Tesco makes me angry.

Detritus

<p>So having to get some shopping in (miss A insisted) I decide to go to Tesco, to find that the chest freezer isle is empty and one of the happy little elves who work at Tesco is talking to a customer about the chest freezers being broken, they are normally stocked high but he was saying that the food has to be thrown away or destroyed as there are not allowed to sell it. </p><p>I hate to think that a few £1000 worth of food will be trashed and not given to a charity/organisation that could use it, yesterday the red cross in Spain started to hand out food to the Spanish population because they do not have enough to eat, yet our fucking awful piss poor Tescos throw it away like it does not matter, it will just be put down as damaged and this behemoth will roll on.</p><p>If you are something big in Tesco and happen to read this for the love of god please sort the Stroud Green Road shop out its a nasty place to be.</p>

quince

I'm no fan of Tesco but, in their support, they might not have much of a choice here.  If the freezers packed up overnight, leaving the food to thaw partially, then it would have to be consumed or cooked immediately.  Some might be OK, some might have had to be cooked from frozen.  Either way, it will have been out of controlled conditions for an unknown length of time and therefore potentially unsafe for human consumption.  The HSE are pretty strict about things like that, with good reason too.<div><br></div><div>The SGR store is an armpit though, no argument there.</div>

Detritus

It was at 4.30 this afternoon

miss annie

I despair, really I do. Why not just sell it off for a pound. Shall we do a flash mob raid on their bins?

chrisst

I agree with you quince - it's an armpit and has been a total shambles of a store for years. <div><br></div><div>It looks like its been in need of a clean-up since the '70s and where's their stock control? Last week my wife couldn't get semi-skimmed milk there; a few weeks before that, I couldn't even get white sliced bread (on 2 visits). </div><div><br></div><div>The fact that their freezers broke down is just another episode in this stores sad history - and I expect the food would have become unsafe to eat pretty quickly.</div><div><br></div><div>Is there a manager there? Maybe they've run away - I would!</div><div><br></div>

TheMimsy

<div><br></div><div>I have had some seriously appalling customer service experiences at Tesco Stroud Green Road.</div><div>Some of the staff are beyond the rude...</div>

Detritus

There must be something we can do about it.

kreuzkav

A plot to stop Stroud Green being gentrified.

checkski

I share the disgust re SGR Tesco and its service(s), and have complained about them several times, both to headquarters, and to  management on the spot. The overall manager seems to change every few months, perhaps in despair, as somebody suggested above. Some of the senior staff are really decent, though, and do their best to improve things, but often express frustration at lack of support from on high. At ground level, so to speak, some of the staff are a disgrace, and remain so, even when carpeted for their bad behaviour. Others, however, especially the old hands, just couldn't be nicer and more helpful. The non-human aspects of the operation are appalling, as described above, to which can be added the chaotic jumble of labelling and pricing errors. These problems affect everybody, rich and poor alike - don;t they, Kreuzkav?

kreuzkav

Checksi, I was joking.  However I've got used to it.  After living here for over ten years I find the staff to be friendly but the self-service is a bit of a joke.  I think that's due to Tesco's method of under-staffing and I think Tesco's main problems is not probably paying someone to be a good duty manager.  <div><br></div><div><br></div>

gardener-joe

and yet you all shop there? ... what a walkover ...

Detritus

<p>.</p>

kreuzkav

Where do you shop Joe?  If you have a car you can shop anywhere.  I don't and I'm content with Tescos  esp. now obnoxious man has gone.  I can get all I want there, although now and again they don't have ginger and other vital ingredients.

miss annie

<p>If you want to make a complaint to Tesco email - <a href="mailto:customer.service@tesco.co.uk" rel="nofollow"><font color="#637f44">customer.service@tesco.co.uk</font></a> and mark your email FAO Sarah Melly and Julie Button. </p><p>Sarah Melly is Head of Customer Service and Julie Button is P.A. to the CEO. I made a complaint about product and got a nice moneycard and a voucher.</p><p>I am not a fan of Tesco but the staff in some other stores are perfectly fine. Tesco pay better than the company I work for, it's nothing to do with the wages.</p>

gardener-joe

@kreuzkav: I will shop where I feel well served ...

miss annie

<p>Quite right too. </p><p> </p>

kreuzkav

But where? This is a local forum. Why hold your words.  Where are you well served.  I mean on the grocery front.  

kreuzkav

I agree that Tesco wages are probably higher.   I was in Sainsburys Local the other day and some ultra posh woman was having a go at the staff, who always seem friendly to me, about them not listening to her. 

TheMimsy

Miss Annie,<div><br></div><div>Totally agree that staff at other stores are perfectly fine.  The staff at the Hornsey Road Tesco Express are very nice.</div><div><br></div><div>Once at Stroud Green I  did not weigh a bag of pick and mix sweets, innocently thinking the person at the check out (the cigarettes/lottery one, by the way), would do it instead.</div><div>She had a go at me and literally threw the bag of sweets in the bin in front of everybody, upsetting my children...</div><div><br></div><div>On several occasions staff at the till forgot (or didn't know how to do it) to remove security tags for items I had paid for, triggering the alarm.</div><div><br></div><div>Have made a note of the right people to email in future...</div>

miss annie

<p>Or you could just do what a friend of mine does and take advantage of the fact there are never any staff about and put all your expensive shopping through the self service tills as carrots.</p><p>Believe me Kreuzkav, it's not very rich people who are usually rude. In my experience it's middle income people and the chavs off the estate (I know that sounds hideously snobby) who are the rudest, least likely to wait or understand that someone else's time might be just as valuable as theirs.</p>

quince

I think that the SGR Tesco is deliberately positioned at the lower end of the market/social ladder/whatever.  Very little 'Finest', massive freezer aisle, big 'ethnic' section, cheap cuts of meat you don't tend to find everywhere (oxtail, for example).  It's not the place to get your medallions of veal and coquilles st-jacques.  Big lump of pork shoulder/bags of moong dal/Polish meat products for bugger all money?  Yes please.<div><br></div><div>That £1.67 bottle of wine, however...  No thanks.<br><div><br></div><div>And for that, despite all the above (armpit notwithstanding), I'm pretty fond of the place.  Sainsbury's Local is a much, much more depressing experience.</div></div>

ChangN4N6

What is also depressing is how almost all supermarkets have got away with making customers do self-checkouts depriving ppl of much-needed starter jobs, making shopping worse and mechanical, while happily maintaining prices and profits (and in SGR maintaining no investment). Personal service is MUCH better and I hate those f£&@ing machines and that terrible cheery woman's voice. I'd gladly make her an unrecognisable item in the nagging sorry bagging area. Chang

rrjlondon

It's foul there. So vote with your feet. Use the independent grocers, butcher, florist, hardware stores etc.  If we don't, who's fault is it that Tesco thrives on poor quality?

ChangN4N6

The independent florist is worse than terrible unless you are looking for balloons, dead sunflowers red ribbons and a nylon cuddly toy (but obviously enough ppl are to keep it in business until the Xmas tree war comes round in a fortnight's time.... )Chang

checkski

It's also a question of price, rrjlondon. Tesco's is not cheap, but everywhere else is dearer still.

Mirandola

The Hornsey Road florist is good. And Ash is cheaper (and better) than Tesco's.

miss annie

Agreed on both, Ash's is fantastic. It amazes me how people are prepared to shell out £3.00 plus for a mug of coffee, then moan because food costs a little bit more in anything other a supermarket.

kreuzkav

I can't really tell if Ash's  'Fruit and Veg' is any more expensive than getting it in Tesco and as Annie says even if it is a little more so, it's only the price of a drink.

miss annie

It isn't more expensive, It's cheaper, and much more choice, less packaging and better quality.

checkski

<P>I go to  Ash AND Tesco. He's cheaper for some things, and, agreed, better for most. Not true of most of the other  small shops, many of which can't even be bothered to label all their wares, most of which are past their best. I'm thinking of the two corner shops in Fonthill Rd.</P> <P>The criteria are different for coffee shops, for me. You pay the going rate, which, although far less than £3, is still a lot. Now that I am retired, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops, working (voluntarily), reading, playing with my lovely (second hand I Pad). I suppose I am also paying for the time spent there, and ,if I,m lucky, the comfortable seat. In my scheme of things, it's money well spent. </P> <P>In spite of my complaints, I prefer Tesco to other places for other reasons. You can 'browse' there, like a library. If you either choose or are compelled to shop cheaply, you can cobble together a more or less satifactory bagful.You are not obliged to talk to anyody if you don't want to. There is generally a bigger choice - and there are yellow-label, not-to-be-missed mark-down moments, when when things tumble into your basket for 10 or 20p each. On a happy day, Tesco is a stage - you never know who you are going to bump into, and the cheerful banter with the nicer staff makes SGR a happier place.</P> <P>Two cheers for Tesco! (Am I allowed to contradict myself? Too late!).</P>

miss annie

<p>The yellow sticker section is fantastic in Tesco on the Green opposite my shop Checkski. Get yourself there 3 - 5pm and there are all sorts of bargains! Especially on Mondays when it's all the unsold meat from the weekend. </p>