Tesco plays the race card
After a fairly heavy drinking session with Victor yesterday afternoon, I went out between 7-8pm to take Rocky for a walk and put some money on my gas card and electric key at the Paki shop, and with the idea of buying some Tesco own brand cheap sausages for tea. When I entered the Tesco Extra on Beverley Road I noticed that a large section of the shelving was empty and a notice proclaimed that this was because of a breakdown in the refrigerator. However, there was also large gaps on the shelves where the sausages normally are and this was not down to any breakdown. All the cheap brands were missing and the only ones on show were the expensive variety at over a £1 more.
It reminded me of the images I had seen in Russia where shop after shop displayed empty shelves. I complained to the Asian-looking shop assistant who was nearby, and he suggested I come back tomorrow! I couldn't believe the response. The shop manager turned up along with a security guard. In my view, the shop manager is responsible for stock taking and ensuring that the products are available for the customers. I said he was incompetent and failing to do his job. He said I could shop elsewhere. I said the store was convenient for me just being across the road, and I did not appreciate his suggestion that I visit the Tesco Extra on Spring Bank as this branch was 20-30 minutes walk away.
I said that Tesco had encouraged customers to come here, and even went to the extent of opening and closing an hour earlier and later than the Paki shop. The shop manager screamed that what I had said was racist and the security guard bundled me out of the store and the store manager said I was now banned.
Is the term Paki racist? Not according to this Talk:Paki from wiktionary. "Paki is just a shortened word for Pakistani, just as Brit is for British, Aussie for Australian etc".
In my view, Tesco should ensure that it's store managers are up to the job. Tesco should not encourage customers to come in and buy its own brand products, and then fail to ensure that it has re-stocked the products only leaving the more expensive brand names on show. Tesco should train its store managers not necessarily with the view that the customer is always right, but to listen to the complaint and respond appropriately. I don't think that libelling and assaulting customers is the correct approach. Nor do I believe that Tesco's customer complaints department should ignore my complaint after informing me that it will get back to me, only to ask me to fill out a questionnaire!
As it happened, I returned to the Paki shop and discovered a pack of sausages with the label £2.20 for 2, but there was only one pack available. I pointed this out to the shop assistant, and he said, "Right, you can have it for £1.10". We shook hands on the deal. Once before I saw and said the same thing at Tesco Extra, and their response was to shrug and say take it or leave it.
5 comments:
Profit, is Tesco's aim and forte. The cheaper the labour the bigger the gain.
Being banned may have done you a favour ... 'extremist' has overtaken 'racist' in 'politically controlled' Britain. I wonder where you might have ended up if you had wrongly been labelled an 'extremist' for airing your views?
Although the store manager's response was disgraceful it may not have entirely been their fault that no stock was available for you to purchase. Perhaps the delivery hadn't arrived or was running late for example?
More likely is that there just weren't the staff available to fill it, or if there were they were on a checkout as that is deemed far more important than keeping the shelves stocked. According to Tesco customers would much prefer not have to wait at the checkout even if they couldn't get half of what they came in for rather than get everything and have to queue for a short time.
Both problems are a result of increasingly tight budgets from Tesco HQ which store managers must work to. There's often little or no money available to cover staff holiday or sickness so if this happens departments run with the bare minimum of staff anyway suffer. Well ultimately it's the customer who suffers in the end.
Incidentally, with the special offer you mentioned, if you had taken the item to customer service and explained the situation they would have provided you with a voucher for the relevant product to use next time.
You've the one thats gone over the top, Paki is used as a racist term.
Plus I work in stock control and trust me tesco HQ have taken control a way from us recently, there can be many reasons why there was no stock on display.
Its either not available due to high demand from all the store, its just excessed sales or the delivery hasnt turned up, to be honest I think you went over the top of getting a store manager getting involved, they have better things to be doing.
I suspect the man reacted so strongly because from his perspective a drunken stranger wandered off the street and used a racist epithet at the not particularly serious tragedy of them being out of stock. He's there to earn a wage, not to deal with drunks.
You may not feel it's racist, you may still not feel it's racist but your appearance at the time was not going to help your shopping experience. You should have tailored your language to your audience, it's a natural social skill.
So if I turn around to someone and say "Paki paki paki paki paki" that would mean I was being racist? What if I said "Polak polak polak polak", hmm?
I hate the friggin' polish, come over here taking our jobs away and our women. As bad as the pakis.
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