Supermarket queues

Without the smaller shops I am in difficulty as some of the larger stores I can't go in. 

I feel the same. We ve been trying to support some smaller businesses. Theyve closed their doors but are selling online and delivering. Local grocery shops, butchers, plant nurseries, amongst others. It's not ideal but hopefully theyll stay afloat

Well. Lets hope this virus does not last long so we can pick up the pieces.  

I am concerned that many small businesses will not re-open. 

The doctors told me I should be safe to go out in a week so hopefully I can get some shopping. My online shops come with barely any food as people were panic buying and supplies are running low. 

I say a week but I have a fever and breathing issues again tonight, hence I'm up at 1.42am

I'm not vulnerable so its tricky to get a delivery slot and I was told to isolate because of covid. I'm stuck in a weird grey area as weirdly in our area if you have the virus you cant get help with shopping etc but if you dont have it and classed vulnerable you can. If I dont get better I'll be forced to go out to buy food even though I quarantined from day 1 just in case. 

Im dreading the supermarket to be honest. I hate queues at the best of times. Plus lights, people, stock being moved, noisy tannoys! 

People in my area are all for free stuff too. So many posts saying I'm self isolation has any one got ...... to spare.

I've seen everything requested from food (yes I understand we need food) to hoovers and washing machines asked for free and people saying we re self isolating so cant go buy one.....use the internet that's what I've done. The free brigade are really getting on my nerves right now. 

Then our food banks over run with too much food as everyone had realised that fresh food doesnt last the duration so on local pages food was being wasted! They ended up giving it to anyone even without tickets if you could pick it up. The supermarkets then donated more food to the local food bank. So what's the council do? 'Donates more money to the food bank! Alot more money.  

Great but the supermarket food is being wasted and chucked leaving g genuine people who cant get out to suffer without. Stupidity of the outside world is getting to me as you can see lol

How do they know that the queue does not go all the way back round again? They could be going round in circles! Or would that be going round in squares? 

It could even be that the one in front is just randomly standing there and not in a queue at all!

With social distancing in effect,  I am finding it very difficult to shop.

I hate waiting in queues,  now they are limiting the number of people in the store and there are enormous queues outside.

In my area people are taking social distancing very seriously.  In fact I don't even know where the queue ends.  At my local Waitrose,  people are not standing 2 metres apart but more like 10 meters.

Here is a close up of three people at the top end of the queue.

I don't know where this queue ends.

In that case I'd suggest trying to build your own work environment. The internet is a huge benefit for us here as we can start building an audience as a kind of 'work therapy' on our own timescale.

I did this myself a while back more out of desperation then anything, and got amazing results. But it's not quick in terms of income as between self-training and building my audience it'll be another year before this becomes a real income.

Trick I found here is to find a problem you want to help people with, then build your own business around solving the problem. If interested I'd start with a collection of social media pages/channels on different subjects that interest you, see which get most engagement both from you and other people and go from there. Even if not grown into a business is a good form of therapy and practices transferable skills.

I'm not sure what the answer is either. I usually shop later in the evenings when it's less busy, but that seems to be the worst time for going as the shelves are pretty empty by then around where I am. And I'm not very good at rethinking my entire food plans on the spot in the middle of the supermarket! So usually don't buy enough (or anything at all if I can't find anything I was looking for...). I'm hoping once the food situation settles down I'll be able to cut down on my trips to the shops, but every other day is the best I'm managing now

Most online places now allow you to enter card details without them saving any of your payment details - so it's similar to giving details over the phone and wouldn't matter too much if the account was hacked. You don't always even need to create an account if you don't want to, though you then need to enter all your address details again every time you shop online there. Though if I remember right, paypal is still a bit of an exception and makes it difficult to not let them store your details.

I recently have been taken off sick and placed on a "Get back to work" list as I was assessed recently. Now they wanted me to appeal, but I could not face it, so I said no. 

The number one thing I am concerned about is avoiding another burnout as my big concern from the pattern of the last few burnouts is that each one I have had... Well. Each time my physical abilities have got worse. The fear is I can't get any worse then I was after the last burnout without being physically dissabled, so this is the numbet one thing I have to avoid. 

Yes, I too plan to go back to work but how do I avoid the anxiety, stress and the shutdowns and then burnout? I don't have a clue, as the last job I knew back to front inside out and I was only doing 4 to 5 hour shifts every other day of the week! In the past I was down to working for nothing as my travelling was costing me the same as my pay as they realized I could not work any more then about 2 hours a day before I hit issues. (I greatly slow down ad everything becomes 10 times as hard physically if a partial shutdown starts).

PIP and related assessments are dreadful, they assume everyone is trying to play the system and try to trip you up into saying you don't have any problems, and take things out of context/edit records to match their decision if they can get away with it.

E.G. 'I can shop ok on a good day, but these happen only once a month if I'm lucky and I go hungry rest of the time' becomes 'I can shop ok'

Given difficulty in communicating and tendency to want to give answers people want to hear most autistics have, their approach effectively bars most of us from qualifying for support.

I'd appeal, have a bullet point statement of struggles written out before hand (two copies) make sure they sign the one you keep so that evidence can't be altered in their records later. Make it clear you need time to process questions and form answers and if possible have someone there who can intervene and set them straight if they try to rush you or bully in any other way.

When they ask questions, refer to notes to resist any attempts they use to pressure you into understating problems.

Bank issue seems very strange, I'd get an outside review of this if possible and check anti-virus regularly.

The problem as I see it is that there isn’t a solution that actually sorts the issue. An extended priority shopping time I don’t think will work because the vast majority of people want to be there first thing to maximise their chances of getting what they can and further limiting the non-priority customers isn’t overly helpful either - as this just condensed the majority of customers into an even tighter time frame. Really people need to all take responsibility and do their bit by either shopping less often where possible, picking up stuff for neighbours etc... that’s my opinion anyhow

I can't really shop at supermarkets these days anyway as I have been banned from a few because they think I am a criminal (How can one get banned without stealing or without missbehaving?) as somehow I act suspicious. I can't say I have autism as I don't know so I have no means to defend myself or explain...

Other stores have long narrow isles which I just can't do anymore, or they have the first long isle full of soap/shampoos where I can't pass without shutting down (Certain smells trigger it for me). 

And though my Mum dies all the shopping, I am now finding that I can't go in the smaller shops either as they are using the queue system and I panic in queues. 

In the past I have gone round isles again and again not buying anything waiting for queues to go down so I could pay for the product I wanted to buy.

And I don't do online payments after years ago I was hacked into and also defrauded on two seperate occasions when I first tried to use Ebay and my bank said "Never ever link your bank account to the internet". So I have a frozen paypal account. I did not even reach my tenth transaction on ebay! 

So, the only way I buy things these days is via male order either via a cheque or via card over the phone. 

Before this lockdown I used to go in the smal shops, but now I can't. 

A couple of months ago I was told I can put in for PIP. I said I don't expect to get it, but I was told I may as well try. I have nothing to loose. 

So I tried. I explained that I find I can't go in many supermarkets these days and also about the shutdowns where I am basically on the floor paralized.

But what really puzzled me were the results when they came back. I did not get a single point. Now I didn't expect to be able to get PIP. But not having a single point even though I clearly explained certain difficulties made me think "Who can get PIP? Even if I had no arms, legs and no head, I still wouldn't get it I expect! Hahaha! 

But I did find that both for the benefits assessment and the PIP assessment, that they were asking all the wrong questions. The questions asked did not answer or apply to the difficulties I had been facing. It was like I am ona type of sideband to the main channels somehow?

I was in my local Sainsbury's this morning too - I thought the did a good job of organising and controlling the queue.    I'm really not well (no immune system) so I get in with the vulnerable.    We were there at 07:30 so we were about 15th in the queue.     The shelves were relatively well stocked - lots of fresh stuff but the tinned aisle was pretty sparse.

I thought the staff did well - especially as this is such a departure from their normal jobs - they shouldn't have to be managing the spacing of people in the shop.

I'd guess the length of time allocated depends on the age demographic in their local area.      We were out by 08:20 and the queue was half way around the building by then.