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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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:

Allwashedup · 20/08/2017 19:54

Hope you they gave you food poisoning OP. What a spiteful, petty person you are.

NotTheDuchessOfCambridge · 20/08/2017 19:58

How spiteful. Why did you tell her manager? You got your salads!

stormytherabbit · 20/08/2017 20:00

If you were buying lunch for TWO PEOPLE!!!!!! as you keep emphasising surely you had a budget of more than £1..

Anyway you sounds like a horrible, petty selfish little woman with nothing better to do. I bet all the staff had a good laugh at you.

SnickersWasAHorse · 20/08/2017 20:00

I read the post perfectly well thank you.
You wanted to buy two prawn salads. You saw a staff member hide them. She told you she was saving them. You decided she was lying and reported her to a manager.
Petty and unnecessary.

Pengggwn · 20/08/2017 20:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SnickersWasAHorse · 20/08/2017 20:03

Out of interest were their any of these precious prawn salads left at full price that you could have bought?

Also, what is so amazing about them that you simply must have them at all costs?
While I'm here was Boots the only place available to buy lunch? Surely if there was a big branch of Boots then there must be an M&S, Pret or something else near by. I think a salad from Boots would be at the bottom of my list.

AlpacaLipsNow · 20/08/2017 20:19

All this fuss over a bloody salad? FFS give your head a wobble.

PennyTentiary · 20/08/2017 20:34

Gosh you really overreacted. You would have looked a right twat if she was really saving them for a customer and they walked in whilst you were running to the manager

Allthelightsgoout · 20/08/2017 20:40

Why are some people on MN so desperate to 'report' people for something.

You got your salads for 50p. Most people would just go home and never even think of it again.

faithinthesound · 20/08/2017 20:45

I've been that shop assistant.

We get to take abuse, listen to complaints, pretend we're not dying for a sit-down, forego bathroom breaks except at strictly designated times (because the human bladder works that way, not), for eight hours at a time, all for minimum wage.

But sure, stick it to us when we try to get a lunch we like at a price that won't jeopardize us paying rent. Really big of you.

For the record, I'm not suggesting that it wasn't dishonest. I'm suggesting a big of effing compassion for the person on minimum wage who has to put up with your crap all damn day and gets treated like crap by management. Complaining to the manager got you what exactly? Feel big, do you?

You could have bought something else. She might not have been able to. That could have meant she went hungry. But no, the customer's "always right", right? Strict adherence to the law over justice, right?

It's Jean Valjean stealing the loaf of bread, and you're Javert persisting that he be punished beyond all reasonable limits of compassion and remembering the other person is a human being.

As PP have said, petty and unnecessary.

faithinthesound · 20/08/2017 20:46

a bit* of.

faithinthesound · 20/08/2017 20:46

It's a minor "crime" subjected to disproportionate retribution by the self-righteous and self-appointed Justice Police, is what it is.

DiscoDiva70 · 20/08/2017 20:50

This all sounds a bit fishy to me

shakeyourcaboose · 20/08/2017 20:51

Presumably Boots have policies and procedures, this would not accord with them. Aaahh 'thems the rules' thinking. Good grief! Thank god you stopped this corporate theft!!

priscillap · 20/08/2017 22:15

As far as I am aware there is a rule (written in many cases, perhaps unwritten) that all products on display are for customers and not staff. If you want to buy one, it has to be in your lunch hour (perhaps break-time) because you are not allowed to carry money whilst working on the shop floor. Quite simply she broke the rules and it was also an example of very poor customer service.

Shestolethewitchesredshoes · 20/08/2017 22:54

So you spotted someone with something you wanted, you assumed that someone was up to no good and then decided not only were you going to have those salads but that you were going to try to drop her in it while you were at it?

I'm not impressed. You sound aweful OP!

FlyingFox95 · 20/08/2017 23:03

You have too much free time on your hands. Get a hobby. Going to her manager over something so stupid is pathetic and spiteful

PrincessPlod · 20/08/2017 23:07

I would have challenged her but not spoken to the manager unless they were items that clearly shouldn't have been marked down like they had a long shelf life.

PoppyH56 · 20/08/2017 23:16

People who ask to speak to managers over little things are spiteful in my honest opinion. And also a little sad.

Deemail · 20/08/2017 23:35

I agree speaking to the manager was very spiteful and petty. What were you hoping to achieve op? Are you hoping she'll have received a warning or possibly if she's had previous warnings been sacked?

crazycatgal · 20/08/2017 23:48

OP has said before that there were no full price prawn salads left. The woman shouldn't have confronted OP when she wanted to buy those salads, if they're on the shop floor and a customer wants them then it's fair play.

kali110 · 20/08/2017 23:56

The staff member HID items behind bottled drinks - what interpretation would anyone/supervisor/manager put on that?
That they were being saved.
Does not mean they weren't for another customer, again customers would ask us to save stuff for whatever reason.

As far as I am aware there is a rule (written in many cases, perhaps unwritten) that all products on display are for customers and not staff.
What unwritten rule?

Hereforthefun · 20/08/2017 23:58

If I saw this i would be embarrassed... for you. Who makes that much of a deal about something? You actually went out of your way to move drinks etc for a 50p salad? And you seem quite proud of yourself!

SnickersWasAHorse · 21/08/2017 00:03

OP has said before that there were no full price prawn salads left

Has she really?

I've just re read the op. I'm confused about how the staff member managed to 'make a great show' of hiding these blessed salads while also 'looking shifty'.

melj1213 · 21/08/2017 00:06

YABU OP. I work in a supermarket on customer services ... you would not believe the petty things that customers will come and want to make a formal complaint about and the stores will invariably side with the customer to keep them happy. Unfortunately it's the staff that then get the hammering from both sides.

It's one thing to take the salads - that the shop assistant was clearly trying to save (for whatever reason) by hiding them - because you felt you "deserved" them more than her because you were a customer and she was staff. It's another thing to then report her to her manager for something so petty and potentially get her sacked. People always say "nobody would sack someone over something so small" well that may be, but if enough spiteful customers report petty things, it can be used by management to start formal disciplinary procedure.

I was once covering the self scan machines in my store while the usual attendant was on their lunch break and had a customer make a complaint about me for being rude, ignoring him and not saying thank you when he pointed out that another customer had forgotten their change in the machine he was about to use. Our Customer Services manager happened to be the one covering me at the desk (I am trained in both jobs she only knows the CS role) when the customer was reporting it and immediately offered the customer store vouchers as an apology.

It was only later, when I was pulled up into the office to be given a formal warning, that the manager bothered to even ask for my side of the story. It was at that point she found out that the reason I ignored the complainant was because another customer was asking me some questions when the guy whistled at me and did that "clicking fingers and waving over" action while shouting "Oi! You, girl! Come here!" from the other end of the machines (a good 20ft away) and I refused to acknowledge him both because I am not an animal to be whistled but also because I was clearly already dealing with another customer until he came over to me ... a fact he conveniently omitted from his version of events when complaining.

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