Why I Hate Tesco
December 1, 2007It starts when I turn off the main road and see the store, the store that our local planning authority should never have given permission for; we were sold a pup. The site deserved a better quality build, real stone and a proper roof, not a flat pack shed. It is in a picturesque location and adjacent to an important site of industrial archeology, it was a cop out.
Why have they sited the recycling area in the most congested part of the car park? on a bend and next to the entrance to the filling station, there are no parking spaces nearby, so everyone parks on the road, gridlock.
In store the yogurts are so tightly packed in to the shelves, I cant get any out even the assistant can’t get at them and he concedes it maybe wasn’t such a good idea to stack them like that.
In the fruit and veg’ aisle I am elbowed out of the way by an assistant who is more intent on waving his little bar code gun thingy, over the coleslaw and beetroot than letting a customer reach for a product, sod it I won’t bother, shame I like beetroot.
I abandon ship, I’m out of here, ‘fridge food’ and fruit replenished the rest can wait till another day.
My jaw muscles start to relax, and my shoulders stand at ease, at the prospect of getting out of here, the checkout is going tickety boo, and the young guy on the till is nice enough, till its time to pay, and if its one thing that really gets me going; it’s when the next customer behind you is so ‘in your space’ you cant get back from loading your trolley, to the credit card machine to pay.
I am not in the mood; ‘EXCUSE ME SIR, I would like to get to the machine to pay for my shopping’ I expected him to step back, but no he steps around; me I am now sandwiched between the man, and his wife who is pushing the trolley against my hip.
The young guy on the till, pulls his head down into his shoulders, like a turtle retreating into its shell, he fears a scene, and braces for impact. I bite my lip, just, and glare at the offending shopping trolley, grudgingly the wife moves the trolley back and I can at last stand square on at the machine, all I have to do now is remember my PIN number………
My foul mood travels home with me (I warned you that trying to be all things to all people was not a good idea) retelling my tail of woe to Mr Uhdd he helpfully suggests that maybe I should have gone to Morrisons’ instead, he looks at the expression on my face, declares I ‘look scary’ and retreats ‘to sort the laundry’
Rant over I feel better now!
There are many more reasons why I hate Tesco stores, but this is enough for today.
Every little helps!
I don’t like supermarkets even at the quietest time, and never use Tesco! In many ways they’re all as bad as each other, and unfortunately are, for most of us, part and parcel of everyday life.
I always feel I am being, for want of a better word, manipulated and that for so much choice on display, I haven’t actually got much choice at all.
You can certainly add Sainsbury’s to tesco’s!
I hate supermarkets full stop. Asda is my particular bugbear, as when I last shopped there, they had changed the store round completely three times in three months, and it took me 15 minutes to buy bread, milk and eggs.
Where I live (large housing estate town in the north of Bristol), I don’t have a choice locally - we have (sum total of the shops); 4* Tesco (large one, three ‘Express’), a post office, a Sainsburys, an Aldi, 3 Chinese, a few hairdressers, countless estate agents, a pizza hut and a chippie. Nothing else. No ‘local’ shops. There is a Farmers Market that I only found out about because I happened to be off sick and trying to make an appointment at the drs - it is there every other Friday between 9 and 2, completely useless if you work. The “local” farm shop (half an hour’s drive) has very little on offer - only the eggs actually come from the farm itself.
Fortunately, I work on the City Centre, so I take the opportunity to go to the Farmers Market when it comes here once a week, and every three months, my friend, my husband and I drive for an hour south of Bristol to get to a really good farm shop.
However, for the weekly shop, I do have to brave Sainsburys (the layout is slightly nicer than Tescos) - I have recently discovered the delights of online shopping - yes, it is £5, but I figured that my time is worth more than £5 an hour, and it gets delivered right to my door… I only do it when I’m feeling lazy!
Sounds like money well spent. Have you booked your slot for Christmas delivery, BiL my brother in law has this down to a fine art, moving the slot ever closer to C day as the slots become available. It’s a whole new world
If I get my act together I can indulge in a Waitrose shop, which for some reason , never winds me up like the other big stores. The store was once a Summerfields, the conversion of the staff from one ethos to another is a blog post in it’s self.
I didn’t mind Tesco, having cut my teeth on American supermarkets. They’re all annoying, but not nearly as annoying as having to “re-map” my search images for all the UK brand labels. I find this to be the most difficult part of shopping — nothing is in the same size or shape of package from one continent to another! Never realised how much a social construct is packaging.
andrea
(Oh bother; no Edit button.)
Meant to add, what really drives me nutz is when a store manager decides to re-arrange all the merchandise. One month I had this happen to me in the three supermarkets where I shopped in the two cities where I lived (as a commuting graduate student). I nearly had a crying breakdown because I couldn’t figure out where they had hidden the tins beans.
andrea
[...] am now grumpy and planning my next blog post entitled why I hate Tesco’s, so rather than getting my discounted fuel I will have driven an additional 10m to get my fuel, I [...]
i hte tescos hope they go down come on everyone shop else where they are useless and customer service is shit