Posted on Wednesday, 10th December 2025
Ryan's Rants Chapter 1 - My job in retail
Hi, it's been a while. This is my second blog post. I've finally thought of a name for my "Things I hate" series I spoke about in my previous entry.
Foreword:
Onto the subject matter: let me open by saying that I don't outright hate my job, but I think there is a LOT of room for improvement with how the company handles the inner workings of the workplace. I work at one of the larger supermarket companies in the UK, its name rhyming with a popular Japanese car manufacturer.
Section 1: General Workplace Issues
On an average day, we're understaffed and running on a skeleton crew. Checkouts may be busy, but there's
nobody to jump on where needed (section leaders are absent or 'busy' through the back).
Self-checkouts are bustling with activity, queues are forming, yet there's nowhere else for them to go,
unless they'd like to go stand in another queue by the main tills. Cue mumbling and complaints, but there's
nothing we can do.
Yet management do nothing, because there's nothing they can do either. From my point of view, the folks that run the individual stores and decide whether to hire more people, just see queues as an inevitability. After all, the store is still making money because those that are queuing are still going to pay in the end, right? That's all that matters.
We have a grand total of 5, yes 5, main tills. Though only 3-4 of which are used at peak times. After around 6-8pm usually we only have one till operator contracted, which isn't a big deal as the store becomes less active in the evenings as expected.
Then there's roughly 14 or 15 self-checkout tills, half of which are prone to issues such as the coin
acceptors deciding to no longer work so they have to go card-only, or other tills freezing every couple
minutes, usually just before the customer is about to pay or halfway through a large transaction.
There are so many things that cause disruption on a daily basis, yet still, management are failing to do
anything about it. I don't know how the process of getting a technician out to fix these things works, but
some of these issues have been prevalent since I started over 3 years ago, on the same machines.
Section 2: Customer Interactions
I don't hate any customer, of course I don't. It would be silly to hate somebody when they express the same
discontent as myself, however, it's when I'm somehow the issue is where I have a problem.
They have every right to complain, of course, but I don't appreciate it being directed at me, or my
colleagues over something we have no control over.
A few examples:
- (When queues are heavy) "Can you get someone else on a checkout?"
No, because there's nobody else here, but I'd sure as hell love to just will someone into existence and have them serve you. We have 4,000 colleagues in this store, it just happens that today is a special day where we only have two of them in. - (When a till says it accepts Card & Cash on the sign above it, but isn't accepting cash that day) "I
wanted to pay cash, the sign above says Card and Cash!"
I know it does, but when you started your transaction, the till told you it was only accepting card at that moment, with an unskippable dialogue box that appears. It also has it in red text on the screen before you even touch the machine. We cannot change the signs, or cover up the 'Cash' text to make it more obvious, unfortunately (blame management). I'd love to fix the till myself, but we aren't given appropriate training, or it's something only the engineers who never come out can do. - (In relation to the chain's rewards scheme application) "I've shopped in here for months, and yet I've
gotten nothing through the app!"
Nobody has, even us that work here, it's not just you. The company has decided to completely gut the app and remove basically any way of gaining any rewards through it, without informing anyone. I had to find this one out from the first customer that complained to me about it, because even as colleagues there's little to no information passed down to us.
On occasion I find myself dealing with returns and enquiries and such while at the kiosk (to serve tobacco
products, vapes, and lottery), usually after 6pm when the colleague contracted to this role has finished.
And
unfortunately, even with my 3 years total of experience at this store, I haven't actually been trained for
CSD enquiries but I've picked up on how to do the important stuff.
A customer might ask, "where is this item?", dunno. Ask a colleage working the shelves, management likes to
move things around a lot.
Or, "this item is priced lower online than it is in-store, why?", because that's the price if you were to
order it online, in-store prices are different for some reason.
Basically, in writing this blog post, I've realised that I'm just reciting my usual script I give customers, just lacking the 'customer service voice'. I do try my best to be nice and explain things in a calm and collected manner, but I struggle with regulating my emotions under stress.
Section 3: Closing Remarks
It's all well and good complaining about these things, but what would I suggest be done about it? Because how would any change happen unless I'm willing to provide solutions?
Short answer: I don't know.
It would be naïve of me, or anyone, to say that all these issues could be resolved with a simple snap of the
fingers. Of course it would.
Yet I can't help but feel that a lot of these issues are easy to fix, the company is just unwilling because
it costs them money, and that means less profits. Sure, customers are still buying products, but if they're
complaining the whole time surely something is wrong.
Or that colleagues are complaining about the conditions, they have every right to in my opinion. Just
because someone has provided one with the means to make a living and not die in a ditch, it doesn't mean
they should automatically praise everything the employer does.
I do however have some suggestions, however short and obvious they may be:
- Fix the self-checkout tills, half of the time there's nothing wrong with them to be causing these
disruptions. My
thought is that the software running them is poorly coded and likes to throw errors over nothing, they
run on Windows
after all.
Or, make it easier to get a technician out to fix them. -
For whatever reason, the company decided to replace 7 of the then, 12, main tills with an area that
never gets used. It was put in over a year ago, before last Christmas and has yet to see any purpose.
Put some tills back in, refresh the existing ones and get some more people hired to work on them.
While we do have sufficient staff, however very little, if they have nobody to serve in quieter moments they could go and help out with stocking shelves or something. -
Give the colleagues more transparency and knowledge.
This is mainly in regards to finding out, through a customer, that there was nothing to gain from using the store's rewards scheme.
Let us know what changes the company is planning to make, or is making.
I could probably come up with more, but I've been writing this post off the top of my head for about 20 minutes.
/ End of rant.
This type of post is mainly to get things off my chest, though with this one in particular I'll likely get the pleasure of experiencing it all again tonight when I go to work. Yippie!
Current mood: tired as usual, haven't slept since yesterday :^)
-ryan