You want service? Serve yourself!

Hey! Supermarket Ninja here. Thought I would come out of the forest that is Woolworths and do a post on the new happenings.

First off, a lot of Stores are getting a upgrade. Actually, upgrades.

You see, the old "Green" look is being phased out, and a more "earthy" tone is coming in. As a result things will be changing for the lucky stores that get selected for the upgrades.

The first thing you will notice in a "new" store is the grey coloured walls. The floor will have new tiles (some stores, only the outside edge gets new tiles).

Produce gets new desplays, Bakery joins in on the fun too. Some stores will even loose the bakery. Deli, gets a few upgrades too, with a "express" service feature. Plus you too can join in on the fun down the aisles!

There are groups of employees going store to store moving products about, for that would apear to be no real reason at all.

Now, I am glad I don't have to hear one more customer complain about the moves, but I feel sorry to the guys that are doing them.

So here is the first 101 for todays post.

Upgrade 101

"Why are you moving everything?"

Hopfully everyone that will ask that question, or something like that will read this before they ask it.

The simple answer is to bring all the stores back into line. A kind of standard layout so to speak. The idea is that you shop at one Woolworths, but say you go elsewhere. You don't want to be lost. You can enter the other store and say "Oh this looks like my normal store, I think I can find the tampons without too much hassle."

And you should.

All stores has a similar layout, but the years between "upgrades" is the period where they fall out of line. Still, things should be in some logical order.

Think of it this way. If you can imagine a "heat scale". 0 is cold (or blue), 10 is hot (or red) and between 0 and 10 the colour changes from blue to red. Now apply this to your Woolworths. Blue is produce, Red is Hygeine.in the middle you have purple. This is the household area, the blue side is crap like plates, knives and forks, the red side is chemicals. Shit like Fly Spray, weed killer, That kind of crap.

The idea is you enter a store close to the produce department, then shop to the other end of the store via the blue aisles to the red. Items go into your trolley in a similar fashion, then get loaded up on to the register in reverse fashion so that like products get bagged correctly. That is, no bottles of bleach in with your apples.

That is the ideal world, but it doesn't fucking happen, and the blame can be partly put on the fucking customer.

So the moving of products in a store, brings them back into this hot/cold ideal. That said, the ideal is also in a state of flux as what is good for first 10 stores might not be good for the next 10, and so on.

So you are fucking pissed off at the moves. There is no point in telling the staff that are doing the moves.

You might fucking think you are the only one to ask why they are doing it, or mention that it looks like hard work. I have news for you. You are not the first, and you will not be the last. I would hate to be one of them as they get it all the fucking time. Same smart arse comments, same stupid questions, day in, day out.

Just leave them alone, let them get their job done so they can piss off to a new store, and direct your questions and queries to the fucking Customer Service Desk. That is why it is fucking there.

Now talking about the Service area, some lucky stores are getting new registers. I personally don't like the express lane. Firstly, splitting the line up into 4 smaller lines sucks, but having the backs of the checkout chicks exposed to any nutter is a OH&S issue waiting to happen. Hell, the fucking tills are now fully exposed to anyone that want to do a snatch and grab. Shame Woolworths, Shame.

No wonder the shares are droping. Shareholders are sure that you can protect their money anymore.

The luckier stores are also getting self serve terminals.

Now, let me just say this. If you are fucking going to use one. Be quick, cause I am fucking sick of having to wait for one fucking cunt to take their time with a small basket of goods.

Here are some tips for self serve.

1 - Do not take a trolley through. The bag rack is actually a scale, so when you remove a bag, you ruin the weight of all the items in it. The system needs to be reset.

2 - You can take through produce items. Place them on the "scanner", as it is a scale. Then press the look-up button. If it is a apple, press "A" then look up the correct apple.

3 - Place the item you scaned into the bagging area. You don't want a bag? Still put it in the area, but not in the bag. Remember it is a scale, and if it have the corrent total weight that should be there, the system will lockup. You know, incase you want to steal something, but you want to scan something cheaper like a packet of gum.

News flash, every product has a standard weight, if after you scan something and the bag rack doesnt sence the new weight, then it might think you are stealing something.

4 - You can withdraw cash without buying anything! Want $4? You can get it. It is like a ATM, but better.

Anyway, I thought I had more anger for this post, but I don't. So fuck off. Before I go, I would like you all to remember to be nice to your supermarket worker. They get the same fucking shit day in, day out. Sure they could get another job, for some, it is their other job. Their are items there to help you. Look up sometimes, you don't even need to bother a empolyee again.

If you HAVE to, try not to me fucking rude. If they look busy, find one that isn't. Failing that, go to the fucking service desk you cunts.

Ahh sweet anger.