Woolworths

Hello.
I am writing this letter of complaint after an extremely unpleasant, inappropriate and unnecessary experience I had in your Glenorchy Cento store (Tasmania) on the morning of 4 November 2019.
After completing my shopping at approx 0750am I went to the check-out section to find no regular stations open and only the self-check-out and express stations manned by staff. This is a problem for me as I am a former Australian Army veteran who has had two spinal reconstructions after injury. My back is extremely fragile and cannot withstands prolonged periods of bending or lifting at certain angles. I find trying to check out a full trolley of shopping through the small and limited express and self-serve stations very difficult as there is not enough room to place all the items in the bagging area and I have to spend the majority of the time leaning into the trolley to re-organise items and bags, move items on and off the small counters and lift heavy bags up and down off the floor. All of these actions aggravate my back and neck, effecting me for the entire day. While this may sound trivial to an able bodied person, it is significant for somebody suffering spinal pain.
Although it is always frustrating, and I consider it extremely poor customer service, I have unfortunately grown used to Woolworths not having staffed check-out lanes available in the morning, however, I usually ask an attendant and they open a lane for me (sometimes with a smile, sometimes with very demonstrable annoyance, depending on the individual).
Yesterday morning I went through this process yet again but when I politely asked the middle aged lady manning the self-checkout area if I could please have a normal lane opened for me she said "no" and that I would have to use the express lane. I initially accepted this and took my trolley over to this area, however, as I waited for the attendant who was serving a customer at the cigarette counter, I decided that I was not prepared to subject my back and neck to the aggravation of trying to manage a large trolley of shopping through this small station and I returned to the main area and again asked the lady if I could please have a normal check-out opened because I had a bad back and could not use the express check out without discomfort. She again said no and informed me that they did not have enough staff to open the check-out. At this point I basically had to beg Woolworths to open a standard check-out lane for me, at which point her very obvious annoyance resulted in her calling out across the store, in front of several customers and staff, that "he wants a check out opened because he has a bad back". I found this humiliating, embarrassing and incredibly unprofessional.
To come into a Woolworths store as an 18 year Army veteran who was injured serving his country and to be publicly humiliated like this for simply asking to have a check out opened is inconceivable to me. I was polite throughout this experience and asked nothing unreasonable or inappropriate. I imagine the entire interaction was captured on your security cameras if you want to refer to them.
What made the experience more frustrating is that there were at least 8 (if not more) Woolworths staff working throughout the store stocking shelves at the point the female staff member told me "there are not enough staff to open another check-out for you". From my point of view there were more than enough staff, however, Woolworths had decided that customer service was secondary to stocking shelves that really should have been stocked before customers started coming in.
Glenorchy Centro Woolworths services an area of Tasmania that is a hub for elderly, disabled and physically afflicted members of the community because it is one of the only flat suburbs in Greater Hobart and it has a cluster of social and community services nearby. Your management staff should be aware of this and offer an appropriate level of service for your shopping demographic….which you clearly do not.
I have lost count of the number of times I have had to ask for a checkout to be opened while standing next to a senior citizen (I am 47) who is similarly upset at not having a regular check out open. Being expected to check out a full trolley of items through self-service or the express lane demonstrates Woolworths complete disregard for their customers.
Once a standard lane had been opened for me I tried to explain to the original female staff member that I had an injured back from my Army service and it was difficult for me to use the other smaller check-outs. Her demeanour was rude and she made me feel like I had done something completely inappropriate, which further embarrassed me in front of staff and customers. I asked her what the process is to make a formal complaint and she did not answer me, she simply commented that it's not her fault and that she was tired of having to deal with customers over the main check-outs being closed. So clearly this is an issue that the community had expressed concerns to Woolworths about in the past, yet your organisation still persists in offering limited "user friendly" services to the elderly, disabled and afflicted. I suspect this is motivated by attempts to save money on staffing levels, which is contemptuous and disloyal from an organisation that makes so much profit from the community. I also suspect it breaches your legislative requirements to provide "accessible" services to your customers, which is walking a very fine legal line for the sake of saving a few dollars on staffing.
I would like this formal complaint addressed with the manager of Glenorchy Centro please. If I personally have another experience like this, or I become aware of another member of my community having an experience like this, I will be lodging a formal complaint with the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission for Woolworths deliberately withholding check out facilities that are designed to assist disabled and elderly people. As a veteran I will also take the matter to my local federal member who is Mr Andrew Wilkie, an Army Veteran himself.
Woolworths should be ashamed at trying to cut costs by under-staffing check-out facilities designed to provide customers a comfortable, manageable and "accessible" shopping experience. I am not the only person in my community who has noticed that customer service at Woolworths has suffered due to insufficient or poorly managed staffing levels.
I would like a response to my complaint in writing please via a letter or e-mail.

Thank you for your time.

Ged Lagerewskij
295 Main Road
Glenorchy
Tasmania, 7010.
E-Mail ged.[protected]@gmail.com
5 November 2019.