Friday, January 18, 2008

Too Many Idiots, Not Enough Time...

Not really writing this with anything in mind today. Just gonna start writing and see where it takes me so forgive me if I ramble and drift off onto tangents! Was thinking about writing about idiots I've had to deal with at work and can't remember most of them when forced to think about it!

One springs to mind though mainly because it was this week and everything else requires...you know...thought.

Every month at work all staff are required to sit through an insufferable snooze-fest known as a briefing. This is where we have to listen to what the company's doing. Normally accompanied by a video which without a shadow of a doubt would be the most cringe worthy things you have ever seen.

For example at Christmas the video was a collection of various staff members from different stores singing "Walking In A Winter Wonderland" but the lyrics were changed to "Working In A Sainsbury's Wonderland". I shit you not. It was excruciating. Sample lyric was "Stacking shelves...is really good...working in a Sainsbury's Wonderland". A new guy had to watch it twice (they didn't know he had seen it the first time) and the motherfucker LEFT. The company. For good. Yeah, that bad.

So anyway we had one of these things. Make matters worse I wasn't given any notice that I had to go to it till like 5 minutes beforehand. I normally like getting into a certain head space before having to sit through 30 minutes of supermarket propaganda. But in I went and it went on for ages but we had some entertainment.

There was a guy who does the trolleys in there and he came out with a couple of crackers!

Just to give you background on the first one- every month we have a mystery customer. If you work in retail you'll probably know what one is and if you don't I think you can probably hazard a guess- someone walks around the store buying stuff then marks all the interaction they have with staff, queue times etc. And we get the monthly score averaged out to a year-to-date score which obviously isn't gonna be much different month to month if we stay on course.

So my manager is giving the briefing and asks if anyone knows the score for this year so far. I have no idea myself as long as I get my bonus in July (although I do know this months because it was fucking awful- will tell you why in a bit).

So the trolley guy pipes up...

"Is it somewhere between 85..."

Now bear in mind I was thinking he was next gonna say 86.

"...and 95%?"

Ballpark much? That almost made me crack up, and it was made worse when my manager replied...

"No it was 96.1%"

He gave it that much room and he wasn't even right!

So the briefing went on and the subject of the Jamie Oliver TV show came up. For the uninitiated the show was about how supermarkets treat chickens etc. before they kill them- whether they are treated humanely before they have their heads chopped off...

This show apparently put Sainsbury's in a bad light as they never turned up to answer questions about it (again my interest in the subject is not particularly high) so there was a statement for any staff who gave a shit. So before it was read out we were asked if anyone had seen the show to which trolley guy goes...

"I didn't see it but I saw the TV advertisation"

This just goes to reapply the old adage "If you don't have anything sensible to say, don't say anything at all"...

So on to a slightly different type of idiot but still keeping it at work. We won't know who these monkeys are but it made me laugh.

One of the things the mystery customer has to do is ask a member of staff where something is. And the criteria for getting a 100/100 score is that we have to smile, make eye contact and take them to exactly where the product is.

Last month the mystery customer goes up to someone and it goes a bit like this (with a touch of dramatic license of course...)

CUSTOMER: Excuse me can you tell me where the chicken pies are?
BELLEND 1: (Talking to BELLEND 2) And I said to her "Shaaaup you don't even faaackin know me you caaaant"
CUSTOMER: Excuse me?
BELLEND 1: Wot?
CUSTOMER: Do you work on this department?
BELLEND 1: Yeah, so? You startin'?
CUSTOMER: Would you be able to tell me where the chicken pies are?
BELLEND 1: They're on this roller I'm working on blud (Points at roller) If you come back in about 10 minutes they'll be on the shelf. I'm having a chat at the mo geez so off you pop.
CUSTOMER: But theres like 2 things on top of them. I see them now. Right there!
BELLEND 1: I said I'm havin' a chat you fackin twat. Your fackin' pies will be out in a bit. Chill it. (To BELLEND 2) So yeah I said to her "Shaaaup you don't even cantin' know me you twaaat"
BELLEND 2: Oh no you didn't!

Not good I'm sure you'll agree. We also had someone on checkouts who also caused a bad score...

CUSTOMER: (Walks up to till) Hello.
TILL MONKEY: (Says nothing during entire time, makes no eye contact and looks like someone just shit in their cereal).
CUSTOMER: (After paying) Well bye then.
TILL MONKEY: (Silence until CUSTOMER walks away, then to NEXT CUSTOMER) HELLO! HOW ARE YOU! WELCOME TO SAINSBURYS! NEED HELP PACKING? WANT ME TO PAY FOR YOU? GOT A NECTAR CARD? WANT A HANDJOB WITH THAT?

Again with the dramatic license but you get the idea: blanked mystery customer then starts talking to the next one. And you know in both instances it had to be students. But that's another rant for another day...

And just to conclude theres a girl on the checkouts who looks like Alice Cooper. I shit you not. Come in and look. Her face is like a fucking circus. No lie.

Till next time.

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