Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to shout at check out assistants who...

102 replies

addictedtofrazzles · 05/04/2011 21:37

seem to want to check out your shopping trolley as fast as they possibly can (like there is an unspoken race with their colleagues) and leave the conveyer belt on so that all your food just keeps piling up.

It really gets my goat!

OP posts:
OTTMummA · 05/04/2011 21:39

do you shop at lidl?

Lovecat · 05/04/2011 21:39

I think if you refuse their offer of help with packing it piques them. Seems to be the cue in our local Sainbos for them to start chucking the stuff down the conveyor like you'd insulted their mother or something...

Hassled · 05/04/2011 21:39

Ask them to turn it off. They don't seem to mind.

Actually the overly speedy ones don't annoy me nearly as much as the overly slow ones - the ones who spend days identifying a courgette and then start to read a bit of a magazine while they scan it. I sigh and tut a lot.

Original poster
addictedtofrazzles · 05/04/2011 21:41

Not Lidl but Sainsbury's too...umm...

Am taking comfort from the fact that I am not the only one they are ganging up on!

OP posts:
onepieceoflollipop · 05/04/2011 21:41

Just smile and say nicely something like "could you hold on a moment please?"
usually they then stop. If they don't then say a bit louder that you have changed your mind and do want help with packing.
To be fair some customers (e.g. if baby is in trolley and a bit unsettled etc) just want the checkout person to sling it all down so you can throw it into bags and get out of there.

stoppinchingthedummy · 05/04/2011 21:42

They have targets to meet - Throughput etc their manager has probably just had a go at them for being slow the past week- If they dont offer to help with your packing ask them oh and put loose veg in the middle not in bags it slows it all down Grin

OTTMummA · 05/04/2011 21:42

I want to shout at customers who come up to me with ear phones in and then proceed to make me repeat myself for the zillionth time that hour just because they are rude and arrogant enough to think it is ok to make my throat sore from having to speak louder that the crap they are listening to simultaneously.

sorry carry on.

Original poster
addictedtofrazzles · 05/04/2011 21:43

Hassled - you have made me laugh. I avoid buying bread rolls for exactly that reason as can't cope with the delay of calling the supervisor to try and work out what picture it matches with!!! (Oh and aubergines can sometimes delay proceedings too...)

OP posts:
jimswifein1964 · 05/04/2011 21:43

Ooo, you've reminded me of something that crossed my mind the other day. I dont know of any supermarkets that still have a conveyor belt on the packing side (as opposed to the pre-purchase side of the till). Do some still exist then?? Shock

FabbyChic · 05/04/2011 21:43

Some stores have time limits on their checkout assistants and they have to scan at a specific speed or they risk losing the right to be on the checkout.

Speak to the Manager of the store concerned if you have a problem, the checkout staff are only doing their jobs.

chasingrainbows · 05/04/2011 21:52

Asda has time limits. I feel sorry for the staff at the checkouts. They must ask you a bloody set of stupid questions - did you find everything you were looking for/sorry for your wait (even if there was only one person in front)/did anyone help you.............makes me want to go to self scan but the checkouts there never work & it wld be doing the nice checkout people out of a job.
I dont work for a supermarket btw.
They are just doing as they are told. Problem lies with higher powers methinks.

toddlerwrangler · 05/04/2011 21:53

Girl at our Aldi does this. I just pass her a bag and thank her for her help packing.

Original poster
addictedtofrazzles · 05/04/2011 21:57

Well that leads me onto my next bugbear - when you pile up a whole trolley full of food and the assistant asks if you would like a bag????? I politely say "Yes please" for them to just give me one??? Are the 'higher powers' taking the piss?

Perhaps it is just my Sainsburys - I only go there because there is free parking and I don't need to faff with pay and display!

OP posts:
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 05/04/2011 21:59

They are supposed to scan it quickly at Aldi, then you dump it straight back into the trolley and pack it yourself at the packing area behind the tills. It's cheap for a reason. As a friend once said to me, in mainstream supermarkets you pay for staff to help you pack etc.

In mainstream supermarkets they usually offer to pack for you and if they don't, why not ask them?

LynetteScavo · 05/04/2011 22:00

Sainsburys have a button you can hit violently press to stop the conveyor belt.

catinthehat2 · 05/04/2011 22:01

My last weekly SAinsbury's shop was about 15 years ago, for exactly that.
Conveyor pile up
asked for it to be switched off
was told no
I left, never to return, taking £000s of expenditure over the years with me

QuickLookBusy · 05/04/2011 22:01

Gosh wish I had that problem. At our nearest supermarket, which is very small, there is one woman who must be the slowest checkout person in the world. I want to shout at her "Hurry Up!", as she reads the newspaper headlines, and mags front covers! I kid you not!

If anyone is having an interesting conversation nearby she stops, turns to face them and listens! Arrrrrrg, everytime I go in I really do try not to be such a caaaw, but she drives me to it.

Original poster
addictedtofrazzles · 05/04/2011 22:02

This could be the answer - where is this button!!!????

OP posts:
CoffeeDodger · 05/04/2011 22:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

maddy68 · 05/04/2011 22:06

my friend works at sainsbury's and they have an average speed per item target! if they take too long they get into trouble. I would guess that ither supermarkets do the same thing

ilovemyhens · 05/04/2011 22:12

I hate the ones who talk to you and ask what you've been doing that day Hmm

I know they have to be friendly, but why do people have to keep making useless smalltalk anyway?

tallulah · 05/04/2011 22:15

CoffeDodger, if I am the paying customer why should I have to keep up with the checkout person? Surely they should pace themselves to the customer?

I don't want my stuff packed, because I like it in a certain order. But I shouldn't have to race to keep up with it being thrown at me. It takes longer to put it in a bag than to scan it.

mumblechum1 · 05/04/2011 22:16

Faster the better imo.

I always have my debit card in the machine before I even start packing as well as I really hate it when the person in front insists on packing everything BEFORE THEY EVEN START TO FIND THEIR PURSE THEN TAKE 10 MINS FINDING THE CARD AND DECIDING WHETHER THEY WANT CASH BACK

I am truly going to murder some one one of these days.

ohmeohmy · 05/04/2011 22:18

maybe we should go back to the days they had to manually key in every price.

Jellykat · 05/04/2011 22:21

CoffeeDodger, do they still have a scan per minute policy, if there's noone else in the queue?

I've always called these fast checkout people 'Chuckers', didn't realize their jobs were on the line.

mumble Do you get trolley rage too ? I get it something chronic Grin

Swipe left for the next trending thread