Man at Morrisons questioned my shopping and told me to cheer up

[FelicityShagsWell]

I just bought a few things in Morrisons and the gate wouldn't let me out. I asked the bloke behind me if he knew if there was a problem and he said you need to tap your receipt. Fair enough, I didn't know that. But while I was looking for it he said he didn't believe I'd paid for my purchases. When I looked puzzled I was told to cheer up.

Do men in 2026 still say that! I thought it was left behind on 1970s building sites.

If he wouldn’t say cheer up to a 6 foot 6 massive bloke who looked like he could break his neck in 2 with one hand, then he is a misogynistic cunt.

I think it is unrealistic, unfortunately. A lot of people do pass comment, they consider it 'humour'.
It's boring, but the only three viable approaches, IMO, are go along with it, ignore it entirely, or be grumpy back in the moment.
If I get told to cheer up I sometimes just ask 'Why did you say that?' or 'What do you mean?'

The point is it's shit 'banter'.
It's tedious having to listen to personal criticism such as 'cheer up' or 'lighten up' when you've been interrupted by a bore who has limited social skills.

I'm a pretty chatty person, but 'cheer up' belongs in the 80s.

Aw that’s up there with “fs smile” or “no more babies?” Was a frequent flyer in my local shop by a staff member

To be that offended that you come on MN to write about it? Did make me chuckle.

It means we should giggle sweetly when men are cracking a joke

like good little women

If you RTFT you can see I was not offended. I was however puzzled why, over a quarter into the 21st century, men still think it's ok to make random remarks to women they don't know from Adam that they wouldn't say to a man. That's why I wrote about it.

I would of been really annoyed in your situation. It wouldn't have been so bad if he said "only joking" but saying "cheer up" implies that there's something wrong with you or your sense of humour. "Cheer up" sends me into an absolute rage to be honest. Unfortunately there will always be pricks.

Meh. Mildly annoying but I can see how an exchange like this would go…
Person can’t find receipt. Observer (trying to be funny but not very socially aware and falling a bit flat) says ‘haw haw are you sure you paid’?
Person is a bit stressed and doesn’t find it funny, so doesn’t smile.
Observer takes offence and remarks you should cheer up.

Not really worth getting annoyed over. A bit of a twat though.

Sorry if I'm missing the point here,but you need to tap your receipt to exit the supermarket? What if you haven't bought anything?

This is nothing to do with male vs female. In context, those receipt scanning gates have been put in place by shops to reduce shoplifting. If you had trouble, you should have asked staff, not random people. It’s obviously the job of the workers to help customers, you can’t expect other customers to always be friendly and polite.

It’s the equivalent of not being able to get out of the ticket gates at train stations when you don’t have a ticket. Most people would be a bit wary of tapping their “ticket” to let someone else out. You can’t really expect him to magically come to the right conclusion as he doesn’t work there and doesn’t know you. His mind automatically went to, if she can’t get out, is it because she doesn’t have a receipt? He’s probably thinking the receipt barriers are common sense as opposed to hard to figure out.

so I doubt he was saying it in a gendered way. He probably was being rude and arsey yes - but moreso bc he thought you were dodgy due to the context, as opposed to your gender.

I don’t get this. A train ticket gate will not let you through if you don’t have the correct ticket. In a supermarket you can shoplift say 9 items, buy a pint of milk, pay for it, use the milk receipt to let you through with the stolen goods. So how does it prevent shoplifting?

@Monzo1ss A bit of a stretch on a Monday morning!