..to have complained about the cashier at sainsbury's this afternoon...?

[americantrish]

i got two bottles of soda at the cigarette counter and after paying her (exact change), she just turned her back, didn't offer a receipt, a thank you. NOTHING. seriously f**ked me off. so i went to customer services and then spoke to the cashier manager person who was apologetic (sp?) and said she'd have a word with her.

i felt a BIT bad after, but if she treats most of her customers like that....(and i've worked in customer service (albeit in the US) for 10+ years...) being decent is being decent. a thank you or have a nice day would have been nice.

meh!!

i think the cashier should have been more attentive, but i don't think you should have reported her. i worked in retail for years and it is a shit way to scrape a living. some people treat you like dirt and it is easy to be dragged down to their level.

It doesn't cost anything to say 'thankyou' it's basic manners. There is NO excuse for not saying thankyou. It's crap behaviour.

it dosent cost anything for a customer to say thank you either and many don't.

see ... people just dont like the script

not unreasonable she was ignorant, i worked at a fast food place, on shitty wages, very long hours, with morning sickness and was always polite.

oh come on, how many times bave I been through a checkout at tescos, homebase whereever - and not a word has been said or offered by the cashier - sometimes they have even just pointed at the total, or indicated where I should put my pin number in, folded up the receipt and handed it over. Incredibly rude , minimum wage job regardless, it costs nothing to say a few words - not overboard like they do in North America, but at least a 'that will be amout please/thank you
I wouldn't have reported or said anything, but it does rather annoy me too

musr add, i'm a polite customer too

Sheep, I agree the customer should always say thankyou.
People should always say thankyou, no matter how trivial the thing or how pissed off/miserable they are.
When driving for example and someone lets me out I ALWAYS say thankyou. My children ask me why and tell them you should always say thankyou when someone does something for you. It makes evryone feel better.

what about this then ...

bought a 2 pack of baby tshirts amongst loadsa stuff ... all pretty inexpensive .. nice long chat with assistant about value etc, vvvv polite

got home -- 2 days later, 1 tshirt still got sodding security thing attached

schlep to shop ... same assistant, explain ... no receipt cos binned bag ....expect a quick 'oh sorry i didnt check everything, hope you didnt have to make a special trip, i'll remove it quickly now'

get

glared at
assessed
'i'll trust you this time'

i was actually too pissed off to retort ... plus baby crying ... still feel i shouldve said oy missus, this is your mistake not mine and would i really risk the cops to nick a £1.60 kids shirt ...

figured it made her happy to assert her self-imposed authority?

ha ... i did somewhere in my purse ....actually was taking them all out to find and she couldnt actually be arsed to wait

thought she was joking at first but she kept saying it

maybe i just look like a crim ...

feel free to chuck tomatoes ... but i read this once and it resonates ...

you cant always choose your job/tasks/odious circumstances ... but you can choose your attitude

i think service sucks in the uk

mind you

there really are some customers out there who are shits and the chance to abuse an assistant is there only opp to feel superior

not saying that about the OP

but having seen it from both sides...

I agree service is generally bad in UK.

I went to a beautician's appointment today. I was 10 mins early for my 10 am appt. The shop was in darkness, front door locked, notice in window of opening times said shop opened at 9 am. I went home again (15 mins drive) wondering what emergency had caused it to be shut. Telephoned shop from home (I don't have a mobile) and found owner/beautician had been there all the time. She had not opened up because I was her first customer. She asked had I knocked? She opened the door at 9.50 so must have just missed me. Next time I'm to knock.

I found myself apologising!

I should take a leaf out of Americantrish's book.

Some of the women that work in the co-op at the bottom of my road are miserable as sin. They seem to throw your shopping at you!
I just find it funny though, and i'm always polite to them.

i hate it when they chuck your shopping in the bag, don't they realise i go all the way to the back of the shelf to get things that haven't been squashed !

i prefer to pack my own shopping, i'm so pinickity

americantrish could have been a mystery shopper - the manager would have got a major bollocking from above in due course if she was and quite right too - it is a service industry FFS.

Nobody has to work in a supermarket, yes the money is crap and some customers are rude but if you can't deal with that get a job where you don't have to deal with people face-to-face (like a call centre, like me, where you can at least chill them to the bone without being overtly unpleasant, or pull faces at them, or write notes about them in your book )

I think the person who was the most discourteous was americantrish for complaining to the manager.

Ok it is nice to get a thank you and a smile, but IMO not worth dwelling on it if you don't. Complain to the manager means that cashier risks the sack. And she wasn't even properly rude!

I feel it is a cultural difference so I think as americantrish is in a strange country she should show some understanding of this. Incidently when I sell on ebay, the american buyers are always the ones who expect lots of emails and a personal touch to any transaction. It is a very marked difference.

I think the cashier was rude.

You enter into a transaction with someone, you make eye contact and acknowledge them at the very least.

Not doing so is a deliberately hostile act imo. I only do it if I really want to piss someone off or if I'm making a point.

I probably wouldn't have bothered to complain about it though, unless I had just been to a funeral/ found out my DH was shagging the dog/ realised I'd missed my dentist appointment.

It's one of those things that if you're in a good mood you don't notice/ don't care, if you're in a bad mood, it can be the last straw.

It kicked off in my Sainsburys today - maybe it was the time of the visit which had something to do with it(3.30pm)

I'm in the second aisle and there were 3 workers complaining about their managers. I didn't quite get what they were saying.

Over the tannoy "xxxx please come to customer services, customer STILL waiting" To which the three workers made a comment "see what I mean they don't know what they're doing"

A few aisle later another worker was complaining how most of them were still in their cafe running over their lunch break

Another worker was rude to her colleague at the meat counter

Now I'm not saying the workers are at fault. There has got to be something going really wrong at management level to warrant such low morale

Bear with me, I'm still not finished...

Then I'm at the checkout and I was watching a group of schoolboys acting suspiciously and I saw one of them take an item from the self and put it in his pocket. I told my cashier and she pressed her buzzer for her supervisor. The supervisor said that there was nothing she could do as he had a receipt. I SAW HIM TAKE IT

Instead their alarm went off 5 seconds later when another lady took shopping which she hadn't paid for. They had been watching her and seemed a nasty piece of work, swearing at everyone, I think she said something about me when I caught her eye. About 20 men chased her up the street, they didn't catch her though.

My cashier was very nice, she'd only been there for 2 days and she said it was worse than the previous branch she was at.

All this in a half hour visit, I felt like I was in the middle of an episode of 24! (Obviously without Jack though)

Crikey margo, where do you live? The Bronx!

Nearly! - Bromley

PMSL!

That reminded me of when there was a sale on in a sports shop in my town. The shop was heaving, people stepping on each other, a queue a mile long. This guy entered the shop with a pushchair and went storming through just pushing people out of the way. Then he had a go at the poor assistant cos he couldnt get to the changing room. Crazy behaviour.

I dont think you are unreasonable.
Whilst I hate the american contrived "have a nice day" I do like basic manners, and expect a thankyou and goodbye. I have worked in a shop and in a restaurant, and always had impecable manners. I am not expecting a chat with everyone I meet, but a simple hello, thankyou will suffice.
I maybe would not have told her manager, but would have said something to her, or been overly polite in a "Thankyou soooooooo much for your manners"