I dunno, maybe you need to go home and live with mummy and daddy if you feel the need to have someone nannying you every step of the friggin’ way.
Your plan is stupid for two reasons. Number one, not everyone does their week’s shopping at the one store. I’ll often buy certain things like meat, frozen foods and packaged foods at one store, then bread and vegetables and dairy at other places, depending on what I need or want, and what quality of goods I can find in store. If anyone looked at any one portion of my shopping for the week, it would be massively out of proportion to what I “need” for a healthy diet. Number two, it is NOT THE CHECKOUT SERVER’S PLACE to comment on what a person is purchasing. When adults who earn their own money are spending that money on items that they want, nobody else has the right to start harassing them for what they choose to purchase - especially if that person is employed to sell the items to the person.
Even if the person is overweight and has kids in tow - if they’re buying chips and nuggets and other “junk foods” they may indeed be bad eaters. Or they may be planning for a party, and this could be a one-off purchase. You just don’t know, and they shouldn’t have to answer to “well-meaning” busybodies who feel they need to police what everyone else is doing…
When I was working as a cashier, I would never have dreamed of lecturing customers! If I saw them buying tons of junk food in fact, I usually joked about wanting to go home with them.
That would have been a good way to get my ass fired.
Yeah, we had veggies and dip and chicken salad and fruit salad and all sorts of other things too. But damned if I’m going to have a summer BBQ without some chips and Coke and beer and ice cream. Don’t like it? I’ve got crackers in the cupboard, enjoy.
Think about it - the cashier sees the pounds of sushi that you’re buying for your annual Sushipalooza party, and decides to tell you that you really shouldn’t be eating so much fish, because of all the mercury. You’ll get, like, brain tumors. And die. Or maybe she just wrinkles up her nose and says “Whoo, that stinks! Aren’t you going to buy a Glade plug-in for your poor kitchen?” Are you going to thank her for her well-meaning advice or will you be thinking that maybe she should shut the hell up?
Small talk from cashiers is fine. I actually prefer to have a little bit of exchange with them instead of just a robotic business transaction. Smile, ask me if it’s still raining, tell me that kind of cookie is really good, anything you like, unless you start criticizing me. Common sense: don’t insult your customers. You’re not going to see a salesman tell one of his customers that his tie really doesn’t match his shirt. That would lose him a sale, which is a bad thing. So why should a cashier poke fun at my food choices? Short answer: she shouldn’t.
That goes double, no, quadruple, for management. He’s the one who really pissed me off. I can sort of understand smartass behaviour from an overworked and underpaid cashier who probably doesn’t really want to be there. Not that I condone it, but I can sympathize. I’ve often wanted to bitch at people; luckily, I’m good at holding it in. But from a guy who’s running the place? Inexcusable.
For those here thinking of going to the grocery store and chastising the “register monkeys” - here’s a hearty cup of Shut The Fuck Up. Your petty complaints pale in comparison to the metric ton of shit that anyone in customer service puts up with on a daily basis. If you came into my store and started anything like that I would politely inform you to remove your whiny ass from my store post-haste before I arrange for an escort. I don’t care who started it. Nobody in my store is going to be harassed for 7 bucks an hour.
So the next time before you dismount your high-horse to engage the proletariat at their subterranean level, you may want to ask yourself if you have a legitimate reason for doing so. If so, I would kindly submit that you do it in a mature fashion to the manager on duty. That means no kicking, screaming, insults or yelling. If that is not sufficient, then feel free to write the company. Or just take your business elsewhere.
Looks like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!
Or, to be slightly less flippant, I don’t see where anyone’s suggested an inclination to kick, scream or yell, and it’s a little ungenerous on your part to assume that your fellow dopers would behave in such an unmannerly fashion. Cold stares and letters to management do not a tantrum make.
Have you actually read this thread? I mean, seriously.
Nobody’s saying the cashiers need to be bollocksed out for saying “Have a nice day” or even “Oh, that’s an interesting flavour, I’ve never tried it before but it looks nice”. The fact of the matter is that checkout staff are service staff. They are supposed to serve the customers in a polite, efficient manner. They are not supposed to insinuate that the customers are girlfriendless losers, or tell a customer they’re too fat to be eating a certain type of food. Those are personal insults, and in all of the service industries I’ve worked in (including cashiering, fast food and most recently call-centre customer service) they are just not kosher. And if the staff themselves seem unaware of what is and isn’t appropriate when one is interacting with a customer, then it is the management’s job to educate them on that.
Hey, I’ve had it happen. I don’t know if they were Dopers or not, though (at least the type that reside here).
Like, totally.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here, other that what has already been made. I’m talking about people giving rude stares and making flippant remarks towards cashiers. If you have a problem with the service, bring it up with a MANAGER. Please don’t start petty feuds with the cashier.
It was more of a joke - and really with health and obesity being a major issue in the US (and other countries), leaving it up to each person to control their own food intake is not really working is it?!
The one time I tried a home waxing kit, the wax stuck to my leg. I don’t know why, I probably screwed it up somehow. The instructions said to try… something (maybe vegetable oil?) or petroleum jelly. The first thing I tried didn’t work, so I asked my husband if he’d go to the drugstore a couple blocks away and get some petroleum jelly. So off he goes, heads to the baby supplies aisle, and picks up a jar with little pastel dinosaurs on it. We live in a very kid-oriented town (though we have none of our own), just for the record.
He heads up to the checkout, and I forget what the exact comment was, but the cashier basically insinuated that he was buying it for the purpose of anal sex, probably homosexual sex, and that this was a perverse thing. He said that if I wasn’t at home scraping at my leg and near-frantic to get the big hunk of wax off, he’d have demanded a manager after the tongue-lashing he gave her for even daring to comment on a purchase in a manner like that.
(It didn’t work, anyway. I ended up taking a kitchen knife - not a sharp one - and scraping at my leg for quite a while, under warm running water.)
Okay, I think that some of you just might be overreacting. Just maybe…
I’ve worked as a cashier and I would occasionally remark on the items people were buying. It was purely from boredom and nothing else. There’s isn’t any hidden malice here. And to be honest, it weirds me out to think of a customer fuming and posting about something I’d said on a message board, hours after it happened. How they heck do you even remember stuff like that? This stuff is almost automatic and, generally, forgotten by the speaker once it’s said. You try standing in one place 8 hours a day-- you’ll find that it’s more than a little boring.
I admit that the guy in the cigarette story was a condescending asshat. But who the hell cares what he said? He’s just a guy in a shop. Don’t get all hung up over it.
As to people commenting on your purchases in a negitave way (e.g. x item is so fattening, or you shouldn’t eat that-- it’s unhealthy), it’s really none of their business. They don’t know you or why you’re buying 4 containers of ice cream. So, why bother even getting mad?
It sounds a bit snarky, yes. However, I don’t think it’s all that insulting. In fact, I’d even say that perhaps she was hitting on you.
They say that the customer is always right. That isn’t the case. It should be; “there will always be another customer.”
One grocery store cashier told me that lowfat, reduced calorie salad dressings will not help me lose weight. He told me they are full of chemicals that will make me fat.
First, I’m not overweight. Second, I didn’t ask his opinon. Third, it’s frickin’ salad dressing. It’s not my main course at dinner.
Tell your mom never to tell anyone she is quitting. If she gets found out by a close friend, lie, and say she is “Just cutting down.” The incredible need to sabotage people who are quitting smoking is just mind boggling. I don’t think people like to see anyone exercise real strength of character without belittling something about them.
Horror stories about how aunt so as so quit smoking and died of cancer anyway. Offers of cigarettes, advice on patches, cigars, and other crap. Believe me, it pays big dividends to just never say a word about it to anyone. A year or so later, someone will ask if you quit smoking. Even then, tell them, no, but I did cut way down. I may decide to quite later.
EXACTLY. It is NONE of your damned business what people buy. Yes, service staff put up with a lot of shit, but there’s no reason to be an asshole first.
If I ever made comments about junk food, they were jokes like, “Lots of health food here, right?” And I’d smile and insist that I personally consider chocolate to be a dietary necessity.
ejtx, quite honestly, if cashiers make remarks like that, they DESERVE scorn.
Fuck you. No hidden malice here either
(just making the point that being blatently rude doesn’t need to be explained by “hidden malice,” when it is in fact blatently hostile)
Uh huh. Sure, it’s not insulting. :rolleyes: There’s nothing wrong with being a cashier or what have you and being chatty-friendly. If you can’t figure out whether or not to joke around with a customer, don’t do it.
Hell, I’m temporarily a credit union teller and one of my usual friendly jokings is “Oh, I guess you’ll want this back, huh?” as I hand them their ID. I can still tell there are some people who won’t appreciate that, and so I don’t say it to them.
Former grocery store cashier. I had crazy customers lose their shit for no reason on me.
But the difference between me and your employees is that I can be quite certain that I didn’t deserve any of it.
No. Fuck you. If another customer behind me in line decided to remark on what I was buying, I’d be appalled. If a cashier did it, you can bet there would be some nasty comeback coming their way before I recovered my dignity. If you defend your employees against unreasonable members of the public, good for you. But if you permit your employees to be so mind-bogglingly rude to your customers, you certainly don’t have any right to act shocked when customers respond in kind. If you’re concerned about this thread, it means you’re concerned that your employees are not conducting themselves in a professional or even remotely socially-acceptable way. In that case, the problem is you and the obviously insufficient training you’re providing your employees.
Hopefully, you will not keep your job for long, as your higher-ups will catch on to the incredibly poor job you’re apparently doing at operating your business.
It sounds a bit snarky, yes. However, I don’t think it’s all that insulting. In fact, I’d even say that perhaps she was hitting on you.