Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Who had bad supermarket etiquette?

49 replies

AnneNonimous · 24/05/2013 11:03

Another supermarket till thread.

So the situation was: I arrived at a till for baskets only. A woman was putting her stuff onto the conveyor belt and there was another basket with shopping in on the floor a little way away from her. I wondered if for some reason she had two baskets but after she'd emptied her one she put one of the divider thingies behind her shopping. So I put my basket on the conveyor belt ready to unpack my shopping.

A woman then came over and said 'I just went to get something I was behind that lady' (the lady in front of the lady infront of me). Lady in front of me says 'oh well she didn't say anything' and I say 'no she didn't' and begin putting my shopping on conveyor belt.

The lady sucks her teeth at me and goes to find somewhere else to pay.

WIBU or was she?

OP posts:

Trill · 24/05/2013 12:35

If she had returned before the conveyor belt freed up, I would have let her go back into "her space".

If I had already started unpacking onto the conveyor belt, she took too long and her space was lost.

sherbetpips · 24/05/2013 12:36

she did it wrong she should have offloaded all the shopping on there, run off then come back all crazy looking - you wouldnt have said no then....

DuelingFanjo · 24/05/2013 12:38

I think you were rude. Is life so short that you couldn't just smile and say 'ok, go ahead'?
You were being petty.

DuelingFanjo · 24/05/2013 12:39

basically you didn't even have time to put your stuff on the belt and she was back, so she nipped away for seconds.

DownstairsMixUp · 24/05/2013 12:42

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

DiscoDonkey · 24/05/2013 12:43

I probably would have let her go if I hadn't started unloading. Mind you I always let people go in front of me at aldi, everyone else seems to go in there for one or two things and I'm there unloading a palet of stuff and feeling under pressure to have it all out so the till lady can start firing it back into the trolley.

alienbanana · 24/05/2013 12:46

WearsMink - god that's awful.

I swear I was in a queue of murderers once. It was very late at night, at the local garage and I was behind two incredibly shifty looking blokes. I was drunk and desperately trying not to laugh

MackerelOfFact · 24/05/2013 13:00

You were in the right but that doesn't mean you couldn't have let her in.

I think what she did is a bit weird TBH, she was clearly at the back of the queue when she left to go and get the missing item anyway so why would leaving the queue and having to join at the back again really be a problem?

Mind you, I say this as someone who just minces around in supermarkets waiting for the queue to go down before I join it. Which makes no sense really because it probably takes longer, but I don't like queuing and like the smug feeling of joining a short queue.

MadBusLady · 24/05/2013 13:04

"Er, Twix please..."

LRDtheFeministDragon · 24/05/2013 13:10

mrsoak - oh, sure, just trying to provide an example why the OP might value her time. People do.

MrsBertMacklin · 24/05/2013 13:31

I need bread... FOR MY BREAD GUN!

MrsBertMacklin · 24/05/2013 13:32

Thinking about how it would go down if you sat in the abandoned basket.

"I was keeping it warm for you."

Original poster

AnneNonimous · 24/05/2013 13:33

Hmm some mixed responses

To clarify she was longer than a few moments because the woman infront of me had come along and unloaded her shopping and I was getting ready to do mine.

I probably could have let her go ahead of me but to be honest I didn't want to. I had a moody baby in the buggy and had to walk back home and was worried it was going to rain. And I'm a moody bitch

My understanding of the rules were if your shopping is on the conveyor belt and you quickly run back to get something without holding people up, fair enough. But if I hadn't started unloading and realised I'd forgotten something I'd just go back and get it and accept I had to queue again?

OP posts:

GetOrfMoiLand · 24/05/2013 13:34

LRD that made me laugh about the M&S resentment and the choux buns.

GetOrfMoiLand · 24/05/2013 13:36

I am astonished at how differently people behave in certain shops.

In Lidl or Aldi I go out of my way to let someone in front if they have a basket when I have a trolley or whatever.

But I would never be so generous in M&S or Sainsburys. It's each man for himself there.

Presumably I do this because the checkouts are so fast at Lidl etc, where they hurl the goods at you.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 24/05/2013 13:36

Oh, I'm only ever so barely kidding. I love those things and no-where else makes them with custardy stuff instead of nasty bland whipped cream.

My waistline is sexy-sexy, I promise you.

Goldmandra · 24/05/2013 13:43

I guess it depends how far you have already progressed down the queue?

If I'm at the back and remember something I just take my trolley, get it and rejoin the back of the queue.

If I've queued for a while and made some progress and then remembered something I might leave my trolley or basket in my place and get it. If I returned I would hope that I would be allowed to step back in where my trolley or basket was.

Clearly if my space had reached the front and I wasn't there to unload my shopping it would be very reasonable for the next person to overtake me and I'd go back to the end of the queue.

If someone has nipped away from in front of me to grab something I'd definitely make a point of waiting for them to return until that became unreasonable rather than grabbing the opportunity to jump ahead of them as soon as possible.

expatinscotland · 24/05/2013 13:46

People who try to reserve a spot with their basket are probably the same ones whose handbags have their own seat on crowded trains and buses.

Binkybix · 24/05/2013 13:53

It's definitely the rule that if you go to get something else and you miss your go at the checkout that you to to the back of the queue. It's probably the law.

StarlightMcKenzie · 24/05/2013 13:57

The till people that say 'have you got a loyalty card'.

The customer services people who won't give you your £2 parking back because you haven't got a receipt showing that you have spend £20 despite holding onto a very overfull trolly.

miffybun73 · 24/05/2013 14:33

I would have definitely have let her go first if I hadn't started unloading my stuff onto the conveyor belt.

She probably wasn't so much reserving a place as not wanting to carry a heavy basket around with her whilst she quickly dashed off to get an item that she'd forgotten.

cantbloodywellchoose · 24/05/2013 14:35

You can't reserve a place in a supermarket queue, daft bint. If she needed to get something else then she should have taken her basket with her and then rejoined the queue when she was done.

Goldmandra · 24/05/2013 16:13

Lots of people with different rules is a problem.

Perhaps MN should publish the definitive guide to supermarket ettiquette.

Trill · 24/05/2013 16:14

Till people need to say "have you got a loyalty card?", and ideally they need to say it before the "about to pay" time has come. Because the same people who act surprised when they need to pay are the people who will pay and finish and then say oooh, I've got a Nectar card, what do I do with that? and hold everyone up.

Flip

1 2