Snails pace at the Co-op

[MaMaD1990]

Just interested to see if this is the same in other places. We have 3 local Co-ops and in every one, the service is so slow! I find it quite amusing and usually just use the self service so not bothered by it, but my partner and a few friends get driven up the wall with it. There is actually a well known joke between locals that you go in a youngster and come out an OAP it's so slow! Is the Co-op like this anywhere else, or is it just my sleepy little town? YANBU - yes its slow and drives me mad, YABU - no its not slow at all.

Soooo slow around here. Actively avoid it for that reason.

@2bazookas

In our co-op (small community) the till staff know everybody and vice versa; so as they ring up the shopping there's almost always some social conversation with the customer. It is a bit slow but it's part of the charm of the kind of place we live in. It's also the font of all local intelligence and gossip. So if you want to sell a car / get a dog/ find a man to paint your shed/ wonder what your funny rash could be, just drop it into conversation at the co-op.

This is so true, its like the real life version of Facebook recommendations!

@TashieWoo

There are two near me and I’m always irritated every time I go... service is very slow (I usually go self service) and the staff always seem to be in the way, not doing very much! I find the aisles are very narrow as well so it’s difficult to pass when the shelves are being stacked. They’re always a bit untidy too, lots of things in the way. I only go because it’s convenient and one of them has good parking so easy if I need to get a few bits.

My partner swears the staff hide from him every time he needs to pay or help with the self service. Although I doubt its every time!

Ours I very slow at times. the reason is usually because the checkout operators seem to know everyone and chat on about nothing. I appreciate this is lovely for the elderly people in our village who perhaps don't get a lot of social interaction but can also be frustrating when you are in a rush. Then there is a hold up when someone wants their shopping delivered, that seems to take time calling someone down to take the trolley of shopping. Then there is the frequent misleading pricing on meal deals and things that are confusing and wrong information on what's included, so you get to the checkout to find that actually what you have picked up is not part of the meal deal which causes delays. then there is the frequent running out of carrier bags so someone will invariably turn up without their own bag and then have nothing to put their shopping in. Also there are frequently no baskets at the entrance and they are all piled up at the checkout so the queue is interrupted whilst someone moves all the baskets and due to space the queue cannot move forwards whilst this is being done. All in all it is a hugely frustrating place to shop. I try to go to Lidl whenever possible but Coop is the only store in our village.

That's really lovely. I imagine that happening with the lady who's 'well over 60' at one of ours. She literally chats to everyone and everyone knows her because she's been there so long - I remember her from when I was about 10!

My local one has staff who are slow and rude.

@Faranth

Oh dear god, yes. We have 2 and there's never anyone on the tills in the big one. You have to decide whether to stand there like a lemon waiting for someone to notice, or do a trawl round the shop hoping to find staff, who are usually all having a chat in a random corner somewhere.

The small one, used to have a particular lady on the till all the time who was sooooo sloooow. She'd say hello, and ask all sorts of questions about your day, inside leg measurement etc. All before she started scanning. Then when you paid she'd take the money and spend ages talking at you before she'd get your change. If you tried to pay with card she'd talk at you before telling the card machine to wake up. Meanwhile the queue would be to the back of the shop and growing. Once you escaped with your pint of milk she'd start the same with the next person. People would leave their shopping abandoned and all sorts.

When they put in the self service tills it was amazing. You could actually buy a sandwich without it literally taking your whole lunch break. She'd try and get people to come to her at the till and anyone local would be all 'oh, no, it's fine I'll just go here thanks byeee!'

She's retired now, bit still a local legend

That sounds like Wimborne Crown Mead Unless is Standard Operating Policy 😂

Yep! A friend of mine has named ours the queue-up. We frequently joke that the person at the head of the queue would be surprised to learn that British Rail had been privatised and that Margaret Thatcher was no longer in power

Some places it's the only shop in town so a captive audience. Friend of mine works for them but on the support side. They are an odd company and very well paid at the top end. CEO got a 100% bonus recently. Staff all get a bonus depending on the year the business has had.

Ours is ok, the PO is in it though…dear God, that’s torture. Everyone is local and they know everyone, so lots of chatting, how’s your mother, was it covid your sister had? When’s your daughters baby due….on and on….meanwhile there’s a queue like an execution behind them as cards are put back in purses, then zipped into cross-body bags, bags put back on, struggling with them over anorak hoods…final farewells and lots of say hello to your mother/sister/granny from me. I’d be quicker just delivering my parcel by hand

From someone’s who been on the other side of the till ….. the checkout operating system is huge and takes an absolute age to navigate for items in bakery and fruit and veg. The lottery and key tokens are also separate systems which have to be navigated - twice, once in their own till and then again on the coop till.
Sometimes, cashier use ‘small yak’ to hide the embarrassing long time it takes even for a skilled operator to navigate.
Sometimes it is just a chatty operator who knows everyone 😀

Yes every co-op is massively slow!

Known as the slow-op here

Love The Ned wine though 😍

We've got two: the smaller one has very speedy staff, occasionally battling a slow system but still good (they recently removed their self service tills, as they weren't used much due to the main tills being so efficient). They are friendly as well as speedy, which is impressive.

The larger one, um, well the people on the till often seem to have splints / crutches / bandages so I presume even sitting at a till is painful for them, and they couldn't unload stock etc. It's a slow store, but I kind of like that they're finding a way to keep people in jobs.

I hate ours. One of the assistants is trying for the Oscar in theatrical "huffing". Just for people going to his till.

The aisles are blocked with cages of stock wIting to be put out. An assistant once blocked me and DS in his wheelchair and I in an aisle once. We got to the end to find our way out blocked so turned round to go back only to find an idiot staff member had blocked that way out as well. The shelf fillers are mostly students from the local uni so there's a high turn over and they dont really care

In my local co-op the staff have shifts at the other local supermarkets.

Apparently the advantage of that is if you wish to steal something they aren't bothered about chasing after you to keep their Co-op job.

The disadvantage is they will help ensure the security guards keep an eye on you in the other local supermarkets.

So most thieves are rarely locals.

The staff are actually fast workers thanks to their training on Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco etc.

Ours is horrendous! Always a massive queue, I avoid it when possible.

Yes, the Co-ops do seem to be rather slow, I think that this is why they probably decided to also offer funerals.

I have several near me, they all have self service tills...except the village one I drive past on my way home. Dear God, the queues - it can be 10 deep and reaching the back of the shop, but no-one ever seems to speed up or open another till (the latter now, apparently, being out of the question “due to covid”. Why they can’t partition the tills, like everyone else has, to allow more staff in the till area, or install the self service machines people keep asking for, escapes me).

Like a PP found, the Covid Regulations One Way System was rather farcical as you practically had to do a tour of the entire shop to get to the drinks and baking stuff aisle. Even better was the sign outside that said “Please wait for another customer to leave the shop before entering”. What if there wasn’t anyone already in the shop? You could be standing in the drizzle all day.

And there’s a member of staff who chats away, but recounts a story as she goes. Except she tells it regardless of customers coming and going, so you might get the beginning, the end or just a random bit in the middle

According to the article posted upthread, there was a problem with rhubarb being under-weighed as the sticks were quite long and hung off the end of the scale, so my question is: do I weigh less if I stand on one leg on the bathroom scales?

Our Coop is horrendous, they looooooooove a long queue. I avoid it unless desperate. Somehow they manage to achieve massive queues despite there being barely any customers in the shop, I don't know how they manage it. Absolutely terrible

There used to be a Co-op department store in Rochdale. The standing joke was that you could go in, look round, but never buy anything because the shock of selling would be too much for the staff. They really had no intention of helping anyone.

There's an adorable little Co-op food store, extended hours I think, at Eccleshill, Bradford. Staff are keen and efficient. Great place.

Yes! There’s a new-ish one near me that has normal tills and two self checkouts. Great right? Except there’s one member of staff on a till AND overseeing the self checkout. So you’re either queuing for a year, waiting for a staff member at a till or waiting for a staff member at a self checkout when it doesn’t recognise whatever you just scanned. Aargh.

Our local is so so slow, either queue for a decade or use self service which alwats goes wrong and staff ignore

We have a large Co-op it’s really well stocked and the staff are really nice and helpful.

One of the tills is labelled a no rush till in order to assist those people who get a little flustered.

However during the initial lockdown the arrows on the floor were so placed it was not possible to access the fish display. When this query was put to the young man he suggested using the left hand aisle and then slalom to the right!