To be so frustrated at the supermarket

[MinnieAnonyMouse]

I'm just so fed up. We've been observing lockdown really carefully but going to the supermarket just makes me despair.

DH is a nurse but I work from home so to try and keep delivery slots for those who really need them I go and shop once a week. There are so many people either trying to cheat the system or just ignoring it completely. A shop assistant was periodically shouting that only one person could come in per trolley / household but so many couples / families were there. These people then stood separately, got two trollies and walked round together. I completely understand about single parents etc. but there was a family behind me with both parents and three kids. Why on earth would you drag your kids round? There was also a woman who had apparently arranged to meet a friend or family member - they got out of their cars and queued up together for a good old natter. No thought to distance.

Likewise, the shop has put a one way system in place with arrows but the vast majority seemed to ignore totally, wander where they want and if you were where they wanted to be, no matter, just lean across you rather than wait.

I'm worried about DH given his work and this total lack of thought just makes me so cross.

I know IABU for being angry about something I can do nothing about but AIBU to hope that people would have more bloody sense

Some couples are shopping together out of need such as my parents. My mum can't manage on her own due to disabilities and dad wouldn't have a clue where to start.

I've offered to go for them multiple times but they won't accept the help. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

client I'm not allowed a ventilator because I'm too ill for one and due to die anyway, and, my healthboard has abandoned all my care and support as again it's a waste. I cannot work, even part time as I'm too ill. The only agency offering help to those shielding round here employs the man who severely sexually assaulted me because he wasn't prosecuted due to being "too ill to know what he was doing" so he has full DBS and I can't risk him knowing my address. So I've no choice but to go out and struggle. And that's having shielding letters from public health Wales and England and having threads on here deleted for daring to be in the position I am and not following advice.

So unless you're in that position, no, you don't understand.

There are occasional moments when social distancing is near impossible. But many people are just inconsiderate/stupid. We’ll never know for sure but it wouldn’t surprise me if a small subset of the population, call them the “rules don’t apply to me” gang is responsible a large proportion of the thread. The close contact joggers, the wandering shoppers, the concert goers, the picnickers, the Boris Johnsons, the second homers, etc. Another version of the 90/10 rule (10% of the ... is often responsible for 90% of the...)

thread > spread

"Oh no of course I'm so thick I don't understand. You don't understand the pressure we are under. We're picking thousands of items a day for customers and don't unfortunately have the time to walk all the way round another aisle. If you have a problem with it I suggest writing to the supermarket with your suggestion of how to pick thousands of items while avoiding customers at all times."

The pressure you are under doesnt negate the rules you should follow. If you have an ailse purposely changed into the queuing to pay ailse, dont have stock in that ailse that you need to pick. That's not that hard is it? Sure even a picker could suggest that to management. Because otherwise you are putting all the people in that ailse who cannot move out of your way at risk, and also yourself at risk because you are having to squeeze past them. In other stores, pickers follow the same rules as customers, ie follow the arrows etc, keep 2 metres apart. Seems ludicrous to have people queuing in an ailse then having pickers walk right past them. Can you not see how stupid that is?

I went to Sainsburys for the nhs slot 7:30-8. After 8 you are chucked out for the elderly and vulnerable. So it really is a mad dash. The dairy aisle had three members of staff along it stocking up. How on earth was I supposed to get what I needed in half an hour and socially distance? I get it’s early and they have to stock but then why make the slot so early or why not stock up earlier.

The only thing I find about shopping (for bloody loads of separate households now) is the hysterical fuckers watching me like a hawk for any infraction. Do your shopping, wash your hands, and stop obsessing over every little thing other people do.
Fucksake. Some of you will die of stress way before Coronavirus gets you.

The point is you don't know their circumstances. Those watching like Hawks, and I'm one of them, do so for a very good reasons - their health or those they live with. Just keep to the rules.

As for your sarcastic dying of stress before corona that's very insensitive given people are ending their lives over corona fears because of lack of support.

I've been using smaller shops. All fully stocked and one in one out.

We don't know until we are picking what aisle we will have to go on. Often we have to go to every aisle for one pick so that wouldn't work.
Believe me I understand you are stressed and don't want others close to you and I really get that. The problem is supermarkets are not designed for this situation so there will be times when staff get too.close. You are right that it's not really acceptable but there isn't a way round it.

Just move stuff out of the queuing ailse. At the moment, staff are directing customers to queue for the tills in a certain ailse. if you take items out of that ailse, the pickers dont need to go down it .

@Becca19962014 I was following what you said, Jesus, I am sorry.

Just move stuff out of the queuing ailse

And put it where?!

My store hasn't designated a queueing aisle but if they did do it down the booze aisle we would have to relocate thousands of items.

The items need to be accessible for customers to still buy in store so we cant put things in the warehouse, they also can't be put in the foyer of the store or in any of the usual "flash item" areas as they have all been cleared to give customers more room to shop. We also cant just fill in random spaces of currently out f stock items as, when they come back in stock, we wont have space for them.

Not to mention the time and extra people required to help customers find the relocated items, and the complaints it will generate from people annoyed that they had to spend extra time in store hunting for the gin their elderly neighbour asked for because we had moved it.

"Just move stuff out of the queuing ailse

And put it where?!"

It's one excuse after another isnt it. At the end of the day supermarkets have to adhere to the rules, as if they wont, they can be shut. You cannot and should not put customers at risk by making them queue in a certain ailse and then make sure staff walk right past them, inches away!!! It just isnt right. Another Tesco near me has the queue going through the clothes area, which is much better!!! Where there is a will, there is a way.

It's not an excuse @TabbyMumz it's a genuine question. You want an entire aisle to be cleared of stock without thinking of the practicalities of where thousands and thousands of items are supposed to be moved to, just in case a colleague has to occasionally walk by you in the few minutes a week you have to wait there.

Supermarkets are doing their best to comply with social distancing but the building isnt set up for customers to follow a set route/only queue in certain areas. They are set out to maximise sales, not ensure customers stay 2m apart. There is only so much stores can do when they are still getting thousands of people through the door every day.

Some stores may be lucky and have layouts that mean that queues can be corralled through "non essential" homeware/clothing aisles, but many cannot. In my store the clothing department is currently where the queue to enter the shop are waiting and the homeware aisles are nowhere near the checkouts so are useless as space to queue for checkouts, whereas the alcohol aisles are at the end of the checkouts and would be perfect (if my store was using one queue)

In the other supermarkets in my town, one has the clothing/homeware upstairs and the other has no clothing whatsoever, so those areas just are not always practical.

"Just in case a colleague has to occasionally walk by you in the few minutes a week you have to wait there."

The queuing ailse took about 15 mins to get to the tills. In that 15 mins, two pickers walked right by us and stopped by us (inches away) for about 5 to 10 mins each
whilst she fiddled with her handheld. It just should not be allowed. I dont give two hoots what happens to the stock in that ailse, it should absolutely be moved. This is peoples lives we are talking about here. The customers, and the pickers lives. In the whole shopping experience, customers get shouted at outside while they wait orderly in line for up to 30 mins or so to get in the shop...then diligently walk round one way, keeping two metres apart...get shouted at if you go down the wrong aisle then some picker comes and stands inches away from you for 10 mins or so. Brilliant that isnt it. Move the stock!!!! Thow it away, put it on the fu**ing ceiling....just dont put your customers at risk. Find a way.

"They are set out to maximise sales, not ensure customers stay 2m apart."

And that's fine pre covid. Now covid is here, that needs to change.

I couldnt believe ppl's shit behaviour in tesco
no one was following the one way system...
disgusting

Oh right so you don't have a solution. Just want to moan about people working in horrible circumstances for rubbish money.
I assume you would be fine with not being able to get your shopping and absorbing the cost of all the stock we had to throw away just so you can queue the way you want.

Now covid is here, that needs to change.

I dont disagree with you, but knee jerk reactions like "throw thousands of pounds worth of stock away because people have to queue in the aisle they are in" is ignorant and short sighted.

Yes the stores have to keep customers safe but equally we're businesses. If you dont like how one supermarket organises things then go to another.

I wish customers queued orderly, stayed 2m apart, followed the arrows, come as infrequently as possible, listened to the instructions of 1 person= 1 trolley etc but whilst many do, many dont. This week I have seen countless families (not single parents with no option, but both parents and kids), many regulars turning up every day or two, people ignoring the arrows, people crowding staff/other customers, customers having to be repeatedly asked to step back from colleagues... and the abuse some of our staff has received for trying to enforce these rules is horrendous. Every single day I have walked into our warehouse and found a colleague in tears because of an altercation with a customer.

So I'm sorry that you have had a colleague stop to do their work (fiddling with a handset = checking the next item to be picked, checking substitution options, reading customer item notes) but since they were "just standing there" did you actually speak to them or ask them to move?

YABU. You have no idea of people's home situations or who they're shopping for. Try getting a week's shopping for 5 households (15 people in total) into one trolley, and sorting it out at the checkout to drop off on the way home - then come and tell me I'm BU taking DP with me to push a second trolley when I go to Tesco

So I'm sorry that you have had a colleague stop to do their work (fiddling with a handset = checking the next item to be picked, checking substitution options, reading customer item notes) but since they were "just standing there" did you actually speak to them or ask them to move?

Oh I see, it was all my fault because I'm a customer!! I should have asked her to move!! Not her fault because shes breaking the 2 metre rule, or the shops fault because they cant move the stock. You seem to care more about stock than peoples lives.

"you dont like how one supermarket organises things then go to another."
This is exactly what people will do. Remember when this is over, you will have to try and win customers back.

"i wish customers queued orderly, stayed 2m apart, followed the arrows,"
I wish staff would too!! That's my point. Why is it ok to lambast customers, for not doing that, but not staff. You just arent getting it, are you.