Concerns about supermarket staff not following advice

[Cary2012]

Have any of you seen this? Hopefully not.

Sunday, local Co Op, had to pop in to get bits for elderly parents. Checkout staff chatting for ages to customers. One customer, a distant neighbour who loves a chat but well over 70, who has younger family who I know would shop for him, was ages at the checkout laughing and chatting to the checkout lady. She then saw me in the queue, a couple of metres back, and asked me to 'pop your basket here' pointing to the squashed space next to her and the customer. I refused and the guy a distance behind me in the queue said that they shouldn't do this, they need to hurry customers through and not chat.

Today, 6 a m in Tesco, getting my essentials, the customers were great. No pushing, just respectful and keeping our distance. But four staff were very close together and chatting in an aisle. Then a couple more were going really close to customers, reaching over them to get stuff off shelves to fill up the online orders trolleys.

Two staff near the self service were standing closely together.

Seemed a bit daft after seeing this, and playing dodge the staff, to then queue and wait in an area to get to a checkout and be served by an operator who is gloved up and keeping his distance.

At the trolley park another customer was commenting on this to the person with her.

I know they are doing a great job, but it is concerning. We shouldn't be more concerned about staff than customers, should we?

I know night staff have designated break times where the small staff room is full of around 50 people. They all eat together and sit next to each other in the canteen, if they were 2 metres apart they wouldn't be able to fit more than 4 staff in there at a time.
When tesco themselves aren't changing policies that specifically put everyone in confined spaces together, I can see why it would seem useless to implement it on the shop floor.

Thankyou @PrincessPain

They need to be consistent on the shop floor, customers were standing back from each other to wait for the space near the item to be clear, only to have staff getting really close and reaching over them.

I'm a teacher and on a rota to look after key worker kids. Staff and students are kept apart, we seem to be managing it very well.

Because Tesco have announced 10% pay rise many staff are going in when they should probably be off.
Night staff also do not get their night premiums when they are off sick so many have been ignoring the official advice and going in anyway.

It's even worse in the warehouse

DH got shouted at by a Tesco worker today for not following the lockdown

Oh dear. I was hoping that my store was in the minority, didn't know about the pay rise and warehouses.

@IlovemydogandMrObama Hope the shouter kept his distance!

How can they do their job with customers around and still maintain distance? As a retail worker we have to carry on and go in

You can’t keep a 2 metre distance with customers milling around

Retail workers lives are not important enough to be included in a 3 week stay at home

Why did you visit 2 supermarkets in 3 days? Get it all in one go

Sapphire, I did essentials for elderly parents on Sunday.
I did essentials for me and family today.
I don't have a car, so walked locally.
I do appreciate your point about customers milling around, but this was happening when a customer was alone, at a shelf with one or two customers standing away. The member of staff then walked closely past them, and reached over, her arm about a foot away from the customer. And it happened repeatedly. It was wrong, ignorant and thoughtless.
And rest assured I won't be going out shopping again for a while.

I read John Lewis are deploying all their staff to work in waitrose. So a lot of staff will be going into smaller waitrose stores. That's madness. The staff can't possibly maintain gov guidelines in a store with too many staff. And I seen on twitter if they don't go they don't get paid.

The staff simply don’t feel important enough......a number of customers in store means they can’t do their job AT ALL

So they just get on with it anyway.....after all they aren’t important enough to be at home for 3 weeks like majority of the country

You can’t work with people in store

@Cary2012 - one of the other Tesco workers did mention to ranting colleague that if everyone stayed away, they would be out of a job.

Realise that retail workers have it rough, but FFS, DH is an essential worker about to start a 12 hour shift.

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom
Every one is important and equally worried

It's just a horrible stressful time