to have complained? WARNING - Supermarket related

[featherbag]

I went to my local Sainsbury's today, I wanted some fresh fish from the fish counter. The member of staff serving on that counter was also covering the fresh meat counter. I stood and waited for her to finish serving another customer at the meat counter. After handling raw meat, she rinsed her hands briefly under a tap, then dried them. No soap. When she asked what I wanted, I made my excuses and left. WIBU to email and complain about this as soon as I got home? I don't particularly want to be served by someone who can't even wash their hands properly, who knows how many different kinds of bacteria were living on her hands, fed by the water she gave them every time she went from one counter to the other?!

Bacteria drink water? I had no idea.

YANBU.
She will have had training about this and should know better.

I would have suggested that she wash her hands properly.

I would have been impressed that she'd washed her hands at all

bet the fishermen didn't bother

I didn't see the bit about being fed by the water - that's not true, but it's besides the point, her hands should have been washed thoroughly with soap after handling raw meat.

Bacteria love warm, moist environments Tee, so if you just rinse your hands and don't wash properly with soap you're making your hands an even more ideal environment for bacteria to multiply.Hat, I was too chicken .

How do you know she wasn't about to put gloves on; that's what they do at our local Sainsbury's.

She picked up raw meat with her hands and served it to the customer...no tongues etc?

But hands aren't that sort of environment. Not that your wrong, she should have washed properly.

No dinosaur, she didn't use her tongue! And yes, I saw her handle raw meat with her bare hands. Maybe she would've put gloves on to handle the fish, I didn't wait around to find out. Or maybe IABU, and I'm too anal about handwashing and cross-contamination (nurse)? I'm quite prepared to be told I am, but it really did seem minging!

I feel sorry for the poor woman who was probably royally pissed off at being left to run both counters. Have worked on food counters myself and it's a bloody nightmare when managers, in their infinite wisdom, pull members of staff of the counters to do other jobs, leaving the remaining worker to do twice the amount of work while a queue builds up.

I thought there was legislation to stop this? I used to work on the deli for my Saturday teenage job and Fish was not allowed to Mix with Meat. Nor Cook with UnCook.

I do feel a little sorry for her Gin but there wasn't a big queue, there was only me waiting!

Maybe I'm being petty here but what if a person is someone who doesn't eat red meat but only eats fish! Changing the subject a bit, We have a grubby looking women who works behind tesco deli counter always has greasy straggly hair, apron dirty, just looks unkept, puts me off buying anything!

In my local sainsburys they don't use their hands.they use tongues.

So you were "too chicken" to pull her up at the time but you feel sufficiently brave to consider contacting her employer now?

She didn't follow correct procedure and surely it wouldn't have been too difficult to point that out at the time.

sooty, I didn't. Maybe I should have. I can't change that now, but still feel very strongly about it!

LOVING mumatron's post!

I would definitely complain if they were using 'tongues'. Tongs, though, would be acceptable

Me too, brings up some 'interesting' mental images!

YAB a bit U I am also in healthcare(student mw) and even if she was going to put gloves on she would've contaminated them with the unwashed hands. Unless she has her own glove putter onner . It was, however, your responsibility to tell her that you would like some fish, but you would like her to wash her hands properly before serving it to you. If she refused, then you should contact her employer.

As this opportunity has passed, I would perhaps contact the head office mentioning that you had seen bad infection control procedures on the food counter, and suggest they might want to re-train the staff.

Heer hands may have been sore from continous washing. Maybe there wasn't any gloves available.

YANBU to complain.

Why are the staff using their tongues??
This sort of thing doesn't happen in my Sainsburys.

goingforgoalweight if your hands are sore from washing then you should be offered alternative duties, not compromise on customer safety. I wonder would that excuse work if someone eating the fish had come down with e-coli from the beef and it had been traced back to this counter.

YABU, christ if you were that narked about it, you should have said something there and then, in Subway I always ask the person to change their gloves cause I don't like sauce, it's their job to do this I'm not asking anything special

I should add that I didn't mention names in my email, and wasn't nasty, just suggested it may be a training issue. Goalweight I know what it's like to wash your hands continuously, they do get sore but that's an occupational health issue not an excuse not to do it!