Retail Stupidity

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
521

Oh, the stupidity of shoppers. Working in retail is not good for one’s outlook on humanity.

I’ve been approached by multiple shopper asking if have"[store-brand]cheese," no problem there. But when I ask what *kind *of cheese I receive only a startled, deer-in-the-headlights look, as if the concept different kind of cheese completely blew his/her mind and caused an existential crisis.

One woman walked up to me and said, “Do you have gluten free?” We looked at each other for a beat, because that phrase is often followed by a word of phrase indicating a kind of food, like pizza or crackers or something. A bit of questioning revealed that woman’s son said he wanted to “eat gluten free” and she had apparently decided to shop for him thinking that “gluten free” was a kind of food, like bread or cheese or something. Luckily, I could help her, or so I thought, by explaining what gluten free actually meant and picking up a nearby bag of potato chips to point out the “gf” symbol. She looked thoroughly confused but didn’t have any questions so I walked away to continue working.

For the worst (so far) a bit of background is necessary. My store usually has pallets of toilet paper stacked up in a location that is visible to all, but only accessible to employees, while the TP that is for sale is near-by, with a price sign above it. In front of this stack are jugs of water, with price signs posted above them. Furthermore, in my store all price signs have the product’s brand and description printed clearly. The price of the water is far lower than the price of the TP. Oftentimes shoppers will approach me and point to the TP, asking where they can find it. No problem, “Right down this aisle, sir/ma’am/folks,” I’ll say, and all is well. One evening a fine gentleman [/sarcasm] was wandering the area, confusion writ upon his face. Seeing this, I stopped and asked, “Can I help you find anything, sir?” He said, “Yeah, where’s that toilet paper?” When I pointed him in the right direction he stopped me, saying, “Yeah but that one said [TP price], where’s the one for [water jug price]?” What I wanted to say was, “If your lazy, dumb ass would bother to read the fucking price signs, you’d know how stupid that question is, but apparently that’s beyond your abilities. Frankly, I’m surprised that you’re able to accomplish a task as complicated as turning your doorknob to leave the house. I’d ask you to do the species a favor and not breed, but from the looks of it that won’t be a problem.” I really wish I could have said that.

522

Right now there are signs on both our doors and in the aisle that say “All Holiday items are 0% off.” Not only do I get people who ask if the items are half price and if they are ringing up that way (I always answer “Of course. Just like the signs say”), but people argue over what is a “holiday item.” Only things located in the holiday aisle, not the gift bath sets or the regular red and/green gift bags are holiday items.

Nobody has mentioned the idiots who leave their items on the register’s counter, or leaving a full basket or even a cart to go back to get “one more item.” I’ve had people complain that I took the next person on the line when they left their stuff, so they had to wait. Even worst, the people who have you start ringing up their order, then go back for “one more thing.” Please do not come to the register until you are ready to have me ring up your items and you can pay for them.

523

I wonder if grocery store cashiers and baggers preferred the day when store-supplied bags were used, because they could get used to packing those, as opposed to the variety of bags brought in by customers.

524

And another thing: We cannot take back aluminum tins. I don’t know why, but three times last week I had people try to return tins. One bought the wrong size, one bought too many and never took them out of the bag, and one total idiot insisted the cashier had made a mistake and rung them up wrong. I showed her the diagram of all the tins with all the prices on it, and showed her that her tins were rung up correctly. She replied “Well, I don’t want them for that price. I want to return them.” When I pointed out there are signs in the aisle and right at the register stating “NO returns on aluminum tins” her response was “Well, I don’t see why not?”

Because the Health Dept. and the Kosher Police say so. That’s why.

525

:confused::confused::confused:

526

what is a “aluminum tin”??:confused:

527

Seriously? It’s another name for a tin can.

528

I have never heard it, and why would her store sell (empty) tin cans? Or does she mean any canned goods?

I know aluminum semi-disposable pie plates etc are sometimes called that.

529

Annie’s not British, but the British commonly call food cans “tins.” Although I suppose an Englishman would spell it as “aluminium tins.” :smiley:

530

I will wait for her answer.

531

I never heard of any prohibition on returning (unopened) cans of food before. In fact, just last month I swapped a can of evaporated milk for the condensed milk I should have bought.

Must be a state by state thing.

532

Here in NJ we call dissoluble aluminum cookware “tins.” The ones that are made of aluminum for a supposed single use. People do try to bring them back, sometimes obviously washed (shudder). The store sells them individually, and I’ve counted more tins in my lifetime than most people.

And holiday items are 50% off. Don’t ask em about it.

533

I’ve heard that some stores throw away all returned food since they don’t know how it was handled and they don’t want to take the risk. For example, maybe the person left the can of milk on their car’s dashboard in the summer heat for a week. They accept returns because they want to have good customer service, but they treat the item as a loss.

534

Good to know that the aluminum tins/pans were being sold loose - I’ve only seen them with plastic packaging. I’ve never heard of a grocery store refusing returns on* anything* that was unopened.

People even return meats and produce at my local Kroger, and they take it for customer relations purposes I’m sure, and they trash it afterwards.

I did LOL at ‘Kosher Police’ :slight_smile: Is that because other customers might think a non-kosher item could have been in the pan before it got returned? Kosher or not that’s good policy - I don’t think anyone wants a used one-use pan.

535

Thank you, that makes sense.

536

Ignorance fought. I made a wrong assumption. Thanks for the clarification and apologies to Dr Deth.

537

Yes. Some conservative Jewish people are extremely leery of cross contamination. If we accepted returns on tins, someone might wash and return the one that container their famous crab meat bacon cheese casserole. We can only eat food at the register that the store sells, and have to cover up a lot of displays for Passover. All the food we sell is kosher dairy or parvre, and it gets bagged separately.

We sell individual tins, all which have codes at the register.

538

Yes, it’s beyond my abilities. The stuff is not in focus anymore, which means I don’t notice it. If I notice it, I can focus my attention on it and work out what is says, but I don’t know it’s there because by default everything is just a blur.

And there are lots of people out there (including some I knew at school), who never learned to read not because they were dyslexic, or dumb, but because they never were given glasses.

And the people my friend used to meet at work, at the tax office, coming in to pay their quarter of a million quarterly tax bill in person, because they couldn’t read the paperwork.

Some of this stuff is actually difficult for some people, which is one reason why the store employees people like you.

539

Our store-supplied bags suck donkey balls, I’d rather have an eclectic collection of reusables because I’m tired of shit dropping out of the bottom of self-destructing bags and cleaning up messes.

540

Here is a link to images of what Americans mean by “aluminum tins”