Michele just drove me to the hospital to get my dressing changed, wow! The sun is shining ever so bright out there, and the streets are quiet, very quiet...... guess people have decided to leave town for XMAS!
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Strangely enough .. a similar kind of feeling here unless of course everyone getting into doing the last minute " oh to heck with it rush " I went to woolies early this morning . to ensure i got certain goods for 26th and to stock up on other necsessary plus surprise guest bits and pieces .. well canal walk was initially quiet ... woollies shelves had me worried .. lots of stuff close to its sell by date not moved yet .. either people waiting to see if it drops in last day or two or ??? there are certain fresh ingredients that I had to choose carefully for date so yes was very observant .. Idont want last minute rush ... but yes shelves looking alarmingly full of close to write off .. Ouch !! I know from inside info that woolies trying best to not do the panic and retrench but yes they feeling the pinch ... their philosophy being to try ride the storm and retain happy staff ...
We as a company have done it before and got through although they dont remember and cannot equate job security with that all important in their minds Xmas bonus that sometimes does not appear due to financial pressures ... I have told staff they have choices ... sure we can declare bonus on wrecked margins .. and retrench like all our low price gnaw at ur heels " competitors" do ... Oh its all so complicated ... and yes this is the time of year my soul feels raw for those less fortunate than us ... I have just done a bit of stocking up on some tinned basics as well .. for the odd one I feel deserves . its just there if the moment is right ... and yes I'm still getting my junk mail from the good old U S of A filtering through ... apart from the ususal .. " why not own a new sony yada yada flat screen etc and be the envy of your neighbours ?? " Huh !! ?? no wonder people are in trouble .. I wait till my not so used TV blows up or yes the technology forces me to change ... Aagh !! mind be quiet ...
A footnote to the year end bonus thing ... we at the end of this year declared 3 weeks plus another in january once the Nov figures and we had a good feel for December figure came through .. so staff got 4 weeks .. not bad under difficult trading conditions hey ? .. we just stuck to our business ethic of pay for quality and service ... we lost some customers but gained others through innovation and consistency ... Our one major client amounting to 35 % of our turnover .. went on tender basis ... we lost the tender .. but yes still getting business from them ??? strange hey .. hear via the grapevine that the people on the shop floor not happy with having to struggle with inferior quality ... so we await the new year , and see if their " tender " philosophy collapses ??
Strange one on this .. I heard of another company that has its packaging suppliers submit tenders on the internet ... a kind of anonomous bidding system kind of like an auction .. and everyone can see what the other is bidding .. story is there only 3 manufactureres of a certain type of hi tech packaging material and yet there were 6 bidders ??? and some of the prices per unit would not even cover the cost of raw materials ??? thats called f**king up a market ??? everybody is entitiled to their slice of the cake .. and all could do well on the cake if they did not get greedy ... we not talking about price fixing here but just being realistic ...
Well after 99 years in buisness here
all our Woolies will be no more by January 9th
Very Sad..... but thats how bad it's getting here image031
Pam .. me under correction but the woolies in UK similar to ours here .. I understand our woolies here pegged more to Marks and Spencer end of market .. anyhow its sad to see a favourite store our chain of them close .. I miss the old departmental stores like Stuttafords and Garlicks ... had a total blast from the past on Thailand holiday .. they still have stores like that ... center well with the escalators going up .. and departments with people serving you ... one such one in phuket town is Robinsons ..
It amazes me how the Woolworths in Omund keeps chugging along, it was brought into Oranjemund by the company during a time when there were a lot more upmarket (expats and higher income) people were woking for the company..... it was outsourced 13 years ago, their customer base has changed in Oranjemund, they stopped all their fresh lines and when Spar has a q of 100 people, there is just 2 people in that store..... I have for years reckoned that they do not pay the same rental per sq m as Spar does............ there is no way that they turn a profit........ image14 msn emoticon (9)
The UK Woolworths are/were very different to ours; Sandy is correct, ours are more like M&S. The UK ones not easy to define ito merchandise - kinda mish-mash of stuff.
S A woolworths is englands marks and spences (M&S)
Englands woolthorths is very much the same as ackermanns ( they sell the ladybird stuff)
Yes you're right,uk woollies is not the same as
s.a. but it was still well known.Are you saying theres no more
Stuttafords/Garlicks???
Garlicks absolutely not any more .. Stuttafords exist solely as an upmarket clothing outlet and upmarket appliances ,, a mere fraction of what it used to be in its heydays ..
Remember when Garlicks & Stuttafords were the show piece shops in Adderley Street? Used to be able to go to the self-service restauant at Stuttafords for the best pie, chips and tons of gravy when we arrived back on the school flights ie if we weren't sneaking into that pub in Strand Street - remember that one Sandyb? image201
The Coral lounge in the Grand Hotel , Cherry ... how the hell did we use to get it right to sneak in there we were and yes looked too young . ??? but we did ....
School Flights, we would always sneak into that Pub in the Railway Station, opposite the green Train Display..
There is still one of those Old style Stores in the Strand , called Friedmann&Cohen!
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A P Jones in Fishoek is also a bit of a blast from the past as well ..
Sigh! FIshoek... the town of my birth! msn emoticon (17)
That's it - The Coral Lounge! Amazing that in the middle of the day, the pub was full of kids from Oranjemund and no-one did a thing about it - all the fresh-faced "kids" lurking - good times!
In the 80's there was a group of Oranjemund School Kids, that were meant to connect at DF Malan Airport to go to East London to go to school at Port Rex, Queenstown and Dale College..... Needless to say they landed up in the SKyways Pub at the airport, got pissed and missed their flight....... Needless to say, the shit hit the fan...... Only Oranjemund School kids....
BierSuip
Quote from: Michael Alexander on December 29, 2008, 06:22:36 AM
School Flights, we would always sneak into that Pub in the Railway Station, opposite the green Train Display..
There is still one of those Old style Stores in the Strand , called Friedmann&Cohen!
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We used to go to the spur order a plate of chips to get our beers we also got the hostel to collect our bags from the station
It is a lot quieter these days, even that people have returned, there is less people chatting as they walk down the streets...... and one can hear that there is a lot less traffic on our roads up here...
Silence is golden.......
motorbike
Wait till you come back to work - then you'll see how quiet the town really is! I get excited when I see more than 3 customers in the shop at once actually buying something!
are-you-there
Were the three customers clubbing in together to buy a can of coke?
idontknow Hot(1) sorriso2
No, that was too expensive, they had to club together to be able to buy one stokkie lekker (lollipop)!
image201
Ha ha - that's about how empty my pockets are after the holiday. I think I must go talk to the manager at Shoprite to find out if I can open an account to buy groceries ......
Aunty can open an account at Oranjemund SPar! I-T-O