Very needy 'needy' neighbours!

Yes here, a lot are in eighties and are very selfish been twice for food for one man and didn’t pay me. We have hidden health problems but agree because we are a little bit younger they seem to think we don’t have health problems, hope to move soon once things hopefully get back to a more normal can’t wait,

I shopped with Morrison's online for 6 years whose food is delivered through Ocado.

Last year the new CEO of Morrisons decided to bring the smaller areas off Ocado and bring them back to in store which we weren't happy about.

We were told at the beginning it would be a warehouse delivery and not shop floor. They break it with the new CEO.

I've had more substitutes and missing items in 5 months since the service went back to store than I had, had in 6 years with the Morrison's service through Ocado.

When the delivery pass ran out I moved back to Ocado for my fortnightly online shop delivery.

I got one normal delivery, a second that I now know I was lucky to get 4 days after my usual day as all hell was starting to hit the fan.

Thats been it. Shopping basket full on Ocado. I can't get a delivery spot.

Vulnerable home. I'm disabled though mobile. I use a mobility scooter. I'm widowed. Second son still at home. Health issues too.

He has been in self isolating for a week due to a few symptoms and can now go out for the allowed time. I have to do a second week.

He is going to go and get the basics we need tomorrow. I cant wait to get back to the supermarket myself.

High class problems. I know we are blessed compared to many. I have got people who will go and get stuff. I don't like asking.

Our street is alright. We keep ourselves to ours.

Want to get back to online shopping again and I hope I can and we aren't going to be stuffed as people who didnt before just take over

Well I am pretty fed up with Ocado. Have shopped online for years, have a smart pass so supposed to be a “ prioritised” customer.

I got an email from them to say I would be put into one of three lists and would get a slot when it was my turn. I’m still waiting! My daughters who had the same email have been able to get several deliveries each in the same time span. I kept trying and managed to get on their website but the slots were lost when I tried to check out. So food still in virtual basket but I can’t get a slot to deliver them.

Daughters are very good and have put some things for me on their own orders ( we live very nearby) but I want my own order and can’t get one. I know it’s not as bad as many but I’m fed up.

I am in an At risk category so I will not be going to a supermarket.

8@endre123*

You made me begin thinking about the possibility/probability? of many shoppers staying with online deliveries when we're done with the bug.

We're in lockdown already for 6 months and, as you indicate, it may take another year to rid ourselves of this bug. 18 months is more than long enough to change a habit and create a new one.

What are the implications for bricks and mortar supermarkets? No more vast, impersonal superstores on the edge of town that you have to shlep to every week and waste 2-3hrs of your life? More leisure time is always acceptable!

I hope the supermarkets do improve their delivery service greatly.

Currently, I'm thinking of them as major promoters of the prequel to The Hunger Games. I don't have the health and energy to stay up past midnight every night trying to bag slots. Nor do many others. Some don't even have computers. I would have gone hungry this past month since the supermarkets started their 'delivery slot lockdown' if not for my friends and neighbours. I guess it's one way to eradicate we societal burdens!

Also, just because they didn’t tell you their internal plans, doesn’t mean they weren’t working on it.

Don’t be so precious.

They likely still weren’t expecting how many people would move online!

Three weeks is not a long time to ramp that up!

The original recommendations for the UK was to go on as normal!

If they only kept to customers they already had, their stores would be swamped and more dangerous! You’d be holding spots at three stores!

We are all finding a new normal here.

DITTO grannieiggle
We need to change the way we shop when this is over well I for one am definitely going to and I will give my custom to the smaller shops that have helped not hindered me if they survive this. In particular the CO OP

@GabriellaG54

Do you have a reference for the transfer of COVID19 on footwear? I've not seen that suggestion in any of my voluminous reading on this virus.

Thanks.

@Summerlove

...and yet, 3 weeks before lockdown, I contacted each of the 3 supermarkets I routinely shopped at for years and asked them how they were preparing for what was coming.

Not one of these supermarkets had a clue even when I escalated my questions higher up. One referred me to the gvt page about handwashing!

If I, as an ordinary member of the public could see what probably lay ahead, why couldn't they? I just think they didn't care. They were making money anyway.

@Pikachu
I've shopped between 3 supermarkets for years. I'm a regular with each.

But this to-do has really revealed who they really are and how little they care.

I'm already mentally writing my email to each CEO for when it's all over and simply asking "tell me why I would want to continue shopping with you given the dire experiences with you during the crisis?"

I was already housebound before the bug, so I'd relied entirely on online deliveries. These weren't great to begin with. I always got the impression that delivery customers were treated as second best/almost an after-thought anyway.

Now, it's beyond shocking. Meanwhile, they keep sending wordy emails from said CEOs bragging about how much they're doing to help people.

Let's hope that this is a hangover from the delusional, consumerist, no respect for customers culture that these food giants have been fobbing off on us for the past decade or more.

We need change!!

Supermarkets are slowly getting orgainsed to more online shopping. That will be the way most will be shopping for the next 18 months, at least.
Note how Amazon has taken over our high street shops in this pandemic. Others have got to go online in a major way unless they become just suppliers for Amazon.

The supermarkets are lucky Amazon Pantry hasn't expanded into a real supermarket.

I've shopped groceries online for 15 years but slots became impossible a month ago.

The children have organised two deliveries from a distance and I got accepted in the Sainsbury group. Not easy as so many hundreds of thousands are still waiting until the Supermarket can get more vans and shoppers. But it's going the right way.

Wise words Fiachna50.

I don’t understand the anger at the super markets.

They are completely overwhelmed with orders. I’m sure the use of online orders has more than doubled in an extremely short time. They had no chance to prepare.

The one thing that worries me is how many unscrupulous people will get involved with 'helping' the vulnerable. Not being funny, but I have neighbours I wouldn't want helping me. I avoid community groups online , from what Ive seen its all picking on those who won't do all this clapping and all what neighbours are doing and not doing. Ive said it before, just don't look at what neighbours are doing and not doing. I wonder how many bitter disputes will begin during this lockdown. Remember, our actions and words during this time will be remembered for years. I personally believe being in isolation magnifies what should be insignificant and Im sorry, I think we are all now getting obsessed with this clapping thing. It should be up to individual choice and also nobody knows what is going on behind anybody's door.

Dear May 7
Totally agree . Have ordered from Ocado once a fortnight for years but now we are ignored. No chance of getting @ delivery and we are 74 and 76.

This lockdown is certainly showing which shops actually care about their customers. Tesco is quite definitely at the bottom of the pile.

Yes I understand completely about the frustration of online shopping. I have a basket full of ocado shopping that’s been sitting there for weeks with no delivery available in exactly the same circumstances you describe,. I’ve always shopped with Ocado for my large items and then supplemented with local coop Aldi and village shops-but not anymore they can go to hell in a handcart I will never use them again and will now only ever use my local shops even if it does cost more. Perhaps we need to take these large supermarkets on when this is over. People have long memories

Totally agree with you on that. I order online from Tesco. I've been house bound for almost 15 years following a serious road traffic accident (a speeding car hit me from behind while I was cycling to work, sustaining 4 broken vertebrae {I lost 4 inches in height} and a serious head injury, but was sent home with no treatment; the hospital failed to X Ray the whole of my back and missed the 4 breaks). Anyway, I've been online shopping regularly for years, and always have a weekly order set up three weeks in advance; however, since the restrictions about self isolating etc hit three weeks ago I've not been able to secure any spots. Each day at midnight a new day is added three weeks hence. I log into my account about 5 minutes before midnight to try and secure a spot. No problem, I'm able to log in immediately; then I go to the appropriate page and refresh the page frequently waiting for the next day to roll over. When it does (exactly on midnight) it takes anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes for the page to refresh, by which time all of the spots have already been taken. Last week I actually managed to grab a spot; so started to add food to my order; feeling very relived to have finally captured a spot (this was the day the clocks go forward in the UK, so I reckon some forgot to log in at the correct time until an hour later). A couple of minutes into selecting food, a page popped up saying I was now in a queue and was not to close the page as it would automatically refresh once I got to the head of the queue. Over two hours later I finally got back to the ordering page, but by this time I'd lost my delivery spot because they only reserve it for 2 hours and it had been well over two hours since I initially got the spot. Once I'd ordered the first item I should have immediately gone to the payment to ensure the spot was paid for; hopefully when I do finally get another delivery spot, that will be the first ting I will do. I've contacted Tesco and was told they are aware of the problem and are considering some way to help those like myself who are house bound. I did have a carer, but he was called back to his home in Poland when his father was taken ill and I've not been able to secure another (probably because the wages are pretty dire and I'm unable to afford anything but the basic rate). Thankfully so far I've been okay for most things because I've always been a hoarder. Not in the way its being used at this time i.e. selfishly buying far more than is needed in the short term), but I've always bought things in bulk; usually when items are on offer, for example if pasta or rice have a buy one get one free or are reduced in price temporarily, I'll buy a whole box of them; same with anything else, so my cupboards are always full (usually). The only things I'm short of at this time are fresh foods like vegetables (apart from potatoes as I grew my own in the garden last year and still have a reasonable stock of them) and milk (though I've also always had powdered and UHT milk in stock for emergencies). As for bread, I've always got yeast and plain flour in stock, so have reverted to baking my own. I think my hoarding comes from my grandparents who always had their pantry overflowing all the time, plus they were thrifty, always buying when on sale. My grandmother said it was partly due to a reaction to the end of rationing in the 1950's. She said she would never again have empty cupboards. So I've always followed her example.

p.s. this comment seems to have stryed from the original post, but it was meant as a reply to

onelifeletsliveit you do seem to be struggling, my sympathies are with you really they are. Why do you feel the need to volunteer to look after 7 vulnerable people in your community. It seems too much for one person to bear. Cant you reduce the pressure on you and ask someone else to carry this burden. It seems to me that you are doing more than your fair share.

To the poster upthread who sprays her doormat with disinfectant, I do that too, but give it a good soaking in the boot tray that used to live indoors
It has ridges on the bottom and I filled it half full of Dettol and put a bristle doormat inside which soaks up the liquid.
On arriving home I wipe my shoes vigorously then remove them on the indoor mat.
Apparently, C-19 can be transferred from footwear even if the wearer isn't a carrier.

This recent scenario has brought out the best and the worst in people.
It will be remembered for a long time to come, more's the pity.

People around here have been so kind in so many ways. I am spoiled for choice for sources of help, should I need it.

I am sorry that others are not behaving so well.

Mind you I did hear of one local person who rang her help hub to ask if someone could go to Waitrose because she must have her goat's cheese yoghurt - now that is really taking the Michael. She said she was too frightened to go - I guess those getting the shopping are not exactly thrilled to be at the supermarket!

Alexa I agree about the understanding of people. My mum is in a Care Home and has full brain function. We are self isolating as my partner is vulnerable aged 75. I am working from home in a telephony role. My mum called today as I had dropped a couple of things which was left at the door of the home. She asked my partner why he had bought orange squash he gave me the phone and told me it was lying on the floor. I said it was what we had in and she was lucky to get anything and I had a delivery next week and that was it. Said I should not be out she was oblivous this. Very frustating as my uncle died a week ago and two days later a great friend and she died of covid19. It has niggled me all day .

I just can’t believe what you just described. I had a burst appendix last year and had to wait 3 hours for an ambulance ........ it’s the selfish that cause issues for the rest of us. God knows how long you’d have to wait for an ambulance at the moment; have to say, wouldn’t fancy getting in one either personally!! Don’t go on about the food box situation! I currently look after 7 people voluntarily in the community ......... I’ve had them all moaning about the fact I can’t find the brands of food they want in the shops, or sometimes not the requested item at all. What they’re not seeing is me outside queueing (sometimes for an hour at at a time just to get in a supermarket), to find it just doesn’t contain what they want. I do this all in my own time, I don’t get an allowance for my petrol so am paying a fortune in petrol going backwards and forwards for these people and sometimes I don’t even get a thank you. 3 of them are actually very sweet, which make up for the others. But jeez, it makes me wonder why I’m bothering.

I've got a neighbour like that - he is calling the paramedics - phone in one hand , cigarette in the other!! Just before Christmas 2019 he had the ambulance out five times in two days, Yet a friend of mine just three miles up the road lay on the floor on one of those same days for five hours waiting for an ambulance. When she did arrive at hospital she had blood and iron transfusions.

I don't know how he is going to manage in 12 weeks isolation don't think the food box will contain cigarettes!!