Thursday 21 February 2013

Mum-to-be shames supermarket

We all know that as we go about our daily business, pregnant women are supposed to be afforded a little extra courtesy. We give up our seat for them on the bus or tube, or give them a hand with a heavy bag of shopping. And thanks to a little-known English law made centuries ago, a pregnant lady can even legally have a wee in a policeman's helmet.

Admittedly this can make life for the rest of us a big tricky (not least if you're a copper), because spotting a mum-to-be can be increasingly difficult in today's podgy society. Does she have a bun in the oven or has she just eaten too many pies? It's a question that I'm sure most of us have wrestled with at some stage when trying to decide whether the offer of one's seat (or helmet) will be gratefully accepted by the pregnant lady or angrily rebuffed by the woman who is just a bit fat.

One of my colleagues, however, is now well past the stage of "is she or isn't she?". At nearly eight months pregnant she is visibly blooming. Yet she came into work the other day with a tale of a shopping trip where she was left struggling because no one was willing to help her. And yes, you've guessed it, she was in a supermarket.

My friend had visited her local branch of a supermarket which is probably best not named, seeing as there's no heavyweight legal team behind this blog. I do actually have a couple of lawyers amongst my regular readers but I don't think either of them would be impressed if I got myself into hot water. Suffice to say that this colleague of mine is a regular at this particular branch and would call it one of her local places to shop.

The trollies were those silly ones where you need to put a pound coin in to use them and our mum-to-be realised she'd got no change in her purse. There was no one at the customer service desk so she decided she'd have to do her best with a basket. But halfway round the store she began to struggle with its weight and in the end was forced to put it down. She was then faced with an even bigger challenge, because having not seen her own toes for several months, she was in no position to pick it back up again.

Our rotund heroine ended up physically kicking the basket down the remaining aisles to the check-out. And do you know, not one person stopped to help her.

She went home feeling very tired and woke up the next day more than a little sore. She wrote to the supermarket in question to complain and was sent a £10 shopping voucher.

But I really think this shows just what is wrong with these huge megastores - they are just so impersonal. You would never expect that sort of service in your local grocery store, farm shop or butcher, where the staff usually go out of their way to be helpful. Even after just seven weeks of local shopping I have already built up the sort of friendships with some store owners where I can say with absolute certainty that if I was to go into them heavily pregnant I would get the five star treatment and as much help as I needed. I reckon some of them would even deliver goods to my home or office if they could.

And it's not just the supermarket staff who behaved poorly by ignoring my pregnant colleague's obvious need for help. What about her fellow shoppers?

It goes back to what I said on the very first post on this blog, about supermarkets seemingly bringing out the worst in people. We get behind a shopping trolley and we become angry, ignorant human beings (a bit like when BMW drivers get behind the wheel of their cars). We ram our trollies into other people's ankles and tut when little old ladies get in our way. Supermarkets seem to give us an excuse to behave badly.

Just another of the growing list of reasons why I'm happy to be out of them. And my friend has vowed not to go back either.

1 comment:

  1. A really good example of how the supermarkets de-humanise both the staff and the customers and bring out the worst of all behaviours.

    I have avoided shopping in them for years as I noticed that I kept going in feeling quite chirpy and left feeling really depressed or angry. Perhaps there is some research to be done on the impact on our mental health?

    I set up my own deli 7 years ago to try to stop some of this so called 'progress'. Its amazing how often people are surprised that my staff speak to them to try and help!

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