h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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How awful. They really should be made to work the entire day with no opportunity to have anything to eat or drink.

Noggin

I have sympathy with those who work with some of the public. Although I have never worked in a shop I used to be a swimming teacher and ocassionally worked in cash desk to help out. One day a man came in and shouted "One of 'your' ****ing Nazi stormtroopers just gave me a parking ticket!". Ah the joys of working with the public which is why I always try to be polite when in a shop and say thank you.

I am lucky down the road there is a parade two shops run by Indian families who are very nice and very hard working then on the major road we have a co op which i only use when i need to use the cash machine because i would rather help the little guy rather than a corporate business

Noggin - how about staggering breaks to ensure that staff levels are highest at times of peak demand? It's really not a difficult concept, but one that Post Offices in particular seem to have incredible difficulty grasping. In fact, many rural & small town Post Offices just close at lunchtimes.

Well done to the gutless one hiding behind the yikes button,
unsubscribe.

Might have known, pedant of the century WG would come to your aid, SWL. I don't think you were meaning Turks somehow, just a hunch....

No I meant Asians. If you wanted to extend it, I meant immigrants who have come here and elbowed native Brits aside by working their backsides off and providing a service people wanted.

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"White honkies" sounds like a particularly bad take-off from an American sit-com of the 70's or 80's.

I was only in the UK for a couple of weeks, so I have no idea what life is like for the better off in London folks, or any other corners that are 'thenically' defined.

I do know that some local folks in southern Ontario are perturbed at the Asiatic people that come in. Those folks have the nerve to work 10, 12 and 16 hours a day, keeping shops open and offering what the folks want. How the hell is some Canadian guy with his kid and her boyfriend supposed to keep up with that? While having an hour granted for lunch ((CLOSED -Come back later), doors locked ON that magic hour, ... You want what? Nawwww, we ain't got it ... versus ... Oh, we'll find that for you.

Quite honestly, I do prefer tyhe corner store. They actually try to please me as a customer.

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No, that's not what you said. You listed 7 white businesses and at least 10 ethnic ones, which confirms what I said that most convenience stores are run by Asians. And from less than 10% of the population too. The main difference between them is the ethnic businesses understand the meaning of service.

Fanny, I've worked in retail sales for getting on for five years now, specifically small independents. I've worked in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Yorkshire, Ireland and Scotland. I'm pretty sure I've got an accurate view of the market.

>>"White honkies" sounds like a particularly bad take-off from an American sit-com of the 70's or 80's.<<

Don't they do irony in Canada rev?

Most of those businesses I referrred to were takeaways. Your original point was directed towards ordinary retailers, which like I say are run in the majority around here by white honkies. And your talking out of your a*se if you thing ordinary traditional anglo run shops round here don't understand the meaning of service. It's precisely because they do that they are still able to compete so effectively with the local 'supers' that are now open 24 hours a day round here. Of course ethnic takeaways will be run by ethnic people from other countries, by definition.

From what you describe SWL you have done just about every job under the sun, all over the UK, so I take what you say with a pinch of salt. So much of what you come out with just sounds like waffle that sells tabloids.

Oi Red Peck, SWL is entitled to his opinion, a lot of corner shops are being taken over by Asian shopkeepers. Where I used to live a long time ago an Asian shopkeeper took over a paper shop and I used to go in there. One by one all the paper shops were taken over by Asian shopkeepers until none ere owned by English people. Like it or not that is what happened, slagging SWL off won't change that fact.

Erm not quite sure of your point SS? I said there are 2 newsagents/corner shops round here, run by Turkish Cypriots, open all hours like the Supers.. And up the street are 2 butchers, 2 flower shops, a bakery, a fish mongers and a greengrocers run by whitey. They open 9-5. The staff appear to be friendly efficient and helpful. I've lived in his area since 1990. And the shops are going as strong as ever. And no, it is absolutely not a wealthy area.

Yup, I've done a lot of jobs. It's called life experience. There's probably quite a few people on here that can remember the first Asian shop in their neighbourhood and what the reaction to it was. There's probably some who can remember what it was like before Asians ran so many shops. Newsagents closed at lunchtime and 6pm. "Convenience" stores that carried next to no stock. I remember Christmas Day was fraught because there was only one shop in our neighbourhood open where you could get batteries (run by Italians btw). Yes, some businesses have bucked their ideas up. If they hadn't, they'd be bust.

The point is, the traditional British idea of service is bloody awful. It's taken foreign ideas in retailing to make any kind of improvement. Your initial point about Supermarkets is true to an extent, but the situation is changing. Tescos operate a staff training system that leads the way. Staff are taught about Customer Service, Marketing, Triangulation and so on. M&S are world class in their training. Other brands are struggling to catch up. As to problems with bar codes, have you any idea of the tens of thousands of SKUs a supermarket carries, the frequent price changes, the multiplicity of offers etc? Each trolley-load carries potentially hundreds of variables and yet 99% of them go through without a hitch.

Actually SWL I remember you started a thread sometime ago asking if people would pay a large amount of money for a comemorative box for the berieved as you were offered the chance to be involved in selling them. If I remember correctly just about everyone said they were too expensicve and wouldn't buy one so I take it you didn't get involved then!

Nah, I gave that one a miss although the guy selling them just got himself a new Beamer . I also gave up on the wind turbine thing after asking advice here. The thread forced me to do more than my usual amount of research and I discovered they just aren't viable.

>> I also gave up on the wind turbine thing after asking advice here<<

Yes I remember that SWL. You and I were regularly friendly then. I remember saying to you that it might be difficult in terms of the aesthetic stuck on peoples' roofs. I still think one day they may become as common as satellite dishes.

Better a bit of market research here than going bankrupt later. So many people who have never even worked as chefs try to open restaurants and fail as have no idea what they are doing so research always helps!

Wind turbines will become commonplace once councils are told to shut up and house builders start incorporating them into new builds.

I'd love to use these small shops selling all kinds of specialties. However, I live in the middle of a city and I don't have a car - there are no such shops within a mile and a half.

On the other hand, I have two supermarkets nearby - one literally on the other side of the road, the other a 15 minute walk away.

While I'm sympathetic to these guys trying to make a living, I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm earning money to give myself the life I want. If I wake up at 2am and realise I'm out of cereal and milk can the smaller shop sell them to me? No - but Tesco can so Tesco gets my custom.

I'm sorry, but it's a bit of a no-brainer. Supermarkets usually offer me what I want, smaller shops don't. If their owners go out of business, so be it - if they could offer me cereal and milk at 2am for a similar price as a supermarket, they probably wouldn't.

As it happens, I rarely use the supermarket that's on the other side of the road. It's not open on Sundays, when I like to do my weekly shop, and it closes early in the evening. The staff are also immensely rude and unhelpful. So I don't use it, I use the slightly more distant one where the staff are friendly and helpful, and which is open when I want to use it. Simple as that.

If you don't like something, don't use it. If a shop is failing most of it's customers, it'll either close or change. That's one of the strongest parts of capitalism - serve your consumers well because if you don't they'll go elsewhere and you'll go bust. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing.