Baggers who put the raw meat in with everything else. Baggers who put ham and salami in with the raw meat and who roll their eyes when I take it out.
The idiot boy who works on a Saturday afternoon in my local Woolies and who cannot run a creditcard slip through properly. It’s not that hard dickweed, and it really is time you figured it out.
And a hearty hahahaha! to the old trout who was giving me a hard time and whose roast chicken got put in my shopping bag. If you hadn’t been so busy being rude to me because your strawberries got mixed up with my strawberries because you were too dumb to use the plastic dividing bar, then I might have noticed the chicken being put in my bag. I don’t know if you ended up paying for it but I certainly didn’t!
Just came back from the store tonight, here is my tale.
I had picked out 30 or so items, no particular troubles in the store, and the blood pressure machine said I was healthy. Normally I am a strict believer in the “10 items or less” rules, so I glance across the 15 checkout lanes and see only two with the “I’m Open” lights on. One is a 10 item express lane, the second is a 15 item express lane. Great! I ask the kid at the nearest lane for guidance, indicating my large cart, and she says “Oh, it’s OK”. Glancing around, I see no one behind me, so I unload. As we begin, I’m busted by a lady behind me with six items. Now I’m one of them…
By the way, I can’t stand it when the checker can’t identify the veggies. Or asks me what I do with raddichio…
Been there, done that. Didn’t quite make it to a knock-down-drag-out, but I was fondly caressing a full can of green beans while calling someone an unkind name.
I also agree with what everyone else has said pretty much.
Now, if I’m the only one in line, I don’t mind answering those questions, because I feel that I might be helping some young person choose his or her career. But if there is a line, and I start hearing those long drawn-out sighs behind me, I just give the short answer: “No, I’m not a doctor, these are herring filets and they are very good, in my opinion.”
Nothing against checkers, but sometimes a smile and a cheerful “hey” of recognition is all I need, and surely those Moms and Dads behind me who are waiting to get home to dinner appreciate it too.
And now for something completely different: I was once at Wal-Mart and noticed a checker in tears and fidgeting. When I asked her what was wrong she told me she had a kidney infection, needed to use the bathroom frequently, but couldn’t get anyone to relieve her (I was in my hospital scrubs at the time). Yeah, she probably should have stayed home, but that’s beside the point. Sometimes those damn store managers are real sadistic assholes.
Back to the pet peeves department…
When a new register is opened, and more than one person leaves the line you are last in, is it “first come, first served”, or do you allow the person in front of you to be the first in line at the new register? I figure they’ve been in line longer than me, so I do the polite thing and let them go ahead. If I have just 2-3 items and they have more, then they turn that favor right back around and let me go ahead. It all works out.
In my previous post I left out the outcome of the Wal-Mart employee’s predicament: The lady behind me and I went to the customer service area and demanded they get someone to replace this poor girl, and I wrote a letter to store management. In retrospect, I probably should have written it to their home office instead, because I never heard back from it.
One of the Tescos I shop at recently got rid of all but one of its scales in the produce department, replacing them with signs that say “Weigh your produce at checkout!” Well, that’s lovely if you just need it weighed to figure out how much it costs, not so great if you need it weighed to make sure you have enough mushrooms or whatever for your recipe. So anyway the last time I tried to use the one remaining scale my path was blocked by some woman’s shopping cart. I moved the cart just enough to clear a path to the scale and sure enough she snapped: “You can do that at checkout!” If there’s any justice, she would have ended up in the queue behind someone who realised at checkout that they didn’t have enough mushrooms, and had to run back to get more …
Baggers. As a general rule, we don’t have them over here - you bag your own groceries. On some really busy days they’ll put in extra staff to do it for you. What I hate, though, is when they allow local charity groups to do it, because then you feel obligated to throw your change in their bucket. I really don’t like being pressured to support a charity.
We don’t really have the problem of people leaving their trolleys all over the parking lot because you can’t use a trolley without a £1 deposit, so you have to replace your trolley in order to get your pound back. But I really wish that Tesco would put in a change machine near the corral. It’s frigging annoying getting there and having to queue at customer service before you can do any shopping!
Supermarkets without cart corrals, and no one wants to take your groceries out for you. Our local Publix is like that. “Because of the way the parking lot is laid out…” is the reason given for no cart corrals, so one has to walk his/her cart all the way back into the store, although this is rarely done, and so the carts are left standing precariously against those concrete parking barriers.
If I’m in a hurry (usually before work), I have asked the bagger to take my groceries to the car for me and endured the dirty look the kid gave me and said, “Well you guys don’t have a cart corral, and the sign says taking my groceries to the car is a free service with no tip expected, so let’s go!”
If you’re gonna hit me up for money on my way in or out of the store, make sure you can identify who you’re raising money for! The Salvation Army does it in a big way, so I’m sure that smaller charities can manage a name tag with a logo, and a document from the store stating they have approval to raise money there.
Many’s the time I’ve been approached by a surly youth asking, “Wanna buy some donuts for the church?” Well what church??? And anybody can go to Krispy Kreme, lay down 25 bucks and make 50 back. Not saying that they all do this, just that there is major opportunity for a scam.
*pant, pant, pant *
I think I’m done. Did any of the rest of y’all wanna say somethin’?
This is more of a retail store thing, but hear me out anyway. I hate it when the cashiers don’t know how how to run the friggin’ register. An item rings up wrong, you bring it to their attention, it takes a good half-hour before anybody can figure out what to do. Is management so lazy that they can’t show the cashiers how to do their job?
My peeves: 1) Sales people who come up and ask you repeatedly if you need something, when you just want to browse and then are miraculously sucked down through the floor whenever you DO need help. Along the same lines, I can’t stand it when sales people watch your every move suspiciously while you shop. I KNOW that they have to keep an eye on things, but, honestly, I’ve felt like a criminal when all I wanted to do was look around a bit. I am always terrified that something might catch on my clothing and then they’ll have security on my rear!
2) Cashiers who, after taking your money, ask, “Do you have change?” What, are you too lazy to dig $.37 from your register? I always want to answer, “F*** no, I don’t have change, you lazy asshole!” But I’m nicer than that (I suppose).
3) Customers who (often loudly and viciously) berate cashiers because of high prices, store policy, etc. CASHIERS HAVE NO SAY IN THESE MATTERS!!! Complain to the management if you have a problem–you won’t get anywhere bitching at a cashier and you are holding up the line and embarrassing other customers as well. Grow UP!!!
You know when you’re examining the items on a shelf and you notice someone pushing their trolley down the aisle towards you? And you politely step back to allow them to pass you? And instead of passing you, they stop the trolley right in front of you to look at the items on that same shelf?
I just want to say, to the people who get miffed at “old people”, that for some of them, it’s a major effort to go shopping at all. They don’t have to be in a wheelchair to be handicapped as compared to a 30-year-old. For some, by the time they have made their lists, walked to pick up the stuff, and gotten to the check-out area, it’s been like running a marathon. I say, quit worrying about the ten minutes you’ve lost from your day, and be grateful you’re still young.
-Another
firstly, I really dislike grocery shopping! So often I’m not in the best of moods while there.
I agree with all the usual peeves (too many items in the express lane, carts left in the middle of the aisle, etc.), but here are a few of my own:
-You pick what seems like the shorter line, but uh oh… wait a minute… the person just ahead of you checking out has WIC coupons! More often than not, they’ve gotten the wrong items to use with the coupons (even though there are signs by the correct items stating they are for WIC!), so then the cashier has to help them get the right ones. LOL And not meaning to be un-PC here, but also more often than not, there is a language barrier, so it takes even longer! Honestly, this happened to me twice in a row, and now I check to see if the people standing in front of me have WIC coupons. Or avoid lines where folks have -alot- of cheese in their carts. (BTW, WIC is a program that provides certain foodstuffs for women and children up to age 5–it’s mostly cheese, milk, cereal, things like that)
-I’m not sure what folks are talking about on their cell phone in the grocery store (perhaps checking w/home on what they need? LOL should have written a list down, doh!), but they’re not impressing anyone that they’re important, that’s for sure.
-The stores themselves aggravate me sometimes by piling stuff up -in- the aisles; this is especially a problem in the older stores where the aisles aren’t very wide in the first place. Ever bumped into one of those displays and sent them tumbling…? Talk about embarassing! And it’s unsafe too.
LOL At least I’m not the old trout (yet!) making snide remarks and giving other (younger) shoppers the evil eye!
IMO they don’t have an excuse for being rude just because they’re old. All of us have problems, but try that nudging with the cart crap when you’re younger, and you’ll likely wind up with a fat lip. I remember times near the end of my second pregnancy when I was exhausted and in a lot of pain, but that wouldn’t have excused sheer rudeness–maybe a LITTLE impatience and irritablilty, but only that.
Just as we adults should be examples to our children on how to behave (especially toward the elderly), the elderly should be an example to the younger generation on how to behave with decency and grace.
Oh, it doesn’t. Sorry, I wasn’t making much sense. I was thinking about an old person fumbling through her purse (thus holding up the rest of the line) because whe just couldn’t think straight. And then I switched from mental frailty to physical frailty.
And then I went to bed.
-Another
