations go, giving prominence on the shelves to offers that have lapsed is a bit of a fiasco as I can testify after a day of dealing with the frustrated to down-right livid.

We had been offering lots of deals on ice-creams and related frozen confectionary lines: half of the promo. flyers had to come off, but had to stay on. Then I phoned the GM (who was skulking in his office)and told him what I'd done expecting to have to argue a defence for having committed such an outrageously unilateral and independent act. Instead I got stunned silence followed by a request that I repeat.

Did no one higher up the food chain bother to point out the unprecedented end date of some offers? If they didn't were they expecting to rely on the "read the fine print" argument. Belatedly I had someone go round the rest of the store ripping off the out-of-date offer signage. Probably cost us some measurable percentage of our profits and blame hasn't yet been apportioned.

I'll get it in the neck for the refunds and the till adjustments, but I'll be expected to blame the AGM who was supposed to be managing the offers, who in her turn will also get it in the neck from the AGM will lash out at the shop floor staff who fail to manage their sections with sufficient care and everyone will blame the system and the higher life forms who leave us to swing in the breeze.

In the grand scheme of things this was just small change, but as a vignette it illustrates perfectly the sundry minor failings that mount up to constitute a failing internal system and a collosal leakage of staff moral and customer goodwill.

Culture Stuff

2006-07-29T11:00:00.000+01:00

Before turning my hand at retail I worked in management consulting for seven years (and before that I worked as an ...). I don't do regrets but I do see now that I missed a trick not blogging my way through my stint with the nameless firm I gave seven years of my life to and the clients we fleeced: and I mean that. £1,600 a day for me?

We overdid the culture crap, we tied ourselves in knots and spent small fortunes in our attempts to get the culture thing right. Performance management, training and development, career management, personal development planning, development centres.... and we made increasing use of technology to plan, develop, operate, evaluate and communicate all this 'stuff'. To support this every individual had access to an intranet and not merely the right but the responsibilty to avail him or herself of this information and the opportunites for development and progression provided by the firm.

Of course there was secrecy, of course there were circles within circles and of course there were machinations.

What we didn't do was blame and fear. Partly this was down to careful recruitment. We recruited people who could cope with self-starting, self-development and thriving in an up-or-out culture (particularly, in the latter case, on the fee-earning side).

I had no idea what I was letting myself in for when I joined this current outfit. Having been reared in a culture which expected me, when I had a question, to identify and go directly to the source of information.

So in all innocence I called our HR deparment when a few store staff had a question about pay rates. It's an HR-y question so I call HR. Obviously. Er, no.

I made the call at about 9:30 and spoke to some young thing who offered to post the information I was asking for to my home. I asked that instead she fax it to me directly at work. She then got cold feet (though I wasn't certain that was what was happening until afterwards) and said she'd check and come back. A couple of hours passed and no fax. I went off to lunch.

I came back and a few minutes later the phone at my desk rang. It was the GM.

>Had I phoned HR?

:Yes

>Why?

:To get some information about ...

>Well you should have asked me

:Okay

>What did you want to know?

:What the award says about pay rates

>What do you want to know?

:What the award says about pay rates

>Well, you [blah, blah, blah]

:This isn't about me

>You [blah, blah, blah]

:This isn't about me

>What do you want to know?

:W h a t t h e a w a r d s a y s...

>I know that there are rumours going around, there is a lot of discussion and mis-information about what people are entitled to this coming bank holiday - but you are [blah, blah, blah]

:I just want to be able to read, for myself, what the award says

>Well there's a copy of it on the staff canteen's notice board...

:There is?

>Well there should be (much background muttering, seems he's not alone and now The Hairdo is in a panic, I'm beginning to understand what I've triggered)

:Okay

So let's get this straight. I can go upstairs and read the fucking thing (if it is on the staff notice board) but I can't have a copy sent to me. I could stroll upstairs to make a cup of coffee, take the thing down, bring it back with me to the office, copy it and then quietly return the original - but I can't have the fucking thing faxed to me.

I don't think he's ever forgiven me: because he, and by way of what passes for delegation The Hairdo too, has responsibility for providing certain information to the staff and by calling HR I'd led to them querying whether the fucking thing was properly displayed, or in other words whether The Stud and The Hairdo are doing their job properly.

Oops. Bad politics I grant, but I still think the whole thing is fucking stupid. You see, back in the half hour before I made that call to HR I actually did consult with a colleague who's been with the business for 9 years about where I might find the information I wanted: she didn't know about the pay arrangements for bank holidays being in a document on the staff notice board. As far as I've been able to ascertain no one else did either.

Information overload, but it cuts both ways

2006-07-27T10:03:00.000+01:00

From the moment the Shopper steps foot inside a supermarket he or she is subjected to a barrage of information.

The challenge this constitutes compounds and compounds as the Shopper is drawn past the newspapers and magazines into the greengrocery department. Beyond lie the dairy and other chilled goods on one side and the deli on the other. At the far end is our in-house bakery. Having made it this far the Shopper is confronted with our butchery and seafood offerings.

By this time the Shopper (who may or may not have arrived with a plan - see here for an exploration of The Shopping List) has probably given up what from the start was a very unequal struggle and surrendered to us.

Things only get worse from this point. Which ever way the shopper turns there is no escape. Head south and face a wall of herbs and spices that segues into jams and pastes or strike out in a westerly direction past the bagged bread in the direction of a long tunnel of biscuits and snacks.

Which ever way the Shopper turns he (for the sake of simplicity) will turn left or right at some point and run the gauntlet or one or more of our 'aisles'.

First aisle is (currently) laid out with the pastas and sauces, followed by the 'ethnic' food(yes, that's what its called, though only for internal consumption: it's the rices, noodles and asian sauces, plus the mexican range) and then whole foods (that's the tofu and other inedible stuff). On the other side are the tinned crap (mostly baked beans), tinned veg, tinned meals (actually more tinned crap) and then the tinned fruit.

On and on it goes, through household, baby stuff, petfood, beverages, soft drinks, booze, health and beauty and frozen goods. Beyond the main aisles lie the remaining concessions - pharmacy, electrical and travel.

Everywhere the shopper turns he's being manipulated; everywhere he turns he's being bombarded. Every item we stock (excluding some loose greengrocery and some loose bakery) is packaged, and the packaging carries information.

The packaging will bear some combination of branding, variety, description, size (weight, volume, length), barcode, price, special offer specifics, manufacture's name, supplier's name, customer care details, warnings, contents, instructions for use/cooking, manufacturing codes such as production date and batch number and Use By date.

Sometimes in addition to all the above the packaging carries competition details, or marketing hooks: New Formula! New Scent! New, Improved! New, Bigger! Now 'whatever' than ever!

The shelves carry 'shelf labels', the price tags which carry a whole lot of information, some proportion of which is utterly of no interest whatsoever to the Shopper. The information on one of our SLs will include:

some abbreviation of the product name
the size
the price
the warehouse source (of no interest to the customer)
price per unit or weight (supposedly to facilitate understanding of the price and also make comparison possible)
barcode (of no interest to the customer)
warehouse code (of no interest to the customer)
manufacture code (of no interest to the customer)

Unfortunately the information provided by the manufacturers (and us) doesn't end with those shelf labels (always assuming we've actually got them present and correct). Also taking up space along the shelves are the 'offer notices'. These are much larger than the shelf labels and also a contrasting colour. They carry information about BOGOFs (that's buy one, get one free) or TWOFERS (two for - or three, four etc, some price). We also, sometimes, do those old-fashioned WASNOW (clearance price type offers) deals.

The aisles are usually something of an obstacle course. In addition to the mid-aisle displays (including the one topped out with a TV that promotes a range of shoddy domestic cleaning gadgets) you'll often find abandoned warehouse cages, packaging litter and abandoned shopping, as well as geriatric customers, middle-aged conflabs and an assortment of children.

Beyond this the store is festooned with more or less pointless 'stuff' such as bobbing flowers to celebrate the warm weather but really to add more noise to the cacophony. What limited wall space is available will be plastered with posters promoting a cross-section of the current deals and special offers.

Within the arrangement of the departments the goods are arrayed with multiple sometimes conflicting objectives.

On the one hand the supermarket has an obligation to its owners to maximise the return available from inducements to position products in the position of choice of the supplier/manufacturer.

On the other hand the supermarket has an outright objective of selling through as much as possible in the shortest possible time. So product must be placed within sight of its target audience. Which is why granny's mints are at her eye-level but her grand kids lollypops are at their eye-level. Simple and blindingly obvious. Where there's a conflict the product that takes precedence (inducements being equal) will be the product with the most demanding target. That means toddlers.

Don't expect products to be clustered. The chopped tomatoes will be on one shelf, while the chopped tomatoes with garlic will be on another shelf and foot or so to the left and the chopped tomatoes with garlic and herbs will be on yet another shelf and someway off to the right. Why? Because it forces the shopper in search of that particular product to scan the shelves in way and to an extent that he or she might not. In this way we hope to contribute to maximising impulse buying.

Impulse buying is one way in which customers are beguiled into spending more than they'd intended (or even perhaps can reasonably afford); buy buying things they absolutely don't need.

No-one impulse buys milk.

Another way customers are beguiled into spending more than absolutely needed is through the pricing structure, tortuous 'deal' terms and conditions and sloppy labelling. Bigger isn't always cheaper. Study the price per (100g/kilo/cl, whatever); take a calculator if necessary. Often the largest packaging of a product will have its price per described one way while the other smaller sizes will be described in other ways, making it difficult if not impossible for the shopper to be canny.

For the second time this year we're offering a range of our bottled ales and beers on a 3 for £4 deal. Individually the beers are £1.85 per bottle. About eight beers are included in the offer and the shopper can purchase any three beers to qualify. The bottles are all on the top shelf in a block. Except that there's a cuckoo in the nest: in their midst we've placed another popular bottled beer which we sell at the slightly higher price of £1.89. Now of course the customer's got an obligation to pick his way through the promotion fine print, which isn't so small anyway.

But the number of customer's who've come to the tills with one of these cuckoo bottles strongly suggests that they're making what they see as a perfectly reasonable assumption that the whole row of bottled drinks is included in the offer. And all to often when confronted with the evidence of their mistake - the fine print, the shopper chooses to add to his shopping with enough bottles from the range in the offer to qualify the offer but without returning the bottles of the non-qualifying product. They just take the added hit.

I also wonder quite how exercised we as a business are about complying with the Sale of Goods Act. We're selling a range of flash priced ice-creams, we've been selling them for weeks, one of the most popular varieties for some reason doesn't trigger the offer at the tills, so the customer ends up paying for each at the individual price rather than in accordance with the flashed Two for £x price.

Of course when a customer picks up the mistake we're all grovellingly apologetic and refund the overcharge. But someone somewhere quite possibly is making the calculated decision that anything less than 100% return for refund is a win for us. You can be certain that someone sits in an office quite a long way from the nearest customer.

On average every three weeks our offers change over and the first few days afterwards are total chaos. The offers don't scan properly, the check-out staff and their supervisors get totally stressed and a flurry of emails ensues as we work to get the offer coding right. Inevitably after the first few days things settle down as the necessary programming of the tills is fed in finally and everything scans.

And that is precisely what makes me so cynical about the ice-creams. If we can get each offer period's new deals working within a couple of days (and of course they should all work from the off, but that's a different subject) then why has the ice cream still not been sorted out after weeks and weeks?

On a completely different level we simply fail to keep everything we're selling properly and accurately price-tagged. So people buy what takes their fancy without any regard for the price they're going to be charged.

This can have unfortunate consequences and sometimes unpleasant ones. Yesterday I was confronted by a seriously pissed-off gentleman who'd picked up a couple of bottles of a wine from one of the display bins down in the dairy section. He found me on the shop floor and complained that he'd been overcharged because the wines were being promoted as a 2 for £x offer and he'd been charged full price. I went round with him to look at the promotion. Often the shopper has not read the fine print (see above) and can be brought to accept that they've made a mistake.

Unfortunately what I found more than justified the shopper's state of fury. First of all the two adjacent bins held two very different wines and neither bin had any pricing information whatsoever. Secondly, draped across the bin from which the shopper had drawn his two bottles was a sign that did indeed promote a wine on a 2 for £x offer. But the promoted wine was the wine in the adjacent bin. Someone from among our staff had clearly got bored before completing the stack. Instead of setting up the promotion poster in a stand he or she had left it lying about, where isn't clear, and at some time it had become associated with the wrong wine.

Now the poster did specify, down in the lower right corner, which of our wines qualified for the deal, but handwritten rather than printed. The irate shopper's point which was that it was difficult to know what to believe when we were so sloppy in the way we laid out our product and failed to apply price labels and display promotion details was entirely valid.

By the time he'd finished I felt thoroughly wrung out and half-expected a visit from trading standards.

I sorted the promotion posted and price labels out and got back to my job. I didn't bother telling the GM what had happened because he doesn't care. If the customer has made a mistake, and the sign did specify the wine (or in other words we're skirting on the right side of the law in respect of the promotion), then all the rest (including the customer relations) isn't his problem.

And you can bet if Trading Standards had turned up to rap him over the knuckles he'd have clobbered someone else in turn.

Workplace negotiations

2006-07-26T08:44:00.001+01:00

First of all identify the weakest link in the rest of the management chain and offer up the hope that you'll be her friend (and laugh at her unfunny jokes), then dig your stubby little toes in. Pout and insist that you won't do any more holiday cover until you're given approval of your chosen holiday dates. Then sit back and wait. In the time it takes for the coffee maker to overflow and send fresh coffee tumbling in aromatic rivulets down the front of the box-safe you'll have her back with not just a confirmation of your holiday dates, but an offer to re-jig things so that you don't take the bank holiday as a Monday, and she'll pay you for it anyway because its one of the days you're contracted to work.

I'll settle for that for the moment.

I didn't get poked in the shoulder by any repellent customers yesterday, which in some ways constitutes a victory.

We had our fair share of muppets though. Including the woman who couldn't read the shelf talker promoting soap powder offer. Including the couple of kids who picked up two random packets of bacon and then complained when they didn't go through on the TwoFor offer we currently promoting on a completely different range. The chicken satays still don't scan. One product from the ice-cream TwoFor offer still isn't keyed into the offer: quite why every single customer buying from the offer range is picking up this particular product is mystifying. I guess without such screw ups the check out supervisor would be out of a job.

Some fool wandered in with a couple of boxes to deliver. He wandered in through the front door and spent an unhappy 15 minutes touring the aisles before anyone pointed out to him that the service entrance would be a more appropriate place for deliveries. Our yardman spent a happy half our in the afternoon inside the chicken ovens. He's that sort of odd-ball.

The GM fucked off during the middle part of the day to take delivery of his new gazebo. He's spent a fortune on his garden this summer. The mood lightened appreciably. For a shot time everyone was able to get on with his or her job, without his particular form of micro-management to send everyone climbing the walls.

The stock take apparently went well and the figures were well within tolerances. Not only that but our trading figures are coming out top of the regional league table.

We're all feeling rather smug. An insubstantial post, I admit, but it is rather warm already and it is my day off.

I'm off shopping.

Some stuff our staff tolerate

2006-07-22T23:12:00.000+01:00

There's standard crap and then there's industrial grade crap. In the main our staff cope with the run of the mill by being run of the mill but when the industrial grade crap comes along they can surprise everyone, themselves included probably, by rising to the challenge in the most heart-warming way.

Leaving aside for the purposes of this post the management weaknesses there are still many challenges; they include in no particular order:

Thieves, aka Shoplifters. The shop floor staff are our eyes and ears. The walls of their lunch room are adorned with cctv images of known thieves and staff are expected to be alert at all times to attempts by these known criminals to carry out an offence within our premises. If you ever see a member of store staff behaving like Inspector Clousseau on a bad day, that's quite possibly because he or she is making a valiant attempt to be more effective than said inspector without any professional training whatsoever.

Under age would-be customers. Alcohol, cigarettes, lottery, matches, lighters and knives are just some of the lines we sell that are 'age restricted', though the age varies. Our policy is that customers who don't look at least 21 years old should be asked to produce ID and the range of accepted ID is very limited. The personal consequences of being caught not adhering to this policy are rather serious ( formal discipline leading directly to dismissal for a second offence).

The consequences of selling to someone who is underage and being caught doing so are potentially catastrophic. Trading Standards (under the cosh) are investing heavily in choking the life out of the problem from the supply end as manifested in supermarkets and other retail outlets for alcohol. Of course the business would suffer from bad publicity and potentially loss of licence, but its the poor sodding checkout operator who gets the fine and the criminal conviction if she or he gets it wrong.

Smelly customers. We're not talking BO, we're talking the kind of stench that can make a toughened stomach heave at ten paces and can be smelt from one end of the store to the other. This is the kind of reek that lingers long after the actual source has left the building. We have two sources, and they are both regular visitors. Both are elderly ladies, both have attentive husbands. We're mystified.

So bad is the stench that emanates from these two ladies that we have an established alert network, thanks to which we know from the moment either enters the store that she's around. The check-out supervisor will do what she can to ensure that Smelly Lady ends up at the check-out operated by her least favourite operator.

Rumours abound from the soft hearted that both suffer from medical conditions that are the root cause of the stench; the hard headed know, this being a small town, that both live in the midst of too many cats and too much detritus and that if they'd only clean up their respective acts they'd both smell a lot less offensive.

Mad ladies: We only have one at the moment. She's almost extraordinarily well spoken, when she speaks at all. Her brain though has been fried by drink and drugs. Out side the store she's infamous for stomping up and down the high street all day, veering from one side to the other for cause of something or other imperceptible to moderate drinkers, totally oblivious it seems to road users and other possible threats on her life. Come hail rain or shine she wears a heavy coat, jeans turned up to mid calf and deck shoes. In winter she adds a beanie, in summer she wears a head scarf. She mutters to herself too.

She comes in pretty much every day to buy a small amount of shopping that she gathers into one of our hand baskets. On her bad days she won't carry the basket, though. Instead she kicks the basket around the store, keeping it just ahead, never more than a couple of feet from her. To my knowledge she's never actually kicked her basket into another person or a fixture. She must be quite practiced. It isn't easy to kick a semi-loaded shopping basket with any degree of accuracy. I tried it once out of curiosity.

Depending on her particular form and degree of paranoia she might take it into her head either that she's being followed or that something malign is emanating from one part of the store or other; under such a delusion she'll slope about the store, basket at her feet, with her coat pulled up over the lower part of her face in an effort at disguise or self-defence.

Bad drivers: bad driver hazard comes in three forms. First the car park ayrton senna, determined to take someone out with him (or her). Then the trolley trasher, determined to sever a few achilles heels and take out a display stand or three. But the greatest threat of all faced by our staff (and customers too, I guess) are those geriatrics who insist on getting their bloated carcases about in what are known, I believe, as mobility carts. They're those electric scooters old folk drive about town without regard for rules, manners or the safety of anyone. No driving licence required. No thought required either, it seems.

Easy Rider has been banned after being caught trying to make a getaway in one laden down with half a dozen bottles of hot scotch. This has caused great distress to the underage yoots who loiter outside; he had been one of their chief sources of illicit booze. Several others though still will insist on manoeuvring these damn things into and around our store.

Clearly this is all ageist, these mobility carts transform the lives of those who would otherwise be housebound. I'm just intrigued that such a high proportion of their users are so grossly overweight. Fat so they can't be bothered to walk, don't walk so they get fatter. The arrival of the mobility cart seems to herald the departure of the will to get any better.

One of my favourite poems is the one about getting old and wearing a purple dress and running my umbrella along the railings of the fence (etc), but please, if you ever see me get into those carts, shoot me.

I've not covered rude customers, stupid customers, work-shy colleagues, incompetent colleagues and other stuff that will come to me. I guess there'll be a sequel.

If you ever get the feeling

2006-07-21T21:35:00.000+01:00

that the place you're shopping in is run by a shower of idiots who couldn't stage the proverbial piss up in a brewery then, guess what? You're probably right.

The retail sector isn't my natural home, I knew that years ago; I'm a lousy customer, how could I make a success of stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap. We're not quite at that end of the market but we're not far from it.

Whereever this curious career detour takes me, however it ends I won't regret it for the vivid experiences: the sampling of life amongst a demographic I've rarely experience before and in an economic cul-de-sac.

For all the importance of consumer spending to the overall economy, however central retail is to the circulation of money (the oxygen in the bloodstream of the economy), it is in many senses a dead end.

There's nowhere else for the product to go once it gets here. It simply has to be sold or it can't be, and nature abhors a vacuum. People make stuff and people build stores in which to sell stuff and employ people to stack and flog stuff and employ people to design manipulations to convince the public that they need (and can afford) the stuff.

The truth though is that most of what we sell every day of the week is non-essential. I'm willing to bet that probably 90% of what passes through our check-outs falls into that category in the sense that no-one would die for want of that soft drink, bag of crisps, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, biscuits, cakes and so forth. We feed our selves and pour the other 90% of our grocery spending into 'stuff'.

The alternative to this cornucopia of choice is of course the starkly unappealing barren shelves of eastern europe and the soviet union before the curtain crashed.

So I'm conflicted. I do believe in a free market economy, I just find the logical conclusion of that argument as manifested in cheap, mass-produced junk made for and bought by people who have no real need for it (can't really afford it anyway) thoroughly distasteful.

It seems you can't go wrong by under-estimating the taste and discretion of British consumer. So we flog microwaveable burgers which must surely be disgusting. They almost certainly skirt the line that exist to define and separate what is fit for human consumption from that which is not. And they fly off the shelves.

Most of them are bought by spotty yoots who should be immersed in academic work or in training towards acquiring a saleable skill or in a job. These yoots are being left to drift through their adolesence without any direction or supervision and without a clue how to look after themselves. When they can they purchase cigarettes and alcohol.

A proportion of the rank produced is purchased though by the mothers of these yoots and their younger siblings. This junk is fueling a generation of brits that have worse prospects than any generation born in the preceding century. The very technology that enables me to compose and publish this post is driving change at a pace that like all seismic industrial shifts before it leaves vast swathes of the population drowing in its wake.

When my ancestors took up work in dangerous conditions on the railways or down the coal mines or in the factories 'up north' they didn't do so in hope, they did so in desperation.

No need to take a lousy job these days. The state takes with one hand and gives with the other. Like a latter day Robin Hood, the exchequer and the inland revenue stand shoulder to shoulder and between the haves and have-nots.

The people who stack shelves and operate the checkouts of our supermarket in the main stand just one notch up the food chain. If they're older women they weren't properly educated in the first place, were given no plausible alternatives as children and teenages to marriage, home and a job that fitted in with the demands of the husband, the house and the kids.

The rest are people who couldn't get a job anywhere else for some other reason (and currently that does include me).

Even the General Manager's neither as intelligent nor as competent as he likes to believe but some rat-like instinct has told him that with his limitations he'll rise relatively higher up the food chain in retain than he could in any other sector. Nowhere else would be be earning 50 grand a year, but then nowhere else would he have risen to the heights he has scaled.

Circumstances of one kind or another drive almost all of those in retail to chose it over some other sector. Very, very few are actually called to work in the sector and for them I feel a mixture of awe and compassion.

Relatively speaking at every level within retail peanuts are the going rate and monkey's are what we get to choose from. And that goes someway to explaining why the last couple of nights we've had about twice as many staff in as we actually required to receive and break down what was being delivered and put it on the shelves. But tonight when the biggest order of the week was about to arrive, we were struggling to man checkouts let alone fill shelves.

Only one AGM was available to work the shop floor (Barbie doesn't do nights and The Stud and his paramour were trysting somewhere off-site). That left The Bulldog effing and blinding all over the shop when I called in to pick up a few last minute bits and pieces for the evening meal.

Staffing is put in the hands of a bonkers Supervisor who has a good but imperfect grasp of English and her own very firmly fixed views on what is required. But the consequences of her folly laid at the feet of management who either shrug their shoulders and marvel at the sheer folly that seems all-pervasive while the on-duty manager effs her way through her evening. On the other hand the same customers who on Wednesday night must have felt under seige every time they looked like they just might need help were left tonight wondering if anyone actually was working.

Poor lambs. There's always That Other Chain.

Bread

2006-07-19T12:29:00.000+01:00

July. Summer. Hot weather. Dining al fresco. The circumstances demand to be taken into consideration when planning product lines and when ordering.

Which goes no way towards explaining why we're not getting burger buns or 'finger' (hot dog) rolls.

The man in charge of the bread department calls our supplier. The lovely young man on the other end of the line says "we have a problem". The man in charge of the bread replies with "I have a problem, and its you." The Bread Man asks why he hasn't received the rolls and buns he ordered. The fragrant young man on the other end of the line complains that its hot, as though demand for such bread lines should be depressed by the heat.

Patiently the Bread man explains the link between warm weather, dining alfresco and the upsurge in demand for precisely the sort of bread line so popular at barbeques.

Oh!

The Bread Man has no say in which supplier he orders the bread from. Such issues are decided by beings further up the food chain and at several removes from the 'coal face'. Who ever drafted the contract we have with the Bakery neglected to insert an effective penalty clause. The bread's supposed to be with us an hour before we open in the morning, but since the penalty clause only kicks if the bread's more than three hours late the bread turns up pretty much whenever the bakery's driver feels like it.

Under pressure from That Supermarket Chain (which recently opened an outlet near us now on the bakery driver's route) he took to delivering to them first, though we'd amended the contract to require that he deliver to us first.

That Supermarket Chain only obtained planning permission for their outlet, which is situated in a built up residential area, when they agreed to only open at 7 and accept deliveries during business hours. Threats of legal action were required before they brought their practices into line after opening. Mind you the man who was running the place at the time has since been sacked and taken up a job as a school caretaker.

In the meantime we still have to deal with our supplier's rather lacadaisical approach to order filling and time keeping. We do have fun with heaving, sighing customers who take one look at our empty shelves and stomp off vowing only to shop with That Supermarket Chain in future. They usual slink back an hour or so later, tails between their legs, only having discovered that That Supermarket Chain hasn't any more bread than we do.

The Bakery gets its revenge for our compliants about having to deal with the consequences of their incompetence. The bread trays are left out in the open for long enough, between bagging and loading onto van, for the birds to have their breakfast and every day, without fail, the Bread Man gets to pick through the delivery to remove the bags the birds have pecked through.

Inevitably one or two will slip through the net from time to time and so I get to deal with the complaining customer who has finally got his or her bread loaf and got it home, only to discover that the birds got there first.

Ten Things Your Supermarket Doesn't Want You To Know

2006-07-15T09:52:00.000+01:00

This is the text of an article written by Anne Kadet which can also be found here at SmartMoney's web site. It was written with an American readership in mind and and consequently there are aspects of law and practice that are inapplicable in a UK or European context. I haven't cleaned up the American Spelling yet, but will get around to that. Furthermore the article first appeared in 2001 and the passage of time may have resulted in a limited amount of redundancy. Nevertheless, read on:

1. "We trick you into paying higher prices."

Most of us have spent enough time in supermarkets to think we know how to save a few bucks: Buy in bulk whenever possible and buy brands that are on special. Too bad the supermarket chains have quietly changed the rules.

Bulk buying, it turns out, is often more expensive, simply because in the early 1990s supermarket chains figured out that consumers lean toward it, and they've jacked up prices accordingly. "Supermarkets know that consumers believe a two-pound package is cheaper, ounce per ounce, than a one-pound package," says Arun K. Jain, a marketing professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "

But the reality is, you're often better off buying two one-pound packages." He estimates that almost all supermarkets engage in this practice. We found proof at a store near the SmartMoney offices, where a 12-ounce bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup cost $2.09, while a 24-ounce bottle was $4.65; a quart of Lactaid milk was selling for $1.79, while a half-gallon was $3.85.

2. "Our 'specials' are anything but."

Do you tend to pick up a supermarket circular when you walk into your store, hoping to cash in on the weekly sales? They can be a bad deal. "Shoppers don't bother to compare the price when they have a coupon," says Jain. "So supermarkets use them to unload products that are more expensive than other brands."

Some supermarkets even raise the retail prices on items during weeks in which store coupons will be appearing in newspapers and circulars. "The regular retail prices fluctuate, making the discount seem larger for some sales," says one ad-department employee at a large supermarket chain.

Also, beware of the false in-store "sale environments," complete with a separate cardboard display and handwritten signs displaying the price. "People think it must be a special deal," says Jack Taylor, a professor of retailing at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Ala. "But in reality, it's the same price as always."

3. "Everybody pays a price for our 'loyalty' program."

More than 50 million Americans use supermarket loyalty cards that entitle them to special in-store discounts. Who foots the bill? Those customers who refuse to join. "The whole point is to give the best shoppers something special, and you have to pay for that out of something," says David Diamond, president of emerging business for Catalina Marketing, the St. Petersburg, Fla., company that handles many supermarket card programs. "It used to be that everybody got Rice Krispies for, say, 79 cents. Now they're available to anyone for 89 cents, but the best shoppers get them for 49 cents."

And if you do join, you'll pay in another way — with your privacy. Diamond says his company sells to manufacturers only data that don't identify individual consumers. But under special circumstances, your shopping history may be used against you.

Consider the case of Robert Rivera, a 62-year-old retired tow-truck operator in Los Angeles who in 1995 slipped on a carton of spilled yogurt in his local supermarket, shattered his kneecap and filed a lawsuit against the store (later dismissed by the judge for lack of evidence). During a discovery session, Rivera claims, a lawyer for the store threatened to air his buying habits. "He said they had information that I buy a lot of alcohol," says Rivera. "I shop at lots of different stores in the chain. There's no way they could have known that unless they used my club card information."

"They know if you drink, have hemorrhoids or practice safe sex," says Los Angeles consumer advocate Tim Duffy. "I tell people, unless you're using the card to cash checks, give them a fake name." Luckily, your supermarket will usually play along. Safeway, for example, allows members to sign up merely as "Safeway Customer."

4. "Our stores might make you sick..."

You'd be horrified to find roaches, rats or other critters in your kitchen, but those same creatures may be running amok in your grocery store. A 2000 New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets report, for example, found rodents, birds or bugs in the aisles of almost 15% of supermarkets. At an Albany, N.Y., Sam's Club, an inspection turned up rodent-gnawed chocolate bars, 500 samples of mice droppings and six dead mice in aisle 13. (A Sam's Club spokesman says the store has "taken extensive steps to correct the problem.")

And while the bugs and rodents present an obvious health hazard (flies can carry E. coli on their legs and bodies), the pesticides that stores employ in defense can be worse. "We've seen people go in and spray pesticides [and] actually contaminate the food," says Joe Corby, director of the Food Safety and Inspection Division of New York's Department of Agriculture and Markets.
How can you tell if your seemingly bugless supermarket is really safe?

Good supermarkets employ a food safety manager to ensure the foundation entrances are sealed and food shipments are inspected before they hit the shelves — the best ways to prevent vermin from getting in. One red flag: old, faded stock. A failure to rotate products properly gives insect eggs that have snuck in with grain products time to hatch and create an infestation.

5. "...and if they don't, our employees will."

Six-legged creatures aren't the only cause of harmful bacteria at your supermarket. "Employee practices are probably the No. 1 cause of cross-contamination," says Joseph Reardon, a food compliance supervisor with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The problem, in part, is the nature of the workforce, which is typically unskilled. But management also shoulders plenty of blame. "The hours budgeted for cleaning are constantly under barrage by management, and it's hurt food safety," says Carl Lafrate, president of ProCheck Food Safety Consultants, a Baldwinsville, N.Y.-based firm that designs food safety programs for grocery chains. Five years ago, "meat departments were cleaned every four hours, but now they've cut that out." Indeed, in a recently published survey of U.S. supermarkets, the FDA found that more than half of deli workers didn't properly wash their hands and that 45% of meat department employees failed to keep surfaces sanitized.

To find out how your store scores, request a copy of its most recent inspection report. In most jurisdictions, inspections are handled by the department of health, consumer affairs or agriculture.

6. "Federal guidelines? Who cares?"

While the FDA regularly issues a food code to suggest good safety practices, it's merely a recommendation — the federal government has no role in supermarket inspection. Not surprisingly, few of the 3,000 regional inspection authorities update their local regulations to match the current food code. The result? Utter inconsistency.

The food code, for instance, recommends that cold foods be kept at 41 degrees or lower, but most states set it at 45. The code also recommends that stores be given a maximum of 10 days to correct health violations; Vermont gives stores a month to comply.

"Some localities are still using the 1976 code," says Charlotte Christin, a food safety attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"There are pathogens that injure people every year that no one even knew about [in 1976], such as a deadly strain of E. coli."

Even if the local laws reflect high standards, they're not always enforced.

"Most states require annual inspections, but that's often not taken seriously," says Lafrate. "In a lot of states, inspections are generated only on a consumer complaint basis" — a good excuse to complain if your store looks subpar.

7. "'Fresh' is a relative term."

What do some supermarkets do if the steaks don't sell fast enough and start to look a little grungy? Grind it up into hamburger meat. If the chicken is past its "sell by" date? Slap a new label on it.

Surprise! Except for regulations about baby food and infant formula, there are no federal laws mandating product dating. In most states a retailer may legally sell foods beyond the date on the package as long as the product can be considered unspoiled and safe to eat. Even repackaging is legal.

The FDA does requires that if dates are provided, they be accompanied by an explanatory phrase, but those phrases won't reveal much about the true state of the kielbasa in your cart: A "sell by" date simply tells the store how long to display the product, while a "best if used by" date can suggest when the product will lose its peak flavor or quality. Only an expiration date can be used by the supermarket as an indicator of whether food is still safe to eat. Not that you're likely to find one. In the majority of states, no type of freshness dating on food is required at all.

8. "We like to play head games."

Shoppers who stick to a prepared shopping list are few and far between — and they're also the supermarket's worst enemy.

How do supermarkets capitalize on your tendency to stray? They play soft music in the aisles, inducing you to relax and spend, says Richard Rauch, a professor of marketing at Long Island University who consults for supermarket chains. Some stores, he adds, even use special mood-enhancing lighting that filters out higher frequencies in the visible light spectrum. It produces only relaxing colors such as blues and purples, which reduce the rate at which your eyes blink.

"It slows your pace and gets your mind to slow down," says Rauch. "Using lighting to create an atmosphere is not an unusual tactic. Most of the larger, more sophisticated stores use it."
That bakery smells good, doesn't it?

There's a reason those ovens are always on full blast. "Studies show the smell of baking bread drives people bonkers," says Jain. The scent drives up sales all over the store. "We haven't encountered these things," says Todd Hultquist, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute, a retail association. "Retailers want to offer the best value, quality and selection. That's what drives sales."

9. "Our product offerings are rigged."

So your local supermarket stopped carrying your favorite brand of potato chips? Don't assume it was discontinued. More likely, the manufacturer refused to fork over its "slotting fee" — a payment to the supermarket in return for shelf space.

Many manufacturers gladly pay such fees to score shelf space at eye level, where the products are most likely to attract attention. But other kinds of slotting fees stifle competition, hurt consumers and hold smaller manufacturers over a barrel.

Among the worst: "pay to stay" fees — regular payments the manufacturer makes if it wants to sell its goods in the store. According to Rauch, supermarkets make more than half their profits on such fees. It's an issue that many small manufacturers quietly accept for fear of angering the powerful supermarket chains.

At a 1999 Senate Small Business Committee hearing on the issue, some small manufacturers testified with hoods and voice scramblers to conceal their identity.

Slotting-fee profits are passed to consumers as lower prices, insists Hultquist. But Nicholas Pyle, vice president of the Independent Bakers Association, says those fees force bakeries to increase wholesale prices, which cancels out in-store savings. "Otherwise," he says, "they couldn't survive."

10. "Our scanners are a scam."

While supermarkets were among the first stores to adopt scanners, many stores still can't use them right. A 1998 FTC study of supermarket scanner systems found that roughly a fourth failed to earn a passing grade, and a few chains overcharged customers on more than one out of 12 items.

The most common errors are made on sale items, says Jerry Butler, a field supervisor with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture's Standards Division. Usually, store management just neglects to enter the sale price into the scanner system.

Tim Duffy says that jotting down prices and watching the register can pay off more than you think. Over the course of one year, he patronized California supermarkets that give customers an item for free if the scanner rings up the wrong price. By year's end, he says, he took home more than $4,000 in free food, which he donated to charity.

The Back Office

2006-07-15T07:24:00.000+01:00

I refer often to the Back Office without having elaborated on the physical layout of the building. Building layout is an under-recognised and esoteric science, which perhaps explains why the person who designed the layout of our building got no further than the layout of the shop floor.

On the ground floor (and there are no subterranean floors) perhaps 85% of the available floor space is given over to shop floor laid out in a good approximation of the familiar tried and tested supermarket lay out.

Customers enter via the kiosk where we sell cigarettes, news and magazines and lottery. This kiosk area also has snacks, sandwiches, drinks and ice-cream so that people wanting a Sun, sandwich, chocolate bar and fizzy drink don't actually have to enter the main store. Beyond the kiosk, separated from it by one way operating doors, lies the greengrocery department. From there the shopper is guided past our deli, dairy, bakery and butchery before entering the part of the store where we stock the tins, jars and packets of the stuff with which people feel compelled to fill their trolleys.

In the most remote corner (relative to the entrance) we have a pharmacy concession and a travel concession by the exit. At the far end of the odyssey lie our checkouts: nine of them in total, two of them wide aisles, one of them a designated "express" check-out. For the convenience of our customers we provide a photo booth, a pay-phone, a business card kiosk and a child's ride. We have a large board by the exit on which people can post (free of charge, for a fortnight at a time) notices such as offers of items for sale or wanted.

Behind the shop floor, through swing doors, we have a lower warehouse on this ground floor. Tucked away behind the kiosk are two doors; one opens onto the foyer with the clocking-in machine and the stair case leading to the upper floor, the other is the door to the Cashiers Office.

Upstairs we have a second, smaller warehouse as well as vast staff room, toilet facilities, offices for the General Manager (long, narrow and soul-less) and the Assistant General Managers (long, narrow, and shared) plus a security suite.

Nobody much likes upstairs, particularly at this time of the year. If there ever was any ventilation it long since got clogged up and what we're left with is rather like a sauna without the moisture content.

That doesn't go any way to explaining why absolutely everything seems to happen in the one, small office downstairs.

The office downstairs contains the two networked computers, only one of which in installed with both the stock software and the financial software. Both computers have Windows (hiss) and Lotus Suite (yes, really) installed.

The second computer is used for email and sundry administrative processes, such as recording price and date checking, preparing end-of-week documents and so forth. It is probably the most under-used asset in the building, while the computer along side it is the most fought over. Go figure.

Often I've thought the obvious solution would be to install the stock and financial systems on the second computer, and install a second fully loaded computer in one or other of the offices upstairs.

This would improve accessibility to business critical systems. It would also alleviate strain on the office space in the lower office. At times we've got, working should by shoulder, the Cash Supervisor, the Checkout Supervisor, the General Manager, one of his deputies and perhaps one or more members of staff all jockeying for position in what is barely space for three people to work comfortably.

For reasons of convenience pretty much all but the most sensitive conversations take place in the lower office. In the midst of bellowed conversations between the GM and one of his deputies on the one hand and the Checkout Supervisor and one of her troops on the other the Cash Supervisor is supposed not to make mistakes in managing our cash to the nearest penny.

Sometimes the place looks like organised chaos, rest of the time the place is organised chaos: Staff back and forth asking for a program form or a label request or order sheet of gap check schedule or a holiday request form or .... Replacement pens, box cutters, name badges which mysteriously vanish. I swear there's a corner of this building into which such items, having lost the will to live, crawl and die. One day during the demolition their sad desiccated remains will be disinterred to be mourned over.

In the mean time the checkout boxes require supplementary floats during the course of the day, the lottery facility needs new boards, ticket rolls, or other paraphernalia. Reduced stickers are requested periodically. Customers request higher value face cream or razors or higher DVD/CDs (all items particularly vulnerable to pilfering and kept in the lower office rather than on the shelves).

Staff want to come in and argue over mistakes in their pay, plead special circumstances over short notice holiday, complain about work assigned, colleagues, the temperature, the scheduling of tea breaks, the colour of the walls (pretty much anything and everything).

Following an attempted ram-raid we also keep the tobacco products and the lottery instant win tickets in this office overnight.

This is not an environment in which anyone could accomplish successfully and accurately anything demanding any great degree of concentration, yet that's what we attempt to do every day of the week.

Fortunate really, because over the years all sorts of things have happened or been discussed within its four walls; that's a lot of anecdotal material to accumulate.

Alcohol

2006-07-13T23:02:00.000+01:00

Bloody hell.

This country has such a monumental problem with alcohol - far too high a proportion of the population have a problem with alcohol. Alcoholism, binge drinking, the associated anti-social and criminal behaviour are rife, or so we are to believe.

It was ever thus. See Hogarth et al.

This Government formulates policies and enacts laws but it (and to be fair its predecessors all) is in a bind.

Alcohol has acquired a mystique and has always enjoyed a certain social cache. So drinking is aspirational behaviour. The magic number is 18. Before that age the consumption of alcohol is an illicit thrill underpinned by bravado, after that age the consumption of alcohol constitutes a badge of honour. Either way consumption must be conspicuous and excessive.

The consequences are wasted lives and broken flower pots, blighted townscapes and litter.

Government must respond and must be seen to respond to middle-class distaste for such behaviour, and liberal handwringing.

The government must be seen to be formulating policies and enacting laws that will ... do what? Reduce the level of consumption in this country? The government says underage drinking must be reduced. Are those among us sadly old enough now to consume alcohol to drink greater quantities by way of compensation?

The National Health Service is falling apart at the seams; it is reportedly underfunded. Certainly what resources it does have seem eternally to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Smoking, alcohol, poor diet/nutrition and a lack of exercise are obstacles to reducing demand on this service. [Please note the lack of cost attached to rectifying these delinquencies, at a personal level.]

No-one from the government benches or those opposite actually calls explicitly for a reduction in overall alcohol consumption or, in the circumstances, dare call for a consumption transfer (in the mode of the energy emissions trading).

But most people agree that those under the age of 18 should not purchase or (except under certain permitted circumstances) consume alcohol. Someone under that age purchasing alcohol is committing a criminal offence. Anyone purchasing alcohol on behalf of someone under the age of 18 is committing a criminal offence. Anyone under 18 selling alcohol is breaking the law and anyone 18 or older selling alcohol to a 'minor' or knowingly permitting the sale is in breach of the law.

Simple innit? Not quite.

This is a game. The kids want to find out if they'll get away with it and we do what we can to stop them. The government (run by a leader whose son was found some years ago when still under age in a gutter in Leicester Square in central London almost comatose) can't think of a single feasible or conceivably effective thing to do to deal with the problem from the demand end, nor can it afford to tackle the supply end so it does what it does best and compromises. It goes for muggins in the middle. And muggins in the middle is the retailer.

More specifically the government has in its sights the on-licence (pubs and night clubs) and off-licence (supermarkets, bottle shops) establishments. Supermarkets are a big, bloated sitting target and we're in the crosshairs.

You see the Government can't afford to lose all the revenue it accrues from the sale of alcohol without establishing an alternative revenue stream. And the revenue stream it has set up is the fines and other penalties we're all to fill the coffers with.

This is the new game.

Government extracts value from us. The national government gets favourable coverage of the clamp down on those evil, irresponsible supermarkets selling cheap plonk in vat quantities to tots. Local government pockets the fines, improves its fiscal position and makes lesser demands on central funding.

In the meantime everyone (conveniently) can ignore the absence of parental control or influence.

No-one thinks to say "what the fuck are 15 year olds doing with either the money to purchase alcohol or the time on their hands to get to the shop and attempt the purchase?" When I was 15 I had enough on my plate attending school, doing homework, doing violin practice, playing tennis, swimming (seasonally) eating, doing household chores and, yes, sleeping.

No-one thinks to say "how the fuck are these kids so underdeveloped that the summit of their ambitions is to acquire alcohol?". When I was 15 I was petrified lest I fail my academy exam or not do at least as well as my sister in the local tennis tournament or qualify to take pure and applied at Matric.

The powers that be within our organisation have responded to the Government's laying of the burden of responsibility in two ways. Firstly they have made it abundantly clear that the buck stops with the checkout operator. Secondly the checkout operator has absolutely crystal clear guidelines on what he or she must do in respect of the sale of alcohol (and for that matter ALL age-restricted products). Furthermore the operators all are to understand that if they following the guidelines they CANNOT get into legal difficulties and therefore they WILL be supported to the hilt at all times and by all more senior members of staff in following those guidelines.

The guidelines define circumstances that err very heavily on the side of caution under which an operator must demand to see proof of age before selling an age restricted product. The guidelines also specify which forms of proof are acceptable, and these forms are very, very few in number (passport, photo bearing driving licence, BITE card and pretty much nothing else).

All staff as part of their induction are brief and rebriefed and then rebriefed again on the law and our policies as well as what is acceptable as proof of age. All staff are instructed to refuse to sell alcohol (or whatever) from the moment ID is requested until satisfactory proof of age is provided. That is the solid ground on which we can and will all stand.

All supervisors and managers know this and that our checkout operators are on the front line, bearing the burden of immediate responsibility, taking the flack from enraged customers who take umbrage at being asked to prove their age and knowing always the back of their minds that the next young customer buying booze (or fags, or lottery tickets or a knife or a 15 rated DVD, etc) is a stooge of Trading Standards. sent in with the specific purpose of setting us up. Somehow these underage 'consumers' are exempt from the law concerning the purchase by a minor.

In theory this works beautifully. But it is a system that like all others is vulnerable to human weakness.

Tuesday afternoon one of our more sensible, intelligent and together staff was put onto a check out during an exceptionally busy period. She elected to request ID of a young man in her queue who had looked increasingly odd and agitated as he approached her. He had no (acceptable) ID to provide. The sale was declined. He became more agitated. I stepped in to support the operator. The would-be customer became yet more agitated.

He showed me court documents relating to an offence of violence that had a name and a date of birth. Unfortunately for him the date of birth he'd claimed for himself was not that which appeared on the document he showed me. I stood my ground I backed my operator. He eventually gave up after calling me "fucking pathetic" in an increasingly belligerent tone, threw his not-to-be-purchases on the floor and left.

Or so I believed.

A fairly short while later, but after I'd taken the woman off the checkout and sent her back to her 'section', I happened to spot the would be customer in conversation with our very own walking talking Hairdo. [Incidentally I should mention now in case I use it later that she's also, I now learn, known as Barbie.]

In the wash up I've learned that he loitered outside until he caught sight of another senior member of staff and ran to her (Barbie) with his sob story of how he'd travelled down to our town (as though he couldn't have bought booze where he lives, or if not why not?) only to be refused because he could not, when asked, provide acceptable ID.

He thrust the papers at her just as I reached her. She asked him if he had anything to confirm that he was indeed the person referred to in the court summons and when he produced an electricity top-up card (no photo, only initials, BUT MOST TO THE POINT NOT ON OUR LIST OF ACCEPTABLE ID) she handed the lot back to him and TOLD HIM HE WAS FREE TO GO BACK INTO THE SHOP AND PURCHASE HIS ALCOHOL.

Needless to say the shit has hit the fan over this. The operator and I duly recorded the incident including the abuse in log book - it should go without saying that the customer should have been out on his ear for the abuse alone. I took a copy of it and took the copy home after what transpired.

I asked the operator how she felt about what transpired and she went straight over my head to someone more senior.

To be fair today we've both been told that we were 100% in the right and the person who undermined us was 100% in the wrong. What makes the situation somewhat awkward for me is that the person who did the overruling or undermining or whatever it was is no friend of mine. But if she was hoping to humiliate me she's mad a mis-calculation because she's just attempted to humiliate me by using 'discretion' to circumvent one of the few clear an unequivocal policies we actually have. She'll keep her job, but she'll get a bollocking, and since this isn't the first incident involving the two of us she's probably holed herself below the water line.

Political Correctness 101

2006-07-12T10:50:00.000+01:00

I've done 'Disability Basics'. I've completed the 'Master Answer Sheets' booklet and now I'm going to poke fun at an earnest and well intentioned program to eradicate from the able bodied/minded (?) every last discriminatory thought/feeling and possibility of utterance.

The tutorial book tells me that there are (an estimated) 10.8 million disabled people in the UK so when I am asked at Question 3 "How many disabled people do you think there are in the UK" I tick the box for 10.8 million. Never mind what I actually think (the emphasis is mine), I want to put this wretched business behind me - if I get less than 70% I have to do a re-sit immediately, if I get less than 80% I have to retrain and do a re-sit in 6 months.

In fact the preceding question [Which part of the Act do you think this extract is describing...] is even worse since the Act exists, it has a clearly defined structure, only one part of the Act is described in the extract. There's only one possible correct answer so the question should be: Which part of the Act does this extract describe?

At the bottom of the first page of the answer booklet I found the following question:

Do you think a person who may have difficulty trying to hold a pen to write with would affect their ability to carry out a normal day-to-day activity?

That is verbatim the question. I promise. Blimey!

Do you think ... I'm being asked a question or am I being asked my opinion?

a person who may have difficulty trying to hold a pen ... about a person who may (or then again may not) have difficulty trying to hold a pen. Problem 1 - does or does not this person have difficulty? Problem 2: is the problem with the trying or the problem with the holding?

to write with ... huh?

would affect their ability to carry out a normal day-to-day activity? ... such as walking the dog?

After some deliberating I'm still not sure what this question is driving at. The question might be "Do you recognise that difficulty writing using a normal pen affects an individual's ability to carry out at least some ordinary day-to-day activities?" or it might be "Is a person who has difficulty writing using a normal pen such that performing at least some ordinary day-to-day activities disabled as defined under the Act?" or even "Does difficulty holding and writing with a normal pen constitute a disability as defined under the Act?"

Given the required pass mark I'm truly worried that I was supposed to mark Not Sure as my answer.

The problem I had with a lot of what followed was that I can't fix in my own mind where the line between plain and simple old-fashioned rudeness and discrimination lies or even if there is supposed to be one any more. For example an early question asked which of the following four scenarios illustrates 'discrimination':

An elderly person being rushed if he or she is too slow
A mum with small children and a buggy in a shop struggling and not being offered assistance
A blind person being refused entry into a building because they have a guide dog
A disabled person being told that they cannot shop because there are no facilities for them

To me three and four are obvious examples of discrimination while one and two are equally clearly examples of bad manners. In the first example someone is being rushed because they are too slow but there's no indication that this is directly to do with the person's age and a young dawdler might receive precisely the same treatment. Never mind disability discrimination, it isn't even obviously an example of 'age discrimination'. Similarly we've got someone not being offered assistance. Sorry, that happens all the time to anyone who needs help. The rude are a pretty undiscriminating bunch.

Later the test examines the candidate's ability to use 'appropriate' language. This is all about testing how well the candidate has taken on board the insights with which he or she has been provided into which words are now acceptable and which words are not.

Invalid is out the window. Only horses may be Handicapped; which is a mercy or the Melbourne Cup might become the world's richest race for Horses with Disability. Yes, you are supposed to deduce from the sarky tone that this was the point at which I really lost patience with the exercise. I have a handicap; I'd tell you his name but that might lead to 'issues' with kitchen knives and holes in the back garden being dug in the middle of the night.

The phrase dual sensory impairment is fine but the person is still blind and deaf. Under this regime 'dumb' and 'mute' are to become archaic and historical curiosities familiar only to those perusing the medical and census records of 19th century forebears. Someone who helps and assists a disabled person may not be described as a carer or a helper or, for that matter, a 'nice person'.

This is absurd. It might, just might, be right to consign words that have acquired such negative connotations as 'dumb' and 'mute' to the dustbin of lexicographic history - though an argument can be made for their reclamation from the clutches of misuse on the grounds than one word is to be preferred over 6 or 7 (the number of words in the alternative phrases we're to use). On the other hand are we seriously to stigmatise now the words helper and carer and eschew the phrase 'nice person'.

Thankfully and after ticking the correct box (the one next to Personal Assistant) in response to the question "how would you describe a person who helped and assisted a disabled person?" I was able to close the answer booklet and submit it for marking.

It's a Deal

2006-07-10T11:00:00.000+01:00

Enter a supermarket and you enter a mini-universe; one where appearances are intended to deceive. Nowhere on earth is the average human being subjected to a more intense barrage of information compiled and delivered with the express intention to manipulate.

A small percentage of consumers are alive to the conspiracy, a smaller percentage enter the portals of any given supermarket determined to circumvent the system and the agents of that system ranged in opposition.

The year is broken down into offer periods that are planned out months in advance. Footfall and flow direction are analysed to death by supermarkets and by manufacturers, then data are used by both parties as weapons in a bidding war which has as its objective the maximisation of return on investment.

Excess product dumped on outlets by manufactures who have over-produced or buyers who have over-bought becomes the stuff dumped in cul-de-sacs on a wing and a prayer. The fortuate supermarket manager will convince someone higher up the food chain that the stuff should be priced reduced or linked to some sort of BOGOF variant. There's never a sale-or-return type arrangement available with this type of merchandise.

The supermarket manager will diligently order up big on the product that's about to go 'on offer'. Some product with long shelf life could be ordered well in advance to guarantee supply in sufficient quantities except that forward planning has its limits and in this case forward planning would run up against warehousing constraints. So the about to be 'on offer' product will arrive on a Thursday or Friday (hopefully). Friday and Saturday the shelves are cleared to make way for the new 'on offer' product and that new product goes out on Sunday.

As a result the agents of the conspiracy will spend Sunday patiently explaining to uncomprehending customers that although the product is on the fixture ends, the places where those special offers are displayed, the product isn't actually 'on offer' until the following day.

Behind the elaborate facade exists a massive computer system to support the ordering, stock management, pricing, promotion and revenue gathering activites. If ever any money were spent on this system it might work well but like everything else it is falling apart and only continues to perform an approximation of its full duties thank to a near constant effort to apply one fix or another.

By Sunday the files to be applied to make the offers active are sitting in the system and provided noone working in the back office accidently applies these batch files then the offers won't go live until they're supposed to.

Because Sunday is one of those two days we close the doors to the public and then leave ourselves (the other being Saturday) nothing more can be done about these 'on offer' products until Monday morning. Staff arrive at 6:00 and the public are let in from 7:00. That means an hour to complete the re-ticketing and put up the supporting promotional material.

It never works.

Usually someone's forgotten to read offer period amendments thoroughly and adjust orders accurately. As a result we've more or less got a warehouse full of stuff that was originally supposed to be 'on offer' but has been taken off for one reason or another. Alternatively the offer's been altered in some way. So, for example, initially a wide range of bottled beers are included in a, let's say, 3 for £4.00 offer, but some time before the offer goes live the range of beers is altered.

The chances that the collection of drones we employ will read through the offer documentation and link the offer products with the correct ticketing promotional material is non-existent.

Similarly there is not a change in hell of the computer batch files carrying the offers applying first time and accurately. Most offer periods last three weeks. The first week is taken up with clearing the fallout. The supervisors are back and forth correcting what has scanned (because we don't trust the operators to do that) and in the back office the staff are engaged in an increasingly heated exchange with those up the food chain who have the power to make the offers 'work'. The same by the way is true of those products on special but not linked to a specific offer period, such as merchandise which has a price or a deal indicated on the packaging.

Sometimes the correspondence is effective. Other times it isn't. Our seafood department has been selling packs of fresh sardines at £2.99 or 2 for £5.00 for several weeks (not linked to a specific offer period) and the damn things don't scan correctly for the offer despite all the emails we've fired off. Eventually the office staff lose the will to email (or give up fearing they'll lose the will to live) while out on the shop floor the staff and customers alike become resigned to having to summon a supervisor every time two packs of the damned things are to go through.

Right now, today, the staff up the road are frantically sorting through the promotional material and the offer products. They're not making sure that all the offers work. They're identify which ones don't. Notice the subtle difference. It lies in the mind set of those carrying out the task. Mountains and mountains of product and pricing information piled up at the most remote checkout, lists being assembled, the first round of correspondence being drafted. After that email's gone a couple of things will happen.

We'll get a set of batch files to correct the faulty set(s) and we'll get a call from some irate individual a few branches up the pond life spectrum complaining about the idiots at our store who haven't properly read the amendments and have written complaining about offers that don't exist not working.

And I have to go in to work this afternoon and take that call.

General chaos

2006-07-06T23:15:00.000+01:00

I arrived in time for the start of my 1-9pm shift and walked in to find the colleague I was to take over from wafting around on Planet-S.

Yesterday she was threatening to file a formal complaint against one of the Assistant GMs (who'd said the wrong thing or something in the wrong way or the wrong place) but she was at least smiling today as she told me precisely which critical systems had failed during the morning.

Then she wandered off, halfway through what she'd been doing, asserting that the books would all balance, 'hopefully'.

Well I double checked her figures and the cash balanced so I proceeded. Then I worked back and picked up all her little mistakes. They are little mistakes, but with the accounting there should not be any, and if necessary I will have to spend half a fucking hour finding that missing 6p – all (as it happens) because she can't read her own writing when she comes to adding up her figures.

Between that and the temp who is covering for the checkout supervisor (who fainted and split her head open at home on Sunday and won't be in all week) I felt like I hardly had 5 minutes to myself all afternoon. The phone didn't stop ringing too, and I can do without having to deal with people who want to know what time we're open until.

I know exactly why I hate my job. I hate my job because I don't ever have the opportunity to do it - or even one single component of it - well. There's always some sequence of minor to catastrophic issues to be dealt with, sometimes several all at once.

The problem has only become acutely pressing because the whole store seems to have hit a rather bad patch rather suddenly. Everyone is in a mood (even the GM and the AGM he's shagging had a blazing row on Monday), resignations are flying in thick and fast and a whole set of significant if not critical processes have been undermined to the detriment of overall performance by a lowering of levels of work performance scrutiny. In other words neither the GM nor any of his AGMs have recently been paying sufficient attention what the Kiddies are doing and (more importantly) how they're doing it.

As a result fewer and fewer things are being done right. As a result we're finding more and more out of code goods on shelves and more an more incorrect pricing. If Trading Standards were to go through us like a dose of salts tomorrow we'd be neck deep in the smelly stuff. In the mean time the GM, who has spent the first three days since he returned from leave telling everyone in turn exactly how and in what manner they are incompetent was in a positively sunny mood today.

The Great Dick

2006-07-05T23:23:00.000+01:00

I get that 'sinking feeling' when I answer the phone and the bright bunny on the other end goes "ah, just the person I wanted to speak with ... I guess that doesn't happen often". Too damn right and thankfully too.

I had Julie (or Katie, or something) on the phone recently from our Food Group about a customer complaint I'd dealt with some months previously. That's months not moments.

By way of background when a customer returns something consumable that manifestly is of insufficiently high quality relative to the standard set for that particular consumable then a whole lotta paper work gets done.

The details of the product are recorded and, if a sample is provided by the customer as evidence of their claim then that sample is retained (and chilled or frozen as appropriate). The completed paper work is faxed off to a total jerk called Dick and the sample if available is sent to him via the internal mail.

The idea is that he, being very senior, liaises with whoever it is that one liaises with under such circumstances with a view to heading off at the pass any law suits and otherwise dealing with any claims as well as making it look like we're doing what's necessary to avoid any further instances of what are typically production line QA failures.

Returning to the call, I didn't get to the bottom of where Julie or Katie or whatever the hell her name is sits (organisationally speaking) in relation to the Dick. She wanted to know if we still had the foreign object some customer had found in her carton of juice. Happily, notwithstanding the distance in time since the report I did remember it and also remember both faxing the damned paper work to Dick as well as packaging up the sample for his delectation(with the assistance of a little bit of prompting).

She chirpily remembered both it and the dodgy pastie that we'd sent in the same run and then asked again if by any chance we still had the sample at our office. I told her it wasn't with us and had gone off to Dick. She once again chirpily admitted to having a recollection of having seen it and put it in the 'fridge in their office. Fool that I can be I thought I'd made some progress, but no, back she came, game and persistent if nothing else. "I don't suppose you have it still in your office somewhere?"

No dear, it isn't here.

Turns out their all turning cartwheels up at head office because (shock of shocks) the complainant has actually had the temerity to contact head office with a request for a progress report on the investigation into the 'foreign object' in her juice carton.

One way of looking at this is to see that obviously the foreign object's not been fatal or rendered the juice she drank fatal (or indeed even the cause of mild ill health) so she could just consider putting the whole grisly incident behind her and getting on with life. She could I suppose sue our arses off for the trauma of finding something alien in her apple juice. Alternatively she could have such an empty head that it has room to remember a complaint about something that has caused her no physical or mental trauma whatsoever but is, when all's said and done, the most interesting thing to happen to her in a twelvemonth.

The sample's been lost, last seen in the fridge in the office in the building where Dick works. The fridge that in the ordinary course of events is used to keep cool the milk for his tea or coffee. Quite where it's gone is a matter for conjecture but I fear we'll never have any certain knowledge of what befell it. And I swear I heard Julie (or Katie or whatever) say, as she put down the phone, something along the lines of "I guess this is another one to be put down to the Great Dick". The great dick, indeed.

Kiddie Capers No. 1

2006-07-04T14:57:00.000+01:00

We employ lots of Kiddies. Some facts about Kiddies worth bearing in mind: they’re cheap, they’re desperate for money, they’re never out of bed before midday but they’re happy to work until ten at night before heading off to the pub.

So we employ lots of Kiddies.

Some of them are rather fine looking. I’m between lust objects at present, though only just. D. swung by in civvies yesterday evening as I was shunting baskets from the check-outs back round to the entrance, he smiled and I did at least remember why he’d been my lust object of a run of at least several weeks.

Some of the kiddies are employed for a specific purpose (to work behind the deli counter, or at the in-house bakery or in the greengrocery) but generally they’re expected to be jacks-of-all-trade, which is to say that they work where they’re required.

This does lend us a certain flexibility, but also significantly contributes to the Kiddies never actually become particularly good at anything. The major factor though is that they’re never trained (or retrained if they’re university students who only work with us for a few weeks over the summer).

This is something that came home to me during a recent graveyard shift. Having spent the day locked away trying to do two whole day’s worth of cashing up in an afternoon – and quite why I was in this predicament will have to be dealt with elsewhere, I quite gratefully bolted for the wide open spaces of the shop floor to spend the last couple of hours ‘code checking’.

‘Code checking’ is date checking. It is done section by section to a schedule laid down from on high that reflects product shelf-life and turnaround. The crisps and snacks section is checked for products within 6 weeks of going ‘out of date’. Any products found are logged in a diary.

I started work at one end of the section while a couple of bright (university student) girls worked at shelf filling at the other end. After a while one of them worked up the courage to ask me what I was doing.

So I explained.

And the reaction I got to my explanation of one of those tedious exercises we have to undertake to ensure that we’re within the law governing retail trade was: “Things have dates?”

Yes, ‘things have dates’, and properly trained shop floor staff would know to check the dates of the things they’re putting on the shelves. Checking to make sure that each item actually has a ‘best before’ date, and checking that the date shown is a future date rather than a past date.

To their credit they did go back and check everything they’d already spent the evening putting out. And they only found a few things that had to be recorded in the diary.

Customer anecdote No. 1

2006-07-04T13:19:00.000+01:00

Everyone likes a bargain ...

It is easy to tell when summer's arrived in our part of the world. The idiots take on a particular quality.

By way of example I offer up the nitwit woman who bought a nutmeg grater then nearly took all the flesh off one side of one of her fingers trying to grate cheese with it. By her own admission she bought it because it was cheaper than the other sort of grater we sell (that would be the CHEESE grater) but she still wanted her money back because in her opinion the item was not fit for purpose since it said 'Grater' on the label, but did not carry "not to be used to grate cheese" as a product warning.

We gave the poor lamb her money back with a smile. She clearly needs it more than we do.

Sunday Trading

2006-07-02T21:37:00.000+01:00

The warmer weather of the past couple of months has coincided with an appreciable upturn in trading results. Sunday sales at this time of year are something like 35% higher than non-festival Sundays in December and January. Measured by spend per trolley our sales figures are up but we're also seeing more trolleys.

Marvellous.

Our trading figures require a slightly more sophisticated analysis, but no number-crunching computer package could take proper account of our store's particular circumstances. We're the only real* supermarket for about a half hour drive in any direction, so to some extent we've a monopoly, but on the other hand the town's population swells during the summer-months as chavs descend and take up their summer residence in one or other of the two permanent caravan sites. Do the chavs spend more or less on average than the local population? Or are the locals spending more because the weather's improved?

Who knows? Who cares!

A couple of Sundays ago, with the return of the college kiddies, we suddenly found our selves with sufficiently high staff numbers to have enough checkout lanes open to meet demand, and to keep the shelves reasonably full.

Warm weather and the World Cup. What combination. Pouring over the World Cup Schedule and trying to figure out what that's likely to mean in terms of footfall patterns.

Then England went and got themselves eliminated at the quarter-finals stage (again) through penalties (again) to Portugal (again), a team managed by 'Big Phil' Scolari (again).

Sunday's may have been getting busier but I really truly believed that we'd have a quiet start to the day. I expected that customer levels would build up slowly as the town's men-folk woke late from self induced misery incurred to counteract football induced misery.

Ha.

A glance at the monitors showed a crowd building up as we approached opening hour. A static conga line emerging from the shelter of the main entrance, past the cash point towards the exit.

Good Christ have these people no sense. We're not open. We never open before 10:00 on a Sunday because we're forbidden to open earlier by current Sunday Trading Regulations (we're too big). Go to the corner store for your pint of milk, your News of the Screws and your packet of fags.

Such is the sad emptiness of the life of the average British consumer that he gets out early to be part of the orderly line of souls waiting to charge through the moment the shutters lift.

Our Sunday deliveries (chilled and bread particularly) are supposed to be well and truly in-store by the time we open. Things don't always go according to plan. The chilled delivery arrives as the shutters are going up and the bread van at that time still can't be seen coming over the hills.

My main jobs for the day are to keep sufficient checkouts open to meet customer levels, to supervise the work of the operators and make sure they get the breaks their entitled to.

I elect to open with four and fingers crossed I'll spot the surge as it’s about to reach the checkouts (ten in total potentially) rather than get an harassed Assistant GM on my case.

The Duty Manager of the Day is the Bulldog (no bio yet, I'm afraid). The Stud is still on holiday and we're over staffed so that we can do what we can to make his life miserable, but minimising the amount he has to complain about.

We're immediately under assault and that has little do with the sheer numbers of Little Englanders functioning under the delusion that shopping every single day of the year is essential to human happiness. He has driven up the hill in his gas-guzzler, but WTF he'll buy enough pet food to last a day, tonight's meal and enough milk, just to get him through tomorrow's breakfast.

Most people shop though with a degree of fervour suggestive of a belief in the imminent arrival of The Bomb. Perhaps the bomb might drop, but would not running out of Low Fat raspberry yoghurt make your life any less unbearable under those circumstances? And why not buy six loaves of our chemically complete, never-go-off bread. It’s sure to be a hit with the birds once you discover (again) that the stuff is cheap but inedible.

By ten minutes after opening we have healthy queues building up at the four open lanes and then it begins. No. 3 is our wide aisle for cripples and geriatrics. The key pad freezes. While I'm grappling with that it becomes clear that all the other operators are having problems too. We can't process card transactions.

Shit!

I get on the phone to the engineers who in an effort to resolve this for us have a female colleague crawl underneath the two problem checkouts looking for loose wires. I'd have told him to go screw himself had he asked me to stick a screw driver into the middle of that lot. Inevitably things got worse. After a short while the cards came back on line but only for lanes 6-10 so we were left making customer announcements ever few minutes asking customers intending to pay by card to please not use lanes 1-6 (well 3 and 6 were out of commission at that stage).

Inevitably the morons and idiots who blithely assume that no customer announcement can possibly be of interest, and the arrogant arse-holes who seem to think that we'll fix the problem for their transaction, if only they queue up, do just that. They stand patiently in line while the announcements ring out from the tannoy above their heads and then get difficult when told to pack everything back into the trolley and take it to another lane.

The bread delivery arrived shortly before midday; sadly just inside the time limit before we can claim compensation. A couple of hours late on a day when we're open 7-10 is a pain, almost three hours late on a day when we're open 10-4 is very nearly a fucking catastrophe. By 1pm we've had about 70% of the day's customers through. And now we get the day's fresh bread out.

Still giving the bakery a bollocking seemed to improve the Bulldog's mood a bit, if only briefly.

The cards came back on line across all the tills around lunch time.

That's when the 'thing' that drives the motors of the 'thing' that keeps the chill in our chiller cabinets packed up. Perhaps it the hot weather. Actually, it was a slow motion crash, with first one cabinet and then another going off line. Initially temperatures held within legal limits but as the number of chiller cabinets off-line rose the store temperature rose, and the strain on the remaining chiller cabinets grew and so on and so forth.

An "all shop floor staff to the lower warehouse" announcement livened up everyone's afternoon, but only briefly as there pretty soon was no need for an explanation. The young lads who had spent the morning filling up those cabinets spent the afternoon emptying them.

Everything came off the shelves and went back into the warehouse freezers and fridges before the temperatures in the in-store cabinets rose above legal limits, but as we closed the shop (finally) the Bulldog did remark that she'd not be buying yoghurt (from us) for a few days.

I left at a couple of minutes after four and spent what was left of the afternoon in the pool. Tomorrow's another day, but sadly I'll be spending nine of those twenty-four up at the funny farm.

The Bint

2006-06-30T21:08:00.000+01:00

She's forty-five (or is that forty-seven).

Her sporty crop some how fails to deliver the message usually conveyed ("I'm a Dyke and I don't care who the fuck knows"). This is because the face beneath it is quite pixie-like, the face is usually carefully made up, the figure below that is tanned and trim if not actually taunt, but most of all because if the stories swirling about the store and the town at large are true she's shagging the Stud.

Her usual mode of dress is a crisp white shirt, nipped in at the waist worn over a pair of exquisitely tight navy trousers. They show off the admirably so well.

About every twenty-eight days she very helpfully announces to pretty much all 100 colleagues (male and female, young and old) that's she's not forgotten to take her pill once during the preceding 28 days because she's 'on' again. I guess that's some achievement when your as old as she is.

She's one of his (the Stud's) Manager's Assistants - but beware, the apostrophe's usually AWOL.

There are three Manager's Assitants. The other two shall be known as The Bulldog and The Hairdo. I'm still deciding on a collective appellation. I'm currently toying with the Three Wise Monkeys, or perhaps the Three Blind Mice.

The Bint is married to a bloke who drives a white van (when it's on the road). His name is, um, Trevor. He's a part-time bouncer at the roughest of the town's pubs and is not averse to slinging out anyone he takes a personal dislike to, particular when under the influence - which might as well be half a pint of shandy.

They have two daughters. One's at university on the other side of the country (studying something worthwhile and intellectually demanding such as Meeja Studees, no doubt). The other is an hysteric who's not yet held down a job for more than a few weeks or learned to tie her shoe laces unassisted.

The Bint has at least half a dozen conversations with The Hysteric during any given shift, usually prompted by a distress call (because The Hysteric's run out of cigarettes or isn't sure what to do when she gets to the railway station, or something equally likely to throw a normal 19 year old into a panic).

The Bint's path to greatness took her via the Deli Counter. That's her qualification. That used to be her power base, but since the Bulldog's promotion from the same department she's had to build a new base - and she's chosen the greengrocery. Her new best friend is the tall, solidly built young rugby player who runs that department. They spend a much speculated upon amount of time over tea upstairs and are known to drop in on each other's houses and go to the cinema together.

Interesting. No one knows if the head of greengrocery has a boyfriend or not, or even wants one, but she's unlikely to meet someone spending so much time polishing her reputation as the store arse-licker.

The Stud

2006-06-29T17:14:00.000+01:00

He's short, he's fat,
He's very very bald
He's cheap, he's nasty
I can't say what he's called

He's the Boss.