The Hidden Glasgow Forums

The regeneration of Grater Pollok enters a new phase on Monday with the first new store to open at the Silverburn Shopping Centre in Pollok.

Tesco Extra will open its doors for the first time. This is the largest store of its kind in Scotland.

I had the opportunity to get a preview on Tuesday. Here are some of the photos I took.

Incredible - it looks exactly the same as the one in Helen Street...



James H

slightly different to the one in Shettleston
incidently the sign outside the Shettleston store used to read "open 24 hours monday - saturday 8am - 8pm, sunday 10am - 6pm" or something to that effect, i had a photo of it but gah, think it went down with my deid hd

It may look the same but its much bigger.

I think the shettleston store is open 24hours now!

Best part of working in a store is its refit or its new build, just hope the people respect it and dont treat it like a pice of cr@p.

Been involved in a few conversions and a few new builds.

Tesco employed 59 local people who were unemployed or on benefit. I have the pleasure of attending an event recently where they were presented with a certificate.

They all feel a lot better about themselves now that they are working. I met one of them in the store on Tuesday. He was so pleased to be finally in the store and is looking forward to the opening on Monday.

Like you tobester I hope the people respect it. There is still another year to go before the other shops open at Silverburn so Tesco will be part of a building site. Hopefully people will appreciate that there is more to follow.

Alex Glass wrote:Tesco employed 59 local people who were unemployed
or on benefit. I have the pleasure of attending an event recently where they
were presented with a certificate.

They all feel a lot better about themselves now that they are working. I met
one of them in the store on Tuesday. He was so pleased to be finally in the
store and is looking forward to the opening on Monday.

I'm not meaning to have a go at you here Alex, but you're making it sound like
working in a faceless supermarket is an aspirational career choice, when it's a
million miles away from such a thing.

As for the locals feeling better about themselves - it will be interesting to see
how they feel about things six months/a year from now after they've had to pay
full rent and council tax. Will there be an event and certificates handed out when
the locals think "sod this capitalism malarky" and decide they don't want to work
for some jumped-up wee naebody who's ordering them about any more?




James H

Hi James

Point taken. It was just great to see something good happening to people who may have felt the world had passed them by.

I know what you mean but hope that you are wrong and they don't give up when things start getting a bit harder. My boss said recently that the way out of poverty is employment and I believe this is true. I don't mean to overstate this and truely hope that everything works out for those who have been fortunate enough to be given a chance to improve their life.

james73 wrote:I'm not meaning to have a go at you here Alex, but you're making it sound like
working in a faceless supermarket is an aspirational career choice, when it's a
million miles away from such a thing.

I think it's clear that working in a supermarket is far from the best job around but it is still a job and, is for many people anyway, better than not working. Hopefully for some of those people concerned it may also be a stepping stone to something better. It's also worth bearing in mind that some people do genuinely enjoy working in a supermarket (they are few and far between but I have been assured tha they do exist )



Not sure why I'm being so optomistic tonight, it's not like me at all!

Alex Glass wrote:I think the shettleston store is open 24hours now!

yeah it was, then it wasn't, now it is again (last time i checked anyway!)

Alex Glass wrote:I know what you mean but hope that you are wrong and they don't give up when
things start getting a bit harder. My boss said recently that the way out of
poverty is employment and I believe this is true.

I agree - they way out of poverty is employment.

The way out of poverty is not, however, poverty wages.



James H

The regeneration of Grater Pollok enters a new phase on Monday with the first new store to open at the Silverburn Shopping Centre in Pollok.

God, the future is a load of shite! Supermarket work is for teenagers, not adults with families to feed. The unemployment figures look so low, do you know why, retail, retail, retail. Cheap retail jobs filling up the places taken by the real jobs in industry. Yes, industry remember it? Oh yeah, that Dickensian thing with children sweating over dangerous machinery, a nightmare it was, was it? And the closures were explained away, come on do we really use steel any more, or drive cars, or use TV sets? Come on people, these are old fashioned things, that the Chinese can make for us! And thousands were laid off, people who were paid real wages for real jobs. And spent real money as well. Even high tech died off, mostly. The replacement they promised us to end the poverty all around.

People in this country like to delude themselfs that the retail sector is some kind of great future, malls, supermarkets, all praised by the media. Especially the Evening Times for some reason, Regeneration they call it. And if you criticise this golden future, well you are 'wrong' pure and simple, you need to mature! To grow up! For daring to question the accepted doctrine.

Well let me say this, retail jobs pay low wages, that is a truth. Retail jobs demand very few skills, another truth. Retail jobs do not have UNIONS, there is another truth. The most important one perhaps, because the establishment have to hang on dont they? They dont want any challenge...
These are worse jobs than the ones they replaced, does nobody see this? We are going back in time, not forward, kept at the level just able to buy the products they sell, but not any better off. And given dreams of money 24h a day on TV, buy this sell this! And if you cant do that, take a loan, then take another one to pay for that, then another..

I know I keep on repeating myself but this delusion has gone on for far too long, its time to wake up! I may be a 'stuck record' but the track I play is an important one that has to be heard...

In fact, best to ignore me...

When I worked in retail, during and after uni, I saw people around me promoted with no real skills. I was never considered because the store manager expected me to leave. Some of my colleages had been in retail all their career and were disillusioned and fed up with the demands of the company (which give little back in return). I found it entirely frustrating, draining and by the end I couldn't wait to get out.

Even something as simple as putting deliveries away properly was difficult - I had to come in every day and fix what had gone wrong because my colleagues were lazy and didn't care.

Good retail staff are worth their weight in gold - but there are too few and they go largely unappreciated.

hear hear ally!

Vladimir wrote:Retail jobs do not have UNIONS, there is another truth.

Not strictly true, I know a couple of members of this one for instance:

http://www2.the-rba.org/