How did I miss this? It's the best thing in the newspapers this week
The Times, Letters to the Editor, last Monday
Queue that turned a Lidl too rough
George Attard Manche, Gudja
I have always fancied myself as a carpenter and having seen Lidl’s offer of an electric table-saw with laser controls I woke early to join the queue outside their premises at 6.30 a.m.
A queue was a very broad way of describing the phalanx of humanity which grew tighter and tighter and broadened by the minute.
When the doors opened at 7 a.m. there were some 200 mortals, 10 abreast, with one aim in life which happened to coincide with mine.
The minute the racing gate lifted, they were off; I was shoved aside like a bit of flotsam and eventually got near the counter which of course had been denuded of anything resembling a table-saw.
Then the fun started: Someone yelled “they have opened a side door” (in the vernacular), but this was behind the mob and to the right, behind serried ranks of food and vegetables.
Of course those who were at the front of the queue waiting impatiently for some restocking, now found themselves at the back of a running horde of demented beings; the Pamplona bull run would be a doddle compared to this.
Then they got to the door, packed like sardines, and with imploring, fluttering hands a woman (well, the person was wearing a skirt) launched herself over the top of the front ranks, screaming “give it to me” – I assume she meant the table-saw and blow me if she wasn’t handed one and lived.
My carpentry will have to wait, but perhaps Lidl should consider the simple expedient of issuing tickets to the front of the queue for the prime objects on offer, which can then be collected in an orderly fashion.
I would also commend to the Malta Rugby Federation that a scout sent to witness the ability of some of the shoppers might well result in some star finds for our national team.
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This is truly hilarious! The author should take up creative writing! Call me a snob, but I refuse to set foot in one of the Lidl supermarkets. This letter has confirmed by decision.
Well, that’s your loss, I often visit LIDL (San Gwann) and have never encountered such behavior. Maybe because I go in the evenings and these things happen during the early opening hours.
I do not buy all my needs from there, I just go after their bargains and nothing else. So if you want to buy cheese, olive oil, peanuts, toilet paper, UHT milk, ice-cream and a few other items at nearly half the normal price, then LIDL is the place to go to. Stay away from some of their products (especially wines and detergents) as they are hopeless. As with everything else in life, nothing is totally good or totally bad.
You can of course choose to stay away and spend more on less somewhere else, but that’s entirely up to you isn’t it?
I don’t see how a ticket system would help. The scramble for the sales rack would just be substituted for unseemly arguments over the ticket roll.
To be fair to Malta, it is not alone in playing witness to such scenes. Black Friday in the United States is frequently marred by punch-ups, tramplings (to death on occasion) and such.
[Daphne – I remembered this news report http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html ]
True. In Edmonton, north London, someone was trampled to death when the sale at IKEA started a year or two ago.
And to add further proof as to how savage the crowd was, there were complaints made when the store’s opening was delayed by the police as a result of the death. Neanderthals on the loose.
Yes, I read this article and had a good chuckle. It reminds me of when I was younger and family members of mine used to go and exchange the “pakketti tas-Surf” for household items.
If children didn’t hold on well to someone’s skirt they would have been trampled all over. So I guess we never learn. No, I won’t set foot in Lidl either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaxEdzropo
I went to Lidl once and just about survived the experience.
People grab as many of these bargain BBQs and table-saws as they can handle or load into the trolley with the excuse ghax ghal hija, ziju, missieri, etc.
Methinks the entrepreneurial spirit lives on as they will sell these items with a mark-up.
Wouldn’t you think this is a good opportunity for the largely dormant and overweight riot police (can’t remember their official name) to hone their skills.
Helmets, truncheons, dogs, tear gas – visions of Tal-Barrani except that this time round it’s a scramble to spend money rather than the suppression of freedom of speech.
The same poor sods who can’t affort to buy a piece of steak and who ‘have no choice’ but to feast on a pizza’?
Msieken, x’faqar hawn!
The time wasted in queuing, apart from the discomfort, is more valuable than any apparent financial savings.
I SUGGEST TO ONE AND ALL: DO LIKE I DO AND BOYCOTT LIDL. Unless the management fixes the situation and brings decorum to its establishments I TOGETHER WITH ALL MY FAMILY AND THOSE WHOM I KNOW WILL NEVER EVER SET FOOT INSIDE A LIDL SUPERMARKET.
They are enjoying this ridiculous situation. So why should I compound this insulting spectacle?
[Daphne – That’s why it’s cheap. And you can’t blame Lidl for people behaving badly.]
Their products are GOOD but the people who behave like fools and bullies are NOT.
I can’t really comment on the quality of their products since I only visited the place once to check it out, but even the tiny corner shop down the road from me stocks a wider selection of products.
Valuable, not only in terms of money. Especially knowing, that, ‘time flies’.
Much better than queueing for a colour TV, prior to ’87, if at all possible. The chances of getting a table-saw from Lidl now are much greater than those of getting the television back then.
True, but still a far cry in comparison to having a petty building permit granted nowadays (as in always).
That is, of course, if you aren’t a member of their country club, if you know what I mean.
Dak il-gripe tieghek, lejborist? Il-building permit? X’intom patetici. Imbaghad tridu lil kev ma jitnejjikx bikom u jsejhilkom Lilliputians.
And a ‘building permit’ nowadays is still a far cry in comparison to having your property requisitioned. Unless you’re not a friend of friends.
So people who can hardly afford to buy a piece of bread are waiting patiently for a building permit?
The situation at Lidl will only improve once the Labour Party opens its own supermarkets, an idea put forward by deputy leader Toni Abela.
@ ciccio2010
Well, having brought up the subject of the PL supermarket: Toni Abela jaghmel ir-reklami ta’ Mastro Lindo, Anglu Farrugia tal-pet food ghall iljunfanti u Joseph Muscat tal-depilating cream ghall-goaties.
Three for the price of one will be a standard offer at Labour’s chain.
It’s not easy to find bargains that Lidl offers. In normal outlets tools are far more expensive and of a low quality, hence the craze for its products.
I have bought a good number of tools from Lidl. Many of their products carry a TUV approved label, meaning that they are of prime quality.
But that does not mean that it’s of any problem with Lidl’s management for the rush of buyers to get their hands on something called a bargain.
I can say for sure that these things happen in other countries as well. My brother lives in Germany, and he was telling me the same thing happens there.
This chaos happens at 7am on Mondays and Thursdays. Those who want to avoid this behaviour should opt to go later or on a different day.
If this behaviour happens also at a Marks&Spencer’s sale it does not follow that one should not set foot in the said shop.
I find many Lidl products to be value for money, and for me shopping there is a pleasant experience. Lidl is giving the other traders tough competition.
I live in Italy and every now and then I visit Lidl. I’ve never seen anything like this happening.
The worst branch in Malta is the one in Luqa. It’s always very crowded and the management doesn’t try to improve the situation. The workers still load shelves during peak shopping hours, while moving the pallet-lifters among the crowd risking an accident.
No one cares about the safety of the customers – probably they will when a fatality happens.
Ray Meilak is right. I was totally shocked the first time it happened and told a fellow German co-worker who lives in Frankfurt about it. He told me that the same thing happens there.