Stupid things customers ask on Xmas Eve Eve

It's not retailers to facilitate miserable Yorkshire Grinches.

My miserable Yorkshire Grinch Grandfather turned into a Christmas Fairy. It's my dad who was this Grinch about no tree until the 24th. There was no cultural reason for it, just miserable gitism.

Just to say I can never find eggs!
No consistency as to where they are in supermarkets.
Sometimes near the bread, sometimes near the milk, sometimes near the home baking.

I started life in Yorkshire, it was common there to clean the house from top to bottom and then put the tree up on Xmas eve.

When we moved to Lancashire my parents would have been the people asking for a tree on the 23rd.

I did 4 years selling clothing / lifestyle across 3 popular firms. IME working Christmas Eve was girl with a curl- people would either be lovely and it would be a happy day or they'd be appalling. No in between. Someone once had a real go at me for being stood at the counter between our 2 busy tills - I wasn't staying, I just had to pick something from behind there very quickly and had to rummage for it. She ignored the fact that no one else in the 2 queues had moved forwards (because there wasn't a 3rd till), dumped stuff on the counter and got extremely nasty because I couldn't serve her.

Very very few questions are silly questions and often people are out late -shopping on Christmas with good reason but occasionally you do meet some people / get some questions that just defy common sense!

A couple of stand outs: 1) "Where's the sale section, then"? From a customer facing a tonne of sale signage over rails of newly put out sale clothes. I'm guessing she had shopping fatigue!

2. The guy who rocked up around 21st-22nd December with a catalogue we sent out in October. His wife had sticky-tabbed pages with stuff she wanted. Items + sizes noted on tab. She was a very average/ popular dress and shoe size. He was horrified to find out we were sold out of everything she wanted in sizes that would fit her. We suggested online but checked and stuff was sold out or wouldn't be there in time there, too. Ended up suggesting he try the extremely expensive jewellers up the road or go to either of the department stores (pre Debenhams and HoF going under) and try beauty products or perfume etc. He didn't seem to have cash issues, he'd just been putting it off!

Special mention to people who don't treat you as an equal human. "Gosh how awful, you're open Boxing Day" from people SHOPPING on Boxing Day! You get asked to try jackets etc in for people who are trying to fit items for gifts- and will tell you that "she's a big girl, like you", "she'd over busty, like you" etc and expect you to pliantly help. This is all year but intensifies at Christmas. We also had someone appear on the dot of 4 on Christmas Eve, to a just-locked door, yell through it, get hersef hysterical to the point of almost having an angina attack, be let in anywsy as she collecting a left behind bag rather than shopping and we took pity (we blocked her coming much beyond the door mat) and seemed a bit puzzled that we didn't want to chat more - she kept restarting conversation / finding new topics. We'd closed early and I had to get a train - they were also finishing early- AND pick up a forgotten item in a supermarket for my mum. My boss just wanted to go home and we were both back in on Boxing Day. Completely bypassed this lady that we had lives outside the shop. We had to seriously force her out. She also kept clasping my hands and I think I was allergic to her handcream/ masses of pet hair combo because I had a rash for the next 24h.

People would also see us doing sale set up a couple of days before Christmas- we'd be in the lit up front of the shop after hours, surrounded by chaos and sale signs- and would try to open and then bang on the locked door, which had opening hours prominently displayed, gurning expectantly for the private shopping session they were imagining they had cleverly managed to get. We'd firmly ignore. Someone even RANG IN to say they could see us and asked us to open up. We only answered the phone as other branches and our staff called it, too and we figured no customer would be calling at that hour.

Some of the responses on here remind me of my snooty manager when I was a Christmas temp in a shop. One lady came to the tills with a large bag, not sure what it was but it was like flour - the bag had a small hole in and she asked for a bit of tape to cover the hole so it wouldn't leak whilst transporting it home. There was no tape by my till so I called over the manager.

She got really arsy with the customer then said we couldn't sell her this bag as we didn't know where the hole had come from (fair enough I s'pose) then huffed off. The customer asked me to still sell it to her and she'd deal with the hole so I did and when the manager came back to ask if she'd bought it after all and I confirmed she had she gave me this smarmy, smug look as if to say 'knew she'd buy it'.

She was always happy to buy it though?? She only wanted a bit of tape which I don't think was unreasonable??

The year my local supermarket had sold out of marzipan was the year I discovered how much I preferred homemade marzipan and how easy it was to make.

I was at the customer services section in Tesco last night asking for first class stamps with envelope in hand.

Sales lady was looking at me as if I was dumb.

They'd run out and only had second class. I then asked if they had a letter box and you could almost hear the inward tutting.

I've only just moved here, Christmas cards were sent off last week but received one from someone we hadn't sent one to.

Thought best send it even if it's late, as it's the thought that counts.

Yes Moira and your judgy eyes, I know it was the 23rd and it wouldn't make it till after Christmas, but you didn't know the story behind it.
Keep your head tilt to yourself.

5.20, surgery closes at 5.30. worried mum who has been at work all day calls. DD is with gran, 80 miles away, unwell. Has been unwell all day. What can the doctor do- right now to cure her?

The shop layout is not done for the convenience of the customer. It is to maximise sales, and 'encourage' customers to choose higher margin lines. Merchandising is a key part to the success of any retailer. Peter Kay used to have a routine about 'Eye level, is buy level' absolutely right. Eggs are one of the staples that most customers buy, so are often placed at the back of the shop so we have to walk all the store, putting more products in front of us as we shop.

In retail my whole working life, the last 30 running our own art and framing high street business, with an on site framing workshop. Chrostmas Eve we closed when it quietened down, around 4.00. The two framers would have a bet on what time the last framing job would come in. I think the record was about 3.30 . In the days before Black Friday, when sales started straight after Christmas, we would start to rearrange the shop stock, ready for the sale, after lunch. DH would start with the window display, putting the pictures in ready to have reduced price tickets later in the afternoon. He loved it when someone bought the pic at full price before he had repriced it. Made his Christmas!

No, much further south. The Past Times I worked in was York though.

None of these seem like particularly stupid questions, provided they are asked politely.
There are only the immediate four of us for xmas day so we leave it last minute to shop because we are flexible about whether we get a turkey or a ham, for example. We are still holding out for yellow sticker meat later today!!
We went to Sainsburys last night for everything else though and I have to say, the staff were amazing. Really busy restocking shelves so there were lots of staff on the shop floor, but we did have to ask where a couple of things were as it isn't our usual branch - I think we maybe spoke to three different staff members and honestly they were so polite and helpful considering they are working in retail at such a busy time and trting to restock shelves. I hope they didn't sneer because we didn't know where the crackers were and the in store Argos branch!

Not everyone plans xmas from Sept.

That said I am sure there are lots of customers who are rude and presumptious with staff and other people, and those who have left getting important gifts (for wives / mothers etc) till 4pm on Xmas eve. Retail must be a nightmare at this time of year.

That’s news to the people of Leeds…

https://news.leeds.gov.uk/news/bin-change-dates-yule-need-to-know-in-leeds-this-christmas

I don’t know if this is still the case (it was when I worked for Sainsbury’s) but the store doesn’t actually get your online order until the night before it’s delivered. That means you don’t actually preorder anything, it’s just luck whether or not the item has been put on the shelf before the picker gets there. There’s every chance the picker checks, it’s not there, but the shelf is filled 30 minutes later.

If they are asking the question on a Facebook page then they have internet access. I've just read the same question on our local FB page.

I started reading this thread because I thought it would be light hearted and entertaining. Turns out it is flat and a bit tedious. Questions about crackers, mince pies on Christmas Eve are not stupid questions. Eggs are notoriously difficult to find in supermarkets. And criticising people for not being organised is so out of touch and unaware.

Was it in York?

Not in our Tesco. To bake a cake requires a visit to 3 different aisles none of which are adjacent to each other.

OMG that’s brilliant!

It's more than nasty, if you meet "many" then it's probably a you problem.

I'll tell you all about my degree and that I'm studying for my Masters.

😆😆😆

Going back to the bins question, I regularly used to have customers phoning me up between Christmas and New Year to ask me about bin collection, or (more commonly) to complain about their bins not being collected (because they'd put them out on the bank holidays.

Trouble was, I didn't work on the bins. I worked in children's social services, and we were one of the few council departments that took phone calls at that time of year. So people would ring the usual council number, get told that department they wanted was closed, and would just go through the menu options pressing whatever buttons they thought would get them to a human. And it worked, except I had no frigging idea when their bins were due to be collected. I think they thought that the whole council worked in one room together and someone from a different department could just go over and look on the desks of the people who were off or something.