Monday, 28 June 2021

The day I was stupid enough to use SmartShop...

 

Yesterday I used Sainsbury’s Smartshop.  Sainsbury has been desperate for me to shop using SmartShop for ages and keeps offering me £5 gift vouchers to do so …so out of a desire for cheaper booze I thought I would attempt it once.  I did so.  I had had an idea – go in, buy one thing over £5, go out.

Once in however, I bought 11 things.  Scan things before you put them in your trolley sounds very simple.  However, once I was traversing the aisles the distractions of loud children, angry parents, folk with trolly rage and aisle cloggers and people who are unable to read the signs saying “you should shop alone” led me to forget the very simple process and very soon I was putting things in the trolley without being sure whether or not I had scanned them…

When I got to the checkout I counted them all carefully for the 11th time to make sure they matched what was on the handset and with the help of the assistant put it through the till with a single beep.

Then before exiting I counted the things into plastic bags ticking them off the receipt as I did so to triple check I had not missed anything.  I had missed a loaf of bread …so I had to go round the tills again to put one item through the self serve till… then circumnavigate the security guard who wasn’t looking at me suspiciously even though I was acting suspiciously because I am conspicuously white.

Then I began to imagine what would happen if I did this all the time.  Soon I would be in prison charged with stealing a loaf of bread like Jean Valjean and then my life would spiral down into stigmatised doom as my criminal record would lower me onto even lower societal rungs than I am on at the moment.  Very soon I would end up like Sean Bean in Time…

It is true that Sainsburys had given me a £5 voucher but I had to do so much work and worry to avail myself of this fiver that it would have been easier to just work for Mr Sainsbury’s – and less risky since if the float doesn’t add up they just dock your wages or sack you rather than going through the bother of a criminal prosecution.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Unsolicited email from the BBC

Dear  Mr Miller  Please find the results of an investigation by the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit into editorial complaints about ...

Least ignored nonsense this month...