Everise, live up to your name!

Can you believe one of the leading chains of supermarket in Kuching kept a big group of shoppers waiting outside their entrance for more than 45 min while the staff had a briefing? Why is it called a briefing if it is not brief? Yesterday, a public holiday, 19th.Jan.2008, started badly for me because I went to Everise, BDC, where I usually shop, to get 2 packets of Vico as I had run out of it.I reached there at 9.45am and it was supposed to open at 9.30am. But I had to join a large crowd of shoppers in waiting for the guards to let us in. They said that the staff were having a briefing, so we waited. But by 10.15am, I was really mad that the "briefing" was still going on with no sign of coming to a close! I had waited 30min for nothing! Isn't it rude that the manager did not care that we were waiting so long outside. I peeked and could hear her rant on and on, while most of the staff were so bored and disinterested. I have never heard such a thing happening anywhere.

Yes, there have been long queues outside certain shops before they opened, so that those who queued up could be the first ones to buy certain special merchandise, eg Harry Porter's last book in the series. But those shops opened at the scheduled time, not a minute later.

And here we have a supermarket which opened more than 45 min later than its usual opening time without prior notice. I did not know exactly when it opened yesterday because I left at 10.15am, annoyed that so many of us had to waste our precious time waiting for nothing! There are so many other supermarkets to go to and if Everise is not keen to have my business, I will certainly go elsewhere, especially now that there are two big new malls which have just opened in Kuching, with many bargain buys.

I think the incident shows how inconsiderate some people can be. If that manager needs to talk to her staff for one hour, then meet them at 8.30 am so that the supermarket can open at 9.30 am as scheduled. Well, I have called the Everise head office to let them know of this and I hope there will not be a repeat of this incident.