to expect some kind of interaction with checkout staff

[Mammie81]

Dropped DP off at his parents house and on the way back thought Ah! I need some rice!

Weighed up two possible Tescos, one right by his mums which is a great Tesco in theory. Its an extra which means its got clothes, electronics, dvds, books, even a costa but is notorious for rude staff, dirty toilets and long queues (they even have the steaks security tagged... no lie). Or the one by our house which is very nice but very small.

I plumped for the big one because I thought, screw it, DP is out, Ive got all night so I can have a wander round the clothes section.

The woman that served me was just so rude. She practically threw my shopping down after scanning it (Im not so annoyed about that, its what you expect at this place) but the bit that really annoyed me (and I am pregnant so hormones abound) she was chatting to another server two tills away about how she was finishing in half an hour, and then just looked at me once my shopping had gone through. And did not say a word.

I asked her 'So is that £8.98 then?'
A mumble was what she answered with. She then just pointed at the card scanner for me to scan my card, which I did. Then gave me my receipt.
I said then 'You didnt ask me if I had a club card.'
She brusquely said 'Well DO you have one?'
No! I dont! But I want you to bloody well SAY something to me!!! I said, No, I dont but you didnt even ask me, did you?

'Well daaaaaaarling. I knew that if you had one you would give it to me'

Well that excuses your disgraceful manners then, does it?!

AIBU? Or should I have known better than to go in there in the first place? It always pisses me off, as they are all like this in there!

Not a great fan of Tescos as a company but I must admit that our local Tesco extra is completely different to what OP describes.

Sainsburys checkout monkeys are indeed trained to engage in pointless small talk with you. some of us [ie the mums and middle aged women working on tills] like making a bit of an effort to try and make miserable people smile. the younger ones, who havnt been there so often, are pretty much bullied into making conversation with you.
Sainsburys is bloody obsessed with customer service, but after a year or so [and i've been there longer than that now] i actually really enjoy feeling like i've helped someone out, even if its in a small and insignificant way like entertaining your toddler while you pack&pay, or bothering to find you exactly what you were looking for.

of course, wasnt feeling quite so generous when one of our customers who uses the ride on scooters left a big puddle of wee in it and i had to call a cleaner to the car park to get it up.
or when a man walked off with a basket full of stuff and when stopped by our security guard shouted 'i was fed up of waiting for the fat cow to help me!'
i was dealing with two other customers at once.
and im PREGNANT DAMN YOU.

YANBU; I avoid Tesco like the plague because of appalling service at our local one. I had to go in there recently and needed to go to the customer services desk. The 2 assistants chatted for a good 2 or 3 minutes to each other before they acknowledged me, the one who served me was very gruff and just said "Yes" to me, and they both carried on talking while she served me. Appallingly rude!

I think that if these people hate their jobs so much perhaps they should leave them and go and do something else where they don't have to communicate with members of the public. Seriously what is the point of doing a job like that if you aren't prepared to be nice (or at least pretend to be nice) to people?

Whereas I am no great fan of Asda the staff in my local store are way friendlier and more polite than the Tesco store.

It really is quite striking.

Must be a management issue surely?

Actually Tesco have a very strict policy on how check out staff talk to customers ..

I prefer it if they don't speak to me as I want in and out as quick as possible. When you have a screaming 2 year old in the trolley there is nothing worse than a talkative checkout assistant

Staff at our local Tesco and Asda are usually pretty good. Polite but not over the top, if one is occasionally less than friendly I put it down to them being human. People do have off days.

In our local Sainburys they are polite and friendly to the point of being manic, I avoid going there, its scary to behold.

If the shop is always that bad OP I would complain to Head Office, clearly the store management have no intention of sorting it,

I have stopped shopping in Tesco since the dog shite incident.

I was packing my shopping away & somebody had left some tesco carriers at the end of the conveyor,i went to open one to pack my shopping & there was a lovely lump of dog shite in it!

I told the checkout girl & she just shrugged her shoulders & carried on throwing my shopping down the conveyor.

Needless to say i left it all there & complained in store & i rung up head office,i am still angry about it now cos my ds nearly grabbed that bag,he was only about 2 at the time.

I love my local tesco, everyone there is soo lovely, so friendly, and they all chat to my DS.

He burst a balloon he got at a party once and the manager gave him a helium tesco balloon... it made his afternoon!

Mind you, on another day, at waitrose, there was another helium balloon incident, where he let it go.... and it floated to the rafters. A manager got a step ladder to get it down....

If I were you OP, I'd have gone straight to customer services, with your receipt and said that although it's pretty uncharacteristic of the treatment you usually get at Tesco, that your till assistant was really off, and perhaps a manager ought to see if everything is alright.... that way you dob her in without coming over like a ranting complainant....

I HATE this! They are actually being PAID to provide customer service, but they chat to their colleagues and virtually ignore you like you are annoying them by being there.

LUCKILY (or not) Ds will repeat himself ad nauseam in order to get someone to answer him, and he ALWAYS says "thank you, bye", which seems to help matters A LITTLE

I have worked in shops and think it is just polite to pay attention to the customer you are with, on a checkout that means I expect to be at least greeted, and to be tlked through the transaction. Not cos I am stupid, just becasue it's polite isn't it?

Rude check out staff? Having been on both sides of the till, I've had a lot more rudeness from the shopping public than from till staff. And I quit Tesco's 14 years ago!

Just noticed it was Ponders End! Well, no blinking wonder! (used to be my local - still near enough that I go in there occasionally now)

diamondback Me too. However it doesn't excuse people not doing the main part of their job.

Yanbu.

I do not expect 24-hour cheeriness and sparkling witty conversation with people taking my money in shops. That is unrealistic and, as I can appreciate, quite impossible for people having a bad day.

I do, however, expect the amount I need to pay to be said to me clearly, and a "thank you" when I make payment. That's all.

Oh, and for shop staff not to be conducting a conversation with someone standing on the other side of me (so they are talking over my head) unless its strictly necessary.

Agree with Nancy.

Sainsburys staff are so annoying I almost can't bear to go in there.

There are so many weirdos on the checkouts at our local one, I usually walk down the length of tills, deciding which one I can bear to go to that day.

One guy told me a very long story about his dying uncle and another lady at christmas treated me to her christmas shopping list, finishing with "oh yes, musn't forget a carton of fags". They are always talking about when their shift finshes and sighing as if they really hate their job.

Shop staff are human ...shock horror ..get over yourself

agree usualsuspect

this thread makes me wonder how many of you have worked for £6 an hour on a supermarket till? not bloody many I guess.

'Be careful what you wish for. Sainsbury's clearly trains its staff to engage in small talk with customers - and I find it really annoying.'

So do I. I don't want to tell them all about my day and hear about their plans for the evening. I'm a friendly and polite sort, but when I'm doing my shopping I want to get in and out with the minimum of hassle, not try to sustain an in-depth conversation about current affairs or what I've got in my trolley. A friendly smile, greetings on both sides, amicable silence during scanning/packing and a cheerful exchange when it comes to payment is all I want and I imagine it's more than enough for many check-out operators, who must get pissed off with the effort of being friendly and chatty to all-comers.

oh, and trust me, YOU might expect basic manners from shop staff but guess what, most of the general public don't treat shop staff with basic manners, so sometimes you get what you deserve

'this thread makes me wonder how many of you have worked for £6 an hour on a supermarket till?'

I've worked for less, on the till in WH Smith. Gauging customer approachability and calibrating my response to them was exhausting. And some people are so unbelievably rude for no apparent reason. Surely a cheery but not intrusively chatty approach on all sides oils the wheels of commerce nicely?

On the whole I can live with it. Sometimes I'm not up for a 'chat' when trying to get out of the goddamn place. The one thing that left me fuming in Tesco was when I had a trolley full of stuff costing over £100 and she gave me 3 plastic bags - wtf? I asked for more and got another two. I shouldn't have to beg for bags to carry my shopping . Before someone suggests I bring my own, don't .

ssd I've worked minimum wage in a few retail jobs. It's shit, I know.

It doesn't really matter whether the general public is rude or not, although it is annoying. The main point is, if you work in a customer facing role then your job is to be polite to customers. It is what you are paid for.

Secondly, as Armi pointed out, it makes interactions smoother and more pleasant for both sides. In the majority of cases (especially in the case of the supermarket cashier) the member of staff has to be the one to initiate the interaction. Therefore they should be the one to smile and say hello.

Thirdly, no matter how miserable in the job/life the staff member is, at the beginning of a transaction it is never the customers fault that they are miserable. And in the cases where it is the customers fault, being polite is the easiest way to diffuse the situation.

A customer facing role where someone is rude either shows that they are bad at their job, or that they need further training. It isn't excusable.

It'd be like someone who had a job which revolved around driving who couldn't drive.

I don't shop in tesco because our local store doesn't have double seat trollies.

So how do I shop with 21 month old twins then?

And don't tell me to shop online...the only time I go out with money in my purse is food shopping!