You should check out social networks if you really want to know what’s bothering people up and down our green and pleasant land. You’d think it might be something important, like the collapse of the pound against the pound/dollar or Russia flexing its muscles pretty well everywhere. But oh no. What’s exorcising Brits is Asda.
I came across the problem myself when visiting my local branch. Upon entering the store, I noted huge queues at the cashpoints. It seemed a little unusual but – hey, I had shopping to do and, anyway, I always pay by card. As I filled up my basket, an announcement was made that due to a “technical fuck up” (I think they might have used different words), none of the card payments machines were working. You could only pay in cash. It did not take me long to realise that this was a very minor inconvenience.
I called my partner, worried if we had enough toilet paper to last until Monday. Barring disasters, we did. Could we manage without extra beer? Well, no. As this was an emergency, I’d go to Tesco instead. This, you think, was not newsworthy, but to some customers, it was very newsworthy indeed.
No one was exactly shouting at the Asda staff who, may I remind you, earn a few pennies more than the national minimum wage, but there were frayed tempers. One middle aged couple next to me when I reached the tills fumed when they realised the store could not accept cards, having missed the repeated announcements over the PA systems. “You can fucking well put this lot back on the shelves, then,” said the woman, to no one in particular. “We’re going somewhere else.” And they abandoned their full trolley of shopping, just like that. Another woman started remonstrating with a lady operating the tills. “Look, it’s hardly her fault, is it?” I remonstrated, but I might as well have been talking backwards. “This is ridiculous,” she continued. “Can’t you sort it out?” Well, no. The young lady has probably been trained to operate a till for the lowest hourly rate Asda can get away with. It is likely that she does not possess the in-depth knowledge of how to rectify the entire Asda IT systems throughout the country, not when she is also having to deal with idiots like you. But let us not let the facts get in the war of consumer madness.
Honestly, I cannot for the life of me understand why so many people chose to firstly queue for ages at the cashpoints and then queue for ages longer at the tills following their shopping. Within a ten minute drive, are a big Sainsbury’s and an even bigger Tesco. There are smaller Tescos, Co-ops and so on within minutes. I felt like shouting: “just buy the effing essentials and do the big shop on another day. Asda and Tesco are open 24 hours a day, except when God forbids it.” I didn’t for fear of being killed in the rush.
According to the BBC, Asda in Norwich closed the doors because of the IT problems and people outside were “shouting”. In Reading, one punter said, “We were waiting for about 50 minutes. People weren’t too pleased!” On twitter, someone said “No backup, no redundancy system (what? – RJ). We’re just stood here like cattle waiting for your systems to start working again. On Sunday.” Michelle Pugh, whoever she is, told twitter she had a “disappointed 3 year old who couldn’t have his toothbrush.” And so it goes. You would think something serious had happened, but it hadn’t.
I don’t feel any sympathy whatsoever for the customers. I know this sounds harsh, but for goodness sake, these things happen. The IT system went tits up all over the country, local managers (who by the way earn a pittance too) did their best to deal with the chaos that ensued and the staff, who in terms of pay are at the lowest end of the food chain, but the visible face of the business, got all the grief. And all that for £7.20-odd an hour, even on a Sunday (no premiums at Asda). You have six other days to do your shopping and numerous on-line options should you wish to use them. It really is not rocket science.
None of the customers “had to wait in the shop”. They could have done what I did, which was to use what little cash I had to buy a few essentials and get the rest of my shopping somewhere else, maybe on another day.
For those who regarded today as a time of major crisis, I suggest you have a close look at yourself and then imagine what things will be like in your life when something really serious happens.
