X-ray, and even more supermarket hogwash
Saw my GP yesterday. My chest x-ray was fine. Nice to know
there's nothing wrong with it. But it doesn't explain why I'm not breathing enough - "Inhalers will
help anyone to a certain degree," he said - so he's referring me to cardiology for an
echocardiogram. That'll be fun - I can't wait.
Then I went across the road to my other favourite supermarket.
Over the last year, I've seen so many things disappear off their shelves, things that I bought regularly and frequently, that I'm starting to take it personally.
Two weeks and two days ago, I made a list of four of the most important ones, and went at 8pm to show it to whoever was on the Customer Services desk, which is staffed till ten o'clock. Not tonight, it's not. Closed at 7.30, because of lack of staff: Lucy, the only CS person worth talking to, is on holiday, and a passing boy, one of the more articulate and competent members of staff, said that the rest are more usefully deployed on the tills.
"We think it's more important to keep the queues down."
(Well, yes, and that includes the queue here!) I gave him the list and he said he would give it to the office tomorrow, and they would get in touch with me.
One week and two days ago, I told customer services about my list. "Oh yes, I remember you giving that to him last week. I'll remind the office tomorrow."
Yesterday - oh joy - Lucy is back. I asked her, do the people in the office actually do anything? (A rhetorical question.) I told her I'd been ignored for a fortnight, and thought it was time to tell management. She put a call out for the duty manager to "come to CS - customer waiting." Five minutes later, she put out the same call. A supervisor with a clipboard came to pick her phone up and disappeared again. Five minutes later, Lucy made a phone call to find out who the duty manager was, and called her by name. It was the same woman who'd just swooped in for her phone and run off again.
Eventually, she arrived - and stayed to talk. I said I'd made a list of four of my shopping staples which are no longer sold here, and I wanted to know why. I'd first asked more than two weeks ago - does anyone actually give a hoot?
"Oh yes," she said, "we do care very much. We want to give our customers the best possible service."
I also said that nine times out of ten my phone calls aren't answered: the few that are answered, are picked up by CS, and once by the stock control manager. The rest of the time, I give up and ring the head office "careline." What do these "office" people actually do? So she looked down her nose and proceeded to educate me. "The office isn't what you normally think of - someone sitting behind a desk with a telephone and a typewriter - it's people on the shop floor. They're not sitting still waiting for calls - they're out on the shop floor, pricing, ticketing..."
I ignored the temptation to ask why she was telling me all this, and why they are dignified with the name office when they're clearly not: or to tell her that I've been patronised by much better people than her: or to tell her that I'd been standing around like a spare part when I had shopping to do - although I did at one point ask Lucy why the hell I was waiting for her, because it wasn't going to benefit me. That's another rhetorical question.
And then she got her clipboard out and asked me for my name and phone number and what the items were. Here goes...
Blisteze - you stock every single item in the Blistex range, except that one.
Jordan's Muesli - after it was repackaged, you got the whole range back, except the one I'd been buying.
Innocent smoothies - you've got everything except the one I'd been buying.
"Perhaps it's been discontinued."
No it hasn't - I talked to the manufacturers. (I've lost count of the number of times shop staff have tried that line on me - do they really think I will believe them and not check? I'm good at rhetorical questions!)
"Oh right. Mmm. I meant discontinued off the shelves."
Well obviously it's not on the shelves!
And pasta - I had two favourites - one disappeared a year ago, and the other one disappeared last week.
I've just been to Superdrug and bought five tubes of Blisteze, and I've been buying the muesli and the pasta in Tesco. Tesco haven't got the smoothie I liked either, so I'll have to get it in Waitrose. It's not a problem getting these things, but I used to be able to buy them all in here, and now I can't. Why?
"I can't be sure without checking, but perhaps it was because of falling sales. You can't please everybody but we do try hard to please our customers, and that includes offering them new things for them to try. Don't you ever walk round and think 'Same old potatoes and carrots and onions - boring - oh for something new'?"
No, I don't. There are certain basic things I want, and I am still perfectly capable of keeping an eye out for new things to try, without being forced to look for new things because what I want has been made unavailable.
I want to be able to buy what I want to buy, not what a supermarket employee with O level marketing thinks I should want to buy, or wants to manipulate me into buying. There is quite enough manipulation going on in the way the stores are laid out. I resent the extra manipulation when core products are withdrawn.
She has promised me a reply by today. I've waited two weeks - I can wait another 24 hours. No, I'm not holding my breath.
Edited Thursday evening 3rd Sept
Good thing I didn't stop breathing! It's 8pm, so I think that for practical purposes it's safe to say that the day is over. And have I had the answer I was promised, absolutely guaranteed, to hear today? I think we all know that answer to that. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then I went across the road to my other favourite supermarket.
Over the last year, I've seen so many things disappear off their shelves, things that I bought regularly and frequently, that I'm starting to take it personally.
Two weeks and two days ago, I made a list of four of the most important ones, and went at 8pm to show it to whoever was on the Customer Services desk, which is staffed till ten o'clock. Not tonight, it's not. Closed at 7.30, because of lack of staff: Lucy, the only CS person worth talking to, is on holiday, and a passing boy, one of the more articulate and competent members of staff, said that the rest are more usefully deployed on the tills.
"We think it's more important to keep the queues down."
(Well, yes, and that includes the queue here!) I gave him the list and he said he would give it to the office tomorrow, and they would get in touch with me.
One week and two days ago, I told customer services about my list. "Oh yes, I remember you giving that to him last week. I'll remind the office tomorrow."
Yesterday - oh joy - Lucy is back. I asked her, do the people in the office actually do anything? (A rhetorical question.) I told her I'd been ignored for a fortnight, and thought it was time to tell management. She put a call out for the duty manager to "come to CS - customer waiting." Five minutes later, she put out the same call. A supervisor with a clipboard came to pick her phone up and disappeared again. Five minutes later, Lucy made a phone call to find out who the duty manager was, and called her by name. It was the same woman who'd just swooped in for her phone and run off again.
Eventually, she arrived - and stayed to talk. I said I'd made a list of four of my shopping staples which are no longer sold here, and I wanted to know why. I'd first asked more than two weeks ago - does anyone actually give a hoot?
"Oh yes," she said, "we do care very much. We want to give our customers the best possible service."
I also said that nine times out of ten my phone calls aren't answered: the few that are answered, are picked up by CS, and once by the stock control manager. The rest of the time, I give up and ring the head office "careline." What do these "office" people actually do? So she looked down her nose and proceeded to educate me. "The office isn't what you normally think of - someone sitting behind a desk with a telephone and a typewriter - it's people on the shop floor. They're not sitting still waiting for calls - they're out on the shop floor, pricing, ticketing..."
I ignored the temptation to ask why she was telling me all this, and why they are dignified with the name office when they're clearly not: or to tell her that I've been patronised by much better people than her: or to tell her that I'd been standing around like a spare part when I had shopping to do - although I did at one point ask Lucy why the hell I was waiting for her, because it wasn't going to benefit me. That's another rhetorical question.
And then she got her clipboard out and asked me for my name and phone number and what the items were. Here goes...
Blisteze - you stock every single item in the Blistex range, except that one.
Jordan's Muesli - after it was repackaged, you got the whole range back, except the one I'd been buying.
Innocent smoothies - you've got everything except the one I'd been buying.
"Perhaps it's been discontinued."
No it hasn't - I talked to the manufacturers. (I've lost count of the number of times shop staff have tried that line on me - do they really think I will believe them and not check? I'm good at rhetorical questions!)
"Oh right. Mmm. I meant discontinued off the shelves."
Well obviously it's not on the shelves!
And pasta - I had two favourites - one disappeared a year ago, and the other one disappeared last week.
I've just been to Superdrug and bought five tubes of Blisteze, and I've been buying the muesli and the pasta in Tesco. Tesco haven't got the smoothie I liked either, so I'll have to get it in Waitrose. It's not a problem getting these things, but I used to be able to buy them all in here, and now I can't. Why?
"I can't be sure without checking, but perhaps it was because of falling sales. You can't please everybody but we do try hard to please our customers, and that includes offering them new things for them to try. Don't you ever walk round and think 'Same old potatoes and carrots and onions - boring - oh for something new'?"
No, I don't. There are certain basic things I want, and I am still perfectly capable of keeping an eye out for new things to try, without being forced to look for new things because what I want has been made unavailable.
I want to be able to buy what I want to buy, not what a supermarket employee with O level marketing thinks I should want to buy, or wants to manipulate me into buying. There is quite enough manipulation going on in the way the stores are laid out. I resent the extra manipulation when core products are withdrawn.
She has promised me a reply by today. I've waited two weeks - I can wait another 24 hours. No, I'm not holding my breath.
Edited Thursday evening 3rd Sept
Good thing I didn't stop breathing! It's 8pm, so I think that for practical purposes it's safe to say that the day is over. And have I had the answer I was promised, absolutely guaranteed, to hear today? I think we all know that answer to that. :)
14 Comments:
We are experiencing the same issue here, Lesley. Items we would buy weekly have vanished. Other items in their places are more costly, saltier, more calories or just not appealing at all.
Whatever happened to wanting to keep a customer base? I guess it is also going the way of the dinosaurs. Sad.
By Deunan, Sep 03 09 1:12 PM
I absolutely love your spunk. You go girl. I am would love to be a fly on the wall when you straighten that gal out tomorrow.
By honeybee4, Sep 03 09 1:49 PM
So it's global - not because they all hate me? :p
Time to rediscover independent, specialist shops, perhaps.
By lesley153, Sep 03 09 1:51 PM
Thank, Judy, but... no chance. Her "guarantee" wasn't worth the oxygen she wasted uttering it.
By lesley153, Sep 03 09 1:53 PM
Reminds me of a few summers again when I was at my supermarket job, and near chaos went on for weeks because corporate office was making us move displays around, put items in different aisle, etc. I can't tell you how many times I had to have this conversation, after the re-organization:
Customer: Excuse me, where's the coffee around here?
Me: It's in aisle one, next to the toilet paper and above the cleaning supplies.
Customer: Oh *confused* why would it be there?
Me: Because our head office has told us that that's where customers would like the coffee to be.
Customer: Oh.. right..
By guitargoddess, Sep 03 09 4:11 PM
What a wonderful answer. Perfect.
By lesley153, Sep 03 09 5:11 PM
I think I figured out why the coffee, toilet paper and cleaning supplies are all in one location and the head office has told employees that is where customers would like the coffee to be....
for the times people in a hurry come in for just one thing.
Coffee and loo tissue I understand. Cleaning supplies stumps me..maybe that is something people in a hurry come in to get.
By Deunan, Sep 03 09 5:20 PM
Damn! I just wrote a lengthy reply here, and am not writing it again right now! It contained more of my retail insight ;)
I'll send you a private message Lesley.
But the first thing was this, is the enjoyment you will get out of one or two items worth this extraordinary amount of hassle and time spent? Surely not. I see things like that, kind of a benefit vs loss.
But I hope you continue because I look forward to reading these, shall we call them 'The Supermarket Serials'... excuse the pun.
By nasty_liar, Sep 03 09 5:36 PM
Sometimes things are discontinued and it doesn't really matter because the alternatives are as good. And sometimes the alternatives aren't worth taking home, which is why I'm making a noise about them.
I wouldn't be bothering if I didn't think it was worth it. It's worth the hassle if I can get them back under one roof. Otherwise I shall just have to go to different places. Blisteze is the most effective item in the Blistex range. The rest are just bog standard salves, like a million other things on the shelves. The muesli I wanted is one of the few that isn't tooth-achingly sweet, and the only one in that range that doesn't taste like straw. The pastas are made well and taste good. I can get cheap ones that fall apart, or other brands which have strange ingredients and a bitter aftertaste - but why should I settle for crap, just because the supermarkets decide to stop stocking the good stuff?
Looking forward to a PM!
By lesley153, Sep 03 09 7:05 PM
Deunan, I think that was indeed one of the reasonings behind the random collection of things in aisle one, except it didn't really make sense because the customers still had to walk to the other end of the aisles to get to the checkout anyway.
By guitargoddess, Sep 03 09 7:29 PM
How did it go today, Lesley? Did that store's employees manage to grow a brain between them (then at least they could share one)?
By bionic4ever, Sep 04 09 5:45 PM
Beth, I don't think one of them has a left hand that knows what the right hand is doing. I had some idiotic conversations which the woman who promised me an answer "100% guaranteed" yesterday. And she rang with an answer today, but for got to acknowledge that she was a day late. I'll write about them too, when I'm not falling asleep - yawn - sorry.
By lesley153, Sep 04 09 7:01 PM
Oh Lesley, incompetence seems to be one product which is very well supplied in supermarkets. And even though you are probably getting frustrated with these incredibly important people, your recollection of the event is just comical. I agree with nasty_liar, 'The Supermarket Serials' would be a hit!
I haven't had many complaints/arguments in a supermarket except when I was in Tesco with just three items and I committed THE cardinal sin of using the wrong checkout. I was told firstly to use the '9 items and under' checkout. I said, well as I am here now you might as well scan my products and I'll disappear. "If you don't like that option, then perhaps you would consider using the self-service checkouts". Me: "I don't like that option either. There is nobody queuing behind me here, you are not doing anything, yet you want me to join the rather long queue so that I can serve myself?" He did scan my items in the end. It would have been easier for everyone if he had done so straight away.
By jonnowales, Sep 06 09 6:35 AM
I have a mantra I repeat when something like this happens. All together now:
"If you had a brain, would you work for this supermarket?"
Like the time I locked my car, in the snow, with the engine running. Sob.
I told the security man that it was mine, and that I'd called a minicab to take me home to pick up my spare car key. He didn't ask me about my car, or even look outside to see where it was. He just grinned and said:
"Why don't you just phone your old man and get him to come and get you?"
That has got to be one of the most unbelievably crass questions anyone has ever asked me. Ever! I'm not often speechless, but. Repeat one hundred times at top speed: If you had a brain, would you be a supermarket security man?
I'm glad you're enjoying the Supermarket Serials. Will they ever take the place of Tales of Merv?
By lesley153, Sep 06 09 12:17 PM