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You'll love Germany then for having quiet Sundays.
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If all of the supermarket chains in the UK except for Aldi and Lidl disappeared, would you care?
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Butts
Veteran Member
A bit of hypocrisy here methinks......
I have never heard of USDAW (or any other Union) campaigning to change the Sunday Trading Hours in Scotland to bring them into line with the limited hours that apply in England and Wales.
I don't recall anything from them about Scottish trading hours, either. Useless Shower of Dimwitted A... I'd better stop now.
When I worked for Safeway, my only objection to Sunday working was that they'd put me down for early starts when they knew fine well that my first bus into town didn't get me in before 2pm, and this was despite our department manager living in the same village and being aware of the issue! It was still double time on a Sunday then, but the extra could easily be wiped out on a taxi fare. It was reasonably easy to get a swap for a later shift, however. Bank holidays could be lucrative as well as they paid treble time for 1/5 of contracted hours and therefore tried to avoid having as few full-time staff in as possible.
Strat-tastic
Established Member
You'll love Germany then for having quiet Sundays.
The Germans do have a lot of good ideas about how to run things. I'll have to pay a visit one day.
175mph
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But they are of course, by no means perfect either.The Germans do have a lot of good ideas about how to run things. I'll have to pay a visit one day.
Silver Cobra
Member
That's a good point. Maybe the unions don't feel they can challenge the Scottish government as easily as the English/Welsh governments, or that it's harder to change laws than it is to prevent changes to laws.
I found a page on the Usdaw website with all the information on their campaign to 'Keep Sunday Special', as they put it (and I was right about how long ago I saw it, as most of the info on the page is from 2016):
https://www.usdaw.org.uk/Campaigns/Keep-Sunday-Special
Strat-tastic
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175mph
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My grandad always used to go on about Germany being a shining beacon of excellence we should all look to and the UK is the epitomy of showing the world how not to do things!Indeed. Anyone who can come up with a word like Kugelschreiber must be bonkers
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Indeed. Anyone who can come up with a word like Kugelschreiber must be bonkers
German compound words are logical, they just work like UK sentences. A Kugelschreiber is just a "ball writer". The entertaining "Luftkissenfahrzeug" (hovercraft) is just "air cushion travelling thing".
Busaholic
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Actually, they are! Those six hours have to fall between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and Oxford Street stores used to open, in the main, between midday and 6 p.m. because they estimated footfall at 6 pm. would be significantly better than at 10 a.m., particularly among tourists.
I've owned a shop continuously since 1988, and a couple of short periods before that., and have seen HUGE changes in that time. In 1988 Penzance had no supermarkets, now the outskirts of the town host four, all with free parking outside, needless to say. There were four butchers, now one (which is more than Truro can muster), the same number of greengrocers and two dry cleaners (both had disappeared by the millenium.) I used to work a 70/80 hour week in the early days in order to build the business up and the customer was king (and nearly always right!!)
underbank
Established Member
Back in the 70s and 80s when we had our family shop, the customer WAS usually right. In those days, customers weren't arrogant, self obsessed brain dead imbeciles who believed everything they read on Facecloth was gospel truth (written by similarly arrogant, self obsessed brain dead imbeciles). I really, really couldn't work in a retail customer facing role these days, yet it was absolutely fine and even enjoyable back in the day.
Strat-tastic
Established Member
I have to agree with you on this, I remember when I was a kid, the shops shut for a week at Christmas, we didn't have big freezers, or ready meals or microwaves, you had to get what you wanted by Christmas eve, because that was it then until after the holiday period. everyone got a rest, and everyone got time to spend with their families, the only people who worked were doing things like maintenance while everywhere was shut, we managed, nobody died of starvation.
Now a lot of the shops are open on Boxing day yet visit any supermarket on Christmas eve and it's like the end of the world, people are almost panic buying! I feel sorry for shopworkers who have to work over any holiday, I know they say that nobody is forced to work them, but how many feel obliged to do so?
When I left school myfirst job was in a shop, we worked 5 out of 7, if you worked Saturday and Sunday this week then you were off Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week. The trouble with this was that you effectively 'lost' 2 days when you worked the weekend, now ok, you got 2 days off during the week, but that wasn't much good when the rest of your family, and, probably more important for a 16 year old, your mates, were off at the weekend. Everyone was going out on Friday and Saturday nights, but you had to either stay in, or come home early because you had work in the morning.
I can remember when it was only the small shops, usually owned by Indians, or Pakistani's that were open over holidays,they were happy doing it and most of them didn't observe our holidays, so that was fine. In modern times when most people have large freezers, products have longer shelf lives, and the government are constantly blaming all kinds of social problems on the breakdown of traditional family life, I really struggle to understand WHY, they seem to be encouraging a 24/7/365 society.
I hated those Christmases and was happy to work them as soon as it was possible to do so. It was not to our credit as a nation that we had a downtrodden underclass of immigrants to do our long unsocial hours work for us. Using their religion so that we could pretend they wanted to work long hours and didn't want to see their families did us no credit. As you point out, the midweek days off were basically pretty useless when most people had an inflexible job that couldn't work around it. Poor shop opening hours condemned lots of people to having no access to facilities like banks and enforced stay-at-home women just to manage the chores. It was a miserable world, built around the comfort and happiness of a subset of settled middle class white people. I was certainly glad to escape it, as were many others.
underbank
Established Member
Who is your "they" - I personally don't think anyone is "encouraging" the 24/7/365 - it's demand driven by people wanting to do things outside normal office hours.
I don't think anyone is forcing people to go out on a Sunday to go shopping, go to theme parks, walk in the countryside, go to restaurants, go bowling or to the cinema etc. People want to go out and do things. If they aren't going out, they may want to stay in and do admin, i.e. renew their insurance, book a holiday, pay a few bills online, buy stuff off ebay, etc. All of which need workers. Shops are only a small portion of the overall 24/7/365 society. I think it would be a pretty miserable Sunday if literally everything was closed, if we couldn't take our kids to the cinema or we couldn't go and browse around a car boot sale.
A lot of stuff done online is done by a computer, and therefore doesn't require a human at the other end, I'm not saying things like cinema's or car boots shouldn't be allowed, I quite enjoy a walk around one myself, but shopping, really. Surely there should be one day a week where families can spend some quality time together, what good is it if dad and the kids are free on Sunday, if mum is stuck on a checkout working at the local supermarket? It's time people learned to value what is really important, like family, the shops will ne there forever, you, your partner, your parents, and even your kids are all going to die at some point. Now given how fragile life is I think it's important to spend as much quality time with family as you can. I used to rush about, work all sorts of hours, never gave a thought to the important things in life, then one day it happened. I'd not seen my parents for a while, 'I can go there next week' I'd say, like you do. One Wednesday I called in on a flying visit and spent an hour with them, they were both fine and I promised I'd go over at the weekend and discuss a family holiday, my mum had been trying for ages to get us all together, a sort of reunion, it never happened, 12 hours later my mum was dead, she was 59, hadn't really been ill, she just died suddenly, no time for a reunion, or even a day down the pub, she'd gone!
Since then I try and make time for family, and friends, because, in the grand scheme of things, they are what matter, not whether or not you can pop down to the supermarket on Sunday for a can of beans
underbank
Established Member
So you don't mind if Mum is stuck on the counter of a cinema or waiting on at a restaurant. I really don't understand why you think there's a difference. You want quality family time together, that's fine, but you still want some other people to be working and not having quality time so you can enjoy yours.
For me, if you want Sunday's special for family, then that means across the board. No shops, no restaurants/pubs, no sports, no theme parks, etc etc. So you have your quality family time, but you're basically stuck at home or going for a walk.
175mph
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Do you ever buy the M&S ready meals?
I find its difficult to beat Sainsbury's for ready meals, though Tesco's are a lot cheaper and also alright. M&S at least have a range, but they are expensive and the quality isn't there. All are better than Aldi/Lidl where they seem like a bit of a desperate box-ticking exercise
Harbornite
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My grandad always used to go on about Germany being a shining beacon of excellence we should all look to and the UK is the epitomy of showing the world how not to do things!
Indeed. The Brits could learn a lot from the construction of Berlin Brandenburg Airport and Halle hump yard...
My lass works in transport where she gets rostered for sundays - shall we stop that too so i can spend time with her on a sunday? Or do we do like adults and plan our spare time around shifts that are given?
175mph
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Hope I don't sound nosey by asking as well, but do you use a nectar card at when buying anything from Sainsbury's?
No. Even if nectar didn't have reprehensible partnerships it's just doesn't enough value to be worth the wallet space
175mph
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I've only got and use one because when I left home for my own flat, my mum got me one as part of a few 'moving in' gifts and I felt bad not using it. Besides, it's saved me quite a bit on meals at the cafe at my nearest branch of Sainsbury's.
Techniquest
Veteran Member
I got one the first year it started (by cripes it feels like a long time since it was those purple cards!) and while I don't shop too often in Sainsburys, it is ideal. I've currently got a decent value of points on my card, and now I use the TPX app to buy my train tickets (I prefer the VTWC app but points are points!) the balance is rising nicely. It will in the next week or so too, with a 100 bonus points voucher for use when I spend £5 or more on craft beer. Not hard to do that! I don't use my bonus points vouchers every time, depends what they are after all.
I do like the (compared to other supermarkets) range of healthy frozen food Sainsburys do too, and their healthy Cumberland sausages in their chilled range are rather nice too. When I'm feeling rather flush, I do occasionally buy venison burgers from there too. No other supermarket here does them!
175mph
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The one my mum got me was a purple one too and that was in 2015.
Busaholic
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You'll find it's remarkably variable who Sainsburys offer these vouchers to. I first noted when I got my own Nectar card that I never seemed to get any decent offers on vouchers, whereas my wife did on hers. As an experiment, I got her to use my card for a while and she immediately noticed the difference: in consequence, I always ask to borrow hers now when I go shopping. If I forget and use my own, I rarely get any vouchers at all, whereas Tesco, whom I use a lot less, are always sending me £6 off when you spend £40 vouchers, worth a lot more than even quadruple points on Nectar.
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Yes those vouchers you mention from Tesco are handy, and I get them in the post regularly. However I rarely do a shop even half that value in one go, so they get wasted.
I find when I haven't been to Sainsburys in a while is when I start get the more interesting vouchers printed at the self-scan checkouts (never really do big shops so queuing at a till is not ideal for me) in terms of value. Of course, once I start using them then the good ones go again. Give it a good few weeks and they return again!
Mind you, the other thing Sainsburys do well, aside from most of their Be Good To Yourself range, is their Taste The Difference Vivaldi baking potatoes. Gorgeously tasty and, as advertised, there's no need for butter in the filling which suits me even more! Oh, and I can get 6-apple packs of gala apples for £1 currently but, importantly, they're a decent size. Not the case in the other supermarkets when I go in, the tiny apples most shops sell are no good to me!
As they saw the sense to give me another £1.50 off when spending £10 or more voucher the other day, it will surprise no-one I'll be in there again on Friday! Even if said shop ends up consisting of multiple packets of potatoes, apples and frozen chips!
I find when I haven't been to Sainsburys in a while is when I start get the more interesting vouchers printed at the self-scan checkouts (never really do big shops so queuing at a till is not ideal for me) in terms of value. Of course, once I start using them then the good ones go again. Give it a good few weeks and they return again!
Mind you, the other thing Sainsburys do well, aside from most of their Be Good To Yourself range, is their Taste The Difference Vivaldi baking potatoes. Gorgeously tasty and, as advertised, there's no need for butter in the filling which suits me even more! Oh, and I can get 6-apple packs of gala apples for £1 currently but, importantly, they're a decent size. Not the case in the other supermarkets when I go in, the tiny apples most shops sell are no good to me!
As they saw the sense to give me another £1.50 off when spending £10 or more voucher the other day, it will surprise no-one I'll be in there again on Friday! Even if said shop ends up consisting of multiple packets of potatoes, apples and frozen chips!
krus_aragon
Established Member
Pommes de terre, pommes, and pommes frites! I detect a pattern...Even if said shop ends up consisting of multiple packets of potatoes, apples and frozen chips!
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