Supermarkets and staff picking

[Butterflies13]

Went to one of the major supermarkets today and I’m finding more and more that the aisles are filled with these massive trolly type things with staff rushing around picking for customers home delivery/click and collect. Normally they don’t bother me I quietly manoeuvre myself and dc around them but today..I was reaching out to grab something and out of no where this arm reaches across the front of my body to pick an item - the staff member said sorry- I was slightly irritated but brushed it off with a ‘no worries’ . No more than 2 minutes later the same thing happened again with the same staff member at a different aisle and she said ‘sorry again’. This time I felt really really annoyed but by the time I worked out what I wanted to say (something along the lines of “your not sorry at all otherwise you wouldn’t have done it a second time”) she had already disappeared. Am I being unreasonable to be slightly irritated as I feel that this individual was being rude and actually wasn’t sorry at all. On an aside I’m also wondering whether the shear rush to pick items may be because they have targets to meet (like the amazon warehouses) in which case I should loosen up a bit. I do realise there are much worse things going on in the world this is just a light hearted moan and I’m just wondering whether I’ve started to become a grumpy so and so or if my irritation is normal!

People moaning about pickers.. am sure would moan more if their orders were late! We can't win.
My store is as big as you can get (ok apart from the new Primark in Birmingham) and as I said, no 'out back' - instead, goods are in another building not on site , or up in the air where we need fork lift trucks to get them down, this happens in the middle of the night. Therefore all our evening picks are purely from the shop floor.
Cannot believe people have a problem with this!

I cannot think of many worse jobs than doing supermarket shopping for a living. It would be my idea of hell.

Did this for one summer and we were timed for how long each shop took. We started at 5am to try and ensure minimal time shopping when open to the public - but was not always possible unless a Sunday and stores open later. All our products were picked off the shop floor unless they were OOS then at the end off all the shops a list was generated of all the OOS and we could look in the warehouse to see if the products were there. The problem is when you’re doing this picking you get in such a zone to be able to do it within the time limit set you don’t always notice everyone around you when you’re grabbing the products.

I’m sure it’s a tough job for the people who do it, I had a few really negative experiences like this. I’m disabled and so supermarket shopping is a real chore, if I get caught in a certain spot by a trolley I can be out of action for days or even weeks in agony. I was in a large supermarket and the same person managed to get me in the exact spot twice, no apology, nothing, I wrote to head office and even after explaining my condition nothing changed. I no longer go to the supermarket, I just can’t risk it.

Not all picking happens in real stores. Tesco have a huge 'dark' store near me, which is used exclusively for online shopping

Interesting thread! Keen to learn more from the poster who said pickers are told what to substitute items with.

Is it really system generated?

Only going by items I've had substituted that would explain a lot... and if pickers are timed I can understand why they wouldn't/couldn't take the time to swap for something more sensible

I guess if the supermarket worker had said 'excuse me' rather than 'sorry, ' that would have helped. There appears to be confusion generally between the terms.

From what I understand the pickers are told which item to sub and it's usually one very close on the shelf.

For example. I ordered frozen butternut squash cubes which were unavailable. The most obvious sub (fresh butternut squash cubes) is right at the other end of the shop. I ended up with frozen root veg mix because it's probably right next to where the picker was already standing.

It wouldn't bother me if a picker reached in front of me, any more than if another customer did the same.

I've worked as a home shopping picker and it's hard work. Very heavy and you are timed so brought up on it a lot. However I would never have grabbed something in front of a customer and just asked first.

As for substitutions these days they are generated by the system but can be overrode.
However each section is picked separately. (Ambient, Chilled, Frozen and bakery) so you're unlikely to get a chilled item subbed for a frozen one.

They are often picking when I go early pm, there's not a problem. I've got bigger issues with the large family outings that seem to be the thing at asda and them blocking the aisle, only noticed in our nearest branch which has a specific demographic, but it's 5 - 10 mins closer than any other supermarket so convenient

Our local ASDA is small with a limited range of goods but they've started doing the picking there. Not only are there loads of them, and they get in the way, as you say, but because it's a small store it doesn't have much stock. When you have about 4 pickers stood by the bananas you find there are hardly any left, and that is before 8am.

I can't understand why they are using that store to pick from and not their huge hypermarket up the road.

I don't think anyone is complaining about the pickers doing their job are they? They are complaining about their lack of consideration for other shoppers. Pushing in front of someone to reach something IS rude. In fact this is the main reason I don't shop at Tesco as they seems to be the worst place for it around here.

Try doing it in a wheelchair.

My dad works as a picker and the targets they've is insane. 100 an hour is the minimum, 125 is expected and 140 an hour is pushed for. This excludes multiples as well, so if they get 10 of an item this doesn't count as 10 but as 1. So they need to rush to hit the targets and every time you stop them for help, you're risking their targets.

They start work from 6am normally, 3am in december to try avoid crowds.

You've to realise each shopper is reducing the number of people in store for you as they do multiples at once. Their scanner tells them exactly where to go and how much etc, so i don't see the problem in them nipping in front of you to quickly grab something, they're not going to be browsing like lots of customers

Would people like an ama from an order picker? Cause I'm sure i could get my dad to do one