Shops you hate

[neil]

Marks & Spencers for me. Something about them growing up when my mum would be dragging me around that would immediately result in aching joints and incredibly tiredness - desperately finding the scant sitting places (normally meant the womens shoe section much to their annoyance). Be there for an hour while my Mum bought nothing feeling like my soul was being slowly extracted. Also something incredibly annoying about people who refer to it as "Markses" or "Marks & Sparks".

Also worth mentioning any newsagents that had one of them "No more than 2 children at a time" signs up despite there being no way to see who was actually in there. Just an excuse for a moany cunt to yell at children.

[FLips]

12 minutes ago, King Mal the Glorious said:

Back home in South Shields, we had 5 Greggs on one street. No wonder it's one of the fattest places in the country.

We had that in Stockton too at one point, alongside I believe 3 Cooplands. One of the Greggs was actually one unit they had put two shop fronts in, front and back, but with no pass-through. So you could walk right around town and end up back at the same Greggs.

[deathrey]

As a pretty much middle aged woman I think it is actually mandatory that I stick up for Marks & Spencers. They have developed a lot over the years and whilst hardly cutting edge, their clothes are really good quality at a good price and everything isn't made of fucking polyester.

[DavidB6937]

Department stores or basically any place that has a perfume section. It sets off anxiety about being dragged around Christmas shopping when I was younger. Absolutely hate it.

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, RalphyV2 said:

A lot of people will buy £20 - £30 worth of £1 goods from Scope in my town and sell them on vinted etc, a bit frustrating when someone out there may be very hard up and need some clothes and the only option is the £1 shop and thus not many clothes of that size are left for them to buy. Its the reason i now only donate to the £1 shop, so my items are not marked up so high that people who really needs stuff cant afford it 

Add many high street opticians to the shops i hate list, absolute rip offs. Tried to charge my mate over £500 for 2 pairs of glasses, but i suggested a local independent shop who did 2 pairs for £150 with transitions ,anti glare and lens thinning 

 

 

Yep, people who buy from Charity Shops and tries to flog them elsewhere for a mark up are absolute Tories.

[Keith Houchen]

7 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Yep, people who buy from Charity Shops and tries to flog them elsewhere for a mark up are absolute Tories.

As are people who up the price when there is interest!

[SuperBacon]

5 hours ago, RalphyV2 said:

Add many high street opticians to the shops i hate list, absolute rip offs. Tried to charge my mate over £500 for 2 pairs of glasses, but i suggested a local independent shop who did 2 pairs for £150 with transitions ,anti glare and lens thinning 

Get your prescription and go online people. Easily the cheapest option available. 

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

13 hours ago, BomberPat said:

definitely Primark for me as well - always massive, always busy, always ridiculously understaffed,

I can partially explain this bit, at least from my store’s perspective and in general.

Back in September the company went through an overhaul changing the management order so that instead of one main manager, a few department managers and section supervisors on each floor, they decided to move to having 1-2 floor managers and then have operations managers who flitter between floors to answer till enquiries (like changing incorrect pricing, price checks or to solve issues with returns) and doing away with supervisors.

In order to do this, managers and Supervisors were offered the chance to apply for the new roles, offered a redundancy package or be asked to drop back to being floor staff like the rest of us on reduced hours leading to many taking the redundancy and leaving

As far as floor staff go, the stores tend to employ a lot of Uni/College students who either can’t take on extra hours in the week or refuse to do any, they also (at least in my place) put more focus on hiring for weekends when on certain days weekday afternoons are where extra help is needed

[Jazzy G]

CEX used to be fine, but I remember being in there with @air_raida few times and there'd be something in there at a ridiculous price. When asked about it the staff churned out some nonsense about it being related to how many of said item they had in stock.

Nowadays I think it's just that they look at ebay prices, or prices on those auction sites where stuff gets graded as well. 

Being in most retail experiences alone is sensory hell for me with all the noises and bright lights. I must look like a proper special case wearing my sunglasses and headphones while I trot around and self checkout where I can. 

Im sure @FelatioLipscan back me up on this from experience, but I think incorporating Game into Sports Direct is an extremely hellish experience now as well, especially since they seem to operate as a separate store within Sports Direct, so if the Game staff aren't there you can't buy anything. They should just rename it E-sports Direct or something. Maybe they were hoping they could sell some deodorant to the more toxic "gamers" out there.

[CleetusVanDamme]

I'll always have a decent word to say about CEX, they went out of their way to correct a stupid mistake I'd made a few years ago. I traded some games in in-store, and a week or so later I used the voucher to buy stuff online, or thought I did, in reality I went to check-out, forgot to push confirm, threw my receipt in the bin and sat with my feet up waiting on my very successful order to arrive like a complete prick. I sent them a hopeful email and they got back in touch asking for a day and a rough time I was in, within a few hours they'd tracked it down and said I could go back to the store and they'd print another one out for me. A nice move when all I really expected back was a "tough titties, don't throw your vouchers in the bin, then!".

Doesn't invalidate any bad experiences people have, but I like to throw it out there when they get shit on. #NotAllCexOffenders

[Joe Blog]

 "Marks & Sparks".
 
Urgh, this reminds me of a lady I worked in a school with. She was one of a group of middle aged women that would congregate in the staff room and cackle like hens whilst discussing Love Island and Strictly. She always used to bring up Markses as she used to work there.
 

 They got the hump with me one day as they were all gushing over how good Poldark was and I mentioned it was nothing more than shite porn for grannies. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, RalphyV2 said:

Game is frustrating these days. Half of the shop is clothes and toys, not Games!

Considering how pricey the games were, this makes it a far more interesting store to browse.

1 hour ago, Joe Blog said:

They got the hump with me one day as they were all gushing over how good Poldark was and I mentioned it was nothing more than shite porn for grannies. 

Thank god you follow a show as unmockable as wrestling.

[Guest]

Compared to online prices though, Game's just never been able to compete in store, and seldom seemed to even try. So if they're going to sell stuff at RRP, it may as well be merch that we wouldn't necessarily stumble across elsewhere.

[SuperBacon]

5 hours ago, RalphyV2 said:

Are they any good? Generally my glasses are expensive.

This is due to me having a lazy eye, light sensitivity, general poor vision leading me to need ultra thin lenses otherwise they are akin to the thickness of a tub of celebrations.

I need ultra thin, anti glare and reactions lenses, at least I get many extra nerd points for such epically bad eyesight 

I dunno about special tints etc but the expensive part of any pair of bins is the lens. There's no way I'm paying what high street retailers want for frames, same with contacts (but there isn't a massive amount of difference in those these days)

I get my eye test done at an opticians, get my prescription and go online. 

Edited November 29, 2022 by SuperBacon

[Gus Mears]

1 hour ago, Joe Blog said:

 They got the hump with me one day as they were all gushing over how good Poldark was and I mentioned it was nothing more than shite porn for grannies. 

I'm intrigued how this interaction went. Visualising them all having a natter over a cup of tea, broken by you yelling, 'it's just shite porn for grannies you know!', and legging it into the stairwell.