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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Dishonest shop staff

121 replies

Montymorency · 20/08/2017 16:23

This lunchtime was in a large branch of Boots. Looked in chilled cabinet for pasta salad, saw assistant with 2 in her hand, prawn, just what I wanted - to my disbelief saw her tuck them behind the chilled drinks, making great show of pulling bottles to the front of the shelf, looking around shiftily. When she had moved on I took them out, even better they were marked down to 50p each! Whereupon she sprang back and said I couldn't buy them, she was keeping them for another customer who had 'gone to get some money'. Told her she couldn't do that, they're on the shelf and I'm buying them. She retreated. So I bought them, subsequently spoke to manager who was full of apologies. For me the markdown wasn't the issue, I would have bought them at full price but I was annoyed that the assistant had challenged me - don't believe a customer had to go and find £1 ffs! think she had them earmarked for herself.

OP posts:
Montymorency · 20/08/2017 16:25

AIBU dishonest shop assistant

OP posts:
Mrscropley · 20/08/2017 16:25

More likely she was going to buy them on her break for herself!!

PNGirl · 20/08/2017 16:26

What an idiot. Why would you draw attention to it like that?

Eleventybillionfucks · 20/08/2017 16:28

How awful id have fired her for that ! Fair enough she wanted to buy them but she should have left them alone until her break when she could have bought them if they were still there. And why were they marked down to 50p ? She didn't do it just for herself surelyHmm id be investigating as her manager

Smeaton · 20/08/2017 16:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BlondeB83 · 20/08/2017 16:32

Speaking to the manager was a bit much. YABU

Gotanewusernamenow · 20/08/2017 16:34

Either way ..you can't win!

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
I wouldn't have bothered personally.
Too much hassle!

mirime · 20/08/2017 16:35

I'm with Smeaton on this. I probably wouldn't have bought them anyway, but if I had I wouldn't have mentioned what happened.

I worked in retail for a while. It's often a shitty job for shitty pay with at least occasional shitty hours.

BakedBeans47 · 20/08/2017 16:35

I wouldn't have spoken to the manager about it or got her into trouble but she was wrong to tell you that you couldn't buy them. I'd have left it once I got the food.

VeryCunningStunt · 20/08/2017 16:37

A girl working minimum wage tried to buy herself a cheap lunch and you tried to get her sacked

By that reasoning, all retail workers could mark stuff down, hide it from customers, then buy it themselves.

It's not acceptable behaviour from an employee.

caffeinestream · 20/08/2017 16:37

Lots of jobs are poorly paid, but that doesn't mean you can mark down stuff, keep it for yourself and try and stop customers from buying it so you can get a bargain!

If it's out on display, it's fair game. If staff want to buy cheap stuff, that's fine, but they can do it in their breaks and take their pick of what's left like any other customer!

Smeaton · 20/08/2017 16:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

thenewaveragebear1983 · 20/08/2017 16:40

I don't think the shops would care if a staff member got the bargains not a 'customer' - at our tesco I often see a staff member (on break or after shift) loading absolutely loads of massively reduced meat/cheese/ produce and thinking I didn't see those sort of items when I was going round. The issue for the manager would be that the staff member was doing her 'shopping' while working, and was potentially rude to a customer.

Deemail · 20/08/2017 16:46

Why did you need to speak to the manager? What do you hope will be the outcome from this?

AngeloftheSouth84 · 20/08/2017 16:55

A girl working minimum wage tried to buy herself a cheap lunch and you tried to get her sacked

And how much other fiddling is this employee doing that no one's spotted? Is she short-changing customers? Collecting Boots points on her own card instead of customers'?

VeryCunningStunt · 20/08/2017 16:58

Why is it not acceptable?

If something is on the shelf it's for sale. It's not for sale only to employees or only to one particular employee who had decided she didn't want anyone else to buy it.

Fluffypinkpyjamas · 20/08/2017 17:00

I agree with Smeaton. Why speak to the manager and about it, about something so petty?! Poor girl was trying to get a cheap lunch and to you the price didn't matter, to her it clearly did. You sound so smug. Hope you're proud of yourself. Oh it seems you are.

Farfromtheusual · 20/08/2017 17:01

Eleventy seriously?? You'd have fired her for trying to buy a couple of 50p salads? Overreaction much? Hmm

BlurryFace · 20/08/2017 17:01

Quite right OP, she ought to have shoved it in the fridge out the back like people do in the shop I used to work at.Wink

Goingtobeawesome · 20/08/2017 17:07

I used to work for Boots and that definitely would not have been accepted.

Tiptoethr0ughthetulips · 20/08/2017 17:07

Wow. How dramatic are you speaking to the manager about 2 50p salads, were you hangry op?

Laiste · 20/08/2017 17:12

Anyone who's spent any time working in retail knows that a lot of the best bargains never make it on to the shop floor. They're snapped up by the staff. Sometimes they've had the items put away for a while waiting for the price drop.

AngeloftheSouth84 · 20/08/2017 17:13

How dramatic are you speaking to the manager about 2 50p salads

Perhaps they shouldn't have been marked down. Perhaps the employee marked them down for the purpose of buying them at a price she wanted to buy them for

HotelEuphoria · 20/08/2017 17:14

I don't think you were being unreasonable to either buy one or challenge her. I wouldn't have complained but those that are feeling sorry for the minimum wage employee I have seen homeless people in my city scratting around the reduced cabinet for that value pork pie so whose to say there wasn't a more worthy customer than the minimum wage employee?
I wouldn't have bought both though? DiD you really want two?

Urubu · 20/08/2017 17:15

Smeaton that is a valid POV until the employee started lying to a customer in irder to get her cheap lunch