Pick n Pay Plumstead Worst

I just waited 25–30 minutes to pay for a coffee at Pick n Pay, and had to go get sweetener sachets from Dulcé to use in it. I mentioned the sweetener issue to one staff member, who told me they do have sweeteners, but they hide them under the shelf because people take so many. He said I just need to ask a staff member and they’ll give me some. I asked—and was told, “We’re out of sweetener.” So I was back to the same problem: having to get sweeteners elsewhere for my cup of coffee.

Then I waited in line to pay. When I got to the front, I asked the cashier for R30 worth of ground coffee as well. She called me to walk with her, which I did, and in that time, the line behind me progressed and a new cashier took over that counter. Once my coffee was ground, I was left standing with my items while she went off to help another cashier with a customer returning something. This took ages to resolve, and at no point did anyone offer to let me pay.

When I asked one of the cashiers if I could pay, she pointed to another line and said, “There’s only one customer there, you can pay there.” Meaning: after waiting 15 minutes aimlessly with no help, I now had to stand in a new line. So I went, waited again, and when I finally got to the cashier, I gave him the ground coffee and pointed to my now completely cold, half-filled cup of coffee (because the machine only dispensed half a cup of water) and said I’d like to pay for the coffee as well.

He asked the woman at the packet station to bring the folder. She rushed off, brought it, and he flipped through the pages trying to find the bar code. It wasn’t there. She rushed off again to fetch another folder and return the first one. This time, he found the code, and I was finally able to pay for my freezing cold half cup of coffee that I had to go get sweeteners for myself from another coffee shop.

By the time I got out of Pick n Pay, it had been a full 30 minutes. I had only planned to be inside for 5 minutes before meeting my mom for breakfast—but thanks to the drawn-out, chaotic process, the lack of help, and the fact that I had to run around sourcing my own sweetener and wait multiple times to pay, our breakfast didn’t happen and her shift for work had already started.

Never again. Not ever. No amount of savings can buy back wasted time. Not in any reality was this worth the cold, half-cup of water I got from the store. I regret ever walking into that Pick n Pay. It ruined my Friday mood completely. Pick n Pay Plumstead sucks.