AIBU to react upon overhearing this remark voiced by a member of staff in Poundland towards another member of staff?

[SuperFlyHigh]

AIBU to feel that this overheard remark was out of order?

Was at Poundland the other day overheard quite loud a supervisor or manager saying to someone who seemed new (both Poundland staff),

"Yeah well make sure you get them to come down the queue as they often stand there like braindead zombies" it was obvious she was talking about customers not staff... The person saying this then walked away I was a bit shocked and said to the woman she had said this to "that's not the way your customers should be spoken about don't you think?" As i said this the woman who had said the original remark came back but I didn't want to get into an argument but just left the store.

Really put me off if that's how the staff refer to their customers within hearing distance!

They're the living dead. Their exact physiology seems to depend on the film/ tv series. In the walking dead the prmitive hind brain comes back to life.

How customers treat staff and how staff treat customers are 2 seperate issues. In this instance we are talking about how staff treat customers, and I think if you work with them you have to learn to smile and nod even if you think they are twats. That's the main role IMHO regardless of how much you get paid. If you want to slag the public/other staff member off (or talk about how pissed you were over the weekend/who you got off with in the club/your new nails etc, do it in the staff room. Many people you find in shops do walk around with their brains in neutral, which is why you have to have the patience of a saint to work in retail. If you don't then work in another sector.

self-loading freight
LOL, I like that

YANBU Totally agree. It's unprofessional but then again they work at Poundland....

In the walking dead the primitive hind brain comes back to life.

In the Poundland, the primitive hind brain shows no signs of life.

I had a similar experience in Lidl. Heard a staff member slagging off elderly customers. I approached him and he told me he was the manager!! Nice.

I have a theory that Poundland keep their queues high deliberately so that you only think it's worth your while to shop there with a big basket of stuff. If they had no queues then you'd come in, buy your cake tin liners or whatever for exactly one pound and then bugger off. It's the long queues that motivate you to make it worth your while.

thebest - see that is awful and I'd write or tweet to the head office about it. A manager in my opinion no matter what store should slag off their customers. very rude.

Nanna come on - most of see someone looking at us with scorn/scathing comment in their minds and you know EXACTLY what they are thinking! PS it's not an international law firm, never said that.

and yeah PL staff don't care where their customers work but where I work in Hammersmith there's a split between office workers and the posh and not posh residents (eg monied and not so monied).

Galiban - sorry but she was a bitch in the way she looked at me - or should I say unpleasant woman?! and she DID look like a man from behind or side - only when I got closer that I saw female features.

anyway like i said next time i dare to go into Poundland if I hear the stupid woman referring to customers as braindead zombies then I will confront her and post the resulting post here. TA DA!

Ur too sensitive

Ive worked in retail over a good few years and it's a fairly accurate description of some customers. Shouldn't have been said within earshot of customers but equally if you felt it necessary to do anything about it it should have been the manager that made the comment. Not brave enough to do
That then you should keep your comments to yourself. Never heard the saying it you can't say something nice don't say anything at all. Applys to both you as much as the manager

It is very unprofessional to talk like that - especially where customers can hear. It's also generally unprofessional to talk like that about customers but .. sometimes it's the only way to get through the day and some customers are .... well let;s be polite and say they're 'real cards'. I always try my best to keep comments about customers to myself, but sometimes if I've had a bad day and a colleague has dealt with somebody similar, we vent between outselves. That said I would NEVER discuss it out in the open or shop floor like that. It was unprofessional.

I agree "braindead" is not very PC and could be offensive

To who exactly?

OP, you're really not in a place to call anyone rude. You've called the woman a bitch, said she looked like a man and aggressive, all kinds of bonkers stuff. And you think you know what other people are thinking when they look at you...you seem, at best, over-sensitive.

I go there for the cheapo stuff - Couldn't give a flying fluff what the staff think of me!

I've heard and said worse things about customers and staff, I work and shop with my eyes and so see the way people mill about as if they are zombies.
And Poundland can be a damb nightmare due to some of the slack jawed customers in there

I can see where she is coming from, I pop is pound land once a week to stock ds up on he's arts and crafts bits, the ques to the tills is meant to be either side of the baskets so the people on the left go to the left till and the people on the right go to the right, yet everyone ques on the left which means they are all the way down the aisle, even though they have four signs with arrows. I often say to people you can que on the right but they just turn and ignore me then get huffy when I go stand over there and get served straight away, you see then edging for the right tills like its a race

Anyone having to deal with the lumpen herd has my sympathies....

Lots of people are asking if you've worked in retail. I have and I must say how rude some shop assistants can be nowadays. I'm not an old fogey and do remember that shop assistants seemed to be generally more ready to help when I started work. Nowadays it's a real mixed bag from those who go the extra mile to those who have no idea of customer service. It seems the offending person in question was one of the latter.

AndTakeYourPenguinWithYou It doesn't change the fact that the manager acted in an unprofessional way. Two wrongs don't make a right but they're BOTH still wrong. IMO It also reads a little like you're taking the things OP said personally and therefore you might be a little over sensitive too.

Don't get me wrong. I have worked in retail in the past and did so for many years. I get it. But it's still very unprofessional and in this instance it wasn't even provoked. We've all bitched about that unreasonable customer of the day but these people are just queueing. If a manager is seeing the customers that way, he/she is not cut out to be a manager. They've lost their ability to see people as people, whether they are customers or staff. A manager is supposed to have people skills. This one clearly doesn't and should pick a different profession.

If you have/do work in retail, don't stand up for this kind of behaviour. If this manager treats the people who effectively ensure he/she will still have a job tomorrow, imagine how he/she will treat the staff. Imagine how little he/she thinks of then. Imagine what he/she says behind the staff's back. Is that the kind of person you want managing you? They're supposed to look out for your best interest. This one clearly couldn't give a f*.

supeflyhigh I did and got a £10 voucher from them and was told he had been reprimanded.

The only thing wrong with a public facing job is the public.

Of course some customers are lovely and are a pleasure. But then theres others, who are the bane of your professional existence and literally destroy a tiny piece of your soul every time you need to deal with them.

For all of you saying OP is sensitive or that you don't care what they think of you, you are missing the point. Staff in a customer facing business should not slag off their customers. There are no excuses. They can say what they like when they are in the staff room but should always put a professional face on when on the shop floor.

She didn't say they were Brained Zombies, just that they stood around like Brained Zombies.

That kind of statement is hard to argue with. People usually do mill around without guidance, and usually look to someone in charge to offer that guidance. In this case they were probably waiting for a store employee.

I recognise the description in myself. At some point I'll get frustrated enough to act, but generally I'm happy to go with the flow, even if that flow is rather stagnant.

Her description was spot on, and at least (to me) doesn't seem particularly inappropriate. She wasn't directing her comments towards you - it could be said that you were eavesdropping. Maybe she could have been more tactful, but at the same time most people wouldn't take offense to this.

Oh and personally, I wouldn't have been offended by that.

I'll sure we've all described ourselves as something similar previously.

Shouldn't have been making those comments on the shop floor.

I was in Wilkinsons the other day and there was a brain dead zombie in front of me in the queue. Poor woman on the till was calling and calling for her to go down but she just stood there (and she was looking at the till lady too!). I was just about to poke her with my basket when she moved! Ha ha!