Best example of 'jobsworth' ever

[DuckyMcDuck]

Wanted to buy some vitamins (not stock piling but cos I've run out!)

Boots have a 3 for 2 deal so take my 3 to the counter where I'm told there is a limit of 2 packs per person because of panic buying! Even when I explained and showed her the deal, she wouldn't sell them to me

What made me really laugh was when she said I was the third person who'd "tried this trick today"

So I took my illicit stash to another till and bought them there.

Madness, I tell you, madness

We have a true jobsworth parking warden who zips around on a moped. There's one place where he just loves ticketing cars which, yes are parked illegally given the letter of the law, but cause no hazard nor inconvenience. It's a cul de sac with a dropped kerb about half way down - cars park there to access a canal walk. Thing is the pavement doesn't have a start nor end and is literally only about a foot wide, so people needing a dropped kerb wouldn't be on that bit of pavement anyway. But, of course, it makes the guy's figures look better.

Further down the road, he merrily rides past all the vans/cars parked on double yellows near the pie shop, often parked blocking peoples' driveways, and making the road single lane causing traffic chaos. He ignores those because he knows he won't have time to ticket them as they'll be back when they see him from the pie shop window.

So, there you have it. Ticketing cars that aren't actually causing a problem and ignoring those that are. Pure definition of a jobsworth.

I would complain to boots head office too. Sometimes people need to be told to use your common sense. X

Yes but presumably with the boots one the rule is "You can't sell more than 2 packs of x per customer" which the till operator wouldn't have broken as OP was only buying 2 packs, with the 3rd being given free.

isabellerossignol - you are right in some cases, as in when cashiers can be personally fined huge amounts and lose their jobs if they sell alcohol to someone underage - lots of people wouldn't risk that just for the sake of making someone else's life a bit easier. But it's the weird interpretations that annoy people - such as when cashiers randomly decided not to sell alcohol to an adult with a 13y/o in case they are buying it for them.

I discovered that Peak time Trains (from their destunation) that are running late, arriving at ‘off peak’ time into your station, you’re not allowed to board if you have an ‘off peak’ ticket, even though that’s the time the train has arrived due to its late running🤪 Guard insisted I Had to pay to ‘upgrade’ even though it was in ‘off peak’ travel time and the carriage was quiet or get off at the next station to wait for an ‘off peak’ train. Excellent.

I’ve only encountered 1. A security guard that refused me entry back in to a venue as he didn’t believe I’d paid and been let in “dressed like that” even though I had the venues stamp on my hand. wouldn’t check with colleague and called me a liar. It’s the only time I’ve asked to speak to someone’s manager.

Pharmacists generally know a lot more about drugs than doctors and a lot about contra-indications. A pharmacist checking/questioning a prescription is doing the right thing.

They queried one of mine as the dosage was much higher than the last one that had filled. All I did was explain that the one in the middle had been got from another pharmacy and all was good.

Pharmacists generally know a lot more about drugs than doctors and a lot about contra-indications. A pharmacist checking/questioning a prescription is doing the right thing.

I agree with that. But in my case the pharmacist just flat out refused to issue the item. They presumably could have contacted the hospital or something? And it wasn't an obscure drug, just pain relief. They must surely know that whilst strong pain relief isn't given out willy nilly in pregnancy, it is prescribed in certain situations.

The evil, vindictive cow in Bristol Oncology/BRI transport dept.

May she rot in hell.

But it's the weird interpretations that annoy people - such as when cashiers randomly decided not to sell alcohol to an adult with a 13y/o in case they are buying it for them.

Yes, I definitely agree with that. I don't think there is any actual law that states that an adult can't buy alcohol because they have a child with them? And yet that often seems to be the interpretation. Buying something for a child is very different to wanting to buy something whilst a child happens to be with you.

My mistake but I once handed a uni dissertation in one day late because I was genuinely convinced that the due date was a Wednesday when actually it was a Tuesday. I realised late on Tuesday night when I couldn’t do anything about it so raced up to the office as soon as it opened on Wednesday morning. The admin lady in the office was busy about a quarter of the way through date stamping a massive pile of dissertations stacked up in several boxes around her. I explained my mistake and did appreciate that mine was late but I did think she was a bit of a jobsworth to take the trouble to change the date stamp to the Wednesday date, stamp mine and then change it back again to the Tuesday date and carry on stamping the rest!

Technically even if you are buying alcohol for your own child, depending on the alcohol and assuming it's to drink at home, with food, you aren't doing anything wrong.

Honestly, I'm not one of those people always complaining or challenging others.
But I was in a supermarket and had my 16-year-old with me. Cannot serve you because it could be for them.
I was also buying food so how was it different to me taking them to the pub for a pint and something to eat?
Never mind that over the age of 5, a child can have alcohol at home.
Victory for me as I walked out with the booze.

The same child, now over 21, again I'm buying. They didn't want to serve me because she didn't have her ID with her. Again I questioned the logic of it.

It's so easy now to question the logic of refusing to sell alcohol. A lot of us have smartphones and the advice is on official websites.

I could go to a different till, but then how does that individual cashier become aware if no-one points it out to them? I could, of course, go and have a quiet word with a manager. But personally I would rather a customer have a quiet chat with me and point it out, rather than the boss.

The Boots vitamins thing is a total joke. What's wrong with buying three of the same?

I used to work in my local supermarket as a teen part time job (so I was around 16/17 -nearly 20 years ago).

Get to the till, guy I worked with many moons ago starts talking to me etc etc asks about husband and kids then an alert goes off as I was buying kitchen knives (nothing fancy, like £5). He refuses to sell them to me as I dont look over 25.

This guy knows I am over 18, knows I am at least 30 and yet refuses me because "its his job"...

Went to the chip shop on Friday night. DS wanted pudding, chips and gravy. Member of staff pointed out that there was an offer on for pudding, chips, gravy AND mushy pies. I said no thank you because DS doesn't like mushy peas. She then charged me 50p more as apparently she couldn't just leave off the peas and charge the offer price!

Malteser, quite often in university departments, handing in things like dissertations late confers a reduction in certain grants/loans etc. Obviously not your case, but that's why dates are important.

The chip shop till probably didn't allow it.

I tried to pay for dd's glasses at Specsavers after telling them we aren't UK resident so she didn't qualify for free care. I had to have the free care because their computer system doesn't allow payment to be made for a child prescription.

Lols at the person who said boots tills would be programmed not to accept it. Have you never seen a boots receipt? Everything has to be manually over-rided they're the worst place to shop at if you're in a hurry or if you want to actually pay the right price for anything

I once had a woman in Tesco refuse to sell me a single bottle of calpol when I had my then three year old son with me, in case I was buying it for him. Firstly, unless I'm very much mistaken, there are no age restrictions on calpol and secondly, who else would it be for?? I'm not buying it to take myself am I!

Talking of boots, I once had 2 £5 off vouchers. Had 2 qualifying items. Cashier said I cant use them both on the same transaction. Fair enough, so i asked if she could do it as 2 separate transactions. Nope, she wouldn't do it.
So i paid for 1 item, then walked back rejoined the queue and 2 minutes later paid for the second. Not sure which one of us felt like more of a prat!

Why should she feel like a prat? You didn't prove her wrong.
That has always been the case in Boots and afaik is written on the vouchers, one voucher per transaction. Obviously nothing to stop you using another in a different transaction, but again, nothing to do with jobsworths.

Shoe on he other foot here, I was waiting for a fork lift driver to move something so I could unload a lorry.

The lorry driver said ‘why don’t you do it, there’s a fork truck there”
Me “I’m not allowed to drive a fork lift & I don’t know how to”
Him “You’re just a jobsworth”

Obviously nothing to stop you using another in a different transaction, but again, nothing to do with jobsworths.

But that one was jobsworth-y because they had refused to do two separate transactions. But were willing to do two separate transactions if the poster went and joined the back of the queue.

The lorry driver said ‘why don’t you do it, there’s a fork truck there”
Me “I’m not allowed to drive a fork lift & I don’t know how to”
Him “You’re just a jobsworth”

I had similar in a previous job. I worked in a medium sized business who had customer facing staff but I wasn't one of them, I was the office manager/bookkeeper/HR administrator type person. Went out the front to get some paperwork that I needed and customer demanded that I serve him. Only I couldn't, because I didn't know how, and didn't use the same computer system as the rest of the staff so I didn't even have a log on. I was just being petty, apparently!

@Chanel05

I do hope that DH took this further with a letter to the DSS office manager.

I fairly recently did a first aid refresher course, and part of that is AED training. The trainer shared a story where someone ran in to an office to get a defibrillator for a patient getting CPR off-site, but the receptionist refused saying it was only for staff.

Never did find out if the patient survived.