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Scab shops

Got it in one

Funnily enough I met a guy who built MRI scanners a few years ago, he told me that they make three or four a year which is more than adequate to meet demand, I would imagine high tech paediatric equipment has a comparable market.
Annual car production in the UK is a tad under a million a year.
As we saw at the start of the pandemic there are plenty of companies that can build ventilators. The main problem is that the government has to pay for this high tech equipment rather than an individual paying for their car to be serviced.
 
Getting back on track, Mrs Tag wants a desk. When in town recently we went into a furniture shop. Unable to find many desks we turned and walked out. I am not sure what the "shop assistants" were for. They seemed totally uninterested. In one or two places around the shop were huge touch screen things were you could view their entire range. Get full spec. View from any angle, pay for it and arrange for delivery. We could have done that from home 🙄
I heard a whisper that at uniglo you simply drop your purchases into a bin, it adds up the cost and asks for payment, no assistant tills necessary?
 
Last time I needed furniture I got it online. Not from Amazon either (the selection was atrocious), it was some company in the UK who had a website.
 
When in town recently we went into a furniture shop. Unable to find many desks we turned and walked out. I am not sure what the "shop assistants" were for.
Having worked in retail, you can blame some of this shift on the customers who acted as if you were a high-pressure salesbully when all you did was ask if they needed anything.
 
Getting back on track, Mrs Tag wants a desk. When in town recently we went into a furniture shop. Unable to find many desks we turned and walked out. I am not sure what the "shop assistants" were for. They seemed totally uninterested. In one or two places around the shop were huge touch screen things were you could view their entire range. Get full spec. View from any angle, pay for it and arrange for delivery. We could have done that from home 🙄
I heard a whisper that at uniglo you simply drop your purchases into a bin, it adds up the cost and asks for payment, no assistant tills necessary?

Yes, you can put them in a space and it will add up the prices for you. There's usually an assistant standing nearby for those who need help.

But it is sad to see less floor staff in general. Back in the day, in retail, your boss would often say such shelves have to be stacked by such a time - which was fine, but then customers would be asking for help all the time you're on the floor. And as the customer always comes first, you try to oblige. You might not get the shelves stacked in time & then you'd have to deal with the boss giving you grief and so on.

Nowadays it's called multi-tasking, but it could be stressful, working for a shitty pay, no prospects and constant aggro.
 
Aldi's first scab shop is on Greenwich High Road and you'll be glad to know that things are not going well. The retail space is a former Coop which became a Costcutter and then a poudshop and the adjacent chicken shop. They started converting the building in August 2020 and finished building works about a year later. It was announced that they were opening in October last year which was then put back to November. It still isn't open but they've had full shelves including perishables on and off since the autumn. Hordes of pseudoshoppers turn up every other week or so to trial the system, and then go away again.

The sad pictures of nothing much happening are from earlier this afternoon

View attachment 305483View attachment 305484
They opened about ten days ago and it's been an absolute disaster. It started of with a couple of colleagues being double charged, then a student being charged for all things picked up by a friend she went shopping. Another colleague just got billed for the ingredients for some other random shoppers rather fancy dinner party.
 
Used to use scab tills when my old job meant I was dealing with the public all day and I couldn't cope with the thought of interacting with even one more person. Nowadays I use manned tills because my job has a heavy mental load and being able to offload scanning the items onto someone else makes a massive difference. Supermarkets are designed to be overwhelming to confuse you into buying as much as possible and scab tills just add to that
 
. Supermarkets are designed to be overwhelming to confuse you into buying as much as possible and scab tills just add to that
Not sure this works on me - the effect is that i want to get out of there as soon as possible and therefore buy the minimum necessary stuff.
 
Just the other day I was reflecting on how good the scab tills in Waitrose are. In most supermarkets they are a little irritating because of the delay in response when you press a button. It's 2022 and there shouldn't be a lag when you interact with a touch screen. In Waitrose though, the touch screens are nice and responsive, and it all happens like a dream. Wonderful.
 
Perhaps everyone ought to ensure that their actions maximize employment at every opportunity, in order not to be a scab person.

For example, before replying to this thread consult a third-party online IT support provider so you can pay a real human to guide you through the posting process, in case you forgot.
 
Just the other day I was reflecting on how good the scab tills in Waitrose are. In most supermarkets they are a little irritating because of the delay in response when you press a button. It's 2022 and there shouldn't be a lag when you interact with a touch screen. In Waitrose though, the touch screens are nice and responsive, and it all happens like a dream. Wonderful.
I like Waitrose. It keeps the riffraff out of Fortnum and Mason.
 
I tend to use the scab tills far more than the manned ones unless I am buying a load of stuff which is very rare since Mrs Q does not like to delegate the bulk grocery shopping to me on the (probably justified) grounds that I will make a bugger of it.
 
Aldi's first scab shop is on Greenwich High Road and you'll be glad to know that things are not going well. The retail space is a former Coop which became a Costcutter and then a poudshop and the adjacent chicken shop. They started converting the building in August 2020 and finished building works about a year later. It was announced that they were opening in October last year which was then put back to November. It still isn't open but they've had full shelves including perishables on and off since the autumn. Hordes of pseudoshoppers turn up every other week or so to trial the system, and then go away again.

The sad pictures of nothing much happening are from earlier this afternoon

View attachment 305483View attachment 305484
i don't think there are any staffed tills in the dalston aldi, which has been open for some time now
 
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I tend to use the scab tills far more than the manned ones unless I am buying a load of stuff which is very rare since Mrs Q does not like to delegate the bulk grocery shopping to me on the (probably justified) grounds that I will make a bugger of it.
could we lose sexist terms like manned pls.
 
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