Supermarkets in Shetland - prices, ethics and experiences

[JustMe]

Tesco are big enough to offer real career prospects to anyone in their managerial team and I imagine that they will find a junior manager willing to take on the challenge of their Lerwick store. Perhaps they will find an assistant manager with local knowledge........worth thinking about for anyone in retailing within Shetland.

[JAStewart]

OK, so, to summerise some posts:

 

1. Tesco are retaining the current staff

 

2. The current issues in Somerfield relate to management

 

3. My question is - will they be retaining the current management, and if so - will Tesco be any real improvement?

 

1. Yes.

 

2. The problems stretch beyond management. In my experience, the management are and have always been well meaning individuals that want what is best for the store. The problem with Somerfield (as a company) is that if fails to take the unique case of Shetland into account, and ends up oversending or undersending us items. Shetland supermarkets also have the problem that orders which are placed arrive two days after being ordered, thereby making accurate predictions of stock a difficult task.

 

3. Maybe. Tesco's may want to implement an entirely new management, which would be a shame, because the current management know that I can work well for them and therefore give me work when I come home from Uni.

 

Maybe sassermaet can agree or disagree wi what I was saying. Generally, my experience wi Somerfield has been positive.

[sassermaet]

Well, I can safely say that having a job at Somerfield was more helpful to me in the long run in monetary terms, as well as meaning I have a decent referee under my belt now. It was just that I got shunted onto the checkouts when I'd been quite enjoying working on the dairy aisle and never quite forgave them for it, as working on the checkouts can be the most thankless job you'll ever do.

 

Mostly, though, the management were a good bunch of folk - certain people were unbearable to be around, but I won't go into that.

 

Not to mention that I used to get a lot of folk who told me they thought Somerfield tended to be cheaper than the Co-op, and the staff a lot friendlier etc.

 

The problem is, when something you want isn't on the shelf in either supermarket, you can be rest assured that it won't be in the store at all, as to my knowledge a lot of the staff were very diligent about what needed to be replenished and you can't replenish a shelf if there's no stock to replenish it with. Folk are too quick to accuse the poor monkey who happens to be there at the time of being the cause. There's no point in giving an individual sales assistant - be they a shelf stacker, checkout operator or store manager - a hard time because something wasn't there to buy when you wanted it to be.

 

Okay, sometimes the conduct of supermarket staff isn't all it should be. But then again, sometimes the customers don't have particularly good conduct either - I can safely say that while many of my customers were generally a polite, well-meaning bunch, the ones that stand out for me were the rude ones, who snapped at you for no reason, flipped out if you didn't give them a bag for one apple, shouted at you when something was no longer on buy one get one free, or, worst of all, haggled with you to try and lower the price just because they wanted you to. For a 17-year-old lass still at school who was simply trying to make a bit of money in a month because she didn't want to be financially dependent on her mam and dad, it drove you to the point where you just felt like screaming at someone - although the hagglers / penny pinchers etc were the worst.

 

That feels so much better...anyway...so to conclude, there were a lot of good things about working there, but in general I can safely say that my experience probably wasn't much different from that of anyone else who worked in a supermarket. I also guess the other thing that annoyed me about Somerfield was that last summer I went from being guaranteed a summer job there to being told 'Oh, sorry, the manager won't let us take on any more students'. I was too late to get something over summer and as a result started 2nd year of uni completely skint. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be crawling back to them again...

 

I'm sorry, that was a very long rant, but I've just been at work.

[JAStewart]

I also guess the other thing that annoyed me about Somerfield was that last summer I went from being guaranteed a summer job there to being told 'Oh, sorry, the manager won't let us take on any more students'. I was too late to get something over summer and as a result started 2nd year of uni completely skint

 

YES! This was the same with me, so instead of my steady £5.52/hour Somerfield job, I had to work at Tulloch's Developments for £4/hour. Don't get me wrong, the company is good, but labouring in the rain from 8-6 with a bunch of guys who hated students and took every single opportunity to slag students off (but if I mentioned how I was trying to better myself with a degree it was suddenly rude? hypocrites) was not my idea of a good time. I hated every moment of working there and I was seriously gutted that I wasn't able to come back, however the new management took me in over Xmas 2007 and I was able to prove my worth.

[Muppet]

I hear what you two are saying and daresay as employees, you know a bit more than me about how the wheels of commerce grind at Somerfield, but as a customer, the place really has got shocking recently. I rarely go there these days, but went there last week as I took a non driver friend shopping and with the lack of boats there was some stuff out of stock at the co-op.

 

I can only really describe the place as a tip. There was empty boxes, empty pallets, empty trolleys, even burst and broken foodstuff all over the place. Staff were stocking shelves and between them and their trolleys the aisles were blocked and they made no effort to let you past.

 

After the checkout and passing the area which used to be the eatery, well, it really did look like it was the holding area for the essy kert. Nobody would even have tried to negotiate the piles of rubbish to see what was for sale.

 

I've come across some seriously helpful staff in there, and i'm not blaming them, but there really is something far wrong with the way that place is run. If I was in charge there, i'd expect to be sacked. It just aint a pleasant place to have to go. Every business depends on attracting customers. Somerfields really is an endurance rather than an experience.

 

Love 'em or loathe 'em, Tesco can only be an improvement.

 

Whoever said they'd like a waitrose, well now theres a shop i'd love to see! Wonder how soon we'll be able to add them to the ever growing list of owners of that shop!

[JAStewart]

I have noticed a lax attitude there, the sort of "thats not my mess" kind of thing.

 

As you say Muppet, I have been constantly running around picking up empty cardboard trays, because they're just not collected by staff which are passing them.

[BlackEagle]

What's in a name?

If I'm teaching granny to suck eggs with this post, please forgive...

That store has a many and varied past. When I first came to Shetland nearly 30 years ago that shop was located on the street where the current Boots the Chemist is, and if I recall correctly was known as Lipton's then Templeton's, then, Presto's, then Safeway. As it became Safeway it moved to the present location at the old Marts, where it has subsequently become Morrisons and now Sommerfield. It hasn't been a "local shop" for quite a number of years now, so another name change to Tesco would make a difference in the brand name. Hopefully it will also make a difference in the quality, variety, and quantity of goods, as well as the neatness and presentation of the shop as a whole. Perhaps there will be a change for the better in staff conditions. It would be a serious mistake for them to not bring in local produce and products whenever and however they can.

[JAStewart]

^^

 

Prestos moved out to South Road before shortly becoming Safeway.

[ascoyard]

Tesco will be the best thing to happen here since oil.As Tesco say that their prices will be the same as on the mainland this will be like getting a 20% pay rise as i like most people in Shetland am on fairly low wages and half of my money goes to Somerfields or the Co-op and they make better doughnuts!

[frunco1]

I have some nostalgia for Somerfield, but definitely not on account of my period of employment there. I can only say that us subcontracted cleaners were treated like the scum of the earth by some Somerfield staff. Other employees were great, but some folks, in possession of just the tiniest sliver of authority, seemed to enjoy letting their frustration out on the lowest-ranking workers in the store. There were these moments of horrific irony, like the time I (a PhD student trying to make ends meet until finished with my degree) was told by a superior that unless so and so happened my 'career at Somerfield would be very short.' If I'd had any conceited disdain for working in Somerfield, I wouldn't have been a supermarket cleaner, but the very idea that someone who'd spent years working his way up to a relatively-low managerial rank might lecture me on career prospects was just mind boggling.

[maggieme]

If Tesco agree to sell local produce and are restricted from developing into a monster which devours every small business in Shetland their arrival will probably be a good thing. Sommerfilds is a mess...i don't understand why anyone shops there. If they do keep prices the same as on the mainland its going to be very busy so the co-op and the smaller shops may not lose out too much.

But they will try to get big enough to sell everything from clothes to electronics and none of the local shops will be able to compete i know commercial street is practically dead on its feet anyway but at least there are not boarded up premisis so far.

[JAStewart]

I hear that Somerfield will be closed for 6 weeks as Tesco will be completely gutting the store out. Jungle drums though.

 

What is exactly is 'a mess' about Somerfield? I, as a student worker back for easter, always find an abundance of cardboard everywhere.

[Muppet]

I hear that Somerfield will be closed for 6 weeks as Tesco will be completely gutting the store out. Jungle drums though.

 

 

The guy from Tesco who was interviewed on Radio Shetland said quite specifically that the store wouldn't close during the changeover.

[sassermaet]

^^^Well I can't imagine them being closed for 6 weeks, but if I mind rightly they did close for about a week when Somerfield took over.

 

Or they certainly did close for a short while as I had a friend who worked there while it was happening. But anything needing done surely wouldn't take six weeks?!

[Pooks]

Did Somerfield not have planning permission in recently to expand the premises?