Petty Things That Get On Your Nerves...

[Miguel Sanchez]

2 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Supermarkets.

Why the f**k, at the busiest times of the day, do they fee the need to have to wheel out all the cages and trolleys and stock up, or more often than not, just leave the fucking cages sitting blocking aisles.  Utter shambles of an industry with no planning or customer experience consideration. 

Years of staff/budget cuts chasing a bottom line and artificially inflated pension scheme above everything else means full time staff are at a premium if there's any left at all, with fewer layers of in-store management leading to poorly trained, unsupervised staff who have no stake in the business doing most of the day's work at times of shifts which they're most likely to agree to doing, which will be during the day rather than earlies or lates.

Cheer up, you can sign up for their data harvesting schemes to get your teabags for only 10p more than they were this time last year.

[JamesP_81]

3 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Years of staff/budget cuts chasing a bottom line and artificially inflated pension scheme above everything else means full time staff are at a premium if there's any left at all, with fewer layers of in-store management leading to poorly trained, unsupervised staff who have no stake in the business doing most of the day's work at times of shifts which they're most likely to agree to doing, which will be during the day rather than earlies or lates.

Cheer up, you can sign up for their data harvesting schemes to get your teabags for only 10p more than they were this time last year.

20+ years ago I started work in a supermarket while at uni as 1 of 16 folk on a late shift that was done almost entirely after closing time. 3 years later that shift of 16 was down to 6 doing the same work around customers due to extended opening hours. F*ck knows what it must be like now , I'm just thankful I work in an industry with a decent union now . 

[Miguel Sanchez]

34 minutes ago, JamesP_81 said:

20+ years ago I started work in a supermarket while at uni as 1 of 16 folk on a late shift that was done almost entirely after closing time. 3 years later that shift of 16 was down to 6 doing the same work around customers due to extended opening hours. F*ck knows what it must be like now , I'm just thankful I work in an industry with a decent union now . 

[AnderooMFC]

6 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Heroes are the only tub of chocolate where everything in it is good. Eclairs and "Dinky Deckers" are comfortably at the bottom but still passable.

Between myself and the child we got 4 tubs of Heroes, I think maybe one of Celebrations. Was some supermarket doing a good deal on them? Thankfully she has wonky tastebuds and will eat a Crunchie. Quite a large slide down the scale of greatness between the patience of an eclair to that honeycombed abomination!

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Supermarkets.

Why the f**k, at the busiest times of the day, do they fee the need to have to wheel out all the cages and trolleys and stock up, or more often than not, just leave the fucking cages sitting blocking aisles.  Utter shambles of an industry with no planning or customer experience consideration. 

I'd guess because at the busiest times of the day is when the shelves get emptied quicker. I've never worked in a supermarket but this has all the energy of being in a traffic jam at 5.10pm and blaming the council and not the thousands of other people around you all trying to get home at the same time. You are part of the problem.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

5 hours ago, AnderooMFC said:

Between myself and the child we got 4 tubs of Heroes, I think maybe one of Celebrations. Was some supermarket doing a good deal on them? Thankfully she has wonky tastebuds and will eat a Crunchie. Quite a large slide down the scale of greatness between the patience of an eclair to that honeycombed abomination!

 

 

 

I'd guess because at the busiest times of the day is when the shelves get emptied quicker. I've never worked in a supermarket but this has all the energy of being in a traffic jam at 5.10pm and blaming the council and not the thousands of other people around you all trying to get home at the same time. You are part of the problem.

I think it’s more to do with the ever decreasing space for essential items in shops and more space taken up by promotional items in a drive to make even more profit.

Shelves are barely bursting when it’s quiet so there’s little planning, nor, as Mr Sanchez states, enough staff at appropriate times to ensure enough stock is on the floor. 
 

Aisles are clearly getting narrower as well to create space in stores for other shite like Greggs and promotional stands at the corners of aisles (restricting movement again).

Im not sure any of this is caused by me trying to by some pot noodles.

[coprolite]

7 hours ago, JamesP_81 said:

20+ years ago I started work in a supermarket while at uni as 1 of 16 folk on a late shift that was done almost entirely after closing time. 3 years later that shift of 16 was down to 6 doing the same work around customers due to extended opening hours. F*ck knows what it must be like now , I'm just thankful I work in an industry with a decent union now . 

I was shocked when one of the folk at my local wee Tesco explained to me (when i popped in at five minutes before closing) that they were trying to finish mopping so they could get out at closing time because they stopped getting paid at eleven on the dot. Still, clubcard prices eh. 

[scottsdad]

14 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I was shocked when one of the folk at my local wee Tesco explained to me (when i popped in at five minutes before closing) that they were trying to finish mopping so they could get out at closing time because they stopped getting paid at eleven on the dot. Still, clubcard prices eh. 

Years back my wife worked at the deli counter at a supermarket. An hour before her shift ended she sliced open her finger on the meat slicer. I had to pick her up and take her to hospital for stitches.

They didn't pay her for the last hour of her shift.

[coprolite]

10 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Years back my wife worked at the deli counter at a supermarket. An hour before her shift ended she sliced open her finger on the meat slicer. I had to pick her up and take her to hospital for stitches.

They didn't pay her for the last hour of her shift.

That made me wince.

I'm sure i got paid for going to A&E for a work injury when i was in catering although it was arguably the manager's fault.

[TheScarf]

11 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Years of staff/budget cuts chasing a bottom line and artificially inflated pension scheme above everything else means full time staff are at a premium if there's any left at all, with fewer layers of in-store management leading to poorly trained, unsupervised staff who have no stake in the business doing most of the day's work at times of shifts which they're most likely to agree to doing, which will be during the day rather than earlies or lates.

Cheer up, you can sign up for their data harvesting schemes to get your teabags for only 10p more than they were this time last year.

In inverness i've noticed over the last couple of years some of the big supermarkets aren't 24 hour now so when I go into Asda after work at 5/6pm there's often aisles full of cages with staff and customers doing the  'oh sorry' , 'sorry excuse me' , 'aww sorry mate' as they jockey for position in the yogurt section.  Whereas before the stocking of the shelves was done in the dead of night.  

Probably staff cutbacks like you say, meaning the stores can't be manned 24 hours anymore.

[GordonD]

23 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Years back my wife worked at the deli counter at a supermarket. An hour before her shift ended she sliced open her finger on the meat slicer. I had to pick her up and take her to hospital for stitches.

They didn't pay her for the last hour of her shift.

Probably didn't clean the meat slicer either.

[Central Belt Caley]

12 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Years of staff/budget cuts chasing a bottom line and artificially inflated pension scheme above everything else means full time staff are at a premium if there's any left at all, with fewer layers of in-store management leading to poorly trained, unsupervised staff who have no stake in the business doing most of the day's work at times of shifts which they're most likely to agree to doing, which will be during the day rather than earlies or lates.

You’re spot on. Just after I left Tesco in 2019, all the old full timers got made redundant in favour of 16/17 year olds on 5-10 hour contracts. Went from 5 managers down to 2 and more management responsibility was handed to “shift leaders”. 
 

A lot of the bigger stores don’t have nightshift now either, so more shelf stacking gets done when theres customers in. Think it’ll have been passed off as “more colleagues available to help customers”. 

[Cosmic Joe]

There was a joke about someone getting fired for putting his penis in the meat slicer, but I cannae mind the punchline...

[hk blues]

14 minutes ago, Cosmic Joe said:

There was a joke about someone getting fired for putting his penis in the meat slicer, but I cannae mind the punchline...

He was fired but I heard she got off with a written warning. 

[GordonD]

There's also the one about the guy who sat on the meat slicer, and they got a little behind with the orders.

[Miguel Sanchez]

6 hours ago, Central Belt Caley said:

You’re spot on. Just after I left Tesco in 2019, all the old full timers got made redundant in favour of 16/17 year olds on 5-10 hour contracts. Went from 5 managers down to 2 and more management responsibility was handed to “shift leaders”. 
 

A lot of the bigger stores don’t have nightshift now either, so more shelf stacking gets done when theres customers in. Think it’ll have been passed off as “more colleagues available to help customers”. 

It's actually passed off as "flexibility to meet the needs of the business."

[KnightswoodBear]

7 hours ago, TheScarf said:

In inverness i've noticed over the last couple of years some of the big supermarkets aren't 24 hour now so when I go into Asda after work at 5/6pm there's often aisles full of cages with staff and customers doing the  'oh sorry' , 'sorry excuse me' , 'aww sorry mate' as they jockey for position in the yogurt section.  Whereas before the stocking of the shelves was done in the dead of night.  

Probably staff cutbacks like you say, meaning the stores can't be manned 24 hours anymore.

I worked in Safeway when I was a kid and did a few nightshifts during school holidays for some extra cash.  The folk that did it full time were a weird bunch. It was like discovering there was a whole different population that only came out at night. 

[scottsdad]

Just now, KnightswoodBear said:

I worked in Safeway when I was a kid and did a few nightshifts during school holidays for some extra cash.  The folk that did it full time were a weird bunch. It was like discovering there was a whole different population that only came out at night. 

Same here when I was in Somerfield.

Got paid time and a third for the night shift.

[MEADOWXI]

29 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Same here when I was in Somerfield.

Got paid time and a third for the night shift.

I'm that old that my first job at Tesco when still at school I got paid in cash in a wee brown envelope (even Tesco still paid all staff in cash), I worked on the checkouts where you actually had to key in the prices on the till after reading them from price tags stamped on the goods, but you did get time and a half on a Saturday and double time on a Sunday, and my only two shifts were a Saturday and Sunday.

Please note I'm only referring back to the mid 80s. 

[scottsdad]

Just now, MEADOWXI said:

I'm that old that my first job at Tesco when still at school I got paid in cash in a wee brown envelope (even Tesco still paid all staff in cash), I worked on the checkouts where you actually had to key in the prices on the till after reading them from price tags stamped on the goods, but you did get time and a half on a Saturday and double time on a Sunday, and my only two shifts were a Saturday and Sunday.

Please note I'm only referring back to the mid 80s. 

Late 90s for me. Also on the checkouts but often got extra shifts doing other stuff. Time and a half for Sundays and bank holidays.

I imagine this is very much a thing of the past.

[MEADOWXI]

2 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Late 90s for me. Also on the checkouts but often got extra shifts doing other stuff. Time and a half for Sundays and bank holidays.

I imagine this is very much a thing of the past.

Doubt any supermarket does more than plain time bar holidays.

Sundays were great, worked 8-12 on checkouts, then nearly always 2 -3 hours in warehouse throwing rubbish in compactor to tidy up night shift mess.

A 7 hour shift at double time nearly every Sunday, every little helped.