Store Manager is USELESS!

This mornings incident is a disgusting reflection of the calibre of Branch Managers you are employing and empowering to manage one of your stores. Coomar Govender is a perfect example of this - totally uninterested, uninformed, and lackadaisical. And why are neither the regional managers nor the divisional managers available and able to be contacted to discuss (from in-store) a serious misconduct and service delivery issue? Are they royal game, or do they prefer to hide away and remain undisturbed, telling stores not to give their details out to irate clientele? How this manager passed his trainee courses is beyond me - or has that standard slipped too? Both variants of Catmor dry cat food 4kg has been out of stock in this store on numerous occasions, and apart from today, I have always just left the store and bought elsewhere. However, on the gondola end, where the manager was busy with something, I confronted him to enquire whether there is stock and why is this particular product so often out of stock. Totally disinterested and playing with a PI label holder, he tells me this is a small store, and there is no space for the item except where it has been merchandised - 2 facings at the very bottom of the gondola. I then get the whole song and dance about Shoprite policy that bores me to no end. At no stage does he even offer to go look in the bulk store if there is any or even instruct someone to do so. At my determined insistence many times, to the point where I eventually had to instruct him to do so, did he finally go and look - well, I'm assuming he did. I haven't worked for Shoprite/Checkers in over 20 years, so I couldn't care less what your policy is. He eventually returns and tells me there's nothing, I should take something else. In tow he has a shelf packer with 6 bags of cat litter which he tells me he can substitute my requested product for. That's nice - almost the same as coming in for fresh milk and being told to buy dustbin bags in its place! I then ask about rate of sale reports and why is this product so frequently out of stock. Surely if the rate of sale indicated a higher rate over another brand, the shelves should be re-merchandised, facings will be increased and more stock will be ordered and kept on hand to keep up to date with demand? He tells me that model stock books are no longer used and that the system orders automatically - that's nice, the hard work has been eliminated, so why isn't it working? Every one of your competitors in the radius of that store all have stock of this item! So an excuse of "supplier out of stock" will not work here. Still totally un-interested and stumbling over his words, I demand that he checks whether there is stock on order, and leave my trolley of groceries behind - with this attitude you don't deserve my patronage. We reach the till points and I start questioning KVI's and "must have items" - interestingly the same applies to these - if there's no stock then there's no stock. In an office, the computer will miraculously not log onto SAP. Another uninterested staff member (who actually showed zero respect to the manager) gets asked to check for 5kg cat litter. Returns only because she has to and mumbles something neither of us could understand. I tell him I don't want cat litter, and he tells the staff member to find 5kg cat food. I tell him it doesn't come in 5kg bags. By now I've had enough of this *******. When I started off at OK Bazaars and transitioned to Shoprite/Checkers, this behavior would have had you dismissed. Our training programs were VERY strict, lengthy and rigorous - what happened to that standard? A manager who doesn't know what's going on in his store, doesn't LISTEN to what a customer is saying and a jumble of absolute ******* conversation, that has done NOTHING to offer a solution or at the very least, a compromise, has taken up almost a half hour of my time. I ask him does he know whats going on in his store - no reply. I offer my services free of charge for 3 months and tell him that I could do a better job of managing that branch than him, and he laughs at me. That's nice - make the very stupid (and dangerous) assumption that you are dealing with someone of lower integrity, intelligence and financial means than you, and you will see how far I take this matter and how many peoples buying power I will influence. Then, suddenly, probably because I'm showing signs of anger now, I get patronized and spoken to like I'm an entry level employee on the payroll. Suddenly I'm a valued customer, and all the rest of the usual verbal garbage, today's managers have been told to say. None of my details have been taken in an effort to actually DO something or even source stock or possibly do an IBT and I am still refused the opportunity of speaking to the regional or divisional manager, I only get told the persons name is Des. Very nice! I will get both the regional and the divisional's name and contact details, and if this incident is not dealt with to my complete satisfaction and that manager disciplined accordingly, I will forward this complaint to the Shoprite EXCO board for their insight and comment, because in my mind, if this is how a trivial product problem was handled, then you don't deserve myself and my family doing our grocery shopping with you. The outcome of this matter will determine what my next steps will be.