This is weird as it was reported this morning that Morrisons offered to clear their debt and take on their pension deficit.
I suspect there is more to this than we are being told
After being knocked back Morrisons made an improved offer on Thursday evening which was thought to include taking on McColl’s pension commitments and its £170m debt.
Surprised they lasted this long. Always seemed like a real cancer of a company that often took advantage of its staff. Hopefully they all find better elsewhere.
Oh no! Anyway…
I love when the first time I hear of something is when it goes belly up.
I used to deliver papers for them, I know there’s no minimum wage for under 16s but looking back they really took the piss. I remember picking up rounds so many times for people who didn’t turn up to deliver theirs, especially at the weekend. Get an extra 50p on your pay for doing an extra hour or more of work.
Good.
I used to be a store manager of a McColls in a large town ten years ago. We were given terrible allocation of hours, meaning single cover during the day – even during deliveries. I had my ribs broken once by a shoplifter, and a female member of staff of mine was dragged over the counter and attacked by someone aiming to get to the till. head office didn’t give a fuck. I had to even rig up our own CCTV as they wouldn’t pay for a new system.
As a store manager I was also at the mercy of the stocktake every quarter. If losses were too high (obvious due to the amount of shoplifting, violence and lack of staffing cover), I would be fired. This was made very clear, repeatedly, and happened to other hard working managers in the region. I was forced to do every trick in the book to keep book stock high and counteract losses (using vouchers from newspapers for free chocbars to create fictional stock, splitting multipacks, using excess float to buy from bookers and break down).
What really, really fucked me off more than anything was when I went to their head office. It was a mansion. We walked in to the entrance and it was fully carpeted, ornate marble staircase, diamond chandeliers. One of the executives came and spoke to us briefly, and quite clearly did not give a flying fuck about any of us. Would not listen to our concerns, and actually got one of the managers on the visit fired (probation failed) due to his questioning of policy and staff safety.
I complained about safety to my regional boss and was moved to a store 15 miles away on less pay. Less crime – but more hassle, and the most unhygenic food handling (the hot food, hotdogs, etc) I have ever ever seen. They also forced employees to work on christmas day, regardless of circumstance.
One day it was the morning after the world cup, or euros, or something big, and the newspapers were late. Paperboy didn’t turn up. No other staff turned up (it was double cover in this store during the day which still wasn’t enough). It was also OAP flu jab day at the doctors surgery next door. I had furious people on the phone demanding their papers, I had old people shouting at me because I didn’t have the papers ready (as they turned up AFTER we opened, and I was on my own – how am I able to scan them all in when I’m serving people, especially when people come in and take the fucking papers out of the stack!!!), a queue out of the door. Chaos.
I punched the terminal screen, smashed it, shouted “GET THE FUCK OUT, ALL OF YOU CUNTS! YES, YOU! NOW!!! FUCKING GET OUT!!!” locked the doors and never looked back. Got a reference from my deputy manager in the first store for my next job, an office finance assistant role (he was a good dude) and have never worked in retail since.
fuck mccolls. Fuck them
As I said in another thread about this the shops charge you 3 quid for a tub of pringles and look like they haven’t had a refit since the late 80s/early 90s. Seriously they literally look like a grubby version of a set of a corner shop from a 1980s sitcom.
Its hardly surprising.
i used to work for DHL who had the contract to supply morrisons owned safeway products to mccolls. when i first started i was happy that i’d be able to buy lunch etc when i could but eventually stopped doing so because they were ridiculously expensive. their special deals were stuff that was normal priced elsewhere.
some of their stores are branded morrisons daily too so i guess the EG guys will be looking at rebranding them as the asda on the go stores.
every time i went to mccolls it seemed like they were always cutting hours for the staff and would always be running around putting fires out. fridges that wouldnt work, freezers out of order etc.
i cant see the EG keeping all the stores open either. some of them were barely making any money or were extremely difficult to load to.
the other big issue i see is that mccolls were the biggest franchise holder of post offices around the country so keeping them open will be an issue too
In other news, the Issa brothers must be leveraged up to the tits after buying Asda and now taking on this.
Surely they only need to sell 1 bag of skittles and they’ll be able to service debt and pay wages for the next 3 years.
The one in my town takes the absolute piss with its prices. That obviously turns people off. We’ve seen this happen before haven’t we. Places think increasing their prices will solve their problems, but it makes things worse. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but I do think people being turned away by their prices has to be a part of it.
not surprised, currently work there and the upper management are the most out-of touch twat nuggets imaginable, broken cctv they refuse to fix, broken warehouse door so anyone can walk in which they refuse to fix, deliveries rarely contain the stock we actually need, garbage pay, unsafe working conditions, poor sanitary equipment (I try and keep the store clean, but we went a month without fucking floor cleaner because they’re that shit) and a variance of staff – most are fine but some are so fucking lazy and just offload the work onto the rest of us – and of course they won’t fire anyone because they’re having staff shortages because no-one wants to work there! I called it months ago and maybe this will finally kick their arse in gear or it’s just going to be split up and dead within 3-6 months.
Shit company. Hires the bare minimum amount of staff, pays them the bare minimum (literally minimum wage scaling for age) and is just an overall shithole of a shop.
I once went into a McColls and the manager called me a fat stupid cow and threw a can of Lilt at me!
This isn’t true, I made it up, but imagine if it was
If they go, I don’t think we’ll have a post office in our town. Pretty much the only reason I go is to post off my eBay bits.
So that’s why they didn’t fix the automatic door in my local McColls for over two years!
I hope someone takes them over, they are the only place open late to get emergency groceries near me. Don’t care about the price, nobody is getting their weekly shop there and they are obviously not raking in massive profits
20 comments
The breaking news is it still existed. I thought that went about the same time as woolworths.
They have ever been expensive, dirty, cramped, unwelcoming shops. Let’s hope someone picks up the staff.
Asda co owners are expected to take them over.
https://news.sky.com/story/mccolls-appoints-administrators-but-asda-co-owners-expected-to-agree-rescue-12606659 McColl’s appoints administrators but Asda co-owners expected to agree rescue
This is weird as it was reported this morning that Morrisons offered to clear their debt and take on their pension deficit.
I suspect there is more to this than we are being told
After being knocked back Morrisons made an improved offer on Thursday evening which was thought to include taking on McColl’s pension commitments and its £170m debt.
Surprised they lasted this long. Always seemed like a real cancer of a company that often took advantage of its staff. Hopefully they all find better elsewhere.
Oh no! Anyway…
I love when the first time I hear of something is when it goes belly up.
I used to deliver papers for them, I know there’s no minimum wage for under 16s but looking back they really took the piss. I remember picking up rounds so many times for people who didn’t turn up to deliver theirs, especially at the weekend. Get an extra 50p on your pay for doing an extra hour or more of work.
Good.
I used to be a store manager of a McColls in a large town ten years ago. We were given terrible allocation of hours, meaning single cover during the day – even during deliveries. I had my ribs broken once by a shoplifter, and a female member of staff of mine was dragged over the counter and attacked by someone aiming to get to the till. head office didn’t give a fuck. I had to even rig up our own CCTV as they wouldn’t pay for a new system.
As a store manager I was also at the mercy of the stocktake every quarter. If losses were too high (obvious due to the amount of shoplifting, violence and lack of staffing cover), I would be fired. This was made very clear, repeatedly, and happened to other hard working managers in the region. I was forced to do every trick in the book to keep book stock high and counteract losses (using vouchers from newspapers for free chocbars to create fictional stock, splitting multipacks, using excess float to buy from bookers and break down).
What really, really fucked me off more than anything was when I went to their head office. It was a mansion. We walked in to the entrance and it was fully carpeted, ornate marble staircase, diamond chandeliers. One of the executives came and spoke to us briefly, and quite clearly did not give a flying fuck about any of us. Would not listen to our concerns, and actually got one of the managers on the visit fired (probation failed) due to his questioning of policy and staff safety.
I complained about safety to my regional boss and was moved to a store 15 miles away on less pay. Less crime – but more hassle, and the most unhygenic food handling (the hot food, hotdogs, etc) I have ever ever seen. They also forced employees to work on christmas day, regardless of circumstance.
One day it was the morning after the world cup, or euros, or something big, and the newspapers were late. Paperboy didn’t turn up. No other staff turned up (it was double cover in this store during the day which still wasn’t enough). It was also OAP flu jab day at the doctors surgery next door. I had furious people on the phone demanding their papers, I had old people shouting at me because I didn’t have the papers ready (as they turned up AFTER we opened, and I was on my own – how am I able to scan them all in when I’m serving people, especially when people come in and take the fucking papers out of the stack!!!), a queue out of the door. Chaos.
I punched the terminal screen, smashed it, shouted “GET THE FUCK OUT, ALL OF YOU CUNTS! YES, YOU! NOW!!! FUCKING GET OUT!!!” locked the doors and never looked back. Got a reference from my deputy manager in the first store for my next job, an office finance assistant role (he was a good dude) and have never worked in retail since.
fuck mccolls. Fuck them
As I said in another thread about this the shops charge you 3 quid for a tub of pringles and look like they haven’t had a refit since the late 80s/early 90s. Seriously they literally look like a grubby version of a set of a corner shop from a 1980s sitcom.
Its hardly surprising.
i used to work for DHL who had the contract to supply morrisons owned safeway products to mccolls. when i first started i was happy that i’d be able to buy lunch etc when i could but eventually stopped doing so because they were ridiculously expensive. their special deals were stuff that was normal priced elsewhere.
some of their stores are branded morrisons daily too so i guess the EG guys will be looking at rebranding them as the asda on the go stores.
every time i went to mccolls it seemed like they were always cutting hours for the staff and would always be running around putting fires out. fridges that wouldnt work, freezers out of order etc.
i cant see the EG keeping all the stores open either. some of them were barely making any money or were extremely difficult to load to.
the other big issue i see is that mccolls were the biggest franchise holder of post offices around the country so keeping them open will be an issue too
In other news, the Issa brothers must be leveraged up to the tits after buying Asda and now taking on this.
Surely they only need to sell 1 bag of skittles and they’ll be able to service debt and pay wages for the next 3 years.
The one in my town takes the absolute piss with its prices. That obviously turns people off. We’ve seen this happen before haven’t we. Places think increasing their prices will solve their problems, but it makes things worse. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but I do think people being turned away by their prices has to be a part of it.
not surprised, currently work there and the upper management are the most out-of touch twat nuggets imaginable, broken cctv they refuse to fix, broken warehouse door so anyone can walk in which they refuse to fix, deliveries rarely contain the stock we actually need, garbage pay, unsafe working conditions, poor sanitary equipment (I try and keep the store clean, but we went a month without fucking floor cleaner because they’re that shit) and a variance of staff – most are fine but some are so fucking lazy and just offload the work onto the rest of us – and of course they won’t fire anyone because they’re having staff shortages because no-one wants to work there! I called it months ago and maybe this will finally kick their arse in gear or it’s just going to be split up and dead within 3-6 months.
Shit company. Hires the bare minimum amount of staff, pays them the bare minimum (literally minimum wage scaling for age) and is just an overall shithole of a shop.
I once went into a McColls and the manager called me a fat stupid cow and threw a can of Lilt at me!
This isn’t true, I made it up, but imagine if it was
If they go, I don’t think we’ll have a post office in our town. Pretty much the only reason I go is to post off my eBay bits.
So that’s why they didn’t fix the automatic door in my local McColls for over two years!
I hope someone takes them over, they are the only place open late to get emergency groceries near me. Don’t care about the price, nobody is getting their weekly shop there and they are obviously not raking in massive profits