The Woolworths Thread

[iMathew]

Luckily the front of our shelves (the high bit that holds the smokes in) is clear..

Ours is completely black. I was looking at this the other day and thinking 'oh my god'. Literally, the only way we will be able to tell is to take the whole packet out and look. What a fucking disaster.

[WhatCnut]

Such a hostile work environment today they're basically telling everyone who works day shift longlife that we all must work new rosters starting from 2pm or else have different roles in the store ie checkouts!!!. Currently starting at 6 till 3pm on my contract this is a nightmare. So sick to death of this horrible company and this is what they give you after 5 years ... another worker told the manager to f off after hearing about the changes! Aparantly HR people will be brought in ... ridiculous acts by so called "managers" its disgraceful!!!

Anyone else got more info on this? The day workers in my store are kickng up a huge fuss about this, with one of them saying it was a national thing.
If it isn't widespread then I'm going to write to the union, but before I do that I just need to know what scale this is.

[the way to go]

Ours is completely black. I was looking at this the other day and thinking 'oh my god'. Literally, the only way we will be able to tell is to take the whole packet out and look. What a fucking disaster.

oh ffs, ours are in drawers (some of which are broken) and usually pretty unorganised.
theyd better have the brand and type printed on the top of the pack or i'll take up smoking as a big "fuck you" :P

[Mathy]

Anyone else got more info on this? The day workers in my store are kickng up a huge fuss about this, with one of them saying it was a national thing.
If it isn't widespread then I'm going to write to the union, but before I do that I just need to know what scale this is.

I know at least it is all across the ACT, same is happening in my store. New facing requirements, from this week or next week we have in place a 100% rule for filling, only fill the box if it will all go on. With some exceptions of course. Entire stockroom gets run each day from 2pm. Capping soon to go.

[nanakid12]

oh ffs, ours are in drawers (some of which are broken) and usually pretty unorganised.
theyd better have the brand and type printed on the top of the pack or i'll take up smoking as a big "fuck you" :P

Goddamnit! Our's are black too I hate life. I haven't noticed any of the new packs yet, but we're going to have an enormous smoke-load soon, as we had a weekend event which cleared us out of all our popular smokes. I was also talked down to numerous times for our store not stocking Longbeach 25's. Also, for not selling single-cigarettes, which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but anyway...

Had the best shift in produce today, although I sucked at cuts, wrapping, stickering, cleaning and virtually everything else I had to do. I had no idea how to hook the hose up to the degreaser and ended up spraying all the walls and paper documents sitting on the bench. The manager is going to be so happy with me tomorrow haha.

[Xantios]

Anyone else got more info on this? The day workers in my store are kickng up a huge fuss about this, with one of them saying it was a national thing.
If it isn't widespread then I'm going to write to the union, but before I do that I just need to know what scale this is.

Do you have a legitimate commitment during the timing of the new roster they want you to work? Family? Sporting? Something like that? That could be your best bet to resisting a roster change that you weren't even really asked about.

[nanakid12]

How was everyone's experience with Sticky Specials? I didn't work today, but went shopping. I noticed the sticker "Save $3 on Coca-Cola cartons", which are now $18, and with the sticker, $15.

They were on special for $15 last week. Whaaaat?

[the way to go]

^ that doesn't surprise me at all, but i know 100% for sure that its illegal.

saw the ad for coles and paypass, good ad!

woolies had better step up their paywave game if they wanna keep up...

[townie]

^ that doesn't surprise me at all, but i know 100% for sure that its illegal.

saw the ad for coles and paypass, good ad!

woolies had better step up their paywave game if they wanna keep up...

How is it illegal?

[nanakid12]

...and what exactly is illegal? The single cigarettes?

Also I have another question. Lately I've been rostered for lots of checkout shifts. I'm really tall, and the bag racks on the big checkouts don't go high enough, so I strain my back and neck a lot when I have to pack the bags, and it's usually only after an hour or two of serving customers straight that I start to notice it. I can never get off my register either, because all the other operators beat me to escaping their checkouts to do anything but serve, so I am stuck on my checkout. It's annoying though, I used to do heaps of supervision (pretty much ONLY supervision) until the new CSM took over a few weeks ago, and excluding the end of financial year cuts, so I probably just have to get used to it again. Is this something I should talk to my CSM about? I like express, the bag racks actually go up high enough, but our store is so small we would NEVER have a permanent express operator... only the supervisor serves on express when it gets busy.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm slightly worried I'll come off as being whingy and all if I talk to the CSM about it... do you guys have suggestions?

[the way to go]

it's illegal for a retailer to advertise a price is a special/reduced when it was previously selling for the exact same price the period before (simplified version), hefty fines from the ACCC if proven guilty. (intentionally misleading customers)

as for the low checkouts, my store is exactly the same, and I hate our large checkouts, the new ones are even lower but at least their bag holders can be raised higher than the normal ones. luckily our managers realise this and rarely put taller people on the big ones for extended periods of time. I can understand not wanting to talk to your csm, but I'd say it's worth it not to be messing your back up (and besides if something happens and you injure your back, you won't be able to claim any compensation cause you didn't tell them)

edit: so like if they say "was: $20 now: $15" when last week it wasn't on special and still selling for $15 that's a breach of the rules, I dunno all the details so it might not be a breach, but from what you described it sounds like it...

edit edit: didn't read properly, derp, if it was on special last week for $15 and now it's on special for $15 with a stupid sticker, then that's cool, my bad, ignore my stupidity.

[nanakid12]

it's illegal for a retailer to advertise a price is a special/reduced when it was previously selling for the exact same price the period before (simplified version), hefty fines from the ACCC if proven guilty. (intentionally misleading customers)

Haha derp. I notice people where complaining on the Facebook page, back last week when we had the 15c a litre off... someone thought they'd put the price up by 15c. Ha, yeah, right.

as for the low checkouts, my store is exactly the same, and I hate our large checkouts, the new ones are even lower but at least their bag holders can be raised higher than the normal ones. luckily our managers realise this and rarely put taller people on the big ones for extended periods of time. I can understand not wanting to talk to your csm, but I'd say it's worth it not to be messing your back up (and besides if something happens and you injure your back, you won't be able to claim any compensation cause you didn't tell them)

Hmmm... yeah, I'll casually just ask about it, and hopefully they will understand. There shouldn't be an issue with him, however I do think that the rest of the department might think I'm trying to get out of being an operator.

As you can see, I'm very self-conscious haha, but health comes first I guess.

[NNS7]

...and what exactly is illegal? The single cigarettes?

Also I have another question. Lately I've been rostered for lots of checkout shifts. I'm really tall, and the bag racks on the big checkouts don't go high enough, so I strain my back and neck a lot when I have to pack the bags, and it's usually only after an hour or two of serving customers straight that I start to notice it. I can never get off my register either, because all the other operators beat me to escaping their checkouts to do anything but serve, so I am stuck on my checkout. It's annoying though, I used to do heaps of supervision (pretty much ONLY supervision) until the new CSM took over a few weeks ago, and excluding the end of financial year cuts, so I probably just have to get used to it again. Is this something I should talk to my CSM about? I like express, the bag racks actually go up high enough, but our store is so small we would NEVER have a permanent express operator... only the supervisor serves on express when it gets busy.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm slightly worried I'll come off as being whingy and all if I talk to the CSM about it... do you guys have suggestions?

Many years ago when I worked on checkouts I had the same issue. I'm 6'2 and the bag racks in my store were very low and not adjustable (it was a very old store). After an hour or so I would begin to experience terrible pain in my neck and shoulders. I brought it up mith my CSM and she agreed to let me switch between express and mains which helped a lot. In the end I ended up moving to Longlife as I found that the work was much more suited to my height and I no longer had any issues.

I think it helped that I was by far the tallest person on the front end and they could see it was not an ideal situation.

[BSammy]

So hey, we got the new pinpads today, with paywave or whatever it's called.


Broke one tonight.

Must be some kind of record for being terrible.

[nanakid12]

At NNS7: ahh yea, that's a good idea. I'll bring it up with the CSM tonight. I also noticed that express bag racks fit on the mains, so I'll pinch one of them and see how tht goes.

So hey, we got the new pinpads today, with paywave or whatever it's called.


Broke one tonight.

Must be some kind of record for being terrible.

Bahahaha smoooooth.

I was going through the cupboard last night and found a "clip-clap machine" for manually taking card details. It looked brand new? I didn't know we could still use that? :3

[BSammy]

i'm guessing it only looks new because no one knows how to use it.

[quick90]

I hope they are going to tie the rewards card in with the new 'passbook' app for iPhone.

[the way to go]

with all my experiences, you can't scan a barcode on an iPhone screen, you gotta type the number in, so I really don't see the point :\

as for the clip clap, we've got one too, a few months ago all our eftpos terminals weren't working, it was insane everybody was upset and we had to get every damn person paying with card to line up at the smokeshop to use the clip clap it was horriffic but it came in handy haha (it was a Sunday too btw)

[nanakid12]

I've only ever had one person use their EDR on their phone, it came up with the barcode, and I was there trying to scan it but ended up typing the number. My store is out in a community where people use technology as little as possible.

And how are you supposed to do it? Do you just write the transaction number down or something?
Our EFTPOS hardly ever goes down. Except that time last year just before Xmas when every Woolies in the country had it happen, but lucky the floor limits were increased or whatever it is.

Also, how confusing is the new Sticky Specials thingo?

At first it was:
*scan chicken first, then sticky special*
CHICKEN HOT ROAST $9.88
SS DEDUCTION -$1.00
TOTAL $8.88

Now it's:
CHICKEN HOT ROAST $9.88
HAVE YOU SCANNED YOUR ROAST CHICKEN? -$9.88
SS HOT CHICKEN $8.88
TOTAL $8.88

We've had so many people trying to get refunds because of it, and I seriously don't understand it on the receipt either! It's not even in order most of the time, the Sticky Special deductions are way at the bottom, it's so confusing.

Apparently it's been made so that we HAVE to scan the product first, then the Sticky Special (so my CSM tells me). He hardly understands it either, and the ASM had to sort it out.

PRODUCE TOMORROW AFTERNOON, YAY. So excited. Then supervision during the night. Good shift ahead I hope.

[iMathew]

Did 8-5 supervision today (fuck yeah sunday rate). I want to fucking kill these fucking sticky specials fuck shit fuck.

[nanakid12]

Ha! Hilarious night. We get this massive hailstorm (for the first time in 4 months) that lasted for half an hour, and right at the end of it, one of the Nightfillers came inside and informed the CSM that his car window was half open. Completely saturated the whole driver's seat.

Anyone know what Monday night's upgrade entailed?

Also, our instore radio is playing up. The music will play for around 10 minutes, then we'll hear the Windows XP shutdown noise, then the Windows XP startup sound and a few minutes later the music will start again, before repeating the entire progress. Discovered the XP screen also shows up on the TV in the staff lunchroom. Walked in while it was rebooting, it was opening some program called "Doppler" or "Dappler", as well as Windows Media Player. Would this be a PC in the store doing this, or a broadcast from the area office?

[BSammy]

ours does that i think

the shutdown sounds begin at around midnight, but i don't know how long they go on for. the nightfillers must be sick of it.

[_be]

Also, our instore radio is playing up. The music will play for around 10 minutes, then we'll hear the Windows XP shutdown noise, then the Windows XP startup sound and a few minutes later the music will start again, before repeating the entire progress. Discovered the XP screen also shows up on the TV in the staff lunchroom. Walked in while it was rebooting, it was opening some program called "Doppler" or "Dappler", as well as Windows Media Player. Would this be a PC in the store doing this, or a broadcast from the area office?

It'd come from your local store, typically from a server sitting in your comms room.

[BSammy]

Ugh, they're cashing in on talk like a pirate day. so terrible.

[4me123]

It'd come from your local store, typically from a server sitting in your comms room.

the same is happening in my store