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....)

@the80sweregreat

I do love a Mumsnet ' top ten ' of the various supermarkets! Nobody has done that thread for a while now..

No one is stopping you!

We start picking at 3am (Sainsbury’s - not Tesco, mind) pre-pandemic we’d usually be finished for the day not long after the store opening, so we’d be out of the way of customers. (There’s a cold chain of less than 30 mins and everything chilled and frozen is put in the industrial freezers straight after the trolley run until it’s loaded onto the van be air 6am delivery or 6pm) But because nowadays we’re picking tens of thousands more items each day, they have to spread the amount over longer shifts which is why there’s more of a presence of us in the store during opening times. I can pick 200 items an hour and potentially be full-picking or partial-picking for 8 different online customers in one trolley run, so far more efficient than those customers coming in and physically shopping themselves. I get that we’re annoying and sometimes there’s a swarm of us in an aisle but most of us park in the middle so customers can push their trolleys either side and we work quickly and move on. I love my job! it keeps me fit and the money is great for what the job entails.

I want to stick up for Co-op, our local one is brilliant, never a queue, and kept us all going in lockdown with Facebook updates. And they are a properly ethical business.

@Fluffycloudland77

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

They also manage to be simultaneously the most expensive yet scummiest shop as well. Quite a talent.

I can tell my hometowns going down the shitter by the sheer number of co-ops springing up.

Our co-op is lively! Wash your mouth out!

We were on holiday in Lincolnshire and found a ' big ' co op once ; the only ones round my way are ' corner shop' size , so this was an event.
It was lovely , clean, spacious , aisles the width of a Waitrose aisle , nice music and some decent bread! Lovely helpful staff too.
I was very impressed to be honest.

I've got about four co-op stores close-ish to home/work that I use on a fairly regular basis - each one has it's good and bad points - if anything, the striking thing about them is that a group, is that they're very un-corporate in feel.

I know what you mean OP, the carts they use are huge and take up far more of the shelf than the bit they're at, and they DO stop to chat in our store.

@wealllovepj

We were on holiday in Lincolnshire and found a ' big ' co op once ; the only ones round my way are ' corner shop' size , so this was an event. It was lovely , clean, spacious , aisles the width of a Waitrose aisle , nice music and some decent bread! Lovely helpful staff too. I was very impressed to be honest.

The Coop here in Lincolnshire is literally different to the rest of the Coop brand called The Lincolnshire Co-operative. I find a lot of the stores here quite outdated compared to other stores around the country and didn't know how outdated they were until I moved away for university. At the top of the hill of ecclesall road in sheffield there is a huge one with products we never had in Lincolnshire. However, the Coop on wembley park in london is tiny and absolutely rubbbish/not fit for purpose.

@Toothsil

I know what you mean OP, the carts they use are huge and take up far more of the shelf than the bit they're at, and they DO stop to chat in our store.

All those moaning about pickers chatting do you not talk to your colleagues at work? Why are supermarket staff supposed to be robots who should not pick faster and silently? We don't chat because our manager has a go at us if we do. It's a real shame retail staff aren't seen as people and yet it would soon be noticed if we weren't doing the job

@Rosebel yeah we were heroes and key workers during 2020 and now we are supposed to do our job like robots without anyone seeing us.

It’s been crap sorting home delivery over the last few days. Our drivers were expected to go out on Friday. No concern from management at all as to their safety - we are very rural and had a red warning. One driver went out and couldn’t get to 9 of his drops because of road conditions so they had to be spread between another 2 drivers. Another drop couldn’t be done because the village was cut off by fallen trees. Attempted re delivery the next day and the driver ended up in a ditch damaging the van (he was ok thankfully) and when we actually re delivered the day after that the driver got a puncture from road debris and was stuck in the middle of nowhere for about 3 hours whilst a recovery truck tried to get to him.

But we are robots so none of that matters.