Dishonest shop staff

[Montymorency]

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.

Loving the Les Mis reference - I have a strange scene in my head now involving a stand off at the fridges!

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.

All products are on display for anyone who wants to buy them. Staff can also be customers, the only difference between customers and staff is that staff can only buy things in the store during specific periods of time, customers can buy anything at any point they are in the store.

Customers hide things all the time (it's the bane of the shop floor staff's lives to be facing up an aisle and constantly finding things clearly and deliberately hidden that have to be returned to their correct place) but unfortunately they can't be disciplined for it whereas staff can.

I work in retail but not an employee of a retailers. At the stores I visit the sales staff work very hard, have ridiculous rules to stick by such as marking down items that they may want but have to put them out on the reduced section, if they're lucky they can buy them on their break( when they are also expected to check their phones for important calls, have a toilet break, cup of tea, sit down)Then the same customers come in again and again snapping up the bargains, they even call friends/family and snap it all up, these customers hog the area so others can't buy the reduced stuff. I've seen it happen for years, how is that fair? Some jobs have some sort of perk but there is bugger all for retail staff who are on temporary contracts and low pay?

If I had seen a member of boots staff marking down then hiding the items I'd think good on them and how unfair that they don't get first refusal on the markdowns. Certainly wouldn't run off to the manager whinging. Rarely do I comment on here but think about what you have potentially done to someone else over a prawn salad or 2.

Yabu!

Perhaps the employee marked them down for the purpose of buying them at a price she wanted to buy them for

Unlikely as it needs to be loaded into the computer system. She was probably just trying to hide them. I have done it too - I don't work in retail, but I have moved something I want to buy to the back of a shelf while I do something else and come back later hoping it would still be there.

It's not like the old days when you sold items at the price on the item and nobody was any the wiser although sometimes they were - people used to switch price labels and an informed shop assistant would know they were trying it on and refuse to sell, or sell at the proper price. I think this member of staff was just trying to save the items until she was on her lunch break.

There are far worse things to worry about.

YABVU. She saw them first.

That was very mean and nasty of you to speak to the manager. Who the fuck does that about something so trivial.

And she is as not dishonest. You were the customer equivalent of a jobsworth.

Hang on. All you people saying it was nothing and petty and why complain... Surely if it's literally nothing then the staff member wouldn't be disciplined anyway as it's so minor.

Depending on the manager the member of staff could face a disciplinary. Some managers would use this opportunity, the same as the op did, to power trip. Others will ignore the pettiness of the customer and leave it there.

Completely depends on the manager. If they are a dick then she could get a proper telling off. Or the manager might just say don't do it again.

Can you please tell us why you reported this to the manager OP?

This hinges my opinion on whether or not YABU, I'm leaning towards you being a bit of an arsehole but perhaps your explanation will convince me otherwise

I wouldnt have spoken to the manager as that would be incredibly petty

I would have bought the salads and then come on here to have a bitch .....or not, probably

I think the main issue is not the shop worker hiding reduced items of food (which would only be slightly annoying).

It's about her challenging a customer who is simply trying to pick an item from the shelves and take it to the checkout (as she is perfectly entitled to do). As a customer, I would be slightly pissed off to be reprimanded like that. And I'd probably put in a complaint via social media.

It might be annoying for the shop worker, but you win some and you lose some. She should have kept quiet. If she really was living in poverty (as some people are suggesting), then a little 50p pasta salad isn't the cheapest way of eating. You could buy a huge bag of dried pasta for that price!

YABVU. She saw them first.

So what? The shop worker saw them first, but had no intention of buying them immediately. OP was the one who actually picked them up first and took them to the checkout.

First come, first served.

So you didn't believe her that she was saving them for a customer who needed to go and get some money because that's so ridiculous no one needs to go and get a pound ffs. But there's absolutely no indication that she wasn't telling the truth about that.

But we have to believe that you were buying for you and a friend who also happened to want a £1/50p prawn salad from Boots, which frankly I don't find that convincing.

I think you might be greedy as well as spiteful!

Your whole post OP and many of the responses, including the ones defending the shop assistant, seem to have assumed the shop assistant was lying and wasn't saving them for another customer but for herself - what makes everyone think automatically that the shop assistant wasn't saving them for a different customer?
Because she's a shop assistant and therefore must be dishonest?
It's a given that she lied?
Did you tell the manager what she said or did you skip over that bit and imply she hid them for herself?
For that you are being unreasonable, to assume something and then complain on the basis of that assumption.
If the shop assistant had told you they were for her, then that's a different matter, but she didn't. You assumed she was lying for no other reason than she works in a shop. And then many others have jumped on the bandwagon saying the same, and even that she'd marked them down herself so she could get them cheaper - and what basis is there for that assumption? Oh yes, because she's a shop assistant!
So if indeed as she said, she was saving them for another customer, what's the outcome? They're also pissed off at the shop assistant - and because she quite likely tried to help someone else and give a bit extra and be good to a customer she's been accused of deception?!
IME she'd be far more likely to keep them refrigerated for another customer than herself wouldn't she? She'd more likely I think have put them behind the till for herself, or in a back office somewhere. I would if it were for me, I would keep them refrigerated for another customer.
I read many threads and comments about service workers not using their judgement or not going the extra mile for customers and sticking rigidly to policies even when they make no sense - this is a prime example of why.

As an ex manager in Boots, you were 100% correct. There are rules surrounding setting products aside. These food reductions don't need to be loaded onto a system as a pp stated. For this reason it is a system easily abused by dishonest employees. Would be interesting to know if the item had that days date on it, and if it was after lunchtime the reduction was put on. As these are the reductions to cut waste.

Nevertheless, well done op, in my experience of this system is a wonderfully crap system but great at identifying thiefs, who often are exposed doing much worse upon further investigation.

DementedO1 except you don't KNOW that the assistant was lying or that she reduced an item that still had some shelf life.

You sound as bad as the OP, and I imagine you were a terrible manager if that's how you regard your staff.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?!

Clearly Demented has such a low opinion of their staff that they think they are all on the fiddle.
I used to work for Boots. They would search your bag before you left for the day. The silly thing was that I went home for lunch.

OP, send me some details and I'll happily bung you a few quid so you can eat lunch. I know where my next meal's coming from and can afford to help those who are struggling

I understand that times are tight and it's survival of the fittest.

Key term here being ex-manager