Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm just writing to a well known food chain, advising them of some shortcomings I am experiencing with their home delivery process.
Post Pandemic, I've realised just how much I utterly hated going "shopping" and I realised we are really invested now in home delivery!
(So much, that I'm actually attempting to get the process to work a bit better)
I wondered if it's just me, or is this a more universal Autism thing?
For those of you who don't like to post or vote, this is a very simple question, and you can possibly excercise a bit of power if you have a strong feeling about shopping.
We constitute about 1/50th of the population if I have my facts correct, (I may not when it comes to that number) so IF we turn out to be "all of one mind" it's worth "niche influencers" like myself (I KNOW companies, and even lawmakers, can be influenced by a well written complaint, as I've been doing it for years! I claim credit for killing a Kellogs ad campaign in the nineties with a particularly vitriolic communication to the right department and the part of U.K. drone law that lets your kids (and me!) fly a toy in your own back garden...
Complaining is like planting seeds, and waiting to see which ones sprout. For those who are lacking in funds and powerless it's a very cheap hobby, too.
You just have to do it creatively, and not "whine"...
So how do YOU feel about a trip to the shops?
A trip to physical shops can overwhelm me so much that I don't often go nowadays, maybe a couple of times a month if that.
Online shopping meets most shopping needs in a much more convenient and less stressful manner. As far as non food shopping is concerned I very rarely visit shops at all and get everything online.
However shopping for food online does tend to be more expensive. If I visit physical stores at the right time of day I can get yellow stickered reduced items. Rather than large, busy, noisy supermarkets I prefer smaller grocery stores, such as Heron Foods and Farmfoods. They tend to be quieter, as well as being much better value than traditional supermarkets.
When I do go shopping I try to go midweek afternoons, usually quieter. As much as possible I avoid going during school holidays and in the run up to Christmas. I also try to avoid lunch times and school finishing times.
Even choosing my shopping times so carefully I can still get overloaded and overwhelmed. So many things are not autistic friendly - lights, bleeping tills, announcements, music, noisy children, other customers treating shopping like a social event, etc.
I have a set route I tend to follow and if they start changing things around it stresses me greatly. I try to stay focussed and block out noise but it isn't easy. Sometimes if it gets too much I will just dump my basket and leave without buying anything.
There I some stores I hate going in more than others, due to the very loud noise from the bleeping tills. Aldi is a prime example, I can hear them before I'm even through the door and with my ear plugs in.
I don't like it when checkout operators try to chat. I am already trying to multitask on so many things that it is another overwhelming demand. I am already trying to unload shopping, check prices, pay and pack my shopping. I can't cope with anything else as well. My default response is to just smile and nod, regardless of what they say. I usually don't bother taking my earplugs out at the till, so I've no idea what they are saying.
You'd think that self service tills might be more autism friendly but they aren't, not in my experience anyway. The automated voice is just so loud and demanding. The system gives you seconds to bag something before announcing "unexpected item in the bagging area" loudly to the entire store Then, as if that wasn't enough, the lights start flashing as well! Using these almost always needs some sort of human intervention from a member of staff.