People at the supermarket who bug you

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’m a cashier at a grocery store—and I’m also a customer. I wholeheartedly agree with your pet peeves!

Cashiers who lick their fingers to separate the bags: I’ve only seen this once, but GROSSS! Human saliva is a dirty thing. Money is even dirtier. After handling cash all day (not to mention leaky packs of raw meat), what kind of germs get in your mouth when you do this??

Most slow lines in our store are attributed tho customers who either take off during their order to get more stuff, hunt around in their purse for 10 minutes to find 10 bucks in unrolled change, or who forget their wallets in the car. It’s pain in the ass for both customers and the cashier! And if you don’t know how to use a debit card, please bring cash. Or a credit card. Or anything else!!

Express lane violations: one of my personal peeves. 90% of the time I catch the customer in time, and I’m able to send them away (I’ve heard some nasty language over this one, but suck it up you baby. 9 or less means just that.) But if they’ve started unloading already, I’m not supposed to say anything. I could just cheer when a customer behind them loudly complains about people who can’t count. PLEEAAAASE give the violator a hard time! The cashier will heartily approve!

Price checks suck. Period. They take too frigging long. Tell me how much you think it is, and if it sounds reasonable, I’ll charge you that.

Kids at the supermarket: if they’re well behaved, by all means, bring 'em. If they’re overtired or having a tantrum, take them out to the car until they calm down. Nobody needs to hear that. And it’s not cute to let them ride the conveyor belt. It’s dangerous (very easy to get a finger or something stuck in it, I speak from experience). And nobody want to put their groceries down where your kid’s wet nappy was. Ick.

One thing I have to apologise for: the harassment as soon as you come in. If a customer wants help they’ll ask for it, so for god’s sake leave them alone and let them browse. I dislike the forced cheerfullness as much as you do. The customers are not fooled. If left to my own devices, I’d naturally be friendly and businesslike with you. I HAVE to thank you by name ( think a “thank you, have a great day” should suffice), and ask you if you want your 2 bags of bread carried out, like you are some delicate flower that can’t lift more than 2 pounds at a time. It’s that damned secret shopper program! But that’s another post entirely.

22

I get homicidal when some idiot leaves his cart in the MIDDLE of the aisle while looking for something on the shelf, so I have to stand there and wait for him to find the right brand of pork rinds before I can move.

It drives me nuts when the cashier reads the packaging on whatever I’m trying to buy, or worse, reads the magazine or newspaper I’m trying to buy. Or comments on what I’m buying (“Do you really eat these veggie burgers?” No, I use them for paperweights.). Just ring up the freakin’ groceries and let me go home. I also hate it when the cashiers and/or baggers gripe about their jobs, hours, break time, co-workers, etc. while they’re checking me out or bagging my stuff.

23

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Vinnie Virginslayer *
**

Hoo, boy. Glad I wasn’t involved in that thread!

Sheri

24

Guess what-at Kmart, they won’t ALLOW us to enforce the express lane-can you BELIEVE that? I’ve tried-and was threatened with a write up for being rude. Argh-it’s not worth it.

:frowning:

http://www.customerssuck.com

Another thing-when I used to ask people if they wanted paper or plastic-
I want a bag.

Well, what kind of bag?

the one with the handles. (now, we had paper bags with handles, that our customers loved, so 9 times out of 10 they were asking for that. HOWEVER, since this was a major pet peeve of mine, I’d string them along)

Well, they both have handles-which one?

The shopping bag.

WHICH ONE???

Paper.

Fucking dumbass! Or the time a woman said she wanted a bag-I preceded to give her paper-that’s not a bag, that’s a sack.
AAAAHHHHH!!! Paper or Plastic, folks! It’s not a major life altering decision!

I’m SO glad KrapMart has only plastic bags-our customers suck enough as it is.

-People who bitch and moan about the store putting in self-check outs-“I called Giant Eagle’s head office and complained when they put them in…blah blah blah…” Guess what, bitch? They aren’t holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use them, are they? If you don’t like them-DON’T. FUCKING. USE. THEM.

25

Stork Parking? Never heard of it.

Besides the things mentioned, the thing that makes my temper come out is people who can’t wait for you to finish picking something. Look, I’m only going to take 30 seconds to find the peanut butter I want, for God’s Sake, get the hell away from me! People who edge in closer, until they’re just inches from my shoulder, are going to cause me to be arrested for assult one of these days…

giggling and picturing Mr Rogers with Trolley at the supermarket. I’m tired, leave me alone :stuck_out_tongue:

26

Don’t worry. You’re not the only one. :slight_smile:

The people at the supermarket that bug me the most are those checkout people who feign politeness. If they genuinely want to thank me for shopping there, great. If they’re just saying thanks because they are required to, well, it’ll probably show and they should just be quiet and ring up my purchases. (I know this is rarely their fault. Most of them are probably required to say thanks no matter what. To me, this is pointless, and is almost never convincing.)

27

My “favorite” :rolleyes: people are cashiers who flirt with customers and bagboys. I’ve seen female cashiers flirt with men who have rather large wedding rings on. It’s inappropriate and unappealing. It’s also a good reason for me to find a different supermarket.

Robin

28

Fascinating.

The store makes a rule, to be followed on its property: Fifteen items or less in this line.

People that ignore this rule for their own selfish benefit are univerally despised by Vinnie.

The store makes a rule, to be followed on its property: Stork parking - this space reserved for expectant moms or parents with infants.

People that ignore THIS rule are… well, I guess they ARE Vinnie.

  • Rick
29

I hate other all shoppers. I used to shop at 2 a.m. It was great; the store was almost empty, and I just had to manuever around a few boxes and store employees restocking the shelves.

Now I’m living with someone who likes to go to the store at 5 or 6 p.m. Oh god, there are so many people at that hour. Slow old people, chatty busybodies, and entire families for whom the store seems to be some kind of cut-rate amusement park. I want to kill them all.

If we had a car I’d let him experience that misery by himself, but it takes both of us to get the groceries home on the school shuttle.

30

People who are shocked that they actually have to pay for this stuff and so must rummage around for money or a check when the cashier gives them the total. That just drives me nuts.
Also the one family traffic jam. It takes three of them to do the shopping and they must walk side by side taking up the entire aisle. They also walk very slowly while loudly chatting.

31

I know I’ve already posted my complaints, but I have new ones!!

I went to the local IGA last night (I think it stands for “Idiots Gathering Around”). I swear, it must be real easy to keep a job there because the same morons are always working there. Mostly stoner high school boys, like my bagger. He never asked me if I wanted my stuffed bagged, because he was busy talking to his friends from school. Shut up and tend to your work!!

32
      • I work at a grocery store, so all of you annoy me. -I normally only work third shift though, so most of you aren’t around.
  • One thing that is annoying is people who abandon carts with frozen items in them, particularly (expensive) frozen seafood. This is a major problem where I work, and management suspects it is not accidental.
    Leaving carts filled with regular shelf items is no big deal, there’s people to put that stuff back, and they can take all day to do it.
    And particularly, I am not that person.
    ~
    Another might be people who drop and break stuff, and then don’t bother to tell any of the store employees. Manager gets pissed if he finds something on the floor before we do. - MC
33

Three of them:

Kroger where I used to live had, as near as we could tell, vigilante senior citizens. If you were younger, and standing in front of them in any line, nevermind that you had gotten there waaay ahead of them, they would hit you in the back of your legs repeatedly. Actually caused me to threaten an old lady with bodily harm at one point. Not a fine moment in my life.

I hate stores that close the check yourself lanes late at night. I go to the store, at around midnight, to pick up three or four items. One lane open, and of course, many full carts ahead of me. Right next to all this is 8 check yourself lanes, all closed. The one person running my lane could have been running those, and we all could have gotten out of there quicker.

Already mentioned, but the it’s the same thing, so it doesn’t count as multiple items syndrome. Actually had a woman come to the express line with 50 boxes of Jello. When I said that was ridiculous, she said it was all one item. Nevermind that it was different flavors, which caused all of them to be scanned anyway. Sigh…

34

All the solicitors that line up just outside the entrance to the market, asking for donations or whatever. They know you can’t avoid them there. I feel like I’m running a gauntlet just trying to do my weekly shopping.

People who, when entering the store, stop just inside of the automatic doors to review their shopping list/check their coupons/count their money/see if they have a pulse, etc. Can’t you just move ahead ten more paces before you do that? You’ve caused a traffic jam of shoppers trying to get into the store here!

People who slog slowly back to their cars RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE DRIVING LANE instead of to one side so that cars may pass. Dolt! See those large machines on all sides? They’re called “cars.” They drive here. They’ll drive right over you if you don’t move to one side!

35

diku wrote:

“Kroger where I used to live had, as near as we could tell, vigilante senior citizens. If you were younger, and standing in front of them in any line, nevermind that you had gotten there waaay ahead of them, they would hit you in the back of your legs repeatedly…”

Forgive me, d, but I don’t get the gist of your post. Do the oldsters do this on purpose, or accidentally? Are they trying to get you to let them go ahead of you on the check-out line?

If they’re doing it on purpose, I say slug 'em. “Take that, grandma!”

36

Geez, I wish one WOULD flirt with me. Of course I’ve been married so long I probably wouldn’t know it if they did.

Pretty much all of my gripes have been covered. I’m probably guilty of all of them myself, except for parking in handicapped spaces-Iused to work with handicapped people, and I know how important those spaces are.

37

I had a good flirt going with one of the cashiers at the grocery store back when I was in college. Enough so that I would invite her over to my place after work (ahhh, those early 20’s hormones) each time I saw her. Well one day she actually took me up on it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home. But my roommate WAS, and she ended up dating HIM for about six months. GRRRR

38

This is a weird peeve that I’ve only recently cultivated, because I’ve never seen it anywhere else except for my neighborhood Pathmark.

It seems that many people who shop in this store have a strange adversion to using those plastic check-out bars (good grief, do these things have a name? the things you put after your food on the conveyor belt so the check-out person knows when your food stops and the next person’s food begins).

If I am the third person in line, I notice that the second person in line waits until all of the first person’s food is rung up – she WILL NOT begin unloading her cart any sooner, even though there is plenty of room on the conveyor belt and she could just use one of the plastic things provided by the fine folks at Pathmark. It takes more time to unload this way, as the cashier is often waiting for items to come out of the cart.

So I, of course, want to exercise my right to use the plastic thingy, and put it where it belongs and start unloading my cart as soon as there is room on the belt, leaving plenty of personal space between my food and her food. The woman ahead of me is now looking at me with DAGGERS in her eyes. You would think I was spitting on her food.

This happens every time I go to the store. How is it possible that there is one little enclave in the world where people don’t use the plastic thingys? Was there a terrible plastic thingy accident of Stephen King-like magnitude back in the 1920s, and now no one uses the plastic thingys? How can this be?

39

Yeah, stuyguy, they did it on purpose. They felt that you were younger, you should move out of the way, and let them get in line ahead of you. I calmly explained to one grandmother that she wouldn’t be getting much older if she hit me again (this was after about three minutes of constant battering).

40

People, generally elderly, that insist on paying with exact change…and of course wait until everything has been scanned before they even bother to ever so slowly take their purse off of their shoulder and ever so slowly search for their wallet…

People that argue the price of each and every single item they buy as it is scanned.

People that try to pull a fast one on the cashier by stacking things underneath the shopping cart, and get pissy when the cashier notices and rings it up.

People that peruse the magazine/book rack, and damage the periodical…but then just put it back for someone else to unknowingly buy and wonder what happened to the rest of page 57.

Cashiers (and I know this is generally a store policy, I don’t blame the cashiers) that thank you for shopping at their store and read your name off of your debit receipt and invariably screw it up no matter how simple it is to pronounce.

Cashiers (again, I understand it’s store policy, but it’s so easy to shoot the messenger) that ask you if you found everything okay. What if I say no? Do I get a free guided tour of your facility and an aisle by aisle map?

Shopping late at night, which I do to avoid many of the above situations, and when ready to check out being unable to locate a cashier anywhere. If I weren’t such an honest person…