The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Tina20

Azari wrote: »

That was a major annoyance at the local Somerfield back in the day.

The 'quick service' till was also the 'kiosk' so you had to try and work out whether the two people in that queue with a couple of items each were likely to be losers who would:

1) Pay for their items.
2) Ask for cigarettes
3) Ask for a half a bottle of scotch
4) Get their lottery card validated
5) Get their friend's lottery card validated
6) By a selection of scratch cards
7) Get their gas key reloaded
8) Get their electricity key reloaded

It was, on occasion, possible to wait ten minutes for a single person to go through that lot whilst people with fully loaded trolleys sailed through the normal checkouts.

I agree with most posts but not this one, where else do you get gas and electric and lottery/cigarettes? You can't get that stuff through the normal checkouts! No point moaning at the customers, moan at the service providers for not having gas and electric paypoints all over the store


My pet hates?

Long queues, and no more tills being opened
Stockists (shelf stackers) leaving the cages in front of large portions of shelves.
When the cashier starts ringing your stuff through before the previous person has bagged their things!
The cashier serving the person behind you before you've bagged your things!
Children packing your bags and expecting donations
When the self service decides to call for help, but the place is completely deserted and you wait for ages for a staff member to tell the machine THERE IS NOTHING UNEXPECTED IN THE BAGGING AREA

This actually happened to me:

Cashier ringing through my goods, then standing and opening his mail (I'm guessing payslip) reading the letter, then discussing it loudly and jokingly with a passing colleague. All without acknowledging me as a customer, asking to help, didn't notice I'd run out of bags, etc etc. (tesco)

slashlover

Crisp_£_note wrote: »

Having a several items and then being asked by the cashier if I need any bags. I really have to hold myself back from saying "No thanks I can juggle them home!" :rotfl:

From the other side - a customer has said that to me, and then been suitably embarassed when I replied that I had to check because a lot of customers were bringing their own reuseable bags.

MamaMoo_2

Gingernutty wrote: »

"ARE YOU USING YOUR OWN BAGS?"

Press YES

"PLEASE PLACE YOUR BAGS IN THE BAGGING AREA!"

Place bag (which weighs more than the standard carrier bag) in bagging area

"UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!"

Short pause as machine waits for override code from supervisor but no one available/fast enough

"PLEASE CALL FOR HELP!"

EVERY F*CKING TIME! :mad:

Now I don't place my bag in the BAGGING AREA and just put the items on the flat surface beside the carrier bag dispenser and pack my stuff after the transaction.

"DID YOU USE YOUR OWN BAGS?"

Press YES

"HOW MANY BAGS DID YOU USE?"

Use keypad to enter number of bags

"PLEASE TAKE YOUR CHANGE!"

"PLEASE TAKE YOUR RECEIPT!"

Pack stuff into bags

"PLEASE TAKE YOUR ITEMS!"

Short pause while I carry on stuffing items into bag

"PLEASE TAKE YOUR ITEMS!"

Short pause as I'm still stuffing things into bag and muttering quietly

"PLEASE TAKE YOUR ITEMS!"

:mad:

Once items are thoroughly stuffed into bag and lifted off the BAGGING AREA

"THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT SAINSBURY'S WOLVERHAMPTON!"

EVERY F*CKING TIME! :mad:

Ah, the church of Sainsbury's in Wolves.
Had to stop shopping there because they were so awful. (once asked a member of staff for help, was told "not now love, I'm going for a fag") Started using the Asda at Molineux instead. Wasn't too bad, but if you went late night shopping, you were usually expected to put a trolley load of stuff through the self-service tills, as the other checkouts were all closed.
I don't miss shopping in Wolves. Especially with the amount of muppets that were always about!

Omar_Little

sixleafclover wrote: »

It really winds me up when you have been served, and the cashier then calls the next person whilst you are trying to put you change away, and trying to put whatever you have just bought into your bag.

Have had to in the past walk away with change in hand, purse open and purchases hanging of my arm.

Why don't you speak up and ask them to wait a moment?

Azari

Tina20 wrote: »

I agree with most posts but not this one, where else do you get gas and electric and lottery/cigarettes? You can't get that stuff through the normal checkouts! No point moaning at the customers, moan at the service providers for not having gas and electric paypoints all over the store

You misunderstand my point. It wasn't the customers I was moaning at, it was Somerfield for having the only fast service till be the very one that could suffer just about the longest delays.

Admittedly I referred to some customers as 'losers' but that was more directed at those who spend a fortune on cigarettes and gambling and was not really relevant to the complaint.

eminemfan001

Not sure if these have been said but my top two are
1) loud music in shops. I don't mind if it's on but if I can't hear the person next to me talking then I normally give up and leave
2) people with b.o trying on clothes. Seriously if I can smell you then surely you can probably smell yourself so please don't infect the clothes that you probably won't even buy because the staff with have to throw them out and in the long run this puts prices up.

rustyboy21

My pet peeve is someone standing in my personal space, when I am trying to put my PIN in the card machine.

It is usually older ladies, who don't take the hint that you want a bit of privacy, they think you are being petty.

Linus2864

My main issue with supermarkets is ariving at the checkouts with a full trolley or basket, then seeing only 3 or 4 tills open with queues 4 - 5 people long.

I usually do what I did today - leave the trolley where it is, or put the basket on the floor, walk out and go somewhere else. When they are putting the stuff back, they can think about having more tills open.

Another issue is repeatedly being told to "Remove Item From Bagging Area" by that really annoying robotic voice when using self service checkouts.

Once while using the self service checkout at Asda (the ones for lots of items) I got so fed up of being told to remove the item from the bagging area, that I left all the groceries on the conveyor belt and went to one of their competitors.

Oh, another big annoyance is being behind someone who decides to use a debit card for something costing £1-50!! You mean you don't even carry loose change!?!?!

Time to go and calm down I think . . shopping shouldn't be that annoying . . . .

thriftymanc

I don't understand all the hate for people who prefer to pay with a card instead of cash. I'm one of those people who never gets cash out unless I absolutely have to. Why should other people care if I pay for just one item or something cheap with a card? How's that any different to paying for a week's worth of shopping with a card? Better to wait for someone to spend ten seconds popping their PIN in, than someone rooting around in their pockets for a grubby handful of loose change, throw it all down on the counter and spend about three minutes trying to count out £2.03 in pennies... or handing over a tenner and waiting for the shop assistant to count out the change!

The only time the card thing really annoys me is when you need to queue up at a manned till for a specific reason, and the person in front is paying with a card when there are loads of empty self-service tills they could have used instead. But that's just the customer being selfish rather than anything to do with the method of payment.

whitegoods_engineer

Linus2864 wrote: »

I usually do what I did today - leave the trolley where it is, or put the basket on the floor, walk out and go somewhere else. When they are putting the stuff back, they can think about having more tills open.

Aren't you clever!

So because the shop is short-staffed, you do a diva and storm off in dramatic fashion to make a self-serving point.

It isn't the store HQ or management who end up going round the shop returning the items to the shelves, it is the minimum-wage worker who gets the pleasure of the results of your tantrum.