Stupid things customers ask on Xmas Eve Eve

Newspapers, like eggs, are often difficult to find in supermarkets. In our local Tesco they are on a large wheeled trolley, which is wheeled to different spots on different days. I'm not sure what you mean by 'we're a fucking supermarket, what do you think?' Not all supermarkets sell newspapers, although most do. Perhaps it's as well you've left retail as you don't sound very tolerant of customers!

My parents used to run a newsagents shop and we lived above it. The best one was the guy who came,and knocked on the door on Christmas morning- as we were opening our presents- wanting to know why his newspaper hadn't been delivered......

But they do also tend to sell out of King Edwards and Maris Pipers (yes I know you can make roast potatoes from other varieties, but these are the two most recommended). I got my potatoes the other day, but still have to revisit for sprouts and parsnips so they are fresher. Fingers crossed.

One year I went to 5 different shops (not on Christmas Eve) that had all sold out of marzipan.

I do not have an organised mind.

I remember mindless shit and it gets added to the mindless disorganised shit in my head.

When I was at uni I did two Christmas stints at a well known supermarket on the tills. It was good money and I didn’t pay much tax as I was a student. We were told that some customers were trying to get away with not paying for crates of beer etc by placing them on the ring underneath the trolley. They told us that we needed to stand up and make sure they didn’t leave the store without paying for it.

I put the whole shopping through that they gave me and then before pressing the total I would look at the customers, most of them would give a smirk at each other thinking they would get away with it and then I would stand up, look at the trolley and get them to pick up the beer for me to scan. They never even apologised for not putting it on the belt in the first place. The amount of customers trying that on as well, so disappointing. It’s not as if it was food and they were in need. It was alcohol.

I try my best to be a good customer when I shop in person as I know what the retail staff have had to go through.

See? THIS is what I'm here for! Not people asking for bread and eggs...

(I used to work in a bank in Scotland; by 8:30am the day after Hogmanay, people would be pressed to the doors, trying to get in like it was the last helicopter out of a war zone...).

Whispers - when it says 'best before' it doesn't magically go off at the stroke of midnight. A toaster will solve most issues and you are unlikely to have penicillin at that point.

The number of people who will just bin the bread is insane.

Isn’t this The Housemaid

I once heard a bloke giving off loudly about there being no hot cross buns in Tesco on Christmas Eve. I was visiting my Dsis at the time and we both still laugh about how outraged he was!

Stop moving them then! I swear our Sainsbury’s moves them once a month just for laughs.

I love stories like this one.

They had Cadbury Creme Eggs out in B&M on Friday.

And yet I have just come back from the supermarket with bread dated 26th which was the best date available. It's nice to be nice at Xmas - especially if that's what you're paid for. It's a lot of work for all women

On Christmas Eve.

"I ordered something online yesterday have you got it?"
"My parcel is coming by Evri/DHL etc have you got it?" - standing by big red Royal Mail van
"Are you a postman?" - wearing bizarre red outfit

"Have you got a parcel for 45 Smith Street?"
"That's not on my round, that will be Claire she is delivering now, so she may have it."
"Has she got my parcel?"
"Sorry I don't know."

"It's dark tonight isn't it." Me at the front door them in their hall, not turning any lights on.

"Could you bring this back Christmas Day, the kids are here and I've nowhere to hide it?"

Delivering at 8pm this week, van straining with parcels. "Why are you working so late?"

Your're too late - bags of mini eggs and galaxy mini eggs were in Iceland when I took my NDN shopping yesterday!!

When I was a single mum (7 years), I used to hope the greengrocer had one left on Christmas Eve, because he’d usually let me have it for £1. I couldn’t afford the earlier ones. One year they’d sold out, so I put the fairy lights on my plant.
Decorating the tree (or plant) was our Christmas Eve tradition, after the christingle service.

One year, my son’s main present was a pair of goalie gloves. He remembers that year so fondly!!

No it isn't. What is stupid, and what is being criticised here, is complaining when told there are none left. I hope you and your strawman have a very happy Christmas.

I used to live next door to a big Waitrose. It became a game every year to watch the steady stream of cars trying to get into the car park on days they were shut over the festive period. And every Xmas eve there would be at least 5 cars locked into the car park which closed at a certain time. Despite the signs everywhere people just ignored them. People would try to break the steel barriers to get their car out and then get very cross when they had to abandon their cars.

Christmas brings out the crazy in so many people.

I worked in an old-fashioned chemist's, the sort that sold everything. I lost count of the number of panicked men who rushed in late on Christmas Eve, looked around and said "I'll take that". No thought process involved. Someone once tried to buy the large display bottle of perfume, which was filled with coloured water!

My DH went to the supermarket this morning, 2 days before because today is payday for him... I'm not sure if its been pointed out yet that money factors into when people can do "the big shop" before Christmas.

And agree it's not stupid to simply ask if things are in stock, it's unreasonable to take it out on staff though if the answer is no.

And what if they are in stock? And the shop could make some extra money by selling them to the customer? Would you still call the customer stupid for asking the question?

I recognise that the individual retail worker has no power to change this, but if you're being asked where the same things are over and over again then they either aren't in a logical place or they're not well signposted, no matter how it might seem to you as someone who works there. People aren't asking where they are for fun.

Lots of these just seem to be perfectly normal requests for information. "Where are the XYZ" or "Do you have any ABC" are pretty much what you'd expect to be asked in a shop. Fair enough if the customer then gets abusive, but OP and lots of PP examples just seem to be desperate to make the old "aren't customers stupid" point, and trying to find something that fits.

Not in the store I was in yesterday. Nor the one I’ll be visiting today, but I do know where they are there.

That said, I got very angry at the kidney beans in Tesco the other week. They have a whole aisle named 'tinned beans'. They were not in the tinned bean aisle or the tinned food aisle. Nope. World foods aisle? Nope. They were in the sauces aisle close to the ketchup. This is wrong. This angers me. This should not be allowed. There should be laws for misrepresentation of aisles

I go out of my way not to ask where things might be in the supermarket (must be part man, not liking to ask directions) but neither ds2 nor I were able to locate the bottled water in Sainsbury's the other day. We walked up and down the several aisles of wines/fizzy drinks/squashes/tonic waters/long-life juices and drew a blank, so were forced to ask the (frankly and understandably rather harassed-looking) assistant.

They were at the OTHER END of the store, at the front, the farthest away from the doors and at the end of the frozen foods aisle. Why, Sainsbury's? WHY??