Banned from my local supermarket after an argument with a member of staff- my language was bad though.

[Alderedge1]

So today I’ve been banned from my local supermarket, I’m not proud of what happened but I think that the member of staff was also in the wrong.

i was in the fruit and veg aisle looking to get some pre- chopped melon. The ones that come in sealed plastic pots. They were stacked quite tightly and some of the dates were quite soon, so I decided to go towards the back, in doing this I accidentally knocked 5 or 6 pots off the shelf. Immediately a female member of staff was on me- telling me “ you’re supposed to take the ones from the front”. I apologised for knocking some of them from the shelf but explained that it was my choice to choose the date that I wanted. By this point I had reassembled the display, so no harm done. She carried on chuntering so I said something like “ it’s really not a big deal, let’s move on”. As I went to walk away she said, “ it’s just not on”. I’m afraid this is where I let myself down. She was a small pointy woman of about 60 with short dyed red hair. I asked her what her problem was and she said “ customers like you thinking they own the place” to which I replied ( I know this is bad) “fuck off and shut your cunt up you fucking crackhead Anne Robinson lookalike”. It’s not often I take such a low blow but I had a rough upbringing and when I’m really pushed it emerges. The lady stormed off.

as I was leaving a manager asked me if I could step into an office for a chat, I said no thank you. She then said well I’m afraid that you won’t be able to shop here moving forwards.

so that’s that. Not proud of my mouth but she was a fucking horrible twat.

We’ve all had our moments and said things we are not proud of (although not condoning the bad language).

Supermarket woman would have annoyed me too.

Nobody knows what is happening in somebody else’s life so unexpected reactions can happen.

Big girl pants on, go back and apologise.

Or the big Asda 😂

You sound nice.

I buy pots of ready cut melon for my kids. It means that while I’m working or busy doing a care task for my disabled son they can go and grab a pot out of the fridge and eat it, instead of either risking injury with a very sharp knife or having to wait for me to be free. I am also more likely to eat enough fruit and veg if it’s quick and easy, rather than being a faff to prepare.
The type of fruit people buy is none of anyone else’s business. It’s obviously a fairly popular product, or supermarkets wouldn’t sell it.

Mauled? I picked them up from the shelf? Is there a more hygienic method that I’m unaware of? Should I have donned a pair of fucking latex gloves?

bloody hell that’s horrific.

Poor woman. Yes jobsworths are annoying but nobody deserves to be abused at work.

You're getting the MN roasting I think you know you rightly deserve @Alderedge1

You know you were out of line in what you said and that you escalated it far quicker than needed. I get she pushed your buttons.

If this as rare an event as you say it is, then I imagine it will have been enough of a shock for you to temper yourself when you next feel that anger come on.

But you have also made me laugh out loud with the detail of what you said. That is quite an insult to come out. In Waitrose of all places.

Hopefully the staff member will move past it soon and you'll find a way to send your apologies.

OP Reread what YOU said to the staff member while you were insulting it also applies to you. I want to repeat it back to you but MN will get silly and delete as a personal attack.🙄

😳

She’s right though. We can’t all be forced to behave in a certain way just because some people can’t do certain things. I have a non verbal child, doesn’t mean I don’t swear occasionally. I don’t feel like I have a duty to speak in a particular way because my child cannot talk.

I think the issue with anon forums like this is that folk come on here knowing that they have done something wrong, perhaps feeling guilt and wanting some understanding. But equally it is a forum where ppl are supposed to give an opinion, so many folks have given you that in no uncertain terms (some quite nasty and unnecessary), and then there is no place left to go for you, other than to dig your heels in because you don't want to show your pain and vulnerability anymore.

My guess is that today brought a lot of things up for you, to do with your upbringing, to do with your temper, to do with memories of your childhood. If you take on board all these opinions telling you what an absolute horror show you are, then it will not help you going forward. Given that these people know nothing about how you treat most people in your life and you know nothing about whether or not they have done something more awful than what happened in the supermarket today, I think taking on all the thoughts and angers swirling around this discussion isn't going to help you.

I would like to point out though that nobody is focusing on the hurt child who was called a cunt by her mother.... I find that lack of compassion quite concerning.

I would suggest using this as a moment of reflection: a moment to remind yourself of the good things that you do for people and the moment to remind yourself about what you would like to change.

As you have said yourself, i reckon it would definitely be wonderful thing to buy some flowers and make an apology. A lot of abuse goes on towards workers in various fields, but I imagine it's very rare for someone to come back and step up and make that apology.

I think that would be something that they would be talking about in the long-term... how brave you were to do that.

That's the sort of situation you just need to rise above and walk away. The shop assistant was rude and wrong - customers can take whatever is out on the shelves, it's up to supermarkets to hold back stock with later expiry in the back. A more appropriate response would have been something like "I guess we all have our bad days,eh?" and walk off. You absolutely should not have sworn at her with such extremity and I can see why they have asked you not to shop there.

I feel like you can’t let things go. So when she was carrying on instead of walking off you kept on replying. You have to understand that you can’t change everyone’s opinion and you have to learn to walk away. It would’ve been over and done with but you kept responding

Bloody Hell OP.

In my experience, Waitrose staff are normally lovely so obviously you've caught this lady on a bad day.

You should apologise tbh.

Why would that not be true? We don’t all stay on the estate.

Respectfully, OP, your responses on this thread suggest you have a general anger problem, not that this incident was a one+off moment of crazy from a well-balanced person. Take the staff member some flowers with an apologetic card and have some therapy that focuses on anger management.

Some of the drivel on here sounds like AI.

Shop worker IBU because you Dan pick the best dates as a paying customer, plus Waitrose skates close to out of date fruit & veg

YAbU to speak to anyone like that

'Waitrose'

That was one heck of a punchline. I'm literally 😂
Top tier, OP.

On a side point, it really does. I would never buy chopped melon unless it has at least a date that’s 3 days away. I always check the dates for products like that, and probably spend longer inspecting punnets of berries, for example, than most too. The number of times I’ve gone to put a punnet of strawberries in my basket/trolley and noticed there’s already a mouldy one in it.

I’ve dealt with worse than this when I worked in retail, and other customer-facing jobs. If it is a regular thing to lose your temper, perhaps consider doing something about that. I think the worker was OTT having a soap box moment about customers thinking they own the place. That was a load of twaddle, and she should have kept that to herself. It sounds like she needs a new occupation.

Why not try going in disguise and shopping at a different time of day there though?
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if you could get away with that.

Both of my kids were very well behaved at school- never had an issue. Sorry if that doesn’t fit the narrative

You could have taken the melon from the front of the display but you don't need to.
You picked up the ones you dislodged and apologised - well done.
You could have walked away when the staff member was 'chuntering' but you carried on the altercation, pushing her for a further response. Then you were totally unreasonable.
A lot of retail staff suffer abuse and violence at work. I think you were lucky that the manager tried to speak to you privately and you weren't immediately removed from the store (perhaps Waitrose don't employ uniformed security?).

I used to work on Fruit and Veg in Waitrose. We had to put up with a lot of yappy, unpleasant customers- she was probably having a bad day. I did chuckle at what you said as it sounds like a comedy sketch, but your language was uncalled for.

It’s not bollocks though, is it? You know this. The employee may have been a bit jobsworth, but maybe she was the one who’d stacked the m all carefully, with the correct date order (as they are told to do)
You need to do more than TRY to email an apology.

Sorry, OP, but I have to take issue with this. I am a council estate chav and I have no problem with that and I am certainly not ashamed of it. But I wanted to go to uni and pursue a professional career and I had to behave appropriately to get ahead. So I learned because it was to my benefit and because if I didn't, the only one who would have suffered would have been me. Look at your situation. The woman in the supermarket was rude and you were 100 per cent in the right until you abused her. Now she is the victim and you can't go back to that shop. It's not about displaying your chav credentials on your sleeve and being proud of your roots, it's about being smart and getting what you want. The same behaviour is not appropriate in every situation. If you cannot control your behaviour to your own detriment, then you have a problem.