The angry thread

[Newportnobby]

Had to have a rant at a Tesco person this morning. Our Tesco 'Extra' is a decent sized place selling clothing and household goods as well as foodstuffs, and has about a dozen tills over and above the automated machine thingies. Only 2 tills were 'personed' and queues were everywhere, with some just abandoning trolleys/baskets of produce and walking out in disgust. If I hadn't needed some things in my trolley I'd have done the same. "I'm very sorry" just doesn't cut it, Tesco

[The Q]

Went in our nearest extra (20+ miles from home), the other day, noticed they too had reduced staff on the tills, I wonder whether it's a decree from head office and the local staff are just getting the crap for it..

[guest311]

somewhat baffled..

news last night said price of oil had gone DOWN and fuel prices should follow...

but

went into Tesco today and their diesel has gone UP another 10p a litre.

re the comments on tills, I always self scan as I shop, it's easier then to see when they have cross filled items but not removed or turned over the price tags.

xx at £1 - scan £2.25 

you then find that the £1 item is out of stock, no OOS label of course, and they have just filled the space with another, similar, more expensive item.

I have yet to find they have cross filled with a cheaper one 

in a recent ITV news interview, the Tesco CEO said he expected prices to rise by 'the low to mid single figure percentage' but a few days later I was in the local Tesco, and their own coke had gone up up from 50p to 60p.. 

that was 20%.when I was at school.

wish my pensions went up at the same rate 

[thebrighton]

Had to have a rant at a Tesco person this morning. Our Tesco 'Extra' is a decent sized place selling clothing and household goods as well as foodstuffs, and has about a dozen tills over and above the automated machine thingies. Only 2 tills were 'personed' and queues were everywhere, with some just abandoning trolleys/baskets of produce and walking out in disgust. If I hadn't needed some things in my trolley I'd have done the same. "I'm very sorry" just doesn't cut it, Tesco

Like many stores staff are the expensive element so numbers are regularly cut. My wife works in clothing retail where the store now runs on a quarter of the staff it used to 5 years ago and they are constantly under pressure but if it makes you feel good ranting at a member of staff who has zero control then fill your boots and make their day even worse!
If you want to have a go talk to their HO not some random member of staff already overworked and probably on minimum wage, my wife is.

[Newportnobby]

If you want to have a go talk to their HO not some random member of staff already overworked and probably on minimum wage, my wife is.

I have mailed the 'Boss' man of Tesco who mails me telling me what they're doing for me. Do I expect a response? That'll be a 'No', then.
If someone works 'front of house' they should be prepared for flak when things are such a shambles, just like I had to do as a representative of my company. I couldn't just say "Don't tell me. Tell my MD" as that would have resulted in a P45. I just had to suck it up.

[thebrighton]

If someone works 'front of house' they should be prepared for flak when things are such a shambles, just like I had to do as a representative of my company. I couldn't just say "Don't tell me. Tell my MD" as that would have resulted in a P45. I just had to suck it up.

Sorry but what a load of tosh. So someone working in a shop on minimum wage, struggling to covet their bills etc who has zero influence over staffing etc has to to also put up with someone like you ripping into them?
No idea what your line of work was and don't care but I guess you weren't on a zero hour contract worried about how many hours you were going to get the following week or whether you'd be another cutback statistic.
Still, it makes people feel important tearing a strip of a defenceless people on the bottom rung. My wife has to regularly endure rants from people like you and, yes, she's on minimum wage and a part time contract. She has to suck it up as you suggest and has nowhere to go after an attack other than feel drained and worthless.

[jmupton2000]

Dapol "Quality Control" makes me mad. Latest example the Strathclyde Class 156 which has just landed with the double arrows printed back to front!!!

Idiots!!!!!

[daffy]

Re apparent staff shortages mentioned above:

Maybe it has something to do with the dramatic rise in Covid cases that are being recorded in UK - over 93,000 new cases reported on today, and large %age increase week on week. Staff in shops and supermarkets are in the firing line with all the maskless, carefree shoppers I'm noting in my local supermarkets, so perhaps there are increased absences due to ill health.

Just my three-halfpence worth.

[NScaleNotes]

Unlikely anything to do with COVID, most stores were and are still chronically understaffed regardless of how profitable the individual store is and that's before you get into all the other issues that cause most of the issues people complain about like out of stock and fluctuating prices.
In any case when the staff that are still there decide they've had enough of being overworked and abused by customers they leave and are rarely replaced immediately, if at all, when they move on.

How about instead of abusing shop staff people just shop somewhere else and stick to it, there's plenty of options.
I can't tell you how many times people say: "I'm never shopping there again", usually for some petty thing like something not being in stock or having to wait an extra couple of minutes in a queue but then would come back days, sometimes even the next day, because they can't be bothered to stick to it.
You're not achieving anything by doing that.

[stevewalker]

The staff are the face of the company, so they will get the complaints - and hopefully pass them up to management, along with comments on how often it is happening. However, even when having a rant I usually apologise to the member of staff (often before complaining) that it is them receiving my complaint and that I know it is not a problem of their making.

I have boycotted one local shop and have kept to that for at least 10 years now (that WAS the actions and attitude of the staff).

I also stopped using a bank, but kept an account there, costing them money keep telling me of my 1 pound balance (being stupidly messed around with unnecessarily ridiculous applications of overly strict rules we'd just got married and they wouldn't add my wife to my account, despite having the marriage certificate, her new passport and ID and bills in her old name and address, because they insisted on a bill with our address on, but she'd only moved in when we married, so she had none).

The other one is a restaurant/bar, that on one occasion kept insisting that our 3 month old son, in his car seat had to be on a chair instead of the floor, despite advice being never to do that due to the danger of falling and on another occasion, when some idiot tipped a bench over, tipping a girl backwards and banging her head, leaving her semi-conscious, they tried to throw the girl out by dragging her down the stairs with her head banging on every step ... until we called for an ambulance, the police and the manager! We have never been back.

[Newportnobby]

If someone works 'front of house' they should be prepared for flak when things are such a shambles, just like I had to do as a representative of my company. I couldn't just say "Don't tell me. Tell my MD" as that would have resulted in a P45. I just had to suck it up.

Sorry but what a load of tosh. So someone working in a shop on minimum wage, struggling to covet their bills etc who has zero influence over staffing etc has to to also put up with someone like you ripping into them?
No idea what your line of work was and don't care but I guess you weren't on a zero hour contract worried about how many hours you were going to get the following week or whether you'd be another cutback statistic.
Still, it makes people feel important tearing a strip of a defenceless people on the bottom rung. My wife has to regularly endure rants from people like you and, yes, she's on minimum wage and a part time contract. She has to suck it up as you suggest and has nowhere to go after an attack other than feel drained and worthless.

It's good to know you have such a low opinion of me you think I would stoop to venting my anger on maybe a till operator or perhaps a person picking stock for home delivery. Whether this level of employee is on minimum wage or zero hours contracts I do not know. You seem to be the expert on such detail.
I did, in fact, take my complaint to the besuited Customer Service Manager (at least that's who I asked for) behind the appropriate desk. Hence my comment 'front of house'. Is that not where a complaint should be levelled? Again, I ask you as the expert.
As far as I know, you were not present and therefore have no clue as to what actually occurred but have made assumptions about my person which I resent.
Or is it, perhaps, the bag of Tesco chips nestled firmly on your shoulder?
Sadly, as I've always enjoyed your build threads, you are now the sole occupant of my 'Ignore' list as I have no intention of playing forum 'tennis' with you

[ImpInaBox]

Just to change the subject slightly... I've just had yet another email from Rails about a special offer 'exclusive' wagon - the Fisherman's Friend one - but it's OO gauge only.  Why do we never get these one-off specials in N gauge.  We're always the poor relation.  And in the spirit of all the above, I've emailed Rails to have a moan.

[guest311]

am I the only one baffled by P&O's action today ?

as I always understood it, you did not make a person redundant, but the job that he did.

IIRC you could not 're-create' that job for IIRC 6 months after it had been made redundant.

so, how can you 'sack' hundreds of workers 'on the grounds of redundancy' and have replacements waiting on the dockside to take over their jobs ?

or do workers no longer have any rights ?
or do overseas owners not have to comply with the laws of the countries they operate in ?

[Newportnobby]

I've already posted on another forum that I believe P & O's action to be not only heartless, cruel and cowardly but, like you, believe it also to be illegal.
I'm not debating whether or not some kind of action is necessary to save the company but it's the way they have gone about it that my comments above refer to.
No doubt there will now be panic buying as folks see footage of lorries stranded everywhere

[Train Waiting]

There is an exemption from 'normal' UK employment law for people classed as 'seafarers' whose employment and other rights are governed by the Maritime Labour Convention, which came into force in the UK in 2014.  I have a feeling we will hear a lot more about this over the next few days while people attempt to work out if this, in my view, very badly-handled situation is legal or not.