Morrison, (WM) Supermarkets

I’m writing this review having just given my notice after a particularly bad day in what is the worst place I have ever had the misfortune to work. I’ve previously worked at both Asda and Tesco, as well as many other smaller retailers over the years, all of which I left due to changes in circumstances rather than anything related to the job. I’ve always enjoyed working in retail, whichever aspect I was involved in at the time, but after 2 and a half years working at Morrisons I came to HATE every single minute of every shift.

I chose to apply at Morrisons because of the flexible hours they offer. As a single parent there are certain hours I cannot work which is why I’ve always stuck to easy retail work which I can fit around the kids. The personnel manager at my store assured me that I would only be asked to work during the times I’d stated on my application form that I was available for work, so I accepted the 20 hour position on checkouts that I was offered.

Before starting work I had to do a 2 day induction during which I was shown around the store and completed all the necessary paperwork and training. This is very boring and mostly irrelevant and whilst I understand why they need to do it there is no reason why it has to drag on for so long. The most ridiculous part of the induction is where they give you a list of products to find in the store and you have to write down the aisle number and price of the product as proof that you’ve found it. Nothing ridiculous about that you may think. But factor in that this part of our induction was done on an extremely busy Saturday lunchtime and you may be able to see where I’m coming from. Sending 12 clueless inductees running around getting in everyone’s way at such a busy time is nothing short of stupid.

When it comes to uniforms they supply shirts, aprons, tabards, hats etc., but they don’t supply trousers or shoes so you have to buy your own. That’s the first thing that annoyed me as I see no reason why a company of that size cannot supply trousers with it’s uniform, especially as in some departments you can get through a pair of trousers every few weeks because of the work involved, and they don‘t exactly pay us well enough to expect us to buy new trousers that often. The shirts are absolutely terrible. They’re made from the most awful material that can make you sweat buckets even in the middle of winter, and they’re also really uncomfortable. They also supply jackets for the colder weather or if you work in a cold department, but these always seem to be in short supply. It can also take forever to get new shirts, aprons etc. when you need them and I’ve found I had to really keep bugging personnel in order to get any.

When I first started working there I enjoyed it as I had done every previous job, but it soon became clear that the customers were very different to those of Asda and Tesco (please bear in mind that this is going by experience of stores I have worked in and obviously I can’t say customers at all stores are the same as I have experienced here!). I really don’t know what it is about Morrisons that does it, but it attracts a much higher percentage of obnoxious, arrogant and abusive customers than anywhere else I’ve ever worked. So many people here come in to the store with the immediate and blatant attitude of ‘I’m better than you so I can say and do exactly what I like to you’. Whether it’s being verbally abusive, pushing and shoving staff for no reason, or ramming trollies into us as a source of amusement, they think they can get away with it and that we have no right to say anything to them about it. There have been so many incidences in our store where a customer has been abusive to a member of staff for no reason then put in a complaint about the member of staff being ‘rude’ because they’ve asked them to stop whatever it is they’re doing or refused to deal with them. It almost sounds unbelievable to say that these types of customers are the majority in our store, but they really are, to the point that it’s a massive shock when I’m confronted with a friendly, polite customer, and it really brightens up my day.

The thing that annoys me the most however is the way Morrisons treats it’s staff in these kind of situations. We’re being abused by customers whilst being told by the company that we have to just put up with it and still smile and give them great customer service. I think it’s an absolute disgrace that Morrisons are basically telling their staff that they are so worthless that they don’t have the right to be treated with respect and must remain all happy and smiley no matter how abusive a customer becomes. Nobody on this Earth has the right to tell me that I must simply put up with abuse just because I work in a supermarket. At Tesco when a customer was abusive to a member of staff, depending on the severity, they would either be banned from the store or given a warning and banned if they were later seen to be repeat offenders. At Morrisons they’re given a pat on the back and a £10 voucher to say ‘sorry’ for the behaviour of the staff member who has done nothing but stand there being abused. It’s an absolutely disgusting way to treat your staff, and it really does just go to show how little they value their low level staff.

Morrisons make a really big deal about the fact that they offer hours to suit you, but after working there for only a few months I realised that this is just all to reel you in and the reality is in fact very different. As I mentioned earlier I began on a 20 hour contract on checkouts after being assured that I would only be asked to work within the times I had specified, but within a few months they started telling me I would have to do overtime. I refused and just stuck to my contract but the checkout manager continually harassed me about it to the point that I felt really uncomfortable and asked to change departments. I transferred onto frozen foods on the same hours I’d been working on checkouts until after a year they decided that my hours didn’t fit in with what they needed on that department, which I could understand so I wasn’t put out when they changed me onto fresh foods where I was assured my hours could be accommodated. A few weeks ago however they told me that they were changing my contract so that I would have to work until 10pm 2 days a week. This is impossible for me as I had told them on my application form, in my interview, and several times since, but they insisted that the contract was changing and that was the end of it. They have also tried to change many other people’s contracts against their will, their only reason being ‘it’s the same in all Morrisons’. Many have spoken to the Union rep about it and have been told that they cannot force people to change their contracts like that, so many are considering taking the issue to grievance. It is just another example of Morrisons treating their basic level staff appallingly.

Having previously worked at 2 other major supermarkets I am still to this day completely baffled by Morrisons working practices. There is no sense or logic in anything they do, it just seems like everything is designed to make the job twice (or 10 times in some cases!) as hard as it needs to be. They encourage staff to suggest ways of making things more efficient or run more smoothly, but when you do suggest something that would actually help the response you get is always along the lines of "Yes that's a fantastic idea, it really would make it so much more efficient, but it's like this in all Morrisons, so no". If that's the case, that all Morrisons are run in an intentionally disorganised and inefficient way and they are not willing to change, then why encourage people to make suggestions in the first place?

As well as the issues that are unique to Morrisons, they have some major issues in common with the other supermarkets. More than a few of the managers have huge superiority complexes whilst others are simply rude and obnoxious and speak to staff like they‘re dirt. A lot of the managers don’t actually have a clue what they’re doing, which is no surprise when they make it so easy to progress. Because they have quotas to fill for sending people on their training to become supervisors they just put anyone forward to fill said quotas, which results in loads of people who aren’t fit to be supervisors or don’t even want to be supervisors doing the job. There is a distinct lack of communication between the managers which is not great when there can sometimes be as many as 5 managers all giving you orders. It becomes very infuriating trying to do what is essentially a simple job when you’re being told different things by different managers because they’ve not communicated with each other.

After 2 and a half years of waking up literally dreading going to work I finally decided the paltry amount of £6.20 an hour is really not worth it for what I’ve had to put up with, and words can simply not describe how happy I am to be leaving the worst place I’ve ever worked.