SUPERSTARS
Store workers on frontline keeping Wales fed
W
HILE high streets across the country are beginning to feel the full force of the coronavirus enforced lockdown, our supermarkets are busier than ever.
With long queues to get in, panic buying and empty shelves, the once mundane weekly shop has become a completely new experience.
None more so than for those working at the stores day in day out.
But one constant throughout the madness has been the friendly faces manning our supermarkets – the unsung heroes making sure the people of Wales are fed.
Whether it’s delivering, replenishing stock, or just offering some help, the workers – both temporary and permanent – have become the unsung heroes of the pandemic.
For one of Cardiff’s biggest Asda stores, the staff have been indispensable in making sure essential changes have been implemented.
Caroline Garrett from Barry has worked in the store for more than 23 years and currently works in the frozen food section.
While she spends her days stacking shelves, the 58-year-old’s evenings are spent working in a caring role for elderly friends and neighbours.
Since the start of the pandemic she has been shopping for up to four households a day and jokes she now has a “little delivery round”.
“My day-to-day life hasn’t changed much really, as I was already working in the store in the day and I work for care in the community in the evenings with elderly people, just making sure they’re OK and doing things like getting their shopping,” she said.
“I’m not saying that things haven’t been challenging at times, but everyone in this store just pulls together. There’s not much that gets me down and I love coming to work and helping people. If I have to stay for an extra hour or go out of my way for someone, I’ll do it.”
Caroline is the youngest of nine siblings and shops for all of her brothers and sisters as well as neighbours and friends.
“There’s not one day that I’m not shopping for someone. Some days I do four lots of shopping and others I do two or one. They know what days I work and I’ll often get a text asking if I can pick something up. I don’t mind, because I’m the only one who can go out and get it and they need it.”
While Caroline is currently working on frozen food, she has also worked on security and checkouts – or in her words, “wherever I’m needed”.
Rob Edwards started working at
Asda Cardiff Bay as a security colleague in 2016, after living in France and spending many years in the army.
Originally from the West Midlands, 63-year-old Rob now considers Cardiff his home and says the store and the people who work there have made it easier to navigate the challenges thrown up by the coronavirus outbreak.
Rob said: “Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak we’ve had lots of people help at the store and they have all pulled together. It hasn’t been without its challenges, but we’ve made sure that from a perspective of things like queuing, it’s really well run and managed.”
A few weeks ago one customer realised it would take four bus journeys to carry her shopping home after getting confused with how home delivery worked. Rob overheard, and offered to drive the shopping to her home address.
“She was really lovely and asked if we had a comments book so she could explain how we’d all been so helpful and friendly. She was back in the next day and I joked with her, asking if she needed a personal delivery driver.”
Carys Francis, 36, has worked at the front of the Cardiff Bay store assisting customers at the tills and helping with queries since 2016.
When the pandemic first started, Carys recognised she had many elderly and vulnerable neighbours who might not be able to easily get their weekly shop. She took it upon herself to offer help to anyone who needed it. Now she regularly shops for three neighbours, as well as her family of five.
She said: “I live in a street with people who are quire elderly and who either have children who aren’t local or who don’t have children. I just went round knocking on doors to see if anyone needed any help.
“I just said to them, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pick up whatever you need.’ I just didn’t want them to worry about their shopping each week and what they were going to do to get food. It has been fine. Three of them have taken me up on it, so I go out with their list and pick up what they need every couple of weeks or so.”
Carys says that although everyone is now used to the new ‘normal’ in the store, it’s still surprising when customers come up to colleagues and say ‘thank you’.
“Initially it was busy, but I think that was the same everywhere,” she explains.
“You sometimes get people you’re serving who will come up to you and say ‘thank you’. I always get really embarrassed, but I think people have definitely become nicer towards supermarket staff and it’s given everyone more of an appreciation for the work of people like cleaners, delivery drivers and people involved in producing, packing and selling food.”