Things that annoy you in supermarkets

fatpiggy

pimento wrote: »

The families who insist on doing the shopping en masse with mum, dad and three kids, one usually screaming.
It must be torture for them, it certainly is for me.

You forgot granny on her zimmer frame! As most supermarkets have a cafe, why not let the sensible person with the list (ie. a woman) go around the aisles while the familial hangers-on wait out of the way with a cup of tea in the cafe, to be collected at the end. I suspect the aisles would be almost empty as a result, mum would be calm, kids and granny would have been able to have a nice chat and dad wouldn't have been nagged at at all Oh yes, and the final bill would probably be lower, even allowing for the cost of the cups of tea since there wouldn't be endless hands picking up impulse buys and dropping them in the trolley.

Result!

Hezzawithkids

Independent_Willwriter wrote: »

Why do retired people insist on shopping at weekends when many workers have to do their shopping - adding to the congestion. Retired people could be a little more considerate and shop at off peak times.

Why? You don't know them, their lives or their motivations for being there at a weekend. Why should they change just to suit you?

Or how about they "insist" that working people ONLY shop at weekends and leave the weekdays free for them?

Billy_Bonkers

People who park their trolleys right up to the shelves completely blocking sight of and access to popular items instead of leaving the trolley in the centre of the isle.

Helix

Independent_Willwriter wrote: »

People who pay for their shopping by debit / credit card take approximately 3 times longer to do so than those who pay with cash!

Not really, we have chip and pin now or even contactless. I was in Lidl last week and it took ages for the guy in front to find the correct amount of cash to pay for his shopping. Swapping and changing between different denominations of notes to get the correct amount. Whereas I just tapped my card on the reader and was done, good job too as the elderly woman behind me was edging ever closer to the other side of the checkout that should could have entered the pin for me.

barryboris

Independent_Willwriter wrote: »

Why do retired people insist on shopping at weekends when many workers have to do their shopping - adding to the congestion. Retired people could be a little more considerate and shop at off peak times.

What a horrible post. Don't be so selfish and rude.

[Deleted User]

1) People who stand around gassing: This is a supermarket, not a social club!

2) People who wait for the cashier to say "That's £10.95 please" before they start rummaging down the bottom of their shopping basket for a purse.

3) Self service tills that say "Place your bags in the bagging area" after you've placed your bags in the bagging area, "Select payment type" after you've selected your payment type, and "Insert your card" after you've inserted your card.

4) Packets that are wedged between the shelves so tightly that you can't get them out.

pheonix254

Ahhh. Takes me back to my post-school working in a supermarket.

Half these rants about staff are quite simply "company policy" which they don't have any control over -"are you sure you need a bag?, do you have a loyalty card?, yes, the discount is only 2% for a reduced item, Please follow me and I'll take you to the alternative item."

Pallets in the store? yeah, we did do that if there was sufficient need. Sometimes on a busy Saturday on the other hand, the only way to ensure there was a banana on the shelves was to haul 2 tonnes of them from out the back every hour. If you want to see what store "run for the staff's convenience" as opposed to the "customer convenience" go at 11pm to a 24 hour store. THAT is what cluttered ailses look like. Me unloading 3 crates of potatoes at peak time wasn't clutter - that's so that you can buy some flippin spuds!

Other things which I was hugely naive about and customers educated me on-

• apparently American strawberries will not do for a pimms party, even when the british crop was 75% destroyed by floods and we're they only store within 20 miles with any stock at all.
• The layout of my part of the store apparently was switched beyond all recognition to some customers every 2 weeks (it didn't change for the 3 years I worked there)
• Nobody knows what "okra" is.
• Saffron is more expensive than fillet steak per gram.
• Some people want to buy barbeques in January and are astonished that you don't stock them until May.
• 99p items move 10x more quickly than £1.00 items.
• a 10% reduced item will often get sold more quickly than a 95% reduced item of the same quality. Don't get that.

I did a lot of psychological experiments on the public when I was "reductions qualified" and had full discretion on a Sunday afternoon. Taught me that humans generally make rubbish logical decisions and cannot do even basic maths on the fly. Sometimes the reduced label alone is enough to make a sale to some people, others wont be satisfied until it's 10p.

Some rants from the staff side, just for balance:

• Customers trying to ask you complex things when you're clocked out, overcoat on, walking directly to the exit of the store. Try to work this out - I'm paid minimum wage, and only when clocked on. I'll give up the time when I'm paid, but not my own time.
• Asking a variation of "why haven't you got any turkeys" on Christmas eve, 30 minutes before the store shuts.
• The customer who wants their own personal shopper for 25 minutes. Sorry, believe it or not, I exist to replenish stock and answer short queries. Not do your shopping for you.
• asking me why a certain product comes from a certain country place and why we haven't got any stock from any other place.
• showing me a moudly apple and demanding I remove 200kg worth of other boxes of perfectly good ones because you found a single bad one.
• Acting shocked when you've asked me for something we haven't got and i say "your best bet is <competitor>"
• "But can't you check out the back?" believe me if I hadn't already checked 3 times in the last 30 minutes for 3 other customers I'd check again. Often I did anyway, it was easier than arguing.
• Snatching reductions out of my hands as i put the sticker on.
• Reductions brawls between (usually the same) customers. I got security to make them leave more than once.
• Getting reprimanded by parents for politely asking their child to move out of the way or not touch something on my trolley (generally this is because I'm lugging 20kg of something which I don't want to drop on them, or because metal hinges and childs hands are likely to end badly.)

I also saw a department manager get reprimanded by the store manager for spending too much time tackling a thief instead of sorting out the bananas (actually, from an economic point of view, the lack of bananas for an hour lost the store more money than a drug-addict trying to steal a TV, which did happen pretty much every day.)

Ahhhh, memories. I don't miss working there, really.

forzaitalia

People who tut and huff in the queue because it doesn't move fast enough. They try to catch your eye to encourage you to join in, but I refuse to. Impatient people actually annoy me more than the queuing!

jenniewb

SparkyMark123 wrote: »

..............Anyway miny vent over your pet hates please

Pet hates?


Where do I start!


1. Children in supermarkets after 11pm. I choose to shop at this time because I expect there to be fewer people and not have to walk around in a state of tense anxiety because a small child may be running through aisles playing chase and knock me over. I have disabilities, I will break bones easily. I do not want a small child to dart out and push me over. Yet more and more often small children seem to be running around supermarkets and often with the aid of scooters. AAAGGGHHH!
As I don't look old (I'm not old!) it's hard to see I have the disabilities I have so if I as much as sigh I get an earful from parents for not accepting the kid is "just being a kid".
Sorry? Am I in the minority here? I didn't have the most amazing parents but they didn't neglect me by not sending me to bed to go shopping at midnight!


2. Which brings me onto my next point:
Parents who pretty much want a fight if you tell their children at any point to "slow down" or "be careful please" because they have just rammed a trolley/buggy/chocolate covered hands into your back.


3. Huge metal cages full of food blocking the aisles making it impossible to get trolleys to go through complete aisles and woe betide any two people walking in opposite directions!
OK. I know I shop late, but seriously, Tesco (who are the worst for it) if you have a cage, unpack it. Do not use the aisles to store your caged, inaccessible food. This is what the back of your stores are for.


4. Supermarket toilets which are damaged, over flowing or just not kept clean. I am very grateful when I find a supermarket has a toilet because IMO there's little worse than needing to 'go' and not being able to (again, health issues). But some of the time the smell alone is enough to make you consider leaving the shopping until next week. Most of the time it isn't a case of vandalism as much as not being kept clean or unblocking things.


5. The self service checkout staff who always ALWAYS deal with at least 5 people who needed and asked for help AFTER I did.
Or that they will 99% of the time be chatting to another member of staff, looking at the ground or have their backs to you and the entire self-service checkout area when the robotic voice utters "Please wait for assistance". Does that voice not shout that message out loud enough or are these particular staff members simply getting a kick out of seeing how long they can make you wait?!


6. Shelves being empty, the item you want being at the bottom of one of 10 cages to be unpacked.
Or shelves being emptied of things on offer and no stocks available. Rainy-day vouchers for things like this need to be far more easily available. Most staff don't have a clue what these are and many just laugh at you having "made that up". All staff need to be given vouchers for these out of stock offers not just the manger who goes home after 5pm.


7. Trolleys with wonky wheels which seem to divert you to the left unless you fight with it.


8. Checkout staff who are extremely irritated when you have to put items back because you can't afford them. In case it hadn't failed to reach your notice, I don't enjoy being broke any more than you enjoy having to turn yourself to your left to place items away from the conveyer-belt. And if your really struggling to do this, you could always pay my bill for those items for me!:rotfl:


9. Items not being on offer anymore but the label stating they were, but customer service being closed so DTD wouldn't be possible.


10. "Unexpected Item in the Baggage Area"....AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! :eek:

redscarf88

From a shopper point of view:
I too hate people standing in aisles and when you say excuse me 5 times getting louder each time they just seem so engrossed by their choice of soup they don't hear (when I know they aren't deaf of anything as they've just been talking at a normal level to their hubby/wife).

I was once in a queue and the woman behind me hit me with the trolley twice so I looked back and gave her a wide eyed 'why are you doing this look' but she kept doing it!

When the shopping assistants ask if I want a plastic bag on for example a raw chicken (I use own material bags) and I say no (save the planet) and she goes on to tell me that I should have one or just goes ahead and puts one on without asking me.

Queue jumpers!

When I'm stuck in the self checkout and no members of staff come and help. Twice in my local Asda ive picked up my stuff and gone to a normal checkout as I've been waiting so long.

Christmas supermarket shopping....it's so so packed I hate it.


From a worker view (I work part time in a medium sized coop):

People who forgot their money and say they'll get it from the car and they never come back even though I've waited for them for over 5 mins while there's a queue.

My fellow workers who are so sloooow.

People who want a bag for a tiny thing (e.g 1 choc bar) or for something that won't even fit in like a massive box of beer.

People who wait till I've scanned their things before they even think about getting their money out.

People who give me money that they just had in their mouth. :eek:

People (especially older) who won't pay by contactless which is so much quicker.

We used to have some apples as well as choc bars below the tills, a child took a big bite out of an apple and the mother told him to put it back on the shelf and she went. She didn't pay or anything! There was a big bite out of it!

I'm sure there's plenty more...