to wonder why the fuck do people pick up loads of things, walk to the till

[deai]

and then dump half the shit there and say 'oh i changed my mind on these actually i only want this this and this, but not ALL THIS OTHER SHIT I HAVE'
why? why did you even put that stuff in your basket then? why didn't you put it back when you decided you didnt want it?
Today someone handed me two kitkats declaring "just one of these please!"
wtf. why didn't you just pick one up then!? it's a 3 second or so walk to the till, how did you change your mind in that time? why are you giving me the kitkat you dont want?
is it just me or is this really fucking weird?
do people just walk around shops, putting things they think they might want in their basket, wait until they get to the till and then decide if they actually want any of the things they picked up??

People sometimes realise they can't afford stuff. Seriously...it's not affecting you that badly is it?

YANBU to inwardly sigh when things pile up on your till because so many customers have changed their mind.

But also bear in mind that it's the fairly helpful ones who bring the unwanted items to the till - so much better than those who dump things back in the wrong place.

user do you work in a shop?

I get your frustration, OP. I work in a shop and hate that they then don't bother to put it back. In my store, it's super busy and I really don't have time to go and put items back on the shelf when I have 100 other things to do. Or I've even had it when they have dumped one basket and told me they won't be a minute (assuming they have forgotten one item) and go and get another full basket 'because they couldn't carry 2' and I have to call another colleague to log on their till and we all get behind!

It's really frustrating.

Be actually, Id rather they did that so people who are facing up can just move it. When they dump it on the till it's the person on the till's responsibility and you have to try and put it back and serve the customers (that's how it works in my shop - sigh)

I work a till and can't say I get myself particularly wound up when someone changes their mind. I definitely do not judge them or take it personally enough that I would think to use my personal time to post it on a message board.

Surely there are better things to worry about?

But in answer to your question, it might be just you.

I was in our local coop, small corner shop type store, and the woman in front of me got to the till when her phone rang. She had a brief conversation that ended in "Oh I wont bother getting anything then" or words to that effect, and then just walked out, plonking her full basket on the till. The assistant was fuming as we saw the woman get into her car and drive away!

That takes some beating, and if I had been the assistant I would have been fucking furious.

I've been there when it's been rung through and you suddenly realize you can't afford everything and have to take something out. It really sucks being broke

Me too Night , but I think this is more about people who just chuck stuff in their basket and dont actually think about whether they want/need it until they get to the till and then expect the staff to just reshelve stuff.

I may be your annoying customers OP. I've left things at the till when I've picked up tinned pears because there aren't any tinned peaches with the tinned fruit, but then half way round the store I find the tinned peaches on the end of a row next to the ice cream cones or something. And occasionally when I've been getting the ingredients for a particular dish but then can't find a critical item at the end. Not very often though. I don't tend to put things back unless frozen because that way disaster lies. I can't reach the top couple of shelves properly and normally get things down by jumping or using a long item that's nearby to pull it over the edge and catch it. Plus it's all over the place and I'd be lucky to find half of it again and I'm already annoyed by how long the shopping has taken, and I need to plan another dish in my head now...

I did leave a whole basket at M&S's self serve tills when they first got them in because it was so fucking annoying it had me crying (I blame sleep deprivation) and I decided I'd rather leave it and go to a different supermarket than put up with getting it to work.

So that's why I do it.

Sounds like your store management are not facing up to the issues you face. When I was working on a till (many years ago though...) we just called some one from the shop floor to return items if it was busy, just as we would call some one to sort out anything else that would have taken us from the till.

I hear you OP. As a customer I get very annoyed when other customers take something out of the refrigerated/frozen section and leave it on the side, outside of the cold meaning it get warm. A good supermarket will throw it out, others not always. Either way it costs me more.

If someone is on a budget surely they shop with a list. We are not on a strict budget but still only shop to a list to limit the items you grab as you go along.

I did this the other day, picked up filled pasta as one of my first items as it was on my list, go round pick up other stuff, get round to a special offer section and they have giovanni rani filled pasta for cheap and with 3 different flavours for the same price as the two i picked up. Went to checkout and got to the last items in the basket and i don't want them anymore. It was a self checkout though and i ended up leaving the stuff in the basket on the side.

Point is sometimes you duplicate for reasons maybe an offer or sometimes my list has non specific things like dessert for tonight and i pick up 3 things for it and i have to pick which one i want. Maybe i remembered that i already had some. Maybe i remember that i dont have space to put it. maybe i got a call asking if i wanted to do something which changed plans for the week and i realised i didnt need food for one of the days

Out of interest Muse why didn't you put the original pasta back? Or leave it with the new pasta?

Which is more annoying for staff giving an unwanted item to staff to put back or customers putting things back in the wrong place?

Obviously putting it back correctly is best.

I fucking hate it when people dump their stuff, start ringing it through then walk off to get something else..... grrrrr. So inconsiderate.

It's one thing if someone gives you something because they've duplicated something or noticed that it's damaged/chipped/open packaging; their kid has put something in the trolley, and they want you to sneak it out of sight to prevent a meltdown or whatever. But when people just hand you every other thing they take out of their basket it starts to get as annoying as the people who do the opposite, bringing their shopping to the till then remembering the twenty othr things they forgot to get, and then run off to get and add to the conveyor belt individually rather than leaving thr queue and coming back when they're finished.

It was a self checkout though and i ended up leaving the stuff in the basket on the side.

Why not hand them to the self scan attendant or at the very least tell them you've left them? I work in a supermarket and working on the selfscan is hard enough as it is - dealing with customer issues 80% of which are caused by people not following the instructions on the screen, not reading the messages or putting random stuff on the scale and wondering why it kicks off unjamming machines, binning reciepts people refuse to take from the machines, changing till rolls, rebooting screens that have frozen, authorizing age restricted products, removing security tags, taking cash back that people have left behind to the Service Desk, and half a dozen other things, that mean we might not notice the random stuff you've just abandoned ... ambient stuf is bad enough, but when people leave fridge/freezer stuff and don't tell us then it not only has to be wasted but invariably leaks/spills everywhere.

And here we see a retail worker in their natural state. FUCKING ENRAGED.

I hate it too OP - especially when they you stuff that is frozen or refrigerated so needs to go right back!

I do this at m&s sometimes. I really would like to get all my shopping done in one place and am even willing to overpay on items for the convenience... Only to find the vital ingredient I need isn't in stock. So I'll have to traipse to the seventh circle of hell that is our busy supermarket on a Saturday afternoon anyway. Sure the hell don't want to pay 50 pence per item more now - so I put items back. Often, I'm not sure where I got something and I'd rather not put them back in the wrong place, so I hand them back to the cashier.

Er, as someone who has worked in a shop, you do realise that this is called 'doing your job' and what helps keep you employed?

Keeping the shop floor tidy, putting back things customers have moved, returning items to the right place, make things more convenient for customers and offer them a service. If all customers stopped doing it tomorrow your work would need significantly less staff and you might be out of a job. Like self service check outs if customers do things themselves staff can be cut. Just be grateful it's keeping you busy and in a job!

Which is more annoying for staff giving an unwanted item to staff to put back or customers putting things back in the wrong place?

Leaving stuff on a random shelf is annoying but par for the course - part of the shop floor staff's job is to put back mis-shelved stock - so as long as frozen goes in a freezer, chilled goes in a fridge and ambient goes on a shelf (bonus points if it is at least in the right department)

Leaving the odd thing with a checkout operator is fine if it's a grocery product because it can wait to be returned to it's shelf ... if it's chilled or frozen, then we have the 20 minute rule - once it's been out of the fridge/freezer for more than 20 minutes, it has to get wasted for food safety reasons - and if you hand it to us on a checkout, 90% of the time it will have to be wasted because we can't guarantee how long you've been carrying it round the store, not to mention the fact that if there is no-one free to take it to the waste area, then the checkout operator has to sit there while something slowly thaws/melts/warms up on their station until someone can get round to it.

Like self service check outs if customers do things themselves staff can be cut. Just be grateful it's keeping you busy and in a job!

Since my store brought in 12 self scan tills (4 of the larger hybrid tills and 8 smaller basket tills) in addition to the 14 mainbank checkouts they have not reduced staff levels. They have to have at least 3 staff covering the self scans and the main till bank is rarely fully staffed, except at peak hours on certain days ... so they have just rejigged the staffing responsibilities, not cut hours or workers.

And I don't need to feel grateful that people make extra work for me, how patronising! I have enough to do with my actual job responsibilities, people putting stuff back in the right place isn't taking work away from me, it's just not making extra work, which isn't the same thing.

As a customer, the ones who piss me off are the idiots that put all their stuff on the conveyer belt, realise they have forgotten something and fuck off mooching around the shop holding up the checkout. IDIOTS!
Take the hit and go back for your forgotten item after paying unless it literally is staring you in the face and will only take 5 seconds to grab.

I left a basket in Aldi yesterday containing some chicken and a pack of cous cous. I'd gone to Aldi to see if we could save money on our weekly shop and had my new baby with me. I found all the off brand crap and tiny aisles so off-putting and stressful (no problem with buying cheap biscuits, but I like to be able to quickly tell what type of biscuits I'm looking at) that I abandoned the chicken. To put it back I would have had to fight my way through a crowd of bargain hunters then walk all the way round again because it is an annoying one way system.

My bad.

Muse how on earth are any of those reasons anyone else's problem though? That all sounds very self centred. Just put the items back where they came from.

Some of us are impulse buyers and then spend a good five minutes in the queue berating ourselves about what we really need and what we don't. I quite often have to end up leaving stuff.