‘I wonder if the management of Camden’s supermarkets have any idea who their customers are’

• I WENT grocery shopping in Sainsbury’s in Camden Town, noticed there seemed to be a lot of space where the tills were but thought no more about it, got most of the items I needed and then approached the tills only to discover there were no staffed tills, only self-service ones.

Given how many of us elderly folk use that particular supermarket and tend to like a bit of interaction with the people working on the checkouts, I found this quite surprising.

When I asked one of the staff, most of whom were shouting instructions to various folk and pointing to the next available checkout, what was going on, she said quite blithely ”oh this is the future darling”.

Is it now? Not for me it isn’t. I told her that I did not work for Sainsbury’s and was not prepared to use those tills.

So she went to find an empty trolley. I emptied the groceries I was going to purchase in it, then went and parked that to get my pound coin back.

I really hope that come the end of the year that young woman has a job. I did point out that it was the slippery slope and before long her job would go too, and she shook her head and said “oh no that won’t happen”.

I then walked over to M&S, which still has staffed checkouts, then into Aldi, again a couple of staffed checkouts, although when I mentioned my earlier experience the person on the checkout did say there were rumours that the same was going to happen with Aldi.

I wonder if the management of Camden’s supermarkets have any idea who their customers are. I was not the only person who decided to go elsewhere.

Maybe it is time for local government to put in a rider with any proposed alterations in the supermarkets ensuring that they cater for all their customers not just the young, mobile, and tech savvy.

J SYME
Harmood Street, NW1