Stupid things customers ask on Xmas Eve Eve

I see reduced crackers on sale for ages after Christmas Day every year. My MIL deliberately looks for them then to save money and keep them until the next Christmas. Clearly lots of places still have them in stock. They're massively popular.

For me it was always the Boxing Day sales that brought out the worst in humanity. I could deal with the questions about stock before Christmas because it got me off the shop floor for a little bit and I did used to like having a chat with customers at the tills. But Boxing Day sales, my god, horrific.

When I used to work in retail the question that always got me was 'but why are you closing early, its Christmas eve!' It's almost as if they didn't think of the staff as real people, with their own lives to go home to.

A lot of people do still seem to shop late for food with a plan that they'll get lots of generously reduced stock. However that's not been the case in major stores for about twenty years, the computer systems that manage stock are very good at predicting the amount needed to reduce the likelihood of losses (for seasonal items) and for fresh, most major stores are only closed for two days if that, so there's not going to be loads. I can sympathise with people who rely on a bit of a discount or are looking for bonus additions but we certainly had plenty of men who used to think they were being really clever leaving it to the last minute so they'd get a half price dinner and then being shocked that we didn't have the most popular items waiting with yellow stickers on them.

I disagree. Retired retail worker but as a customer i always look for the longest dated bread and everything else with a date on. It's not rocket science to note how far in advance you can ordinarily get stuff.

The whole world does not end due to a lack of Cranberry sauce.

Also there's a Christmas song that reminds you of what you should do:

Oh, you better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

Oh, he's making a list
And he's checking it twice
He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

Check your list twice and be nice not naughty.

Nope. It's still ahead of time. Perfectly reasonable to expect them to remain in stock throughout the Christmas period. Which only starts in two days, not ends then.

It's really not stupid to ask whether a shop still has something in stock. I can think of a zillion reasons why someone wouldn't be looking for them until the day before that don't involve lack of planning or stupidity, and even if they did forget about, or made a last minute decision about, getting crackers, it's not a personal failing or a sign of low intelligence. So they've gone out and they've asked a shop floor staff member whether they still have any. It's not stupidity.

I used to work in retail including over Christmas. I never thought customers were stupid for asking where to find something or whether we still had any X in stock.

erm no. I vary my menu every year, so no, why would I get the same stuff every year. And also, I get the extras from my xmas bonus, so September isn't an option. Start of the school year here, tons of expenses.

Things like crackers etc are needed every year. You know that if you’re hosting you need them. Turning up just before Christmas and expecting them to be in stock is stupid.

Me every year: don’t suppose you have any gift tags left?

[ In my defence, asked DH to buy them this year without specifying how many needed - he bought 6 packs of 6… there are 7 of us. Even if only one gift bought each that is 7x7=49. He’s the global head of his financial function in a FTSE100 company FFS!!! ]

it’s not a stupid question of course. Stupid might be having a tantrum if there are none left on Christmas Eve at 3 pm. But simply asking a question like that is not stupid.

Of course you don't necessarily need the same things every year. You might be hosting a vegan or someone who has allergies one year as just one of many possible reasons why things might change from year to year.

They'll be on the shelves on Boxing Day - probably in the stock room already 😂

PRICELESS!

When I worked at Asdas my dad kindly offered to drive me in and pick me up for the Christmas Eve shift one year. It was a 24 hour Asdas normally but it was widely publicised that on Christmas Eve we shut at 7pm.

Our security guys were excellent at stopping people from coming in from about 6.45 onwards.

By about 7.30 I'd finished and got out to where my dad was waiting in the car park. He was having great fun watching people park up, put a pound in the big trolleys - not the little ones - and then stare totally aghast at the shuttered doors. There were quite a few of them too.

I can't comprehend why you'd wait until after 7pm on Christmas Eve to do your food shop. It's insanity. And it wasn't just one or two unlucky people who'd been caught out either, it was a fairly steady stream.

I thought the PP meant Easter eggs

I know which one that is.

Thankyou! This has reminded me my indoor tree lights have gone off and Amazon has also saved the day for me!

Yes, but if the customer isn't that fussed that you've sold out then so what? It still doesn't make the basic question about whether something is in stock (and that, whilst a festive item, is usually in stock until at least NYE because they're not just for xmas day) "stupid".

If you work in retail then you don't deserve any of the awful treatment that many customers dish out, but answering basic questions like that is literally part of your job 🙄

But I , and by the sounds of it most of the posters here, didn’t know that! So not a stupid question at all.

I know. But they are often associated with each other and would seem a logical place to put them in a supermarket.

Well, maybe they should have longer dated bread, god knows there are cakes dated longer! And with on line business taking over, and being told to go online by supermarket and banking staff, it reminds me of the expression, '
Turkeys voting for Christmas '.

Not at all. Just regularly pissed off with shops trying to force me into getting really ahead of myself.

I had no idea about the bread date thing. And yes eggs.....why can shops not standardise where the eggs are? At very least they should agree on what they will be near, even if they can't all be in the same part of the store.

I would agree with this.

I know my way around a supermarket layout - by brand, not store as we don't always shop at the same branch (to the point DH annoyingly asks me, on which aisle will I find x in every supermarket because I will know).

Eggs are the one that individual stores tend to move around.

Aldi - last aisle usually but it's the baking section.
Lidl - baking section but it's usually the second aisle. (I always want to look on the last aisle).
Asda - usually on the back wall by the bakery (this is the one that foils me.)
Sainsbury's / Tesco - near the dairy section. Often where the long life milk is but sometimes in the chilled section.

Eggs need a universal home.

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.