what do I know?
Let me explain. If you go to a drive through restaurant or coffee shop, you generally see a timer on the wall. The employee's are expected to get each order out and the customer through the drive through within a certain time. I am sure many of you are familiar with this?
I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning, which is unusual for me, as I tend to avoid stores on the weekend. Anyhow, this is a Zehrs store, which are overseen by Loblaws, which is one of the major grocery retailers here in Canada.
Fast forward to checking out, and there was a guy in front of me, who was taking advantage of some deals, exclusively posted on the store's Facebook page. I sighed when I saw this as none of the cashiers have any idea how to put these deals in the system. And this cashier true to form had no idea, anyhow, I told the cashier to call over the superviser, as there were two of them standing talking a little down the way. They ignored her, so I called the supervisor over. She had no choice but to walk on over now, and I guess she sucked on a lemon on the way over by the expression on her face...LOL Anyhow got everything sorted out with that and the poor guy went on his merry way, and the supervisor went and sucked on some more lemons!!
Then it was my turn and I was chatting away with the cashier and she started telling me about how the till times each transaction now. They are expected to get people's orders through in a certain time. They are made to sign some paperwork about this. Another cashier came over to talk to me as well about it, as I was in disbelief about this. I even asked, "What just like a drive through?" They said yes. What is you have coupons? What if you have a huge order? What if an item is priced wrong? What like the guy in front of me who had the Facebook pricing and no one knows how to ring in those items?
My "surrogate daughter," worked for Loblaws, so I was telling her this story and she said honestly she's not surprised. She was saying that none of the higher end Loblaws brick and mortar stores any making any money. The online ordering and delivery's are making money. They are building more "lower prices," grocery stores, like No Frills, Independent, etc, as folk are shopping there more. They are trying to reduce costs when ever they can.
Now I can almost guarantee if this chain of stores is doing this, the rest will follow suit. It must be so demoralizing for the staff who are not that well paid to now have to make sure they keep to a strict timetable when putting people's orders through.
Thoughts?
