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ESSAY PROMPT – Social Class In 2013, a supermarket in the UK…

ESSAY PROMPT – Social Class In 2013, a supermarket in the UK started a customer loyalty scheme that entitled card holders to one free hot drink a day (instead of points, coupons or vouchers). Some customers reacted badly to this. Read the following describing why. What are the ways in which the customers link these new customers to social class (either directly or indirectly) in terms of behavior, language, and/or appearance, and what attitudes do they illustrate by doing so?  ARTICLE Waitrose is facing a middle-class backlash after complaints that its stores are being invaded by less well-off shoppers. Regular customers claim the supermarket’s offer of free cups of tea and coffee in all its stores is attracting the wrong type of clientele. For months, the upmarket chain has been giving complimentary hot drinks to loyalty card holders – even if they do not make a purchase. However, long-standing customers say the move encourages large numbers of my Waitrose cardholders who have no intention of shopping and merely get in the way. They also say giving out drinks is dangerous because some customers are carrying their cups of scalding hot coffee around the aisles as they shop. It follows earlier complaints that Waitrose is overly tolerant of less affluent ‘chavs’ and does not do enough to control the bad behaviour of their children. Among comments on social media about the harm being done to the store’s image by the free drinks promotion was one from John Thompson, a business consultant from St Albans, Hertfordshire. He wrote on Twitter: ‘Bit disconcerting seeing people carrying cups of hot coffee around Waitrose whilst they text and push trolleys with their bellies.’ Penny Clayden, who does a weekly £100 shop at the supermarket, said that she is concerned that Waitrose has forgotten its customers ‘who only want to do their food shopping and get home’. ‘Please don’t turn into a “soup kitchen” handing out free drinks,’ she wrote on the store’s Facebook page. ‘The usual clientele of Waitrose are hardly strapped for cash. ‘I think seeing people walking round the store holding on to takeaway cups of tea and coffee looks quite ridiculous and brings down the image of Waitrose until it is just like everywhere else – in which case I might as well shop anywhere else.’