⌛ NIJOSA store

My wife and I made a special trip to that store the other night, arriving at 5:45pm. The sign on the door said they closed at 6pm. But the guards wouldn't let us in, saying they were closed!

Sooo since we were in the area again today we stopped in for my wife to shop, and me to seek out the manager to complain.

After some consternation amongst the sales girls as to why I wanted the manager, I finally got one to go get her.

I explained what happened, and she muttered something about their clocks being advanced etc..

Then she said, "We don't have 'radio time'.. I asked what time DO you have then? Do you just pick a time ?

I congratulated her on that concept, and walked away.


Yes, after having lived here for many years previously, I'm familiar with the concept of Filipino Time, but the whole thing is just stupid. When we first me, my wife used to panic at the thought of complaining about anything, but she's outgrown that fear..

The reason I'm posting is:

(1) In the event anyone reading this thread knows the owner of NIJOSA (he used to live in St Louis Village) maybe they'll tell him someone is dissing his store.

(2) To encourage any Filipinos reading this thread to complain instead of just accepting their fate. That is how things get changed.

 

What is "radio time"?

Could the employees be leaving early when management is away.

 

Company Policy

It is always very hard to get to see anybody in control around this place, floor staff is scared to death that you will put them in a position where they will loose face or get someone aware of the fact they are not doing anything at all at work, so they will not introduce you to anybody in charge

Then usually when you finally see somebody it is usually the very next step on the ladder with absolutely no power what so ever to do or change anything - most of the time with a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look on their face. Having no experience nor skills to actually deal with a customer complaint which makes them nervous and 5 out of 10 totally forgets their english skills if the person complaining isa foreigner.

This can be very frustrating, but you will learn to either live with these issues or be perstistent enough to see somebody actually in control.

Just because somebody is a superviser here does NOT mean they have any power to change the proverbial "COMPANY POLICY" - This "COMPANY POLICY" can not nor will it never be explained, changed or make sense... But it is there

Company policy - you hear that 99 out of 100 times you question something or complain about something... I could probably write a whole book about funny stories involving "COMPANY POLICY".

Total odds for getting anything bettered or changed by complaining is somewhere in the region of 1000:1

A good example of this is our dear Lee Plaza Supermarket, knowing that Robinsons will open a kickass supermarket very soon, this does not stop them from running out of stock of 50% of what you need and generally not care about what any customer say.

In this year - 2007 I found some Danish cheese in Lee Supermarket, it expired in July 2005... about TWO YEARS AGO...

I told 4 different people over a timeframe of a couple of months about this until one day I finally got somebody to remove this stuff from their supermarket.

Robinsons will probably bring in well trained staff from one of the other malls and train the staff here. Also they have a real re-stock plan and inventory making sure that most of the time their shelves are actually full

 

This whole "Company Policy" thing really annoys me.

You hear it at the weirdest times and in the weirdest places.

Speaking of Robinsons...

I once pulled up on my scooter right where they are building the new mall and snapped a couple pictures from the street. The guard came up and said no pictures are allowed to be taken.

I asked why and he said, "I don't know sir, company policy."

I asked back, "Whose company? Robinsons or your guard company?"

Blank stare...

Then sort of turned away.

"Hello? Whose company policy is it that I can't take a picture?"

"I don't know, sir."

"So how can you stop me from taking pictures from the street?"

Blank stare and a long pause and then he just sort walked away.

They all just seem to blindly follow some policy that isn't even written down. Ask about it and often they just walk away confused or get very stubborn and follow blindly. Either way it's very annoying...

But, a small price to pay for living in paradise...

 

About the expiry date thing and food, I never buy fish from the market, as it comes along way (bayawan), in the heat, and they only use the ice you put in your cold drinks, it should be proper "white" ice as it has ammonia in it to last longer, preferably crushed or flaked, thats from a commercial ice plant, you can use hard ice in a cold store but on display it should be white ice. so I am very wary of it.

 

Totally agree, Outcast! There are several customer service type issues which I found annoying, even frustrating. But trying to keep things in perspective helps.

 

In several SM-supermarkets I was laughing about this situation (in my young days I used to work in a supermarket):
One of the first things you learn is "spiegelen" in Dutch, direct translation is "mirroring" but maybe it does not exist in English.
It means that you get the articles to the front so it looks full, even when there is nothing behind. SM-employees are trained the same, but they had a problem: the space is not similar to the range of goods. Result: I saw 10 meters in one range of San Miguel Pale bottles, not any others and just one raw thick, really amazing. I do still not know how many choice they had in beer, I should wonder if more than 2, but they were not even thinking about placing other goods. Amazing, yes nice to be in the country.

Anyway, I never had problems at Nijosa. Very friendly staff in my view.

 

nijosa is such a nice and convenient store mostly for us here...sayang