On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:18:28 +0000, MM wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:43:48 +0000, Cynic
>wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:45:33 +0000, MM wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>It is only common sense if you work on the basis that prices are only
>>>>ever created once for a given item.
>>>
>>>No, it's common sense the first, second, third, nth time, however many
>>>prices an item goes through in its lifetime. Take Heinz beans. They
>>>have been sold in British supermarkets for donkey's years, but the
>>>price today is not the same as it was ten years ago. Each time a price
>>>label needs to be placed the first time, or updated on subsequent
>>>price changes, any store should provide the staff member with a list
>>>of prices. If the list is WRONG, then that is due to carelessness.
>>>Someone cocked up.
>>
>>Exactly. Haven't you *ever* made a mistake in your life?
>
>Of course I have. And then I have been dealt with, even threatened
>with the sack in once instance. It was a salutary lesson to take even
>more care in future. Nowadays I expect no one can get the sack because
>they'll scream "unfair dismissal".
Nobody will get the sack because of a single simple mistake, or even a
few of them, unless the mistakes are so severe they amount to
negligence (which is significantly beyond mere carelessness).
And they never would have in any decent business.
If they are continually making mistakes, then they may well end up
being dismissed for incompetence, provided all the proper disciplinary
procedures are followed first.
>
>> Have you
>>*never* cocked up? Mistakes happen, it's a part of human nature. You
>>read the number "32" and copy it as "23". You may only make such a
>>mistake once in every 1000 numbers you copy - but that would equate to
>>at least one pricing error in a supermarket that sells over 1000
>>different products.
>
>Well, surprise, surprise, ASDA, for example, have tightened up their
>act no end. They used to be a major culprit, and in those days they
>refunded the WHOLE price AND you got to keep the goods. Very generous.
>I can even recall receiving a £2 gift voucher as a token of their
>apology. And then head office must have said, "Well, it's a bit
>ridiculous to be spending all this money unnecessarily when all we
>need do is ensure our staff members do the job right," because now
>ASDA pricing errors are far fewer than Tesco's.
But they still happen. You *can't* eliminate them completely without
exorbitant effort and cost, in spite of your opinion that they can be
completely eliminated at no cost, since you claim it costs no more to
be certain it is done right.
And I suspect that is probably just your impression rather than any
statistical evidence - and I also expect that in both companies it
varies considerably between stores.
>
>>> They didn't make a mistake, they cocked up.
>>
>>And what is the difference between "cocking up" and "making a
>>mistake"?
>
>"making a mistake" sounds to me like it was beyond their control. It
>wasn't really a mistake, but it just, kinda, happened.
Well perhaps you should learn something about the English language
then.
Most people feel that the word "accident" has those connotations,
although strictly speaking, even that doesn't.
But a "making mistake" *always* means something done wrong.
>Well, it didn't
>"kinda happen". It was a cock-up due to carelessness.
That *is* what it means, and it *is* what everybody else talking about
this has meant by it.
It isn't our fault if you think we are saying something else due to a
lack of understanding of basic English.
>What about that
>plane that almost crashed in Hamburg recently, when the wing tip
>actually struck the runway? Was that a mistake? Of course not! That
>plane should never have been given landing clearance in such extreme
>weather conditions. It was a cock-up of gigantic proportions.
And yet you think it wasn't a mistake?
It would be *incredibly* unusual to have such an enormous cock up
without one or more mistakes involved.
But here you are claiming it "just happened" (as must have been the
case if it wasn't a mistake).
>
>>> Just
>>>like today at T5. A very major SNAFU. Every wrong price label is a
>>>SNAFU. It's common sense.
>>
>>No, it's *one* thing fouled up, not all.
>>
>>>>The FIRST time a price is put on the shelf for an item, I agree that
>>>>it is very little more effort to put out a correct price than a wrong
>>>>one.
>>
>>>Not: "very little more effort", but NO extra effort, not one iota.
>>>Zilch extra. Just do it right first time. Airline pilots have to, else
>>>people die. Oh, and tell Cynic you agree with me, okay?
>>
>>Perhaps in that case you could tell me why airlines waste all that
>>money on checking and often double checking every important action?
>>It's surely easier to check that a door is closed than to check that
>>the price you have put on a shelf is correct. So perhaps you could
>>explain why *3* different people check that a commercial aircraft has
>>all its doors closed before it leaves the stand for departure? And
>>that's in addition to door switches that bring up a warning in the
>>cockpit should any door be unlatched. And even with those
>>precautions, there are occasionally (*very* occasionally) cases of
>>aircraft taking off with an unsecured door.
>
>Ah, you now want me to treat seriously your comparison between
>applying a shelf price label in a supermarket with checking the
>aircraft doors before take-off. Yeah, riiiiigggghhhhtttt......
So having realised the utter absurdity of your position, you just mock
the comparison that shows it, rather than acknowledging your error.
Nice.
>
>>If a professional pilot can make a mistake over a simple operation
>>that puts his own life in danger, how can you possibly believe that a
>>minimum wage teenage shelf-stacker is at all likely to do a boring job
>>without making a single error?
>
>Who said anything about teenagers or on minimum wage?
Very few shelf stackers are on anything significantly above minimum
wage. And a higher than average proportion *are* teenagers, because
people will move on to better paid jobs as soon as they get the
chance.
The more mature workers at that level will usually be put on the
tills, because experience does *reduce* (not eliminate) the number of
errors, and those are more likely to cost the store money at the tills
than in shelf stacking.
>You imply that
>teenagers or those on minimum wage cannot be expected to do a proper
>job. Not much point employing them, then, is there?
>
Your words, not ours.
The "fault" of all of us who shop mainly based on price, thus forcing
retailers to cut costs to the bone, which includes paying the absolute
minimum they can get away with.
>>>>But when prices change it is very easy to miss putting a new price on
>>>>something (say you dropped one label without noticing, or one was
>>>>stuck to the back of another you put out).
>>
>>>It is only easy when the staff member is being careless, a condition
>>>that would render the employee unemployable in my store, if I had one.
>>
>>And how much salary would you offer your staff in return for
>>completely error-free work? When you were working for a living
>>(assuming that you ever did), do you believe that you should have been
>>fired for any trivial mistake you made?
>
>I do not see applying a wrong price label that favours the store as
>trivial. Thousands of pounds are being stolen from shoppers' wallets
>and purses every week due to wrong price labels and people not having
>the time to check their receipts. And trivial is a matter of opinion.
>A typo could be trivial in an internal report, but not when it appears
>in an advertisement or a contract.
>
>>>If you dropped the label without noticing, then you're being careless.
>>>It is YOUR job to take care! The store is paying you to behave
>>>properly and take every precaution to do the job you're paid to do -
>>>which in this instance is affixing price labels to shelves. Hardly
>>>rocket science, fot God's sake!
>>
>>If you are expecting staff to take that amount of care, you would have
>>to pay them a *huge* salary. and allow them at least twice as long to
>>complete every task they are given to do.
>
>Again, you seem to believe that applying the correct label is orders
>of magnitude more difficult than applying the wrong label.
NOBODY has at any time suggested that applying the correct label is
*any* harder than applying the wrong one.
What a stupid suggestion that would be.
>I say that
>the effort is exactly the same, and therefore, why not do it right?
>What's so hard to comprehend? Why continually favour the
>lackadaisical, the sloppy, the don't care?
>
>>>>In order to be sure this has not happened, you would need a second
>>>>person going around with a list of all the changed prices, making sure
>>>>that the new prices were all there.
>>
>>>No, you do NOT need a second person, for, based on that argument, who
>>>would check the second person? You gonna send around a third person? A
>>>fourth?
>>
>>If the consequences of a mistake are serious enough, yes, that's
>>exactly what is done.
>
>No wonder, then, that Britain is such an expensive place to live, if
>we are such a bunch of unreliable workers that our every move has to
>be monitored. Maybe you're thinking of CCTV and that it's a good
>thing?
Neither we, nor the retailers think the consequences are severe enough
to require that, which is why it doesn't happen.
And why mistakes *do* happen.
If you can find a country where such mistakes are fewer than they are
here, you will have found a country populated by robots, or at least
one where shelf labels are put up by robots, rather than humans.
>
>>If you do not know by now that it is *commonplace* for people to make
>>mistakes, I have no idea which planet you have lived your life so far.
>
>Your attitude is the reason why people are leaving the country in
>large numbers.
To call that utter rubbish would be stupidly polite, even if people
*were* "leaving the country in such large numbers". Remember, in just
about every single year since WW2, there have been more people
immigrated to the UK than have emigrated from the UK.
You really do seem to have no concept of the fact that human being are
fallible. We *all* make mistakes, usually quite often.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
It's Ensign Flintstone, Jim... He's Fred!
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