Retail pressures are felt by all
IRECENTLY witnessed a case of what I guess you’d call supermarket rage. Let me qualify what I’m about to relate by saying that I’m not the most relaxed of shoppers myself. It doesn’t take much in the way of car park congestion or checkout queues to get me grumbling.
Half-term also seems to be a flashpoint for me as parents seeking a respite from the kids think its fine to treat the fresh food aisle like an indoor run-around play area.
My real favourites though are the spatially-challenged couples with the obligatory disengaged guy leaning over the trolley or else standing with hands in pockets like a trainee road obstruction.
Anyway, back to the incident.
As I turned into an aisle, my path was blocked by two of those personal shopper trollies. There was no sign of the staff and traffic was backing up.
A chap coming the other way, and who was clearly feeling the pressure, decided to move one of the trollies with a sharp jab of his foot.
It turns out that these things are fitted with brakes (makes sense) and the result was that the thing nearly toppled over. This caused a nearby mother who feared her child was about to get crushed to do some serious shouting.
The commotion brought the two missing personal shoppers back from the connecting aisle from where they’d be helping a customer. At that point the trolley-kicker and the anxious mother did a bit of venting at the two staff.
The older worker was having none of it and calmly resumed her work.
Her young colleague though was visibly upset.
It was such an unusual incident that it stuck in my mind. Since then I’ve been reading that aggression towards retail workers is on the rise.
Nearly half of customers who took part in a Retail Trust survey last month admitted to getting stroppy with a shop worker, delivery driver or someone working in customer services. One in five said they’d raised their voice or lost their temper.
Reasons cited were rising prices, lack of staff and slow checkouts. More than half also blamed items being out of stock.
I think that there is also a sneaking suspicion that some retailers are unnecessarily hiking prices simply to bolster profits.
Whatever the cause, however, the effects are undoubtedly felt by all and getting abusive is just not acceptable.
It’s not my intention to get preachy here, but it occurs to me that we could do no worse as customers and shopworkers than to treat each other as we would prefer to be treated ourselves.