Geeklawyer is, frankly, a bit fucked off with all the government hysteria about binge drinking. It’s just a headline grab; government making itself publicly busy and is nothing new. Anyone familiar with Hogarth’s London will recognise that heavy drinking is not some radical new phenomenon or something that is ‘getting worse’: witness the First World War’s laws to stop munitions workers blowing themselves up. Recent government hysteria and their headline grabbing behaviour has pushed them to create “We must do something” policies and initiatives threatening those who sell alcohol and who are become a tad paranoid as a result.
That, it seems, is the basis for the bizarre behaviour of Waitrose.
When Geeklawyer went into his local Waitrose to buy booze for the weekend he was, as I believe youngsters call it, “carded”: that is, the cashier had to seek supervisor approval to sell cider to him. Bizarre beyond words.
Geeklawyer won’t reveal his age but it is at least a decade since anyone could have seriously imagined him to be under 18. Nonetheless the till-monkeys were forced to go through some asinine, PR flunkey devised one presumes, ritual to protect Waitrose in the event that some dimwit Government minister should criticise them.
Geeklawyer decided to do the un-British thin and whinge:
“customer_service@waitrose.co.uk
28 March 2008 17:51:42
Dear sirs
I have been a regular buyer of alcohol in your XXX Waitrose store for several years. In the past week or so I have been made to wait in queues while the cashier gets authorisation from a supervisor. Usually a wait of several minutes occurs with others in the queue being held up and looking daggers at me while a wait ensues, as well as delaying me pointlessly.I am told by staff it is a new policy because of underage drinkers buying alcohol. The cashier tells me there is no discretion and they have to do it. I am not sure if it is a local or national policy but it is, if you will pardon my bad language, fuck-witted beyond belief. I am [youthful], and while I pride myself on looking somewhat younger, even I don’t delude myself that I look [slightly] years younger. It is manifestly obviously that local staff don’t think so either.
But of course new policies designed to remove from staff intelligent discretion and common sense, and you sucking up to government with their headline seeking “anti youth binge drinking” initiatives will have this effect [causing delays & annoyance].
You really need to pause to consider the stupidity of this policy. I shall be buying my alcohol elsewhere.
Yours sincerely
[Geeklawyer] “
Naturally, their policy will be changing any moment now.
I don’t understand, can’t the cashier just ask for ID to prove your age and then once that is proven you can go along your merry way and get pissed on cider? Why get a manager involved?
Meh, too much control and not enough allowance for independent thought. The youth of today obviously cannot think for themselves if they need the government to tell them what to do.
I said carded but in fact it was worse than that — even if I’d had ID I’d not have been allowed without a supervisor. It wasn’t a youthful cashier — same age as me — and she was v embarrassed. But you’re right there is no room for common sense.
They never did this to me in Finchley Road Waitrose.
I always thought that asking permission thing was where the checkout bod is underage themselves; don’t you have to be 18 to sell alcohol?
If all their staff are having to get permission though — that’s crazy.
It’s the latter yes it is nuts, but it looks from other responses to be a lcal only policy.
I have to say GL, I remember doing a podcast with you when you had your webcam on.
You had a beard and looked remarkably perky for a man who had been on the lash the night before. You may well be a vigorous man, youthful in looks, but you don’t look like a spotty callow pissed 15 year old lout wearing a hoodie.
My advice.… get an old coat, stuff some battered old clothes into an old carrier bag, stagger around Waitrose for a while, make inappropriate remarks at checkout, slurring your words if possible — perhaps, a mild bout of Tourettes — you’ll be fine. They won’t ask for ID. They will be only pleased to see you leave.
I have the benefit of a bit of grey at the temples. I also wear an australian stockman coat, am 6ft 1″ and I make a point of looking straight at cashiers and chatter to them when I make my purchases of Rioja. Perhaps it is the shepherd’s crook I have taken to wondering around Chiswick with — after seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury on TV using one to great effect to get about. Maybe I look like a monk… a West London Friar Tuck?
Maybe it is the Cider which is the cause of your problem at checkout?
I am off to a new watering hole. The Bollo seems to be full of investment bankers with their appalling children…
I may make a guest appearance on here later — after dark.…. — which reminds me… may be time for another “Charon after dark” podcast…?
ROFL (damn this cursed dyslexia)
As a regular customer at Waitrose (it being the only place that serves drinkable Riojca, coffee, and tasty olives within a 50 miles radius of an otherwise bleak northern culinary wasteland). I agree that the concept of the supervisors keying in their magically code is an annoyance. I had previously thought like another reader that this was due to the age of the seller (with only young people, sad loners and the mentally damaged working in supermarkets).
I have been served only yesterday by and older member of staff without the need for this procedure, might it be that the person serving you was themselves mentally damaged and unable to understand their own age?
I did enjoy your letter of complaint though. Perhaps such letters could form a regular aspect of your blog, whereby you dispense your ruthless wit and acerbic pen on the unwitting gray faces that surround us.
PS
There is a young lady in my local Waitrose who is forced to wear a blond wig (that looks utterly stupid) whilst on the till because she had dyed her hair pink! She also has to wear a plaster on her nose because she wears a nose ring. I find this petty fascism annoying and you have encouraged me to write immediately to my own Waitrose to turn this tide of evil that is swamping my otherwise perfectly bourgeois shopping experience.
you should go in with a pink dye job and plaster on nose to show solidarity!
My Geeklawyer inspired revolt against the otherwise nice and bourgeois Waitrose
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a regular shopper at Waitrose and will continue to be so due to the excellent quality products you offer. It’s nice that whereas other supermarkets constantly seek cheaper and consequently nastier food to sell to us that Waitrose values quality and issues such as sustainability. However there are three issues that have been playing on my mind that I wanted to raise with you:
Firstly there seems to be a rather large amount of packaging on some of your products, in view of the dangers that plastic waste poses to the environment I wonder why it is necessary to incase tomatoes for instance in a plastic tray and then wrap them in plastic? What is wrong with selling them lose and providing paper bags in store rather than plastic ones? You could also start charging for bags like M&S they are spot on with that policy. Also till operators always try and wrap products up in extra smaller bags when I get to the till. What is this unhealthy obsession with plastic? Do you realize that Turtles maybe chocking to death on this plastic as you read?
Secondly in my local store in ***** there is a young lady who works often on the tills. This young lady has dyed pink hair and a nose ring. Unfortunately she is made to wear a blond wig and put a plaster over her nose. I can perhaps see the reasons why wearing plasters over piercing might be appropriate for food preparation but wearing it on the till is frankly ridiculous. It upsets me to think that this young Lady has had her dignity removed by being made to wear a humiliating wig and offended that Waitrose would pander to the petty and narrow minded people that would be offended by an individuals choice to express themselves aesthetically in any manner they chose fit. Could you please confirm whether this is a policy of Waitrose or merely a petty minded and bigoted manager with fascistic tendencies acting on their own initiative?
Thirdly I return to the environmental agenda to ask why it is necessary to leave on so much lighting at night time. I appreciate you may want to give the impression that the local Waitrose store is always bright clean and active to avoid ruffians trying to break in at night, but couldn’t at least some of the lights be turned off? I invest a considerable amount of personal time in making sure my electrical appliances within the home are turned off only to have my smug sense of environmentalism ruined by walking past your store at night and viewing rows and rows of tills left on with their log in screens taunting me.
Any minute now they will send you 12 cases of wine by way of apology. I complained to biscuit manufacturer once and got biscuits.
my complaint letter to chateau latour has obviously got lost in the post …