To expect retired people not to clog up the supermarkets at lunchtime?

[Chil1234]

Really? I mean, come on oldsters, you've got all day to sashay round the shops at a snail's pace, stopping to chat to the assistants, lovingly examining every item on the shelf and trying to work out if the 3 for £2 offer is better than the BOGOF. Why do you want to rock up by the coachload at 12:00 when the place is full of stressed-out people (like me) trying to charge round with a trolley in the alloted 20 minutes left of their lunch-break - list in one hand and mobile phone (yes, I'll be back in a minute!!!!) in the other? What's so appealing about standing in queues five deep when, if you'd arrived an hour or two earlier or later, you could have the place more or less to yourself?

Thank you.. I feel better for that.

I don't want to be all pollyanna ish but I feel sorry that some people would prefer old people to go shopping at some ungodly hour so as not to be an inconvenience to us.

So we can all laugh at old people chuntering over the special offers for spam or whatever. Soon they will all be gone and we will be the inconvenient old.

It is unreasonable. As unreasonable as me cursing the woman with two toddlers and a double buggy on the rush hour train this morning and thinking 'why the fuck couldn't you go out an hour later - you're in everyone's way.'

I don't think my step dad would even think about what time he goes shopping - he goes when he needs to - just like he always has. Difference is now, yes he is retired and a healthy 75, unlike my mum, who he looks after, who has Alzheimers. He runs a home, looks after my mum wonderfully, manages a rented property - their pension, and, believe it or not, as an OLD person, has hobbies and interests. So, OP, tongue in cheek or not, YABU, Old people have lives that cannot or will not be run by younger people.

I havent worked full time in years and years.

It still took me bloody ages to get out of the habit of doing a full supermarket shop on a Saturday!

Why did I put myself through that hell week after week?

I now go on a weds morning right after school run. Its lovely

Apart from all those OAPs that insist on going at the same time of course!

Posters on another forum I frequent would have an absolute kineption at the sight of all of them parking in the P&C parking spaces too. But I wouldnt dream of stirring up that hornets nest.

I think supermarkets would do themselves a favour by incentivising going at different times. After all you can get an off-peak gym membership for example for exactly that reason. It's got nothing to do with liking old people or not.

I don't think the "oh, but the OP was having a laugh dontcha know" excuse works on MN.

Not on my MN it doesn't.

'I think supermarkets would do themselves a favour by incentivising going at different times. After all you can get an off-peak gym membership for example for exactly that reason. It's got nothing to do with liking old people or not'

Bloody hell! Why can't we just go wherever we want to go when we want to go there! Jeez, we live in a free country, unlike the poor bloody Iraqis and others who have curfews and aren't even allowed to put their nose outside after certain times of day. Yes people can be irritating but flippin eck! Chill out guys!

You can go where you want when you want. That's the point of incentives - they're not rules, just encouragements. Perhaps you didn't understand what 'incentivising' means, MissM?

Erm, yes I do know what it means. But gyms offer incentives to raise more money at off-peak times. Your post implied that a supermarket should do it to get certain people to go at specific times. I wasn't having a go!

That should have read 'get certain people to go at specific times to get them out of the way'.

Sometimes you have to accept that you make a tongue in cheek comment, that touches a raw nerve for people and does get a reaction that you didn't expect though. I did one the other day and chose to let it die because of the kind of offence it caused.

Maybe it is because there is such a negative attitude to the elderly generally, that it wasn't received as maybe the OP intended. I don't know.

And it is a form of prejudice that definitely wouldn't be tolerated if it was directed at other sections of society.

Either that or they don't have a sense of humour Mitsubishi

I had all the olds in our close trundling their wheelie bins out at 7am this morning - FFS, you have 24 hours until collection, why O why do it now .

Our local (to the office) Sainsburys gets chokka at lunch time too - they can't seem to cope. It's outrageously poorly managed, but as an oversubscribed supermarket it doesn't matter - everyone shops there anyway. No choice.

However it's not really reasonable to get mad at folk for being there - one of the best things about being on a long maternity leave was not keeping time at all - I just did stuff when I did it. Threw the clock out the window. These old folk and new Mum's etc, are just out of the 'office hours' loop - sorry, but you have absolutely no relevance to these people at all.

Get over it !

OK, I wasn't having a go either, but supermarkets are competing - why not do everything to make everyone's shopping experience better? The OAP goes at 11am and gets 10% off - he's happy! The employed person goes at 1pm and it's not so crowded - he's happy! Etc. So they shop there not at the other supermarket down the road. The supermarket manages its flow of customers better, requires fewer cashiers, fewer trolleys, so saves money. Win win.