The Woolworths payments system crashed briefly on Monday afternoon, but the effect was felt nationally as registers went down all over the country.
Long lines of customers, unable to pay for their groceries, waited at checkouts, with some stores closing. In the meantime, plenty of people turned to Twitter to vent and joke about the situation.
Here are some of the best.
There were jokes about the Cole’s “Down, down” jingle galore.
Down Down, the cash registers are down…. #woolworths new slogan.
— Wolf Cocklin (@wolfcat) April 16, 2018
COLES: Down, down, Woolworths is down
#woolworths— Carly Heading (@carlyylalaa) April 16, 2018
Some customers freaked out.
woolworths systems down nationwide. have u ever seen die hard 4.0 where's john mcclane
— rafee (@eefars) April 16, 2018
the confused look on people’s face’s is priceless. the shutters are down yet they’re still trying to enter? they’re shocked that they have to go to a different supermarket or they may starve from missing one day of groceries. humans are weird. #Woolworths
— chelcey (@brbkissed) April 16, 2018
Others took it with a grain of salt
I survived the great #Woolworths checkout outage of 2018.
45 minutes with my food on the belt ready to checkout.#NeverForget— No faith in humanity (@twinfold) April 16, 2018
Obligatory cat meme.
The IT department at @woolworths right now… #Woolworths #EpicFail #Woolies pic.twitter.com/zwXS6eW4Ci
— Nadine Cowell (@MrsNadineCowell) April 16, 2018
That panda one suits nearly every occasion
Meanwhile at #woolworths Head Office pic.twitter.com/lb2j2kqZNo
— Rachel Wheatley (@evaruth1978) April 16, 2018
At what cost?
Some quick #Woolworths maths for you. Last years total sales were $55billion.. divide hat by 365 (days) then by 24 (hours) then by 60 (minutes), for every minute this technical fault lasts.. they are losing $104,640. You are welcome.
— Kieran Simpson (@kieransimpson) April 16, 2018
Mark offers some perspective.
We live in wonderful times when terms like “crisis” and “chaos” are used on twitter and breaking news to describe having an IT outage at @woolworths . #priorities #FirstWorldProblem
— Mark Davies (@mw_davies) April 16, 2018
But Leo really hit the nail on the head.
We've all said it: technology is fantastic…until it doesn't work. #Woolworths
— Leo D'Angelo Fisher (@DAngeloFisher) April 16, 2018
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