Yes, you should have. There is no excuse for treating a honest query with such venom, ever. I have worked in sales several times and I know that some customers deserve this kind of thing, but a statement such as this is unexcuseable.
I see you’re in the UK, but here in the US, the bread stocks, and some other products are very rarely stocked by store employees (house brands being an exception). They are generally stocked by the vendor (or a company contracted to do so), which delivers the product. They are usually fairly low skilled jobs, which don’t particularly pay well (though some drivers can do all right, if they hustle.)
I’d bet he heard that same question, and after the 30000th time explaining that it was out of his control but due to rising prices of grain, and transportation, finally had enough.
If this was a trend, that would be unacceptable, but every once in a while, you want to “give someone a sign”, and when you can’t, one could be tempted to give a snotty answer.
Maybe he got bad company news, or had a fight with his wife/girlfriend/mistress/lover, or some other generally bad thing happened to him, and the normally sweet guy really didn’t want to spend the time giving you a geopolitical lecture around the local price of bread.
He was a jerk, but once in a while folks have a bad day.
He should have been more polite, but why on Earth did you expect him know why the prices were higher? If British supermarkets are run anything like American supermarkets the prices are set by a group of marketing people who have no contact at all with anyone actually works in the store. A store manager might have some discretion regarding marking down damaged product or stuff that’s about to expire, but that’s it. All the floor staff need to know about prices is where to put what sticker. That’s all they’re told. I deal with the same thing with gas prices. There’s a 50/50 chance I’ll get cursed at by a passing car whenever I go out to change the sign.
I’ll agree to most of the last three sentences (though he’s human; if he’s had a shitty awful day and some of it leaks out, that happens. It’s not ideal and it shouldn’t happen, but it does).
But not the first.
You really expect to get an answer about why bread costs have risen from a stock boy? You’re the same kind of person who yelled at me, the cashier, when gas first rose above $2/gallon here and I was ringing up their sales. Yeah, sure, I set the prices. :rolleyes:
Maybe if you had asked about money instead of mumbling some crazy nonsense about rising “p,” he would have given you a straight answer. You might as well have asked him why the mangoes had risen in “yur ohs,” or some other made-up word.
Well look at it this way. He works there, I shop there so it isn’t unreasonable to assume that he just may have a better idea than I do why prices are up.
OK Maybe I was the eleventythousandth customer to ask him the same question, still no reason for him to snap at me.
For what it’s worth, I’m ignoring the actual facts here and choosing to remember the exchange this way:
chowder: Why is the price of a sliced loaf up so much since last week?
knobhead: Gentle customer, the price increase you see on bread is due to the effin’ rise in flour prices. Crikey, in the last 10 months alone the bleedin’ cost of flour has increased by about 300 percent, what with wheat prices all at sixes and sevens. And why, you may ask, are wheat prices arse over tit? There are several reasons. Ethanol production is increasing the demand for other grains, so many wheat farmers are taking the piss and growing other crops. Worldwide, harvests have been bollocks and now many countries can’t be arsed to export wheat anymore, further driving up the price. Add in the recent increases in transportation costs that have us all brassed off, and Bob’s your uncle, bread is up 13p. Now bugger off.
My wife just started working in produce for a large supermarket chain here in the southlands. Part of her training was customer service, and she was told that even if she has to simply say 'I don’t know" to a customer, to do it in a friendly and professional manner regardless of what she was doing at the time. If she would use foul language in front of a customer, I’m sure it would be grounds for immediate dismissal. I find it hard to believe that a supermarket in the UK would be uncaring about how their staff – shelf-stocker or otherwise – talk to their patrons.
I would have reported him. Back in the day when I worked as a checkout girl I was always polite and friendly towards the customers. One total bitch dug her nails into my hand and reported me to my managers. I was friendly, helpful and polite to her (even asked if she required help with her packing) but to this day I have no idea why she was so horrible to me and reported me. On top of this she was given a £25 gift card and I was given into trouble. It seems to me that all the buttholes that are rude to customers seem to get away with it but folks like me who are in the wrong place at the wrong time get crapped on! (now breathe)
If British supermarkets are run anything like American supermarkets the prices are set by a group of marketing people who have no contact at all with anyone actually works in the store. A store manager might have some discretion regarding marking down damaged product or stuff that’s about to expire, but that’s it. All the floor staff need to know about prices is where to put what sticker. That’s all they’re told. I deal with the same thing with gas prices. There’s a 50/50 chance I’ll get cursed at by a passing car whenever I go out to change the sign.