Monday, November 17, 2008

Tesco near Ikea sucks!

Sigh~ I am so tired today despite the fact that I actually slept till 11am yesterday and then took 2-3 hours afternoon nap at around 3pm. I got back from Penang on Saturday afternoon on the 3.20pm flight and arrived promptly at KLIA at 4.15pm. The flight actually took off on time for a change. The taxi queue was really long though and only managed to get on the taxi around 4.45pm and reached home around 5.40pm. I was very tired and babe was sure glad to see me, all huggy and kissy :P

Anyway, he also promptly told me that we are going to his friend's house at Puchong for BBQ and we need to leave by 7pm since we need to go to the Giant Hypermarket near the house to get softdrinks for the bbq. So, there goes my plan to laze around at home and take a nap or something like that. We only arrive home from the bbq at around 1.30am. So, after keeping the groceries and took bath, it was already 2-3am on Sunday morning. So, you really can't blame me for waking up at 11am.

Actually, I woke up once at 9.30am thinking that it must be super late already because the sun was shining so brightly through the bedroom window. But since we don't bring our handphone into the bedroom on weekends (generally unless we set the alarm) and we do not have a clock in the room, I only realised it is 9.30am when I went to the living room. Lazy to go into the bedroom again, I decided to crash on the sofa. Babe must have felt extremely lonely in bed because he actually woke me up at around 10am and basically dragged me to the bed.

Anyway, we decided to go Tesco near Ikea last night to check the price of rice there. It seems that the price of rice actually gone up instead of coming down. I was under the impression that hypermarket will reduce their prices in line with the government calling to reduce inflation? Or did I understand wrongly? Hmm... Anyway, we decided that since the normal AAA white rice is so expensive, we might as well do ourself a favor and try the healthier type of rice, i.e. brown rice. In the end, we bought 5kg of Jasmine sunwhite rice and 1kg of brown rice.

Around 9pm, we decided we bought all the things that we need and proceed to the cashier counter, i.e. the normal thing that you do right? Should not be something that is worth mentioning right? Well, last night, was the first time that I experienced this. Our groceries actually came up to about RM58.75 and I gaven the cashier 2 pieces of RM50, i.e. total @ RM100.

This is also normal but when the cashier receive the money, she actually only punched in RM60 and as usual, this cashier are pretty fast at this and I think nothing of it as I thought she will just calculate the difference in her brain and returned me RM41.25. Imagine my surprise when she only returned me RM1.25. I, of course, promptly told her that I gave her RM100 but imagine my shock when she insist that I gave her RM60, i.e. 1 piece of RM50 and 1 piece of RM10.

Normally, I might have doubt myself and thought maybe because I am tired, I might have made a mistake and gave her 1 RM50 and 1 RM10. But last night, I was very sure I gave her 2 pieces of RM50 because before she start barcodding the groceries, babe gave me RM50 and I promptly put it into my purse with my other RM50. I remember making a rough mental calculation in my brain to tally up the total of the groceries we bought and remember telling myself that RM100 is more than enough.

Also, just before we pay for our groceries, we went to the non-halal section to buy some pork and bacon. The total was RM24+ and babe took out RM20 and I contributed RM10. I definitely remember after that, my purse do not have any more RM10 (distinctively red color of the money makes it hard to miss), only a single RM50 and some RM5 and RM1. Anyway, I insist that I gave her 2 RM50 and she of course insist that I did not. After arguing a few times, I asked her to call her supervisor.

After explaining what happened, the supervisor promptly closed the counter and said that she need to do spotcheck. Babe asked, why need spotcheck. You have CCTV near the cashier, why waste time to check and count the cash in the register. It it faster if you just check the cctv. However, the supervisor gave some lame excuse about it takes longer to access the cctv and proceed to start counting the cash there. After counting once, she told me that the cashier is actually short by RM8. I said no and insist she count it again. Only after counting it again, she realised that the actually mis-counted the RM50 and without a word of apology, return the RM40 to me. It is as if I am the one making the mistake?

I was so angry after that. I know the cashier is human and human makes mistakes. Although I got my money back, I was still very unhappy because, 1. The problem could have been resolved faster if they just checked the cctv, 2. When doing spotcheck and counting the money, should do so more carefully and more than once before informing customer that no shortage and 3. APOLOGISE when discover error. The cashier did not even look sorry and the supervisor didn't say a single word of apology or look sorry. It is as if this is normal and routine to them.

I normally do not like to create a scene but last night, I did not say no when babe say lets go make an official complain at the customer service counter. We only finally got back on around 10pm when if there is no problem, we could have arrived home around 9pm-ish. Anyway, babe told me in the car that he suspect one of the guy actually when to take a peek at the cctv because he overheard the guy telling the supervisor that it is 100. I did not hear anything but did saw a guy go near the supervisor and told her something which caused the supervisor face to change slightly. Sort of like a mask going over the face when someone have something to hide.

When we analyse the situation in the car on the way back, I think the cashier realised her mistake when she open her cash register to show me that I gave her RM50 + RM10 because like all cash register, the slots to put different denomination of money are segregated. So, if the cashier got 2 different denomination such as RM50 and RM10, then she need to put the money in 2 different slots. Where as if only 2 pieces of RM50, then it is only in one slot in the cash register. Also, I think suspect they DID check the cctv but refuse to tell us what they saw on the cctv because that would mean that they have to write an official report to their manager?

So, all I know is that if there is a Giant hypermarket near where I stay, I will definitely not visit Tesco for my groceries anymore unless there is items that I really need on super cheap promotion. By the way, I think the things at Tesco are more expensive compared to Giant. I am not doing a promotion or advertisement for Giant but just stating what I observed.

4 comments:

dumb-baker said...

Hi Jen Jen,

One word to Tesco : DUMBASS. OMG...i'm feeeling the heat right now too...if i were you, I would have made a scene there and not leave until they apologize. I mean for goodness sake...what is customer's right and priority? Don't even have the sincerity to apologize and show good manners, what's the use of advertising promotion all over the place? I bet nobody will ever visit TESCO again if the staff's attitude is not improving. I'm this angry because few months back i had scene with the Tesco staff too. The cashier was rude to my dad and kept urging my dad to quickly put the items to be purchased on counter...i 'jeling' at the dumbass cashier and asked her right at her face if she has problem with an old man who is struggling to put heavy things on the counter whereas all she did is stand and watching and working only on ur index finger to punch the figure on the machine? I also asked her to show her manners and respect to the elderly and i demanded her name. Her face was apologetic and red because by then my voice was too loud and attracted lots of curious eyes around us....muahaha...oh well...she deserves that humiliatian. Okay Jen...sorry for taking up a big space in ur comment column...hahahaha...just wanna share share experience ma. Anyway...have a good week ahead ya!

JenJen's Place said...

Hi Baker,
WAHH!! Glad you told the cashier off! If it is me, I will do that too. I realised that generally cashier at Tesco is always very rude one! Even the people in the Tesco itself very not willing to help people out and the face always very black. It is not as if they are the only hypermarket around. Some more, the Tesco near Ikea, I always feel the place is very dirty and messy.

p/s: I was very loud too last nite! HAHA

Kok said...

jenjen,
My dad actually experienced this before in one of the local supermarket here. They also didn't check the cctv (giving the same excuse like the one you had). But the difference is, when the supervisor found out that it's their mistake, the supervisor kept apologising to my dad. But not the cashier!

My dad was good enough that he didn't make a fuss when he can actually. Hmm.. How can a cashier be that reckless?

JenJen's Place said...

Hi Kok,
Actually I can fully understand why the cashier can make such mistakes. The job is repetitive job that does not require her/him to think much. Just let the cash register do the thinking. I think some time, people just space out when it is too repetitive. And cashier are human too. So, as I said, I fully understand this but I was angry because neither the cashier nor the supervisor said sorry. If they have apologise, I would not have created a scene and raise my voice....