Monday, May 19, 2008

Thanks for nothing!

Hey, did everyone enjoy their long weekend? I spent it working! I worked all day Friday to Monday and now I'm tired. Since this week has a holiday they only let us work 29 hours for the week (Yeah!) and I get three days off; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The weather was nice on the weekend too, and we had the hottest days of the year. Tomorrow on my day off there is a chance of showers, but it's not like I was going to actually go outside and enjoy the nice weather anyway. Rain away!

My many year of hard work and dedication have finally paid off as the Superstore has instituted an colleague discount program. We aren't called employees anymore, we are "colleagues". So yeah, we now get 10% discount and of course there are restrictions. In fact, there are lots of restrictions. Here is the list:
  • Alcohol - includes wine and beer making supplies (Obvious)
  • Baby Care - cereals, teething biscuits, feed/nursing items, wipes, etc (But baby food is so good!)
  • Bottle Deposit
  • Cassette (Audio) Tapes (We don't even sell audio cassette tapes! Who even still buys tapes?!)
  • Cellular Phones & Accessories (Obvious)
  • Customer Service - bus tickets
  • Dollar Day Items in Books & Stationary
  • DVDs - including box sets (DAMMIT!)
  • Fruit Beverage - juices, drinks, and cocktails (This sucks, I don't want to pay full price for my Sunny D)
  • Gaming Consoles
  • Gas Bars (Obvious)
  • Gift Cards (Obvious)
  • Home Theatre - including panel TVs (Obvious, but still I would never buy a 42" LCD TV from Superstore as their choice of brands is lacking)
  • Lottery Tickets (Obvious)
  • Milk - plain and flavored (No amount of discount could entice me to buy banana or orange flavored milk, that's not right. I luvs strawberry and eat a lot of cereal, so I'm still pissed!)
  • Personal Audio -iPods, walkmans, etc (They are evil and when you listen to them it means you won't be able to hear the helicopter about to land on top of you. )
  • Phone Cards
  • Pop (WHY NOT?! I need my Diet Pepsi or I will DIE!)
  • Prescriptions (Obvious)
  • Third Party operations - post office, dry cleaners, etc
  • Tobacco (Obvious)
  • Video Games - some (Obvious)
  • Items which cannot be scanned (This is actually anything that needs to be weighed like bulk foods and produce items like apples, bananas, etc. and it sucks)
The first thing that caught my attention on that list was audio cassettes. Like really? You'd think they'd want to get rid of tapes since pretty nobody buys them anymore. At least compact discs aren't excluded, but it's not like they carry anything good I'd want. Come to think of it I don't think I've ever bought a CD from Super Store. It sucks about DVDs and could be a little less vague in the video games category, "some" doesn't really tell me much. The milk, juice, and pop exclusions are pretty stupid. Still they act like they are doing us all a big favor by giving us a discount, but really should give a list of stuff that isn't excluded, it would be shorter.

Tomorrow is my day off and I need to do some grocery shopping, but will still go to Safeway because I'm not going in to Super Store on my day off, discount or no discount! But if anybody ever wants to buy something from there (make sure it's not on the list though!) let me know and I will hook you up cuz that's how I roll!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

the funny thing about the list is that they are probably all created from past situations. still though, bummer to have to find another way to get all you booze, smokes, scratch tickets, and baby wipes..

Anonymous said...

Just got my discount card today, and after finding out from my mom/sis and reading this blog... I must say, I'm quite disgusted. What have they left for us to get a discount on? Crackers? O.o Seriously, I'm disapointed in them. >.< What garbage. Thanks for a WHOLE LOT OF ABSOLUTE NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

The store I work at had a 3 month trial of the employee discount thing. I started in Aug 07 and I pretty much got the discount right away. It was pretty sweet, because you could get away with 10% off of almost anything. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to buy big ticket items [or rather, too poor to do so]. Interestingly, the trial lasted right up to the national launch of the "Colleage Discount" in May '08.

The trial was apparently monitored/audited by the government for their precious tax revenue. During the trial, the manager said the savings you get may be taxable at the end of the year on your T5 or something or other. In other words, the money saved from the discount could have been taxed as income. It wouldn't matter to me right now even if it were the case, because I'm at the lowest tax bracket anyway!

A notice I read posted near the employee lounge said exclusions had to be made to the Colleage Discount Program after being advised by the CRA for the maximum benefit for all employees,so they don't have to pay extra taxes because the want the program to remain free. And yes, I believe them. The list of exclusions may be long but the discount can be used for your most basic needs, like clothing [you only pay 2% tax]; food [automatic 10% off because groceries are not taxed--cheap food gets even cheaper]; mundane stuff like toothpaste, paper towels etc, your daily necessities you use everyday and buy very often. I 15 min. away from Superstore so I shop there often. I also use my PC credit card to pay for just about everything and in turn redeem the points for "Free groceries and general merchandise". Let's not forget Superstore always has a free item promo when you spend a certain amount.... You can really save a bundle if you're buying for a family. Every $ counts, right?

It should be noted that there is a new superbucks program for the pharmacy! I am a unionized member and one employee benefit for me is that prescriptions bought from Superstore et all, are eligible to be reimbursed IN FULL from your employee benefits plan. [I suppose that's where my $15.50 taken off each paycheque goes towards. Even though I'm young, relatively fit; absolutely hate seeing the doctor, and having to use/buy prescriptions.]

My mom asked me if we should start a biz together. I'm thinking of propositioning something to do with food. Wonder if I can use the discount at the Warehouse brand of Superstores?

On general markdowns and sale items they generally are discounted the extra 10%. Check your receipt. If it says CD before the item, it's discounted, if it isn't, it's marked ND for "No Discount."

Final note: I also discovered that the 10% discount is now applied AFTER taxes. So the net savings is a little less. Once again, it's the fine work of the CRA, maximizing tax revenues.