Mimi wrote:
My sister works at Waitrose (somewhere near Stevenage, I assume, as that's where she lives), working as as the Head Chef. Waitrose, she says, is a terribly unfriendly work environment, as is John lewis. I, myself, have had a run-in with someone at John Lewis who told me to 'run along now, little girl' last year.
Anyway, If you work at Waitrose you get a staff discount, which you can use in any Waitrose or John Lewis (I think slightly less of a discount in John Lewis). When doing the shopping, if she is with her partner (they are not married) then they will only give her the discount off of HALF their shopping, as he will be using half of it - if they were married, however, then they could get the full discount. This means that she has to shop alone or he has to scuttle off whilst she goes to the tills, and has to wait in the car.
I was with her in john Lewis in brent Cross once where she used her staff discount and the woman was so unbelieveably rude. She asked no less than eight times if the goods were for her, pointed at me and said 'because you can't use it it buy things for her, you know' and when it came to filling out the discount slip, held it aloft and said 'what's that supposed to say? Why have you written some kind of code where your surname is supposed to be. What does that code mean?, 'H O Y?'. My sister, a bit wound up by now 'that's my name!' to which the woman replied 'your surname .... is... HOY?!'. I had to stand on Lucie's foot to stop her from completely losing her rag.
Hmm,
My Brother used to work for Peter Jones (The sloane square branch of John Lewis) and never had any issues, and one of my friends mum used to work at waitrose and she was always singing it's praise. I guess it must depend on which branch you go to.
Malc