Three decades of working at Coles

Coles Richmond’s Vesna Yanevski and Scott Hobson have chalked up three decades each.

Ms Yanevski has been at Coles Richmond for 35 years, since shortly after it opened, while Mr Hobson has been with the company at different locations for 30 years.

Ms Yanevski started in a lime-green uniform on the checkouts in June 1980, when groceries still had price stickers and the prices had to be manually entered on the register. 

‘‘The entrance was on Windsor Street back then,’’ she said.

‘‘Then I was in variety in clothing and merchandising, then I was in charge of the lay-by office.’’ She said there used to be a garden section as well, but the variety section closed in the mid ’90s. 

But she’s not alone in her longevity — current employees Sharon Smith, Alison Dowell, Joanne Durkin, Sandra House and Terry Munro were all there from the early days as well.

While Scott Hobson is grocery manager at Coles Richmond, but his career has moved him around since his first position as a trolley collector in the Hobart suburb of Rosney.

Mr Hobson looks after the grocery aisles and dairy and freezer, attending to stock levels and co-ordinating night stackers.

But over his three decades he’s also worked in fresh produce, and on the checkouts. What section did he enjoy the most?

‘‘I loved dairy,’’ he said. ‘‘I did it for 20 years. It was fulfilling, and I had great team members.’’

He said he also got to try new products. But not yoghurt. ‘‘I hate yoghurt!’’ he said.

However he said the best product ever was the Sara Lee black forest cake, but it got discontinued. ‘‘I was not happy with that!’’ he said with a grin. ‘‘It wasn’t that popular, but it was with me.’’

He said A2 milk was a product that had done really well of late.

Over the years he’s also worked at Ropes Crossing, Kellyville, Blacktown, Winston Hills and Castle Hill Coles.

The biggest changes he’s seen in that time were the introduction of scanning at the checkout, and the introduction of self-checkouts. He said the checkout operators loved the scanning. It has also saved the company a lot of money as stock levels are monitored by what has passed through the checkout, and re-ordered automatically. As dairy manager he also loved that price labels were no longer necessary as they used to fall off the dairy products due to condensation.

He said a lot of older residents refuse to use self-checkouts so ‘‘checkout chicks will always have a job’’. These days there are more males on the checkouts too.