Grocery Pickers in Tesco

[BeachTree]

I try to do one shop a week to avoid the crowds and avoid covid. Yesterday in Tesco it was unbearably busy but I noticed just how many online grocery picking staff were in the aisles and on more than one occasion blocking the aisle. As if shopping wasn't unpleasant enough already, we've got these to contend with now (I realise they are just doing their job and obviously there is a huge increase in online shopping since the start of the pandemic, but still....)

We used to go to tesco on a monday, at a quieter time. It was still awful with the pickers, so much so i stopped shopping with them. Other supermarkets are nowhere near as bad. It was ridiculous, pickers were everywhere. YANBU.

I had been going on a Monday evening but there were so many gaps on the shelves that I went on a Sunday this time. I'm autistic and hate the crowds but it's no good if I can't get what I need!

Out of all the supermarkets Tesco is the worst for this. You can't move in the aisles sometimes. I just don't notice it in other supermarkets.

@Unanananana

What do you expect them to do? If you are that paranoid about covid, why go shopping yourself?

I think they should do it before the shop opens and after it closes - easy to do on a Sunday, not so easy when you have a 24 hour shop. But obviously some supermarkets don't want to pay for more hours.

Some supermarkets have "dark" stores which are only for online shopping and not for public custom.

@CornishGem1975

Out of all the supermarkets Tesco is the worst for this. You can't move in the aisles sometimes. I just don't notice it in other supermarkets.

My local Sainsburys used to be quite bad for it. One of the reasons I started shopping online myself!

YABU.

I'm always absolutely terrified I'm going to catch a small child with the huge, heavy trolley.

^^
This - so many families (mum, dad, Nan and grandad plus several kids in tow) come to the supermarket as if it's some exciting day out, and let their kids run riot, and then tell their kids we'll lock them in the freezer if they don't behave! (yes this happens). The picking trollies are so heavy when full, and when parents let their kids deliberately jump in front of our trollies for shits and giggles (yes, this also happens and parents smile indulgently as if it's somehow endearing to us), it's really hard a) to stop suddenly without doing either yourself or the kid an injury and b) to plaster a polite smile on your face in spite of wishing that you keep your kids under control because what they did is just fucking stupid and dangerous.

And I say that as a single mother of 3, one of whom is autistic and needed extra supervision in shops.

We work hard, we are not trying to make other shoppers' lives difficult. It's hard, heavy and physically exhausting work. It's easily 20,000 steps in a 4 hour shift and it's knackering.

We're just trying to earn a (not very high) wage and avoid getting told off for not hitting ever more demanding targets from management.

Thankfully I don't have to do it any more but I spent a significant part of lockdown doing it as my normal work dried up overnight. It's brutal but we really aren't out to piss anyone else off, I promise!!!

It is annoying. I am sure customers are also annoying to pickers.

The issue isn't the pickers, it's the supermarket (company, not store) bosses and owners who make these decisions in the name of efficiency and cost saving. They could, of course, choose a warehouse model for online shopping - but that means either higher customer prices, or lower profits. So, as higher prices drive shoppers to other stores and the bosses won't accept lower profits, the only solution is the one that's happening. It's just as shit (if not shitter) for the pickers.

Personally, I would prefer Tesco and Asda et al to take the profit hit, but capitalism means that will never happen.

Yeah I find it frustrating too. I think over time it will change to using fewer central warehouses to perform online shop picking for rather than local stores. Or they'll reduce the floorspace of local stores and set aside a larger stockroom type area for picking.

I have similar frustrations with fast food restaurants. They certainly don't seem very fast anymore and its frustrating seeing your order of a single meal being overtaken by numerous Just Eat/Deliveroo/Uber Eats party-size orders, it seems like actual physical customers are no longer the priority. Even with drive thru it seems far more common to have to park up and wait presumably because the delivery orders are taking up a lot of kitchen capacity.

It’s usually for you though? And the one time it isn’t and you go in store it annoys you? Presumably it doesn’t bother you all the weeks that you order online.

As many others have said, if you’re trying to avoid crowds then Saturday is probably the worst day to do anything. Go either really early in the morning or late in the evening, preferably on a week day.

They’re just doing their job.

I think they should do it before the shop opens and after it closes - easy to do on a Sunday, not so easy when you have a 24 hour shop. But obviously some supermarkets don't want to pay for more hours

It's not about not paying for more hours It's because they physically can't pick shops when the shop is shut as that is when the shelves are restocked. Pickers can't pick from empty shelves so we have to give the night stockers time to put stuff on the shelves before the pickers can take them off again and neither job can be completed in an hour or two, especially as many supermarkets are running on skeleton staff as so many have left/quit/retired/reduced or changed hours etc during covid and there hasn't been recruitment to replace them

Additionally the pickers have to select tens of thousands of items every day based on priority - over the last two years, my individual store's demand for Home Shopping has increased almost 200% - we were given extra vans and extra delivery slots as well as the collection slots being extended to provide double provision ... which means the need to have people picking the actual shopping has also increased and there physically isn't time for them to get every shop picked in the hours the store is closed.

To add to @melj1213 great comment, when I was a dot com shopper I could be picking up to 6 peoples shopping at a time. A single persons shop was rarer to get than a shop for multiple customers. So, one picker is actually replacing 1 to 6 shoppers at a time.

Morrisons use a warehouse model, I used them for years. It also meant there were less subs as they had a better idea of stock levels.

@StooriMidori

To add to *@melj1213* great comment, when I was a dot com shopper I could be picking up to 6 peoples shopping at a time. A single persons shop was rarer to get than a shop for multiple customers. So, one picker is actually replacing 1 to 6 shoppers at a time.

I'd say that on average, 3 pickers replace 6 shoppers - orders are broken up across several pickers (and divided according to frozen/chilled or ambient products, to speed up picking) - you don't pick a single order unless it's an express order - so you might be shopping for 6 customers on a trolley, but so will three other pickers, depending on the size and scope of the order. That's how Asda worked, anyway!

YABU.

If all of the people those staff are shopping for went in person, the store would be even busier.

I will save my ire for the assistant bumbling round the co-op at 9.30 this morning with a bloody great floor polisher - precisely the time when it is full of mothers with centurion tanks of pushchairs trying to get around.
It's a smallish shop with very narrow aisles.
And they'd sold out of croissants.

My local tesco is a Superstore, not an extra. They don't do picking in it. Only the extras.

@ThinWomansBrain

I will save my ire for the assistant bumbling round the co-op at 9.30 this morning with a bloody great floor polisher - precisely the time when it is full of mothers with centurion tanks of pushchairs trying to get around. It's a smallish shop with very narrow aisles. And they'd sold out of croissants.

Yes but co-op prides itself on being the worst shop of all time ever. I believe that's its main strategic objective.

Each picker will do several shops per shift. One picker is surely better than 10 different shoppers in the store. They have no choice about when they work, you can go anywhere/anytime.

I wont be shopping at waitrose online then if they do it overnight and then refreeze things

@StooriMidori

To add to *@melj1213* great comment, when I was a dot com shopper I could be picking up to 6 peoples shopping at a time. A single persons shop was rarer to get than a shop for multiple customers. So, one picker is actually replacing 1 to 6 shoppers at a time.

Sainsbury’s is up to 8 at a time

@whynotwhatknot

I wont be shopping at waitrose online then if they do it overnight and then refreeze things

It won’t be refrozen. It will be picked within a half an hour slot and taken straight to the freezer. It won’t have time to defrost. Plus the vans have freezers too so it will be fine. It will be frozen a lot more than it would for you to go and get it yourself

@MangyInseam

Yes, I find the pickers a bit of a pain. They take up a lot of room in front of the shelves, and often stand there a long time.

Try "excuse me please'. It's quite useful.

@CornishGem1975

Morrisons use a warehouse model, I used them for years. It also meant there were less subs as they had a better idea of stock levels.

Not since the pandemic we don’t. Went from about 35 stores offering home delivery to 200+ virtually overnight. That was fun 😂😂

Store I work in is probably 30/40 years old. It’s been everything before it became Morrisons. Home delivery is a corner of the warehouse a corner of the chiller and wherever we can get in the freezer.

There are plans to expand the store to accommodate us but the local residents keep objecting to them. We do the best we can 🤷‍♀️ and it’s a decent job for the area tbh.