WIBU to dump my shopping and walk out of Asda?

[wannabetennisplayer]

Today I went to Asda for a shop - running later than planned due to a bus not turning up (which admittedly I can't blame Asda for!) - but still with enough time to do a shop. Long queues at the checkout. I am directed to a self-service till which turns out to be even more temperamental than usual (even if you remove all the scanned items, apparently thin air is an "unexpected item in bagging area") so I have to call for help a few times - and, as usual, there are only one or two poor sods on self-service till duty running around like blue-arsed
flies - and on one of the occasions my till was playing up there were no staff anywhere in the self-service till area (which I would estimate has about 20 - 24 tills) for several minutes. Not blaming them as it is obviously the supermarket who understaffs the tills.

Once I've scanned my items, I try to pay with my card but it doesn't seem to be working. One of the members of staff comes over and tries it a couple of times and then says 'oh, yeah, I think the card reader wasn't working on this one'. Now, if at this point, he had said 'this is the start of a long process to make a card payment', I would have asked him to cancel a couple of items off the bill and just bought what I had the cash for but, he just said 'come with me to make the payment'.

He takes me to the customer service point (again with a long queue) and gives a print out from the self-service till to the woman at the counter. I ask if I'll be expected to queue up again and/or everything will need to be scanned again and he says 'no, just wait next to the counter and she'll take the payment after she's finished dealing with the current customer - and it doesn't need to be scanned again as she's got this slip.' He leaves and then the customer service woman tells me to get to the back of the queue. I explain the situation and that I have already queued up etc but she says that I have to go to the back of the queue. As it's the customer service point, everyone is complaining about faulty electrical items, wanting to exchange items etc so none of them are going to be quick transactions.

As time is ticking on, my options are either to continue to wait in this queue and not make a gym class that I intended to attend later that day or to give up on the shopping - so in the end I emptied the shopping on the customer service counter, told the member of staff that I didn't have time and walked out. Slightly more dramatic than I intended but the bags were mine so I had to empty the contents onto the counter if I was going to leave!

What would you have done?

It's crazy that they've cut a load of staff by offering self service tills and then not staffed them properly.

We walked out of a restaurant when 30mins after sitting down we'd not had even a drinks order taken. It was a prepaid hotel meal, so I went to reception and had an argument to make sure we got a refund.

I used to work in a shop and putting random stuff back was just part of the job, I still finished at the same time so didn't give a second's thought to what the tasks I was doing during that time were. DH is always at me if I decide I don't want something and don't go all the way back to the correct shelf but he's never worked in a shop.

YWNBU.

You did well waiting as long as you did!

Last time I went to Tesco, there was an Asda staff member in front of me with a full trolley. Said she'd just come from work and didn't like their stuff...

Am I the only one who would have considered it fate's way of telling me to miss the gym class?

Seriously though, I would have done the same depending on the mood I was in at the time & how much time I had to spare.

We walked out of a coffee shop/café last weekend due to slow/poor service. We were sitting in the outside seating area & had been waiting to order for 20 minutes or so. The waiter came out, took someone else's order (who admittedly had been there before we arrived - no argument with them being served first), looked over at us & then went back inside. No problem, I thought, maybe he thought we were still perusing the menu. So I went inside to the counter & tried to order lunch and drinks. The woman there snapped "it's waiter service, go and sit down and the waiter will be with you". OK, fine, went and sat back down. 10 minutes later the waiter came out with a tray of drinks for the other table. After he'd put the drinks down, I caught his attention and asked whether we could order now please? "Yes, in a minute" he says and goes back inside. When he hadn't come back out 15 minutes later we left.

This was in Exeter in an area where there are nice coffee shops & cafes a plenty, so finding somewhere else wasn't a problem at all.

I think we should all stop using the damn self service tills and let the supermarkets get the message that we're not happy with them. Im sure if they had their way they'd do without till operators altogether and save all those wages. I don't believe in machines taking jobs off people and that's all these machines are doing. I don't think I've used one yet without it playing up. They don't save time, they just save the supermarkets paying out wages.

I live in ROI and there are no ASDA's, Tesco's, Sainsburys etc. near me but a chain called Supervalu and the usual Lidl/Aldi. The Supervalu staff on the tills are always very polite and helpful and will leave the till and go and fetch something if you've forgotten it or got the wrong product etc.
At Christmas they even hand out free cakes and coffee with a large helping of Baileys or a glass of the local whiskey...Ahem. They have NO self service tills. Thank feck for that!

Unfortunately, I had the misfortune to pop into a large Tesco near the city and use the self service. It failed and did the usual 'there's shite in the bagging area' nonsense. Of course there's a bag in the bagging area, it's bloody Ireland. There are no feckin' plastic bags available so you have to use your own. I tried to get it to reboot or whatever but no cigar. There were no staff around and I only had about 3 items so I left them there and walked out.

Thing is, Tesco have apparently been granted permission to build a supermarket just outside the nearby town about a forty minute drive away from me. I can't see the locals putting up with that sort of malarkey for long.

I absoloutley loathe self service till and think they are the work of satan. This is where Aldi and Lidl come up trumps, no self service tills and smiley polite and helpful staff.

First thing I do on the self serves in teaco/sainsburys is turn the volume off so I don't Akbar to listen to the aggressive woman complaining about my bags in the nagging area!!

I meant bagging area... But nagging are works..
No idea how Akbar got there though...

*have to

wineandroses

I think the only good thing I can think of is at least she didn't eat the chips off each plate until they were even...

MrsBert we have done with DH in Madrid. We had a drink and some tapas in one of the posh terraces on plaza oriental. We asked for bill few times, every time being told just a minute, we are coming, after more than half hour sat at the table with no drinks etc waiting for bill, I said DH to stand up and make us ready to go and that would surely deliver us the bill. It never! We were slooowly walking away and even then they would not care. So yeah, we ended up just walking off...

Good for you, OP. I've never done that (although there are times I probably should have) but I've stomped out of restaurants once I've realised I'm invisible and have stropped out of hairdressers where I've sat waiting long after the appointment time. Life really is too short for this shit.

notquitehuman Sun 06-Sep-15 18:32:37

Good luck complaining to Asda. They once cancelled my Christmas shop on the 22nd of December without even telling me. I only noticed when I went to the website and there was a big 'cancelled' next to it. [ . . . ]

Anyway, I rushed to the actual shops, did a panicked food shop, came back and the fucking Asda shop turned up anyway. I had to decline it, then wait a week for the 200 quid to go back on my account. < < < <

One New Year's Eve MIL's Asda shop didn't turn up despite an email saying her payment had been taken and it was on its way. When she queried it she was told her card had been declined, at which point she remembered she'd had to cancel her card a couple of days ago (fell victim to a phishing scam). She was furious as if she'd received an email telling her her card had been declined she could have made alternative arrangements, but seemingly that was beyond their system's capabilities.

I definitely think YANBU.

Re: the restaurant question: I've walked out of two restaurants due to slow service in recent memory, in both cases because after ordering the meal it hadn't turned up after like 45-60m with wait staff not even able to say when it might arrive. Both times obviously due to the restaurants being totally full, yet presumably understaffed because food was coming out of the kitchens at a snail's pace and all other diners were pissed off too.

I've never walked out due to bad/rude service though.

Walked out of my local Asda a few years ago when I realised they were out of stock of both potatoes and blue top milk. It was a big store too.
I have never been back.
The self service tills in my local m&s always seem to work perfectly.

I wanted to walk out of wagamama when we were kept waiting for over an hour for dessert. Dh kept Mithering on about how he wanted his pudding and wouldn't get up.
He then said 'Don't worry, I'm not leaving a tip.'
No shit Sherlock!

We have walked out of a restaurant before, due to extremely slow service.

Have also had a strop at the manager of one when we'd had starters, and then sat for 30-40 odd minutes waiting for the mains, with two small children who had been good but who were clearly getting grumpy for their dinner.

While we were waiting for our mains, we saw other diners being seated, served starters main and deserts, and even though we queried it with the server a couple of times, he just kept saying it was on the way.

So I went to the pay till, asked for the manager and told him all this, and said our meals were to be out within 5 minutes or we were getting up and walking and he could whistle for payment.

We got the meals in less than 5, and I only paid about 20% of the final bill as the manager knocked it off. This was 7-8 years ago and we haven't been back.

I don't mind our local Asda. It's quite small and doesn't have any self service tills. It's never all that crowded and the staff at the check outs are the most pleasant and polite of anywhere I've ever shopped. I can't remember ever queuing with more than one shopper in front of me.
It must have a good manager.

I left a basket of shopping at the Sainsburys tobacco kiosk last week. I had seven items in my basket and apparently its for 5 items or less. I pointed out that there was no one else waiting but she was having non if it, i had to go to self service. It was when she still expected me to buy my DH that i thought -'fuck this for a game of soldiers' and left the lot with her. Not been back since.

My DH cigs! I have already purchased my DH a long time ago :-)

One week just before Christmas, I put a big shop - trolley load of stuff - on the conveyor and went to other end to start packing. Asked cashier for some bags and was told there were non available so said 'ok' and walked off. Did feel sorry for the massive queue of people behind me though.

I also refuse to use self checkout.

DH and I walked out of the cocktail bar at the St Pancras Renaissance hotel after a round of cocktails due to awful service. They send you away from the bar if you attempt to approach it and order you to wait for table service. We waited 45 mins for anyone (all servers stood around chatting to each other - was around midnight) so we up and left. We were ready to argue our case but still nobody approached us

Yanbu op. In my small town we have a small ASDA an a similar sized Co-Op. The staff in both are fine, and ASDA is a lot cheaper and has a better range, but I have not been in since I abandoned a whole load of shopping there for a second time due the wanky self service tills. I've had e-mail exchangss with ASDA which left me certain they could not care less. Staff in both ASDA and Tesco have told me SS tills are programmed to baulk at some items (not just the age restricted ones) so that someone has to come and take a look at you - which would be fine if anyone ever did. Dunno if it's true but it might explain why no matter how careful you are, you can't just complete a normal transaction. Doubt I will ever return to ASDA - seriously doubt they care.

I have walked out of a couple of restaurants too.

I once stole a coffee in the motorway services - self service coffee, no-one at till. I waited a bit, no-one came. Sat down, drank coffee, still no sign, so I left.

I am a carp customer at times. I would have demanded to see a manager to complain to and refused to move out of the way until one had arrived.
I have also walked out of restaurants due to crap service usually after telling them what I thought of their service.
I do ask for management to give good feedback as well though.