Annoying characteristics of supermarkets.

Their are many things about supermarkets I dislike. 

Things like the car park, the layout of and constant rearranging of the layout, people not being prepared to pay for their comestibles after waiting in the queue and then waiting until everything is rung up before hunting for their purse, the long queues, far too much choice in brands of goods.  But my gripe today is about bread.

There is always plenty of sliced bread.  But I don't like sliced bread except to toast.  I like a nice fresh bakery loaf. Most times.I bake a loaf myself using a breadmaker.  Bit with no yeast I found myself looking in the supermarket a full two hours before it closed both last night and today

And what did I find? The instore bakery had sliced all of a full score of loaves, both wholemeal and white leaving no loaves uncut.  When I asked about this, I was told they 'have to' slice the loaves when they have finished the day's baking which put me close to meltdown. it does not make any sense to me as I am sure that many  other customers would also prefer an unsliced loaf. I refuse to have a sliced loaf. I like my bread cut three inches thick so I can delight in the texture of the fluffy inner, feeling it melt away in my mouth. If I want sliced bread there is plenty of choice of sliced loaves, and I am quite capable of cutting it myself. Even a loaf sliced from the bakery loaf tastes totally different when it is cut into half inch thick slices rather than the chunks I like.

On both occasions they have lost a customer and I made do with a bowl of shredded wheat instead. And I will get some.yeast and continue continue to bake my own bread which will only be sliced at tje point of eating, and I can savour the flavour of a nice chunky piece.

What do others find annoying about supermarkets,, or is there anyone who thinks supermarkets are like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.

Parents
  • One of my obsessive compulsions is visiting supermarkets every day.  If I don't I get very anxious about missing a bargain.

    Every supermarket has a unique character.

    I have to confess that I am one of these people who doesn't put things back where they find them.  I sometimes get to the checkout and find the queues ridiculously long.  So I dump the shopping and leave.  Most often in Aldi.

Reply
  • One of my obsessive compulsions is visiting supermarkets every day.  If I don't I get very anxious about missing a bargain.

    Every supermarket has a unique character.

    I have to confess that I am one of these people who doesn't put things back where they find them.  I sometimes get to the checkout and find the queues ridiculously long.  So I dump the shopping and leave.  Most often in Aldi.

Children
  • I don't like Aldi for that reason.  I prefer the self-service supermarket checkouts. 

    Why go into Aldi at all if that's a common experience for you?

    I rail against it because I know that there's more than enough for supermarket workers to do, and working against tight deadlines, without having to return dumped stuff to the shelves or throw it away.  One of the reasons I didn't stick it at Morrison's was that I could no longer cope with the whip-cracking schedules: stock to rotate, stock to replenish, deliveries to unload, audits to do (all very time-sensitive), waste to account for, reductions to be done (loads on produce).  Like I said, we had to cut corners all the time, which meant not doing the job properly - something my autistic brain found hard to deal with.  And just to make matters worse... there were all those baskets of dumped shopping that I had to run around the store putting back on the shelves because someone couldn't be bothered to do it.

    One of the reasons that people shop in supermarkets (apart from the lower prices on many things) is the convenience.  Everything under one roof.  So, it saves time having to go to lots of different shops.  If people are therefore saving time, is it too much to ask to spend a little of that saved time returning unwanted goods to the shelves?

  • Nice to hear from you Robert, your posts always bring a smile to my face and I agree, each supermarket has it's own unique character and I like little things about each of them but on the whole, they stress me out, even when I've got my headphones on. I have a friend who lives on very very little but eats very very well because he knows when to go for the bargains.

    I was in Marks and Sparks the other day and bumped into somebody I knew but she couldn't talk much because she was on the hunt - a group of them, I found out through observing them, go there every day at a certain time and they follow the assistants around  because as they mark stuff down, it quickly goes, so this little gang of shoppers has it down and they help each other out and work together to get all the good bargains. It all looked a bit too complicated for me but at the same time it looked like fun and they did offer me some of the food but I was too overwhelmed with it all so I turned down the offer. It's a similar thing at Morrison's in Skegness, one woman there told my dad she bought a big chest freezer so she can put all the knocked down food in there! My dad got into that gang for a while, before he became too ill to join in. I think he really enjoyed it. They do seem to have fun and they have a natter and catch up while they're waiting then once the mark down begins, they get right in there. In morrisons they only have one person marking down but in Marks and Sparks they have a few, that's why you definitely need to be in with the gang to get the best bargains.