Fed up with supermarkets

But Nd and disabled people have the right to work to if they can so people need to be mindful that sometimes not everything is going to be perfect. And we all need to be a little more patient and helpful. I work in a supermarket and I have a lot of nd/disabled colleagues and its great to see yes they may need a little extra help and they may not be perfect all the time just like everyone else. Op didn't say anything about the worker being nasty or rude just a bit overwhelmed on how to deal with the situation.

That’s the implication of what you said. That OP and others should stop plan their life around shit service. Rather than service being of a consistent standard 7 days a week.

At this rate they might aswell abandon the scanning gadgets as what's the point of it, a whole trolley check wow ..,.
We went to Asda the other day and they did a 10 item check, we had scanned a watermelon to check for the price only and forgot to take it off...so we ended up paying more for our shop as we only noticed back at home.

Our local supermarket does 12 items check. Once they wanted me to do queue at the till for a full rescan because the machine broke down, it was relatively big shop with my toddler and baby in the pushchair already tired: I unloaded everything in a shopping trolley and left. Staff member was pissed off but it wasn't really my problem if their equipment don't work.

I did learn a lesson that day and would never use the self-scan system for a whole week shopping. Particularly with my kids in tow.

But I also think it was just a bad idea on your part, and unnecessary. You could have placed your order online minus a couple of days worth shopping, and take your DC out to supermarket for that. Or teach him how to place the order online. Knowing how to do a big shop at the supermarket isn t a necessity anymore.

Absolutely no-one thinks that it's okay to put the food on the floor. They probably think you've got a tongue in your head and should simply have told the staff that in order to do the re-scan they would have to bring you another trolley. It should have been pretty straightforward to solve.

There should be no need for you to leave your child alone while you fetch it yourself, although this does beg the question how on earth is she going to cope with going away to uni at 18 if she can't stand still for three minutes in a supermarket while you fetch a trolley, or if she can't run and fetch it for you, at 16 years old?

As it was, you ended up going through a normal till so it really wasn't the big drama you are making out. I don't understand why you'd sit in the car and cry over it.

You need to check your local supermarkets and see when they have quiet hour. This will help your son gradually get used to the process and it won’t be so overwhelming for him. I know it doesn’t help much now because you’ve been yesterday but I work retail and a Sunday wouldn’t be the time I’d pick to get him familiar with shopping. My eldest is autistic and hates supermarkets, if I take him shopping he’s like something from supermarket sweep because his aim is to get in and out as fast as possible so I do understand your situation but unfortunately when they do the checks it doesn’t exclude you because they are picked at random. They should have a proper area for you to put things though, that’s a poor show from them.

Yes thats why Im now wondering if the staff member has SEN/LD of some description because of the way OP describes them just standing there, not acting, bit clueless. Sounds like that there is something else going on for them.

Come on....no one is berating the OP but you can't possibly expect tolerance for yourself and not see how could the staff member possibly have flunked this....poor training, first time dealing with this sort of situation, or even the staff member having a disability/ mental impairment too! The world is imperfect unfortunately and you can't expect that everything will go exactly as you expect it to go, unfortunately having a disability does not entitle you to that certainty....

I have an ND child.

in a similar situation I would have built up to this.

so rather than doing a whole weeks’ shopping at once I would have split up the tasks.

so first time in might be buy a mars bar at the self service tills with cash.
then a small item with card

once used to that then I’d start to build up to getting a few items and using bags (the bags often need checking).

I suppose one way to look at it, is that your DC might learn one day (when out shopping on their own) that this may have to happen sometimes so the fact that it happened with you there is all part of the learning/ first experience/ process for them.

I wouldn’t be happy to piling the shopping on the floor. If this ever happens again and if there are no check outs available I would suggest getting another big trolley and scanning everything from one trolley to the next.

When you sign up to do scan and go you agree to their terms and conditions if you dont agree dont use it. Its as simple as that.

Perhaps the member of staff was ND and struggles with some of their day to day tasks.

Where i work you only get a full rescan if you haven't scanned something. Sometimes its a genuine mistake and one item in a £200 shop or they've scanned something multiple times rather then individually that are different flavours of something. Other times people have "accidentally" forgot to scan 30/40 items

To be fair, unless the customer is being stroppy or making it difficult etc that wouldn't be necessary.

Very few people get full rescans anyway.

You were treated badly. No one should be made to feel that way in the supermarket when they've done nothing wrong.

I always use the handheld self scan in Sainsbury's. It's our nearest big supermarket too. I've not been checked in a long time but what I've noticed is that if you do anything different to normal, it flags you up for checking e.g. doing a big shop in store when you normally use online. You get checked more when you first start using it too. If it's the first time, I think they almost always check you. Another thing I've noticed is that if you change your mind and take anything off, it can sometimes trigger a check. I don't think I've had the full trolly check since the first time I used it though.

It doesn't take away that it was a horrible experience for you and you clearly got a really clueless staff member. You should definitely complain via email as they need to be aware of how it affects people when the staff are badly trained to deal with an awkward situation.

I shop there regularly - never been an issue. Had many part shop rescans since then. I did say if they could rescan it and put it aside for me I'd come back but had a child to collect. . I really didn't want to abandon my shop of over an hour and a full trolley but after 10mis of waiting for staff I had no option.

I switched away from online when the price hike in delivery coincided with an aldi opening very locally but have recently swtich back as I was forever shopping and it cost a fortune!

Well, like anything, you learn from experience. You won't use the self-scan there again.

Five years ago I was stopped by security as I left a self-scan area. I didn't have a receipt, having pressed the option on screen to say I didn't want one. Luckily for me I'd had reason to interact with a member of staff whilst I was paying, and she vouched for me. From that day to this, I ALWAYS print a receipt, no matter how little I have spent. There is no way I am putting myself through that shit again.

You live and learn. There's a lot in your post that can easily be slotted into the "what can we do differently next time?" box.

I'm sure it is, but I'm also sure it's what honest shoppers do when they are pressed for time, on the school pick up or whatever. This is why I just don't use them. I got caught with a full re-scan once or twice and it was such a faff it put me off using them altogether.

Especially this time of year lots of new young staff working before going to uni. You dont get much training in a supermarket you just kind of get thrown in

Ah right. You used "they" and "them" throughout so I assumed two or more children. Not sure that singular gendered pronouns really compromise anonymity very much!

I bet they have your photo now of who to look out for as this is what shoplifters do when their caught out and know they haven't scanned things

It just sounds like the staff member was a bit clueless then?

It's not a deep issue with sainsburies, just one staff member who didn't know what they were doing, these things happen. It's not really something to get angry about.

That's what the shop lifters do when they know they've been caught out