The On Going Diary Of A MCM Champion At A Busy Supermarket In The Midlands - UK
The lead up to Guy Fawkes night has been tough. This is due to the fact that the law has changed form being able to buy fireworks at aged sixteen years to age eighteen. This also applies to the purchase of tobacco products.
Of course this does not stop some who are patently under age attempting to buy such products. If we judged someone who looks as if they are under the legal age, we are obliged to request some form of confirming identification**
Once the date of birth and photograph have been satisfactorily matched, we will sell the product being requested. Obviously if no form of ID is shown we are obliged to refuse the sale.
Once a cashier has challenged someones veracity, this cannot be overidden by any other member of staff, irrespective of seniority (this appears somewhat rigid, but that is how the law must be applied).
Either way, notwithstanding the outcome of the challenge, a log note has to be completed describing the nature of the events.
In this logo book, the cashier will enter:
This is carried as a statutory requirement and a member of the Trading Standards Industry, who intermittently visit the store to check these log books.
Trading Standards also send in undercover officers to test our cashiers are following the letter of the law is being applied.
These practices will also be followed when
are purchased.
Our store sold the most fireworks in our region, this year and our region comprises eleven other stores. No champagne though!
Special offers are not always actioned when one comes to pay. There are different types of special offers, for example:
These are usually product price reductions evaluated and sent to store level from our Head Office. There are a number of reasons for special offers, but principally:
As I was explaining, sometimes these offers have not yet been recognised by the till systems. This can cause a multitude of problems for checkout staff, since they have to go around the store cross-checking the offers veracity.
On occasion this can be expalined by simple customer error, whether by deed or genuine mistake! However, on most occassions this occurs as the result of an adminstrative problem.
The bulk of offers come off once per fortnight upon the instructions from (usually) Head Office or Regional Office and it is down to Price Controllers to ensure these are updated on the sales floor, by altering Price Tickets and Barker Cards. Obviously sometimes the staff in question are apt to miss putting on a special offer.
By the same token theyr are also not likely to remove the Barker Cards when an offer has finished. When a customer arrives at Checkouts with his special offer and our check only reveals that the offer does not exist on the stok systems, the Supervising Staff is then obliged to go to the shelf where the product was displayed to veryfy that the Offre is still current; she will then authorise the transaction to pass, but then must complete an Error Log Sheet**
This is where a supervisor has been alerted about contradictions between offers that are displayed differing from the information of the Stock Control Systems.
After this error log it is then sent via interanl mail to the Price Controller who then checks that the offer and price is still in date and then enters it into to the system for future transactions.
If only this whole process worked efficiently at the firt attempt and we did not have to repeat this palavar!
You can imagin that several customers can become very irate at being kept waiting whilst all this is all being cross checked and not least we simply do not take their word for the claimed price.....mmmmm I wonder why THAT might be!!!
You would think that since it has turned so cold outside, nothing would melt - but alas that is not the case!
Five freezer cabinets broke down and no alarm alert was to be heard. So it wa quite a few hours before we had realised and by then, as you can imagine, instead of being able to ski on the icecream, you could virtually swim in it.
The amount of stock lost in this debacle, will definitely hit our takings. We would have been better oof leavng the stuff outside on the cold streets of Brum.
The flow of customers has altered this week....due the half term schools break. Where we would normally expect parents to shop after they have packed their little darlin's off to school, or after having collected them, they rae now swarming in late morning to early afternoon.
This of course hits into the the already inflated lunch time trade. As one can imaging the office based shopper, who are time constrained by their lunch break, are having to pick their way through screaming infants, toddlers on scooters or young teenagers on roller trainers (wish I had a pair of those, so I can roll up and down the isles quicker!) .
I almost felt akin to a school marm, constantly asking childern not to run around the isles as they knock products off shelves, which they find a great hoot!
Not long to go now, the little darlin's are all safely ensconced back in school next week. Unlike the back-to-school promotional period, these times seem an utter pain in the ****!
Staff appear to be dropping like flies! The weather has turned wintry and the heating has gone south in the store. We're all wrapped up like Inuits. This has thrown up a few local difficulties, since some colleagues think they can wear what they like.
We do have a standard of uniform dress that must be adhered to, but it does help when personnel hasn't got enough supply of knitwear to go round. This leniency was shown and colleagues were permittted to wrap up. So no further excuses to go home sick then!
Christmas comes early in retail. For us it started in September!
We have just completed all of our Christmas Layouts** or should I say the CDAs ** have completed all their Christmas Layouts.
A Layout is a display presentation plan which is sent out to stores via Head Office. It takes the form of a "planogram" (a diagram by any other words).
The informs the CDAs of:
When you have to see christmas products for three months, you tend to get a bit frazzled by it! But hopefully by the time christmas arrives we will be full of good cheer an somewhat forgiving of this.
This is a systematic and monthly meeting where colleagues can put forward their concerns and suggestions, to the Store Manager.
It is comprised of at least one colleague representing each individual department around the store.
Today we discussed a number of things:
Xmas Party
After some discussion, it was decided to hold a New Years party instead of christmas, which would likely be themed. It was agreed that many staff would be far to pre-occupied with family commitments, prior to xmas and thus a bash at this time would not be practical or well attended.
Staff Hygiene
It had been noted that a number of colleagues are not washing their hands, particularly after visiting the Rest Rooms. It was decided that if any colleague was observed not doing this, it was to be reported to the Personnel Manager to be dealt with, forthwith. This is particularly pertinent to Counter Staff.
It had been noted that a number of colleagues are not washing their hands, particularly after visiting the Rest Rooms. It was decided that if any colleague was observed not doing this, it was to be reported to the Personnel Manager to be dealt with, forthwith.
This is particularly pertinent to Counter Staff.
Eid
Many staff were disappointed at the number of colleagues who did not show up for work because of Eid. It was then proposed that all colleagues who celebrated this festival, should book this time off as holidays, similar to all other religious denominations are required to do. Some members of the staff council, attempted to oppose this (for obvious reasons, since such a move would impact on them directly). However, many other members of the Council pointed out that they had to book all religious holidays off, for example: Maunday Thursday Good Friday Holy Saturday Easter Sunday Christmas Diwali Thanksgiving and so the list went on. The primary concern regarding Eid, was that the date upon which the point would fall, is not set and therefore predictable, making staff scheduling virtually impossible, as the recent episode amply demonstrated, with between 15 to 20 staff not turning up for two days and not having prior booked this. This latter impacted heavily on the stores' function and required immense compensation from other staff to fill-in.
Many staff were disappointed at the number of colleagues who did not show up for work because of Eid. It was then proposed that all colleagues who celebrated this festival, should book this time off as holidays, similar to all other religious denominations are required to do.
Some members of the staff council, attempted to oppose this (for obvious reasons, since such a move would impact on them directly). However, many other members of the Council pointed out that they had to book all religious holidays off, for example:
and so the list went on.
The primary concern regarding Eid, was that the date upon which the point would fall, is not set and therefore predictable, making staff scheduling virtually impossible, as the recent episode amply demonstrated, with between 15 to 20 staff not turning up for two days and not having prior booked this.
This latter impacted heavily on the stores' function and required immense compensation from other staff to fill-in.
The Quiz Night
A Suggestion was put forward for a quiz night. Each department representative has been asked to canvas the opinions of their departmental colleagues, as to what format this might take.
In Store Demonstration
The store manager announced that their wll be a number of in store own branded demonstrations taking place in the run up to the all imporatnt christmas sales period. He suggested we should familiarise ourselves with these products so that we feel cnfident when recommending them to our customers.
I guess its part of my job specification, but I had to endure a customer taking out all of his frustrations on me today.
It started by my asking did he need any help, since he was wondering around the aisle looking somewhat confused "If I need help, I'd ask", he cried. So I immediately beat a hasty retreat and left him alone.
Five minutes later, he came looking for me saying: "you offered me help, well help me with this....". He then launched into a litany of matters he felt unhappy about throughout the store. It was all I could do to listen intently, offer to provide answers about product availability, delivery dates, locations etc.
But I had to draw the line at taking responsibility for how certain foods tasted or worse still the relative merits and demerits of washing powder performance! Realising that this man was on a mission, I politely as possible pointed out that there were customer care lines with the majority of products, which offered advice free of charge.
He became a little calmer, but went away muttering to himself about how unhelpful some people can be.....what's a girl to do!?
