Rude Co-op shop staff

[simonineaston]

To be honest (and why should I be otherwise?), I only went to Lidl earlier to see if they were stocking the much anticipated toastie maker sale which is scheduled to begin tomorrow, on the basis of 'you never know your luck', but if this helps the effort towards the most pages on a storm in a teacup, then I'm happy to oblige.
PS, no grumpy staff encountered

[thirdcrank]

... I'm only posting to help this thread get to the next page, with a chance of breaking some storm-in-a-teacup record.

Here's my contribution:-

Above all, I think that what I'd term the foot soldiers of the retail food trade have done us proud, not least because at a time when just about the only official policy was to frighten the population into staying at home, they were expected to stock the shelves, staff the tills, marshal queues, operate ad hoc rationing and all the rest of it while risking infection. It's worth noting that these are the people at the bottom of the employment heap in terms of pay and conditions.

The only inappropriate comment I've had from sales staff almost went unnoticed. But it was in our local Co-op. Just before lockdown, Gildersome Co-op was refitted and we Co-op members received some coupons to encourage us to shop there. The woman on the till who does not work their regularly greeted me with something like "Haven't I seen you before?" By the time I'd decided against something like "I don't recognise you with your clothes on" and was thinking more along the lines of "I bet you say that to all the boys" it dawned on me that she was suggesting I was going round a second time. Which I wasn't and as I hadn't a trolley full of lavatory paper or very strong flour it shouldn't have mattered had it been my third visit in fifteen minutes.

Piped music or rather intrusive noise has been mentioned and Co-op FM or whatever they call it, apparently centrally controlled is something I can do without. The Co-op isn't alone in this. HMV shops used to have an appalling racket. I generally make the point to anybody working under that sort of noise that they should complain in the interest of their hearing "Otherwise, when you are as old as me, your hearing will be even worse than mine."

I get the impression that the Co-op is now suffering from the changes in food shopping during lockdown. The Co-op has just fully converted to the convenience store format and many customers have gone back to the big weekly shop. I usually have our Co-op almost to myself.

Re food shopping in Settle, there's a branch of the excellent independent supermarket chain Booths there, and I'm at a loss why anyone might prefer the Co-op.

https://www.booths.co.uk/store/settle/

IMO, there has been a lot of coronavirus nimbyism in North Yorkshire. North Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner (who's also a local (tory) councillor in the Craven District) has been on the box a lot going on about fixed penalties issued although Dominic Cummings got under their radar at least twice.

Have I done it?

PS Yes I have. (We're onto P 9 )

[nirakaro]

Well, you're wrong there sunny Jim!
LOL

Thing is,
1. Dictionaries aren't always right. Words mean what people generally take them to mean, whatever the dictionary says.
2. Meanings can change fast, especially new meanings. the 2016 meaning may not apply in 2020.
3. Maybe one can be a 'snowflake' without belonging to the 'snowflake generation'?

Heroic contribution there TC, by the way.

[David9694]

Well, you're wrong there sunny Jim!
LOL

Thing is,
1. Dictionaries aren't always right. Words mean what people generally take them to mean, whatever the dictionary says.
2. Meanings can change fast, especially new meanings. the 2016 meaning may not apply in 2020.
3. Maybe one can be a 'snowflake' without belonging to the 'snowflake generation'?

Heroic contribution there TC, by the way.

4. Woman of 20 gets cat-called by builders on her way to work. Moans about them on social media - gets called a snowflake.

[pete75]

"Oh for Christ's sake. I've never called anyone a snowflake before. It's a stupid expression but one that is, on occasions like this, appropriate."
Well, you're wrong there sunny Jim!
"The term "snowflake generation" was one of Collins English Dictionary's 2016 words of the year. Collins defines the term as "the young adults of the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations".
I'm turned seventy so a "Grumpy old git " would be more appropriate.
Your time will come!
LOL

Hmmm. I said snowflake not snowflake generation. It's actually used to describe all sorts of people who are over easily offended and make needless fuss about imaginary offence which fits you with the amount of fuss you're making over a trivial incident.
Definitions depend on what dictionary you look at. The Cambridge Dictionary includes this definition of the term snowflake as "referring to someone who is considered by some people to be too easily upset and offended" .

[Cyril Haearn]

One can well understand why someone might be impolite, even go crazy, if he has to work for hours in a store where loud muzak is played
..
Am I not the only one who detests this cacophony? I am not especially old or boring. Could it really encourage guests to spend more? It encourages me to leave the store ASAP

[arnsider]

Okay, you and your fellow drones have had your laughs and pointed your ridicules.
To be honest I couldn't give a toss for your thoughts.
I've admitted I was OTT and I've even come arond to sympathising with the guy I crossed.
I am at pains to highlight a far wider issue here. If the virus takes hold again and lock down reg's are re applied, we need to know where we stand regarding use of shops outwith our own locality. I also think that chain stores are being disingenuous not making clear to both employees and customers where they stand and this I believe is the result of commercial pressure. In a way, shop employees are the hapless fall guys here.
I've done this using plain English and I don't care twopence for your nitpicking tedium over word play.
I'm trying through complaints and correspondence to get clarity from Co-op over their explicit policy and as expected, they are using every subterfuge to obfuscate my efforts.

[Oldjohnw]

Given that no two snowflakes are exactly alike it is difficult to understand how one definition can work on all cases. Variations are infinite.

They are, of course, things of exquisite beauty.

But on the matter of grumpy shop staff and sandwiches I fear that the number of iterations of a complaint style is limited. If a first attempt makes little or no progress, it is difficult to see how further versions will work.

Calling this discussion a storm in a teacup has, similarly, limited value. Whilst certainly food and beverage were discussed no mention was made of either tea or any particular drinking vessel. Nor, for that matter, was this particular type of weather seen as part of the original problem.

I leave with this thought. As someone in my seventies I am never rude. The rest of the world is increasingly confusing, obtuse and obstructive. For my part I am at worst ever so slightly grumpy: at best (and generally, if I may say so) generously benign in all I do and say. It's the other party which unfailingly fails to understand me.

I fear this thread will not, despite my best efforts, make it in to a new decile.

[thirdcrank]

My wife has done the greater part of our shopping during lockdown, generally with a big supermarket trip once a fortnight. (Only two of us.) Early on, she made an occasional visit to Marks and Sparks to use up some vouchers. The checkout operator was visibly stressed, continually wiping down his workstation with a by-then grubby cloth. He remonstrated with the customer ahead of my wife in the queue for touching her face, which was contrary to government hygiene advice. IIRC my wife spontaneously laughed a bit and also received a wigging.

Admonitions directed at me have all come from masked female customers. eg In the early days of lockdown, I went to our almost deserted Co-op. There was a masked woman bustling about in a self important manner. When I got to the only open checkout there was no queue so I moved towards the marked area in front of it. The masked woman came charging up with an armful of shopping and shouted at me to stand back. It turned out that she was shopping without a trolley or basket, had bagged her place at the checkout and was then continuing to shop. She shouted at anyone who would listen - mainly me and the checkout operator - that we were two weeks behind Italy and we would soon all be dead without social distancing. When she had finished and was about to leave, she gave me one last carpeting and I suggested in my most authoritative voice that if in future she used a trolley and went round once it would be better all round.

Our local chip shop has arrangements including yellow lines at two-metre intervals for a queue not seen since the golden days of chip shops. The only other customer was a masked woman who gave me my queuing orders.

Let me say that my social distancing is invariably impeccable.

[Paulatic]

I’m relieved the OP didn’t want cat treats.
https://twitter.com/TheGeoffLinton/stat ... 16263?s=20

[Oldjohnw]

I’m relieved the OP didn’t want cat treats.
https://twitter.com/TheGeoffLinton/stat ... 16263?s=20

For a moment I was quite put off the hairy bikers. Mistaken identity.

[gbnz]

every subterfuge to obfuscate my efforts.

Hey, love the language. It's incredible to find someone using the forum, who would presumably know the difference between you're and your

[arnsider]

Ah well! I only manage an O level in English and spent my career on a pocket calculator rather than driving a computer. I only type one fingered.
Sorry if my writing is a bit frenetic!

[reohn2]

The cat must be suffering gravelly without treats.
The unreported(until now) hardship of cats in lockdown




And those shorts don't go with that shirt

[Bonefishblues]

The cat must be suffering gravelly without treats.
The unreported(until now) hardship of cats in lockdown




And those shorts don't go with that shirt

I'd get on the blower to the RSPCA, sharpish - that's no diet for a cat. Now if it was an ostrich...