Help The Aged

The customer demographic here at Solihull seems to consist of significantly more old people than is average. Whilst other retailers are off chasing the young and flighty for their expendable cash, we are trying to prise a few shillings from oap's kung fu grip.

This abundance of the elderly lends itself to a somewhat slower pace, albeit only for them! This obviously creates problems of its own with queues quickly forming particularly on pension day when we are inundated with them. Akin to a swarm of locusts they 'slowly' strip us of all Werthers originals, dried prunes and Horlicks. To help alleviate this 'slowing up' I've come up with some ideas....

One, we free up a csa to act as a kind of meeter greeter for old people, they would then escort, at a brisk pace, the old people round the store, not allowing them to stop for chats nor procrastinate in their choice making. I respectfully suggest we could, perhaps, strap the old dears to some dollie wheels and actually wheel them promptly through the store! They'd enjoy the ride, trust me.

Secondly, We are putting up a sigbn at the till point banning old people from giving us the right change! They specifically wait until the csa has cashed off the £20 for £10.37 before saying, here you go, I've got the 37p. They take 7 minutes to count this out, including as many coppers as is possible. The poor csa then has to fall back on mental arithmetic they have not used since 1983, to work out what the change should be now! With (non) helpful dithering added to the equation the one transactions taken half a shift.

Thirdly, ban csa's from bringing up any weather related topics when there are old people within 30 feet. This is a recipe for disaster, old people have radar for weather conversations and probably only leave the house at all in order to complain about the cold/heat/rain/snow/hail.