Waitrose age ID check is bugging me

[Mothership4two]

I was is a smallish busy Waitrose (not my usual shop) with DS (25) and I bought 6 bottles of (not cheap) wine, a box of chocolates and a handful of day to day food items. At the till I put the items on the belt and bagged them while DS stood waiting by the end. The cashier didn't put the wine through and asked my son for ID. I was a bit confused and told her that this was MY shopping (I'm in my 50s and sadly do not need ID). She ignored me and asked for his ID again. When I repeated it was my shopping she said it was company policy - other than that she was pretty uncommunicative. So DS went out to the car to fetch his ID and there was a bit of grumbling from the couple waiting behind who then went off to find another till. DS came back and she put it through without a word.

I wasn't grumpy with her, I was just neutral, paid and left. It was irritating but we weren't particularly outraged and had a laugh about it in the car. DS said he hasn't been asked for ID in years (he looks his age) and that no "youngster" would be spending £70+ on wine for a party. We thought it was odd though.

I know there are much bigger things going on in the World to worry about, but it has bugged me since then. I know the cashier isn't a mindreader but it was pretty obvious it was my shopping and very obvious that DS is an adult. And also what happens if you go around with your 16 year old child or younger and happen to buy alcohol, would Waitrose then refuse to let you buy it? I'm sure that happens in supermarkets up and down the country all the time - buying alcohol when parents are shopping with their children. I understand that supermarkets have to have a policy for not selling alcohol to childen via others but it was patently obvious that was not happening. The whole thing doesn't make sense.

AIBU and has anyone else been put in a similar postion?

Top tip
If you are buying a scratch card or lottery ticket don’t ask your child to choose which one to buy, even if they are a teenager, as the cashier will be unable to sell you the ticket.

I'm sure the realisation you're not competent at your job isn't a pleasant one, but it doesn't change the truth.

It's not the customer's job to assess age. It is your job.

This is why supermarkets should be testing people's ability to assess age at the point of recruitment, and offering training on it as part of the onboarding process.

Imagine if people in other jobs defended their own incompetence by saying the customer also doesn't have those skills.

"I killed a patient because despite being an anaesthetist I have no idea how to manage anaesthesia. But the patient's family couldn't have done any better so that's ok then, I'm off the hook".

Just no.

Hilarious 🤣

@ToBrieOrNotToBrieThatIsTheQuestion Bless your heart.

@ToBrieOrNotToBrieThatIsTheQuestion
what?
lm not sure you understand how applicants are chosen for the role of a cashier? It isn’t to be sleuth at guessing ages!😂
Nowadays very few colleagues are just on a till anyway - companies expect so much from us now, that you basically are expected to do everything!

Well this is why I went onto nightshift, so I didn’t have to deal with people saying I’m incompetent at my job when asking those unlucky people aged 26 to show me a piece of plastic. I’m sure I speak for every cashier out there that I’m so sorry we can’t tell that you’ve just had your 26th birthday and think 25 policy no longer applies.

You may want to look into that a bit more 🙈

Stop putting down people who do low paid jobs one day we might all just go home the what

But how do you train someone to be able to tell how old someone is, especially based on a two second glance without even hearing them speak either?

Perhaps you have lightning fast checkout assistants where you live, but round here they definitely take more than 2 seconds to scan my shopping.

They are also quite capable of greeting a customer and so receiving a greeting back.

If we can train people to fly planes, perform surgery or work as counsellors, we can teach people to be much better at assessing age.

At present there seems to be no training whatsoever in how to assess age, they just put the fear of god into the staff instead. It's lazy recruitment, lazy training and lazy management.

Just get out you're id

I was asked for ID when I was 34 (looked a bit younger according to others but not ID age). I burst out laughing and the cashier who was about 60 asked why I was laughing. When I explained I was 34 and she had made my day she told me that she didn't need to see the ID. I went back to my parents house (I was there for the weekend) and told my brother who was asst manager on the store this happened. He was furious that she didn't follow through with the ID check and went in the next day and looked up who served me. I hadn't realised that she could get in trouble for this.

I meant more when you just go in for a bottle of wine etc. I don't disagree that the Think25 and the overkill scenarios surrounding it has become a ridiculous situation for everyone, but I don't think you can really teach someone to tell how old people are outside of maybe big stereotypes.

ToBrieOrNotToBrieThatIsTheQuestion

Maybe you are the lazy one for not even being able to carry a bit of plastic 🤣

The way this thread has gone is depressing. There is no way a supermarket is going to invest in some highly technological age recognition training for checkout staff. Hire scientists, put together a course, take them off the tills for days, then someone will point out that the traits they are told to look out for to identify someones age are ableist, racist, sexist, transphobic, ageist etc. etc. Well if the supermarkets deem that a good business idea I'd be amazed. If there is that cash and time floating around I'd prefer to see the staff paid properly, prices fall and actual decent returns for shareholders which a large proportion are our own pension funds.

Any sensible person agrees that a cashier should use their reasonable judgement to identify whether a person buying booze is under 25. If so they should ask the person to prove they're over 18. As staff have pointed out, their job is on the line here. If you are quite obviously over 40 then the cashier is either trying to be difficult or has an extremely rare lack of judgement and common sense.

The problem here is that we are talking about identifying a proxy sale. I posted earlier about my 10 month old, and wondered at what age a proxy sale concern effectively bans me from buying alcohol. It was being slightly absurd to illustrate the ridiculousness of some posters position on proxy sales was. Having worked at a cashier, you would look out for a child suggesting they choose it, the type of booze, the volume of booze, who was with the purchaser and so on. Often you'd get a tip off from security or shop floor staff. You'd build up a picture. To suggest a woman buying wine with her groceries need to be refused a sale because her teenage son is accompanying her is the height of jobsworthness. If any cashier feels that they must demand ID in those circumstances you have my sympathy because you are either being employed by a company with their boot on your neck, or you lack the most basic of common sense.

I think one of the issues this thread has raised is that most UK adults don't habitually carry ID - it's just not a thing people think of.

Because we have no national ID cards like most Europeans (and that's another thread altogether), the only form of ID that most people will have will be either a photocard driving license or a passport - both pretty important and expensive to replace pieces of documentation that I certainly don't want to hoof about with me on a daily basis. There are also a lot of people out there who don't even have these.

I know there's that 'Challenge 25' card you can apply for, but I'd feel quite stupid, as a 44-year-old woman, carrying one of those - and also what do you carry it in, being that I, and many people I know, keep our lives on our phones these days? I very rarely even take my wallet out of the house.

There must be a middle ground that protects employees without inconveniencing customers, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.

@Everanewbie I totally agree. The issue is not that we don't carry ID - the issue is that some cashiers seem to think that a grown woman buying alcohol while accompanied by a teenager, must obviously be buying that alcohol for the teenager and therefore must be stopped. Which is ridiculous.

But this person was not a teenager he was 25 so harder to tell if it's a parent and child imo
If the young man was handling the alcohol onto the till etc she could of then had reason to ask him

The person in question being 25 makes this situation even more ridiculous. Not only was this clearly not a proxy sale, the chap was closer to 30 than being underage.

It's think 25 though not 18

Yes, but can't you see that identifying a proxy sale is about building up a picture of suspicion? If the OPs son had try to buy alcohol, then yes, the cashier would be correct to ask for ID if in his/her judgement, he appeared to be 25 or under. But the mum was buying, along with her groceries. The guy is in his mid 20s, unlikely to be under 18 and he was behaving normally according to day to day normal domestic activities. What leads anyone to think this is an underage proxy sale?

I do agree and in this situation wouldn't have asked for id
I'm just saying it can be harder to tell if it's a parent and child when the child is older and maybe that's this cashier's confusion

I lived in a place where shops dealt with this issue by systematically asking everyone for ID no matter how old they appeared to be and also advertising that alcohol would not be sold at all the parents accompanied by their underage teens. If cashiers are getting abused that it’s always an option to apply a blanket ID requirement.

@BingoandBlueyForever I don't see how that resolves a proxy sale issue. Does your country ask everyone in the party of the person purchasing alcohol? If so that amounts to the prohibition of buying alcohol for anyone accompanying someone underage or just forgot ID. Pretty unfair on single mothers I'd say, that means they just can't buy alcohol, full stop.

But in general terms, that approach of ID'ing all is ridiculous. Why place a burden of proof on an octogenarian? Common sense needs to be applied, not blanket policies. I'm glad that common sense underlines our rules in the UK and challenge 25 manages the risk of a 16 year old 6 foot boy with a beard and a tall well made up girl slipping through the net. I'm also glad that we take reasonable steps to prevent proxy sales by irresponsible adults and maybe the older brother of a group of friends loading up on booze for the crowd. But fussy jobsworth attitudes that prevent people like OP going about their lawful purchases are too far.

I think it was shop policy rather than law but it was adopted by all the supermarkets. I’m not sure whether it’s still in place or not but it definitely was a thing between 10 and 20 years ago. I think the rule of thumb about kids accompanying a parent was that if the kid was old enough to be left at home alone then you couldn’t buy alcohol with them present.
But they really would ask everyone for ID, even if you were a pensioner.