A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Friday, October 13, 2006

Try Something New Today

I am a regular contributor to the tills at Sainsbury's and find their new makeover quite OK. After all, the chief executive, Justin King, is a local Solihull man, a Silhillian, so I may be biased. He has turned the company around, which suggests that the old adage "you can choose your friends but not your family" has paid off with regard to the Sainsbury clan.

However, I have a few musings I would like to share. Recently all customers have become accustomed to "Need any help with your packing?" to which I have been very tempted to say yes. However, I'm assured that if I did say so, I would be "very lucky". Lucky that is to find anyone willing to do it!! The conundrum here is that am I to think that this is to prevent me sueing them if I ruptured my back with handling heavy merchandise (should have said YES!) or is it some kind of political statement of the catchall variety? I'm not sure.

When discussing this recently at the checkout, I was told "We can't say 'Do you want any cashback or do you want to use your points?' " but the assistant was at a loss to know why? She looked to the ceiling as if to seek guidance into the thoughts of middle management. I would think it may have something to do with not encouraging reckless spending in some patrician sense, but again, I'm really quite mystified too.

Another odd thing. I was eating some ham recently. "This is really good" I told my wife. "It's just like we had it when I was a child. My mother used to get ham like this" "It's Taste the difference ham" my wife said. So, I thought, I'm tasting the difference from water-pumped ham that I've been eating for nigh on 40 years and now have to pay a premium for the stuff we got before the meat slicers took a back row position. I really feel it should be "Remember the Difference?" - a far more descriptive and "Oh, yes, I dooooo" tone to the whole thing!

At least these bon mots at Sainsbury's takes my mind off a few things! Oh, and I see Anna Ford is helping out on the board. Perhaps she may influence the company with her experiences at the checkout.

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