The Ninja is visiting YOUR store today!

Back from a well deserved break, the Ninja is back, kicking in the heads of Australia's idiot consumers.

Now, today, I bring to you, my rant on price changes. It is reported today that 32 percent of 282 Supermarkets and Grocers in Queensland were fined for over charging the consumer, or more to the point, over charging The Office of Fair Traiding.

Now, I am all for dishing out fines for businesses that knowingly, and willingly rip-off the customer, but what makes me a un-happy camper is when the customer attacks a business for a honest mistake, even if the gets them the item for free.

Toby Tortoise of Melbourne writes:

The Supermarket Scanning Code of Practice is a voluntary code, not a law. Bilo, Coles, Woolies and Franklins all agreed to it, and it is good business to them if it attracts customers from other retailers. If I remember correctly, they will give you one item free if it scans higher than the shelf price, and if you have a lot of them you get the rest at the correct price.

Posted at 2:45pm today

Now this is true, the code is voluntary. If you go into, say a IGA, or a corner store, and you are over charged, fuck you are unlucky. Don't shop there again. When I mean over chaged, I mean by the ticketed price, not what you want the item for. If you go into Woolworths, or Coles, you will get the first item for free, and the others with the same barcode at the "cheaper" price.

As I like to say, shop with your brain, then your feet. Clearly if you are paying too much for 600ml of Coke at a Mum and Dad store, then you are either doing that to support the small business, or you are so stupid, you have a manual on how to breath in your purse.

Talking about idiots, read what this asshole said.

Jay of Sydney writes:

Apart from price rip-off, some supermarkets try to confuse shoppers by not indicating if a price flag on the aisle is for an item above or below. Because of this some shoppers may end up purchasing more expensive item then what they intended to. Often you come across price tabs missing or put in the wrong place. All this may cost extra dollars for shoopers at the checkout. Sometimes the electronic price display at the checkout is not turned towards customers, so shoppers may not know what price the machine hsa scanned. Also supermarkets take advantage of shoppers' impatience to spend additional time standing in the queue. While shoppers may tend to spend lots of time choosing products, they usually dislike spending time in the queue, so they pay whatever the checkout operator says and get out as quickly as possible. Which is probabaly what supermarkets want.

Posted at 2:49pm today

WHAT THE FUCK? You can't work out if the "tab" is for the item above or below it? I bet you need instructions on how to live every day. FUCK.

It is pretty simple really. So FUCKING simple that I will make it today's 101.

101

This shopping is to hard, I don't know if this price is for the item above or below it.

Step 1: Read the fucking ticket. At Woolworths, this contains the NAME of the item, and its PRICE (there are some other numbers and a barcode, but these are for our internal systems. The barcode on the price ticket WILL NOT scan at the registers.)

Step 2: Look above or below the price. If the ticket says "Heinz Baked Beans 110g $4.99" and the fucking item is below the ticket, then HORRAY YOU FOUND IT! How ever, this could be the 400g can. Which takes me to..

Step 3: Read the fucking product label. If the product below says that it is "Heinz Baked Beans" but the size is different, and nowhere on the lable it says you get a bonus amount for free, then it is not the ITEM BELOW. Look above, and if that then matches. HOORAY! Go sign up for NASA fucktard! You will find that in most supermarkets the price is below the item.

OR THE PRICE IS ATTACHED TO THE PHYSICAL SHELF THAT THE ITEM IS SITTING ON. That means if the price isn't touching the shelf, then its not that products price.

Simple.

Sadly, I fear that there will always be idiots like this Jay character that basically needs to pick up a shopping assistant when they pick up a trolley.

Gift Cards 101

Hello again, it's your old pal Supermarket Ninja here again with a new 101 for you all.

We have all seen them, and shops that are dedicated to selling them are poping up. Hell you can walk into a Post Office these days and buy them. Im talking about Gift Cards. The peice of plastic that has replaced the paper Gift Voucher from days of old.

Now why is there a need for a 101 on how to use a gift card? THe answer is simple really. People are stupid.

First off, the cards are empty, they have no money on them when they are hanging up in a store. Would retailers be stupid to have money hanging up around a store? No. I see people stealing these cards all the time, thinking that they are taking "free" money. Fucking idiots.

Story Time.

This fucking bogan lady, who looked fucking bogan, dress in all Holden Gear, including a Holden beanie, was hovering around the gift card stand, looking all shifty. I then see her pocket several giftcards and head into the aisles where she discards the cardboard that the cards are stuck to.

She then does a large shopping. Several DVD's, lots of make-up, all expensive shit. SHe gets to the check out and the shopping comes to over $500. When it comes to pay, she pulls out a giftcard (cause on the back it mentions that it can be stored with up to $500 of credit.) She hands it to the checkout chick to put throught, only to have it "decline". When she was asked as to how much was on the card, she naturally didn't know. With the checkout chick thinking that there was money on it, ran a check. She found out it wasn't activated.

The bogan pulls out another card, it two wasn't activated. The checkout chick went throught this 5 times before asking the bogan if she just picked them up off the shelf thinking they have money on them. When asked this question, the bogan ran out the shop. We spent 2 hours putting the shopping back on the shelf, 2 hours that could have been spent on serving customers.

End of Story.

So as you can tell, that was one example of how I fucking hate these mother fucking giftcards. The other fucking reasons is the way the cunts use them.

Now here is a Gift Card basic. You can use them as many times as you like till either the card expires, or you run out of funds. I would suggest that you squeeze them for as much as you can, even if there is 1 cent remaining.

If 5 people leave 1 cent on their card, then that is 5 cents that are left unclaimed. It all adds up.

Now back to the basic. As a result of the multi use gift card, people are spending as they need, which is good, however, the person serving you does not fucking know how much is remaining on your fucking card. They fucking just don't know.

If your shopping comes to $49.50 and you hand over a $50 gift card, or swipe it yourself (which I recomend), then thats fine. There will not be any errors. But if you fucking think that because there is $30 remaining on your card that you can swipe it without telling the checkout chick that there is fucking $30 on your card, that it will deduct the $30, leaving you with $19.50 that you will pay in cash, then, no. It fucking doesn't work like that.

Gift cards that use the EFTPOS machine are basically EFTPOS cards. They are to be treated the same. You don't swipe your ATM card knowing you have $30 left and thinking that the machine knows. You always tell the checkout chick that you have $30 on your card and you will pay the rest in cash. You with gift cards, you should fucking do the same.

The only time a checkout chick will know the balance of your card, is outside a transaction (like before your things start getting scanned). But in the interest of speeding things up, before you start shopping, if your not sure, either check online, or use the ezybanking booth to check the balance. (Thats one thing that Woolworths doesn't advertise at the booths, is gift card balance enquiries. Get on that.)

The time consuming option is to get the checkout chick to check. As the WOWPOS terminals wont let the cards be swiped yet, they have to manually type in the card number.

So please, fucking know whats on your card before you come shopping, and inform the checkout chick when payment is to be made at the end of the transaction as there is too much pissing about to check.

This ends part one on Gift Cards. Tune in for part 2.

Also, look out for a Ninja cast in the New Year.

Want to steal shit? We are watching.

Thats right, if you want to steal shit from a supermarket, know this. We are watching. Sure, you might get away once, twice, maybe even three times, but you will be caught. So take note, if your being followed, or you think your being followed, just fucking stop. Drop the shit you have and just fucking piss off right out the door cause we are fucking onto you and KNOW all your fucking tactics.

THEN there is the undercover store detectives. You don't know who they are, but they all know your fucking patterns. If you think your going to get away with what your doing, then know this. Your plan isnt original, and that the store detectives have seen it before. Just drop it, and piss of and NEVER ever fucking come back or step foot in a supermarket again.

PREDICTION TIME!

When RFID tags on all products become standard, and a national database is established of known items sold/unsold. Tracking of stolen stock will become easy via GPS tracking. Future RFID tags will be microscopic, and unique to each item of stock (eg. One bottle of coke will be "different" from another bottle of coke at the same price(eg same product)).

Now lets all have a laugh at the common stupid theif.

The 101 is back! (The Falling Bottle 101)

The 101 here, back from a long time away from the computer. I have been spending my time working hard, and kicking teeth in. I hope you missed me. I hope that you have enjoyed the content that The Ninja has been putting up in my absence. So now, lets move onto my next 101. Mother fucking soft drink bottles vs register conveyor belts.

The Falling Bottle 101.

As a drinker of soft drinks (aka soda, pop), there is nothing worse than opening a bottle of cola, only to find that the desolved carbon dioxide has reached a point where it all will escape the second you open the bottle. So it is always best to not disturb the bottle as much as possible.

Now, your in a supermarket, and your loading your shopping onto the conveyor belt, what do you do when you put your bottles of cola on the belt? Do you stand them up or lay them down flat (length ways or side ways?)? Why do I ask? Well momentum has a spot in my answer.

Now if you stand the bottles up the way they are ment to stand, the will always fall over when the belt stops and starts in it jerking motion. This cause the liquid in the bottle to move around in the bottle till it falls over. This might be fine for some, and is kinda ok for one bottle. Its ok, youre stupid.

Now what will happen if your having a party? You have 10 bottles of sprite, all standing up, all packed together closely. What do you think will happen?

Well it will all fall over, and some bottle will more than likely fall off the belt and onto the floor. What do you think will happen then? Do you think it will explode open and spray everywhere? You betchya!

So how does one not have a accident with the drinks? Simple, lay the bottles down on their side. LENGTH WAYS. That means, having the bottle point in the direction of travel. If they are sitting sideways, then they will most likely just roll on the "spot" and not actuall go anywhere. Sometimes they will build up momentum and fall off the end of the belt when the belt stops, and results in a very shaken up bottle or a big fucking mess.

So in conclusion, there is only one way to put the bottles, and that is laying flat, langthways, pointing in the direction of travel. It might take up more room on the belt, but you souldn't jam pack the belt anyway. Now if you you stand you bottle up from now on, and it falls off the register and explodes over you, then you are a idiot and need to be removed from society.

I am not The Man.

It is a well known fact that I am easily annoyed, it doesn't take much. From a P-plater in a hotted up car doing 20 below in a 80 zone, when he should be doing 100 over like the the stereotype should be (fuck even the speed limit would be nice), to people that walk slowly in front of you, but you cant get around them because other people are getting in your way too.

However there is one thing that annoys me that shouldn't. Being called the Man.

Standard scenario: Im ringing up some shopping, customer has a child, the customer is of the female type.

Me: "thats (insert amount here)"

Female hands money to the child and says "Give the money to The Man"

I am not the fucking MAN, I am a man, this is true, but I am NOT THE MAN. The Tax office is the MAN, the Police force is the MAN, I am not THE MAN.

Maybe this is some kind of "training" for the child to pay "The Man" when time comes to pay "The Man". A form of brainwashing that has been passed on thru the ages. But it pisses me off.

For starters.

Its not a efficient use of time and energy. The mother should just hand me the money and be done with it. That would be the green way. However handing it to the child then having the child risk dropping the money and wasting more time is not green. More energy is wasted. Just pay and piss the fuck off so I can serve the next asshole.

The next Training scenario teaches the children to fear The Man, at my expense.

Mother: "Watch out for the Man"

The correct phrase should be "Fucking stop running around like a chicken on crack , get back here and stop running into people that could potentially flip-out like a ninja"

Telling the kids to watch out for "The Man" is probably another form of brainwashing, teaching the kids that "The Man" is near and to watch out for "The Man".

So this is where I tell you all, I am not "The Man", I am the mother fucking Ninja, and I will be killing you soon, and the man can't get me as Im better than the man. And stop teaching your children about fearing and paying off The Man.

I hate The Man, but I fucking hate being called The Man.

By the time you read this.

By the time you read this post, the promotion will be over for another 6 months. Im talking about the "Shop and Save" voucher promotion that Woolworths has.

I fucking hate it. Sure, its great to sucker more alco's into the liquor department, but the why it's done sucks bigtime.

Firstly, it fucking sucks for the frontend staff. They have to treat the vouchers like cash, yet at some stores they are left out on the bench for people who have no intention on spending $30 in the supermarket to pick up the pile, select the vouchers they want, head into liquor and rape the department of all their stock because they own a small time liquor store that sells their stuff at 10% more than what we sell it for to retarded customers.

(I want to print up some inserts that I can slide into slabs of VB telling the customers of other stores that they have bought a second hand slab that was bought from my store.)

The second reason why I fucking hate the vouchers is that the customers are fucing retarded. While doing breaks in the liquor department, I have had the following happen, on more than one occasion.

Customers who won't be given their sheet of vouchers will come in, and present the fuel voucher, thinking that its one in the same, despite that they were looking at the instore poster that shows what the vouchers look like. On that note, I have had some asshole cunt bring in a cut out copy of a voucher from the cataloge. FUCK!!

Dear Woolworths,

Make Shop and Save more simple for the consumer. Print "Sample" over the images of the vouchers in the catalogs.

Thank you,
Ninja.

Now the biggest gripe I have with the vouchers are something that you, the retarded customer can do. Prepare the voucher you would like to use BEFORE HAND. There is nothing I hate more is a slow arsed cunt that is taking forever to rip the voucher from the rest, without ripping the one they want to use in half.

Here is a fucking tip. First fold the voucher on the pre-cut lines, fold forwards, then backwards. Do all around the voucher. Then tearing will be easy. If you want to use more than one, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, do this before you come to the register!

Also, I do not WANT the ones you don't use. I will only put the in the bin. Pass them onto your friends, or stick them in the customer bins provided at the doors so some old cunt can pick it up while looking for fuel vouchers. I don't want that shit. I cant give it to another customer as they probably didn't spend $30 in the supermarket.

Oh, and its one voucher per item. Not one for many. Read the fucking conditions on the fucking back assholes. Its like clause number 4 on the petrol offer. One docket per customer. One voucher per customer, for one item per voucher.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Its cold out there/hot in here.

It has been a while since I last posted. The 101 is still MIA, but I wish him well in his store, where ever that is. Now, onto my rant.

I FUCKING HATE THE WEATHER! I hate the fucking seasons. I hate the rain, I hate the fucking cold, and I fucking hate the mother fucking heat. Why am I so agressive towards something that I have no control over? I hear you ask. It's not actually the weather it self that is to blame. It just exists, like that fucking boil on your arse. Its the mother fucking cunts that come into a supermarket that HAVE to give all the staff a fucking WEATHER report.

Gee, I didn't notice that it was wet outside. The 20 cunts before you mentioned it, but I faied to notice.

LIKE I GIVE A FUCKING CRAP THAT IT IS RAINING. LIKE I FUCKING CARE THAT ITS 40 OUTSIDE AND YOU CAN FRY A MOTHERFUCKING EGG ON THE ROAD. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT THE WEATHER IS LIKE OUTSIDE, I WILL FUCKING FIND OUT WHEN I FINISH MY SHIFT.

Assholes.

Oh and another thing, I am aware that the coolroom in the Liquor department is cold. Woolworths is working with the manufactures to fix the problem pf cold coolrooms so you can still get ice cold beers, but at room temp. We don't need any more complaints about the cold. Your concern is noted.

ITS A FUCKING COOL ROOM! OF COURSE IT IS GOING TO BE FUCKING COLD IN THERE! WE HAVE TO WORK IN THERE, YOU DON'T. YOU HAVE THE FUCKING CHOICE TO SPEND 10 MINUTES ON END CHOOSING YOUR BEER (of which you will probably choose VB, the swill of beers). WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT ITS COLD IN THERE!