Groceries

 

Groceries

The groceries arrived this morning in good time, with no substitutions.

However, as the bags were handed to me, I noticed milk swirling around in a couple of them. I commented on it to the delivery driver and he explained that milk had leaked from someone else’s order.

Before putting the items away, I had to wipe away the milk. In a couple of cases, it had found its way inside containers so that the fruit or vegetables in them had to be washed immediately. That was not a big problem, or even a little one, but it was annoying. 

Milk is not a contaminant, so I’m not concerned about ill effects.

All in all, I’ll write it off to experience. Accidents happen.

Substitutions

 

Substitutions

My grocery order has just been delivered, and it had some substitutions, which were quite acceptable. The young man helpfully holding up the crate so that I could transfer the contents to a bag – I always regard it as a weight-training exercise, which gets easier as the items are removed – told me that most of the substitutions are usually quite reasonable. Sometimes, though, they beggar belief, and bear little or no relation to the requested item. For example, one customer had ordered bread, but it wasn’t available and it had been replaced with tomato ketchup. What was the thought sequence there? Bread for sandwiches for cheese for pickle for ketchup . . .

Questions then arise about the state of mind of the employee whose job it is to select items for a customer’s list. These staff members are variously called Online Pickers, Online Assistants, Retail Assistants, or Personal Shoppers.

Everyone has off-days or lapses in concentration and I can well imagine how strange or unusual substitutions can be made occasionally. Lemon bleach for lemons?

Every little helps!

I had my first Tesco delivery of 2012 today.  Normally I have the items delivered in bags that I recycle.

The driver told me that Tesco had run out of carrier bags. That’s not a big problem for me but for the customer who had fourteen trays of groceries delivered and no time to unpack each tray individually it was a headache as she had an appointment to keep. The driver was running behind time too so he left the trays with her. He was not a happy man.

An employee was despatched to another store six miles away but that store was also facing a problem and couldn’t spare many bags. I have a mental image of customers throughout Berkshire reaching the checkouts with overflowing trolleys to discover that there are no bags for their groceries. Some, of course, will have taken their own bags with them. Others will have forgotten as I do, frequently.

Is it a desperate ploy by Tesco to force customers to carry their own bags - or was it an ‘oversight’ on someone’s behalf? Heads will roll, I fear, almost as many as other spherical objects that customers will be attempting to stuff into pockets. 


The following clip is of Tesco in happier times, just before Christmas. Kerching!

Camera Critters #79, Pet Pride, Straight from the camera . . .

It's blurred, out of focus, not a good photograph - but I like it. There are few cats who can resist an open cupboard or drawer. Monty is on housekeeping duty here, checking on groceries in the larder cupboard, making a mental note of what needs to be replenished.
Thank you to the organisers and hosts of Camera Critters and Pet Pride.
To see more Critters and Pets please click on the underlined labels.