When Cashiers in supermarkets comment on your shopping when it goes through the till?

[crypes]

The other day at one of the biggee Supermarkets i had a running commentary on the items i had bought. I was in no mood to talk and i was starting to cringe a bit about 'that loaf looks nice and healthy' and 'your going to be doing alot of gardening this week'. Sometimes i have even had a cashier read the front of my paper and i thought 'gods sake havent you got a tea break coming up?' I just read in another thread sometimes you may want your shopping items to be private and stay private.

Actually TheFarSide the target market love the script, the ones who don't so much aren't as regular as the ones who have come on the same day every week for the last 30 years and actually complain if anything changes, including the script!

Places like Aldi they get in trouble for chatting too much becaue their scan targets are much higher and that is the priority for their target market, the one I work in has slightly lower scan targets to allow time for the script.

But a lot of the script is about selling, chatting about what they're buying in a way to drop in up comming offers and other products they might like and store cards etc.

and I agree re NO staff loyalty in supermarkets, it makes me when people in my current job say "one of these days i'm just going to leave and work in tescos or something" as if its easy! Its physically painful and the pressure is constant, but you don't get rewarded for meeting the targets, you just get punished if you don't!

Inspired by this thread, I engaged in conversation with the post office cashier today when I was buying some Euros. She started by asking where I was going on holiday, when, who with, so far so good, then as the queue began to build up behind me, tried to flog me a post office card then travel insurance. The whole interaction took ages.

Cashier in Lidl offered me a sweetie today!

So you don't think coming on an Internet forum to whine about someone trying to have a conversation with you is miserable or rude? Ok then.

TBF strawberry, pretty much all MN threads are 'rude' since they talk and often complain about others - though anonymously - without their permission!

Normally the complaints are about someone the op knows very well, mil, dh, friend etc. This seems more horrible to me because it's complaining about what could be anyone, it shows more the way in which people live their lives day to day and have ishoos with innocent bystanders. I find it really sad.

I do completely agree it's unfair to complain about individual cashiers. As it seems to be generally the companies passing down the rules of "talk to everyone". It's the rules I want to complain about - or at least point out that they do not suit everybody. Big companies should realise that they shouldn't be telling their staff to make small talk with everyone no matter what - they should be telling the staff to treat customers as individuals and recognise that not everybody is comfortable with it. It's like respecting people's personal space - people have different levels of comfort, it's not rocket science. It is really daft and shortsighted of Tesco et al to assume everybody wants the same treatment. Companies are getting it wrong IME, and the result sometimes clearly makes customers and staff uncomfortable.

I'd just like to acknowledge the hard work of any check out staff that post here. You do a great job in a noisy, stressful environment full of often vile people.

Sorry you have to deal with the grumps. Their bad day will always be worse than yours. You cannot win.

I worked in a supermarket for 3 years and can confirm that it is "Customer service" to strike up a conversation with your customer. About anything, as long as you initiate conversation with every single one It is such a degrading experience, especially when it's pretty obvious the customer doesn't want to chat, but you don't always know that untill you've said something. Never again.

If there was something written somewhere that proves this policy I would happily write to Tesco (or whoever) to tell them how silly it is!

I really hope cashiers don't just assume that everyone who doesn't respond to your conversation is rude or has 'the grumps' - some of the posts on here have made me wonder if some do think that. But it's not true - I'm not denying there are some rude buggers out there but some people just can't handle the interaction for various reasons (most not obvious). That's got nothing to do with manners.

(to clarify, I don't mean I don't believe that there is such a policy with supermarkets - just that if I were to write to them I'd need a basis for my comments! Wouldn't want to get an employee in trouble for providing said evidence though)

I love a good chat at the supermarket. It's usually the older cashiers with better social skills who like a chin wag in my Tesco and even if they say inappropriate things, I just laugh it off.

I much prefer them to the sullen teenage girls who also work there and look like they'd rather be anywhere else but serving you.

Each to their own I guess. :)

I love sullen teenage checkout operators - had one in Sainsburys yesterday, and all she said to me was "£70 please" and "how many of your own bags did you use?". Bliss!