Page 3 | What strange behaviour have you experienced in the supermarket?

silverribbonxmastree · 2021-06-06T08:42:25+00:00

Yesterday, I was in Sainsbury's with my teenage daughter. We were walking towards the end of the aisle with a trolley and it was blocked by an elderly woman, her grandson (?) aged about 15/16 and a shop assistant who were talking. The lad. Saw us approaching and wanting to get past but refused to move. I said excuse me and he reluctantly moved. Didn't think much of it. We were then at the checkout putting the items on the conveyor belt. The lad walked past and the next thing I know is that out trolley is rammed into us. No apologies or anything. So I thought ok maybe it was an accident again and arrived on. We were walking out of the supermarket and Sod's law they were just ahead of us. The elderly lady was walking very slowly and the lad ahead of her a bit. My daughter tried to overtake him and he blocked her way sidestepping in front of her as she tried to pass. I called her back to me and just said to her to let them get ahead of us as I was beginning to realise by this 3rd incident that it was all intentional by now! So we walked way behind them. We saw a car slowly reverse out of a parking space and the lad stick 2 fingers up at this person. As they were taking so long to get to their car and unpack, we held back a bit at the trolley park (as I didn't want him to see where I had parked as I had other shopping to do and thought he might damage the car as 'punishment' to me). He then started staring at us and walked towards us with their trolley to return it. At this point, we just returned to the shop to avoid any confrontation. I wasn't shaken up by it but felt quite sad that he felt the need to be so hostile and try to intimidate us. I do wonder if he would have behaved like this is my strapping 20 year old son was with us! His gran was completely oblivious to all of this! Anyone else had this or similar?

tillytoodles1 · 06/06/2021 12:50

I was in ASDA and joined the queue behind a man with two items. As i started to unpack my trolley he turned and said he was saving that space for his wife. She appeared just behind me and said excuse me, im next. I refused to back down and carried on unpacking my stuff. The checkout woman told him that you cant save spaces in the queue, ahed have to wait until I'd finished.

callmemaybee · 06/06/2021 15:59

@Buzlightyear1 what? That’s awful. She pushed her trolley into a innocent child? Your poor son.

ar4kbd · 06/06/2021 16:00

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Hyacinth88 · 06/06/2021 16:09

At the start of rhw seconf wave I was ina. Supermarket.
I was putting my things on the belt. Started doing so as person in front started packing. She shouted at me for being too close. I was way over 2m away.
I thought she must have anxiety issues so just apologised.
She kept ranting and then the checkout lady joined in and they had a whole conversation about rude people not going. By the rules it was v much aimed at me with the checkout lady backing her up.
I left my shopping and walked out

mooonstone · 06/06/2021 16:43

Interesting how lots of these involve the till!

Almost makes me happy that I live in a huge city with self service tills everywhere - seems like a lot of hassle is avoided

Laiste · 06/06/2021 16:50

Rambling tesco story:
As I was driving into the tesco (big one) car park one morning a bloke in a car started honking his horn at me in a frenzy and doing the wanker sign and driving right up my arse I had no idea what i'd done to piss him off as it wasn't a busy day - mid morning, sunny, i was in no rush - so i didn't respond. I had 2 DDs with me in the car.

He followed me all the way to tesco and right round the car park (to the parent/baby spaces) till i parked, and then parked up himself. I knew exactly what was going to happen and had decided already to stay calm as i didn't want to upset the kids.

I got out of the car and started to get the girls out and while i did this he ran towards us shouting at the top of his voice and ranting and raging and swearing and waving his arms about about ''roundabout etiquette'' i hadn't even been round any roundabouts on the way! He was PURPLE in the face. People started to look.

I said very calmly in a normal voice ''do be quiet'' and rolled my eyes a bit, and he went ballistic. Following me and the kids across the car park screeching so loudly you couldn't even understand what he was on about! I thought he was going to give himself a heart attack tbh.

At this point three men from different points in the car park started to stop what they were doing and actually come over. One was shouting to me asking if i was ok and the other 2 heading for the bloke telling him to back off. Then security started walking towards him.

I went straight into the shop with the DDs going ''what's happening with the man mummy?''. I told them not to worry, he'd got himself in a tizz. Which lollys will be buy ect. .... No one asked me what was going on.

Through the window i could see another security guy had joined the first and all 5 blokes were 'encouraging' purple bloke back to his car.

It didn't scare me, and i stayed very calm, and the DDs forgot it almost instantly. It was so unexpected and weird. But i did keep thinking - if my DH had been in the car (tall builder) there's no way that twat would have pulled a stunt like that. DH would have fucking floored him if he had!

Original poster

silverribbonxmastree · 06/06/2021 16:59

@Laiste

Rambling tesco story: As I was driving into the tesco (big one) car park one morning a bloke in a car started honking his horn at me in a frenzy and doing the wanker sign and driving right up my arse

I had no idea what i'd done to piss him off as it wasn't a busy day - mid morning, sunny, i was in no rush - so i didn't respond. I had 2 DDs with me in the car.

He followed me all the way to tesco and right round the car park (to the parent/baby spaces) till i parked, and then parked up himself. I knew exactly what was going to happen and had decided already to stay calm as i didn't want to upset the kids.

I got out of the car and started to get the girls out and while i did this he ran towards us shouting at the top of his voice and ranting and raging and swearing and waving his arms about about ''roundabout etiquette'' i hadn't even been round any roundabouts on the way! He was PURPLE in the face. People started to look.

I said very calmly in a normal voice ''do be quiet'' and rolled my eyes a bit, and he went ballistic. Following me and the kids across the car park screeching so loudly you couldn't even understand what he was on about! I thought he was going to give himself a heart attack tbh.

At this point three men from different points in the car park started to stop what they were doing and actually come over. One was shouting to me asking if i was ok and the other 2 heading for the bloke telling him to back off. Then security started walking towards him.

I went straight into the shop with the DDs going ''what's happening with the man mummy?''. I told them not to worry, he'd got himself in a tizz. Which lollys will be buy ect. .... No one asked me what was going on.

Through the window i could see another security guy had joined the first and all 5 blokes were 'encouraging' purple bloke back to his car.

It didn't scare me, and i stayed very calm, and the DDs forgot it almost instantly. It was so unexpected and weird. But i did keep thinking - if my DH had been in the car (tall builder) there's no way that twat would have pulled a stunt like that. DH would have fucking floored him if he had!

That must have been intimidating for you but sounds as though you kept a cool head. It was good that others intervened too as so many people just keep out of any debacle nowadays. Like I said above, I too wonder if the lad would have started on me if my strapping DS was with us!

OP posts:

longtompot · 06/06/2021 17:06

I went yesterday. I haven't been for a long time in a busy Saturday. It was full of weird behaviour. Mainly the people on a mission. You know the ones... They stare into the middle distance while charging forward with their trolley at high speed, with people leaping out of their way.

@Mumteedum I had this happen to me in Waitrose a few weeks ago. I was overtaking trolley which was by the shelves on the end of an aisle and was about to turn left into the next aisle. I then saw this person with a headscarf, sunglasses and face mask so you couldn't see much of their face dragging their trolley behind them (they were holding the front bit not the handle) and were going in a straight line. It was then I realised the gap was getting smaller and they were not going to move over and I got pretty much rammed into the trolley at the end of the aisle. I was so shocked, but did manage a watch it! but they carried on going up the middle aisle on the same line.

CustardSquirrel · 06/06/2021 17:11

I got rammed with a trolley . 8 months pregnant, day before Xmas eve. All because I was reaching for a bag of sprouts, not the last bag in the crate, far from it. The trolley went into my ankle and my back , blood running down my foot. Luckily both my DHand the security guard saw him do it & he was thrown out , they offered to call the police but we declined. Lovely manager gave me first aid, a bouquet of flowers and a gift card.

longtompot · 06/06/2021 17:14

@MadisonAvenue

A couple of years ago in Asda I was walking towards the checkouts to pay and spotted an empty one so headed for that. There was a woman standing near it but not actually at it (if that makes sense) and she had no shopping with her.

I put my items on the belt, I only had four or five things, and she suddenly started shouting at me for jumping the queue. I said that I hadn’t realised there was a queue as no one else was waiting with any shopping. She continued to shout, really shout, and everyone was looking. Her husband then appeared with a full trolley so she’d obviously been standing near to save a place. He tried to calm her down, the checkout lady was just watching, security came (and did nothing) and still she continued to shout at me.

The checkout lady then decided to start serving me, it took a matter of a minute to get my shopping through and paid for and still I was being called a cheeky bitch for (allegedly) pushing into a non-existent queue.

I cried as soon as I’d left the store and it left me feeling really shaken up.

When I first came on Mumsnet years ago this seemed to be quite a common thing to happen, people holding the queue for their other half still shopping. I'd not heard much about it until this thread, where it's happened several times!

Laiste · 06/06/2021 17:14

It was good that others intervened too as so many people just keep out of any debacle nowadays.

Yes! I thought the same. I was very grateful. He really was making such a commotion though, and me saying/doing nothing.

Soubriquet · 06/06/2021 17:16

I nearly cried with frustration the other day.

I’m an online shopper in a supermarket. We had targets we have to reach.

I needed to get some mixed grapes..another customer wanted them, so I waited at a distance thinking she can’t take long picking a pack of grapes.

I was wrong
Oh so wrong

She moved every single punnet of grapes to another container to find the one she wanted and then moved them all back again.

PICK A FUCKING PACK OF GRAPES WILL YOU!!!!

I ended up having to quickly nip in and grab a pack or I would have lost out on my target and then likely in trouble.

Thecurtainsofdestiny · 06/06/2021 17:17

I was rammed and knocked over by a small child running full pelt with one of those child trolleys. It caught my knee at a particular angle, knee gave way and I was down before I knew it.

So embarrassing and painful! I contacted Lidl about the risk and got an unconcerned answer back.

MrsClatterbuck · 06/06/2021 17:20

@Hyacinth88

At the start of rhw seconf wave I was ina. Supermarket. I was putting my things on the belt. Started doing so as person in front started packing. She shouted at me for being too close. I was way over 2m away. I thought she must have anxiety issues so just apologised. She kept ranting and then the checkout lady joined in and they had a whole conversation about rude people not going. By the rules it was v much aimed at me with the checkout lady backing her up. I left my shopping and walked out

You were certainly in the right and this is how the 2 supermarkets I shop at operate. Though I have noticed a few times at one of them some people don't now bother with social distancing and after I have gone forward to put my stuff on the belt the next person has come up right behind me. There is one guy in Sainsburys who will tell anyone doing that off.

This is more covid related but when in a very large Sainsburys last year while in the aisle with the magazines I went to look at them and a man nearby just jumped and moved at lightning speed away from me and its hard to explain but he kind of side shuffled up the aisle with his back tight to the magazine rack to get away from me or anyone else for that matter.

ScreamingMeMe · 06/06/2021 17:26

I saw somebody t-rexing once.

Puffalicious · 06/06/2021 17:31

@WisconsinRaw

Half a page and already the "maybe violent aggressive men just have SEN!!" brigade are out in full force.

Oh do go away. I merely mentioned the possibility as my son doesn't look like he has a disability but his social communication is impaired. You seem very angry.

swampytiggaa · 06/06/2021 17:46

@Soubriquet sympathies from me I do the same job. Favourite work day is a Sunday as we finish our shift before any customers come in so we only have to deal with the (ahem) lovely night crew 💐

ALongHardWinter · 06/06/2021 17:53

Over the last couple of years, I've experienced what I would call rude behaviour,rather than weird behaviour. People who are blocking the aisle just don't seem to acknowledge a polite 'excuse me'. On many occasions,I've had to say it 3 or 4 times before they reluctantly move, usually giving me a dirty look in the process for having the cheek to ask! Then there's the people who say 'excuse me' to me and then give me precisely half a second to respond before shoving rudely past me. And don't get me started on the ones who can see you are obviously looking at something on the shelves,but still go and stand directly in front of you!

Soubriquet · 06/06/2021 17:53

[quote swampytiggaa]@Soubriquet sympathies from me I do the same job. Favourite work day is a Sunday as we finish our shift before any customers come in so we only have to deal with the (ahem) lovely night crew 💐[/quote]
I love bank holidays too as we open later and generally finish all shopping before customers come in.

Original poster

silverribbonxmastree · 06/06/2021 17:54

And the ones who race you to the till!

OP posts:

Parad1se · 06/06/2021 18:04

I wish the internet shopping was done off peak times or just at night. There's bloody loads of those trollies and they seem really bulky. Plus they're left parked up right where i need to get while the shopper is miles away half the time.

sorry OP. off topic :)

Mumteedum · 06/06/2021 18:06

@Soubriquet

I nearly cried with frustration the other day.

I’m an online shopper in a supermarket. We had targets we have to reach.

I needed to get some mixed grapes..another customer wanted them, so I waited at a distance thinking she can’t take long picking a pack of grapes.

I was wrong
Oh so wrong

She moved every single punnet of grapes to another container to find the one she wanted and then moved them all back again.

PICK A FUCKING PACK OF GRAPES WILL YOU!!!!

I ended up having to quickly nip in and grab a pack or I would have lost out on my target and then likely in trouble.

But couldn't you just say nicely" excuse me, could I just grab a punnet?" Why can't people say this? It's fine. Just smile and be nice.... despite the crazies on this thread most people are fine if you ask nicely!

Soubriquet · 06/06/2021 18:18

I did

She ignored me

Mumteedum · 06/06/2021 18:26

@Soubriquet

I did

She ignored me

Arrrrgh! Then that's crappy for you. Sympathies....

What strange behaviour have you experienced in the supermarket?

swampytiggaa · 06/06/2021 20:17

@Parad1se

I wish the internet shopping was done off peak times or just at night. There's bloody loads of those trollies and they seem really bulky. Plus they're left parked up right where i need to get while the shopper is miles away half the time.

sorry OP. off topic :)

Sadly we can’t do it at night as the orders don’t come in until early morning. In my supermarket we start at 4am. Because upper management are trying to maximise their profits our hours have been cut to the bone meaning that staff are being pulled off other sections which are also operating on a skeleton staff to finish the pick. They don’t know what they are doing so it takes loads longer and impacts on all other sections too.

If they weren’t such skinflints and gave our department the hours we require the pick would be completed by 8am.