Supermarket cashier chit chat

Peanuckle

What annoys me more than anything is cashiers that take their time examining what you're buying. The most recent time this happened was last week, they'd had samples of the Christmas pates in store and I tried one and decided to buy it. The cashier mentioned she hadn't seen it before, fair enough, so I said they had samples in store. "Is it nice?" she asked, what a stupid question, I'm hardly gonna say it's so terrible that I had to buy some am I?
She then sat there for a good 3 minutes reading the label and looking at the glass jar it was in, I had to step in when she started to lift the clasp to open the jar! !!!!!!? It's bad enough she held me up while she sat reading but then to try and open something I was buying?
I honestly questioned my sanity and had to ask my daughter if it really happened once we'd escaped to the car. In total it took over 10 minutes to get through the till and we only had 15 items :-(

zoominatorone

tea_lover wrote: »

I hate it, it's by far the worst part of shopping for me. I definitely think Asda is the worst for it, but as they're usually cheaper I'm stuck with it.

Write to their head office about it.

The staff there have no choice, they HAVE to engage in chit chat and it was only recently changed from something akin to a script to something a bit more natural. They get marked on it by a mystery shopper and told off if they don't do it.

Imagine having to make polite conversation with 100 different people every day in your workplace and be told off if you didn't do so....

Mrs_Ryan

I dont mind a bit of a chat but the one and only time I was gobsmacked was in Asda in Nottingham, I'd been on placement, was on my way home and had nipped in to get a few bits of shopping.
Because I was training to be a mental health nurse, we didnt wear uniform so I was just in my normal gear, top, trousers and hoodie but I had forgotten I was wearing my ID badge round my neck, which carried my uni logo, my name and picture and 'Student Nurse' in big letters. I was happily packing when the cashier said 'So Andrea, how's the course going?' I was absolutely gobsmacked! Ok it was probably my own fault I had forgot entirely it was there but even so I thought that was a bit forward!

katsclaws

We were shopping in Sainsbury's a few weeks ago and my husband made a comment about the size of the Saturday newspaper and using trees from the rainforest. The male till assistant said never mind about the rainforest what about all the people starving in Africa and not having clean water to drink. He carried on this conversation throughout the checkout process. We now avoid that particular assistant.


katsclaws

PurplePow

Kildare wrote: »

When I used to work in Asda there was some scripting - and you needed to do it just incase you served the mystery shopper. This was over 10 years ago but at the time I had to do the usual (sorry for the wait, do you need help packing, how is your day going, do you have any plans for the rest of your day, would you like cashback etc.). Wouldn't shock me if they extended it and expected to see you talking to customers. They used to have badges for everything - scanning 25 items per minute, 100% badge for mystery shopping etc. Definitly something that came from Walmart.

As an aside I used to love working Xmas Eve on customer services - customers were so funny. I had one woman shout at me because there were no Turkeys left at 4pm Xmas eve (we were closing at 6) and I had one call me and ask us to keep the store open longer as they needed to buy all their Xmas presents

I found it funny working in Morrisons back as a student over Christmas. Having to remind shoppers that we couldn't serve them after 4pm on a Sunday (oh that last Sunday before Christmas, it was always chaos!) and they had to get out of the shop now (but still slowly wandering around doing their shopping anyway!) or someone who once ran in the shop past security, jumped over the security gate at the front of the shop, grabbed a bottle of vodka and belted to the check out!

busiscoming2

I don't mind having a chat but hate it when it is too personal. I hate it when they ask what I'm doing for the rest of the day! I feel like telling them to mind their own business.

PinkLipgloss

It's all very well these companies wanting to "enhance" our shopping experiences with some idle chit chat however, if this thread is anything to go by, not everyone approves.

I've personally found it okay at times (when it's clearly been a naturally chatty operator) and seriously awkward at others (typically a teen clearly verbalising a "script").

I'd like to see some sort of "opt out/in" system. You know those "divider" things that people use to separate their shopping on the conveyor belt? They could be double sided, one side reading "Hello, how are you?" (i.e. I'm willing to engage in chat) the other side reading "In a hurry, thanks for your help" (i.e. don't engage me in pointless chat). Customers can simply choose the appropriate side and point it towards their checkout operator.

This is what I mean......(I know too much time on my hands....)

Skyllo

I've noticed the till in Farm Foods brings up the prompt of "Smile politely at the customer and ask if they would like a bag." :rotfl:

I'm not a big fan of chit-chat either and I used to work in retail. Briefly in a supermarket checkout and then in a chemist. Some customers like to over share too!

missindecisive

Can understand completely why you felt awkward op....

Went into my local tesco express to pay for fuel recently. After a seemingly uneventful transaction the cashier handed me my receipt and started spouting off something that seemed to be in Italian, complete with fake accent and hand gestures. I had absolutlely no idea what he was saying to me! He could have been innocently practicing his newly acquired language skills..or he could have said something to me that was really inappropriate and I wouldn't have had a clue. !
He then turned and said to me, "well what do you think, do you think that was good?"
My reply was..." No, I think you are a pompous twit ! ":rotfl:

Hermia

PinkLipgloss wrote: »

It's all very well these companies wanting to "enhance" our shopping experiences with some idle chit chat however, if this thread is anything to go by, not everyone approves.

I've personally found it okay at times (when it's clearly been a naturally chatty operator) and seriously awkward at others (typically a teen clearly verbalising a "script").

I'd like to see some sort of "opt out/in" system. You know those "divider" things that people use to separate their shopping on the conveyor belt? They could be double sided, one side reading "Hello, how are you?" (i.e. I'm willing to engage in chat) the other side reading "In a hurry, thanks for your help" (i.e. don't engage me in pointless chat). Customers can simply choose the appropriate side and point it towards their checkout operator.

This is what I mean......(I know too much time on my hands....)

Ha ha! I like it.

I wouldn't want to stop chatting to people though (unless they obviously don't want to talk) just because so many people have no one to talk to. We find a lot of people come in our library just to have someone to talk to and it's not always the obvious people.