CF at checkout Poundland, AIBU?

[strawberryharibo1]

On the way home I decided to stop by Poundland to buy a few things with DS3, I'm standing in the cashier queue, the lady before me decides to go to the self service machine, I move closer to the cashier. The woman at the self service needs assistance, and instead of calling for help she just stands there and waits. The cashier is dealing with another woman, and I'm next. And the woman at the self service machine has noticed that the cashier is nearly done with the other woman before me and decided to stand and wait at the self service machine, now the cashier is done with the other customer and I move closer to put my items down, she does the same and says 'I was before you' I tell her it's not my fault the self service machine isn't working and you should have called for help, she says it doesn't matter, I was still before you. I ignore her, and pay. She then shouts at me " what a great example you are for your child"

AIBU?

She should have gone back to the queue, but I would have offered for her to go first if she had been there longer than me. It's just polite and not her fault the SS was broken.

If I see someone with a couple of items and I have a big trolley I always say to them to go in front of me. Maybe I am just polite and you are not?

Mind you, if she shouted at you she deserves all she gets, as she was behaving worse than you.

Queue etiquette is that if you leave a queue you have to rejoin it at the back. It is acceptable to have another person hold your place in the queue, however, an example being someone saying,’ I have forgotten my tomatoes. Could you just hold my place for me while I fetch them.’

Yanbu.

Lets just suppose the self service machine had worked, you'd have benifited by getting seen at the checkout earlier, and everyone is happy. Had she joined another que, hoping that it would go faster, and it didn't due to changing the till roll, then tried to come back, I'd say you have more of a case. It seems like she was stuck for time, so I personally would have let her back in. A similar situation occured when a couple left the que because the partner saw something of interest, they quickly came back and I offered the same place they had moved from, however good manners prevented them from doing so. YABU

OP yabu

I work in a supermarket and at my store the cigarette/lottery kiosk and customer service desk is one long desk. The CSD is one end with two tills and the Kiosk is at the other end with two tills. The two queues form from opposite ends of the desk.

Unfortunately it was designed by someone who has never worked on the shop floor so people who want the kiosk will occasionally see a customer step away from the CSD till (as the CSD queue is behind a pillar so cant be seen by the kiosk queue) and start over, not realising it is not also part of the kiosk, but as soon as they are informed they are at the wrong till they (usually) apologise and move back to their place in the queue.

By a lot of people's definition they have officially left the queue but they haven't. They are still waiting for service, they just thought there were more tills available than there were and were premature in their moving to a specific till. When they realise the till they have moved to is not in service then they are still in the queue, as nothing has changed - they are the next in line for an available till.

Well, strawberryharibo1 - on the basis you knew she was originally in the queue before you and was trying to pay, not poncing around getting more stuff at the last minute, you are a selfish cow and she is bad tempered, self-entitled and rude. It would not really have inconvenienced you that much to let her back in, given that you knew she was there waiting before you.

The thing is, she left the cashier queue to go to the self service till. Half way through, the self service till stopped working, and that’s when she wanted to come back in to the original queue. IMO she left the queue, what annoyed me the most was instead of opening her mouth and calling for help, she just stood there watching the cashier serve the customer before me, and then decided to make her move. I don’t know, maybe I could have handled it differently , but so could she.

YABU she was in the right sorry. If the cashier is the only member of staff then it is their job to help her if the machine isn’t working and I don’t see if it matters if they do that at the machine or the till. She was in front of you.

I feel like this is a mountain out of a molehill.

I just read Poundland and had to click on the thread

YABU she was before you, you didn't have to wait any longer if she had not tried the self service. With her trying the self service and had she been successful you would have been served quicker, however as it stands you were served in your allotted time. So you didn't lose out, you just didn't gain.

Seriously?! Move along people nothing to see here

IMO she left the queue, what annoyed me the most was instead of opening her mouth and calling for help, she just stood there watching the cashier serve the customer before me, and then decided to make her move.

Because clearly she could see that the only available staff member was busy with a transaction so didnt want to interrupt (especially if the self scan was a bit of a distance so she'd either have to shout, which as a retail worker I find rude, or leave her items to come over to the till) but then by the time the transaction was done she figured it was just easier to go back to the manned till than pull the cashier away to the self scan.

Either way she was next in line for service from the cashier, whether that was at the self scan or at the till, she was next in line.

YANBU. She left the queue.

Once you leave the queue you lose your spot.

Why people are trying to second guess the till layout is beyond me. The OP has said she physically left the queue and went over the the self service machines. It didn’t work so she tried to muscle her way back into the original spot she was in, in the queue. Sorry but no. You leave, you lose.

Once you leave the queue you lose your spot.

She didn't leave the queue though. Leaving the queue is when you go back into the shop, not when you walk a few steps towards a machine.

Poundland are usually set up as one queue to multiple tills, would you say someone left the queue if they saw a customer leaving a till so they moved forward only to be told by the worker that they were closing/the till was broken etc? Most times people would accept that the person was still in the queue as they had not yet been served and would allow them to walk the few steps back and return to their space at the head of the queue.

This customer reached the head of the queue, moved to a free (self scan) till to be served, realised the machine was not working and returned to her place in the queue to be served at the manned till. She did not leave the queue,she did not get served and so did not give up her place.

YABU.

She was before you. Common manners to let he4 be served before you since the self service not working.

You remind me of one of this people you rush past you (from being behind you in the queue) when a new check out opens.

Everyman for himself and all that, no common decency!

You leave, you lose.

Another example, such a confrontational attitude, what’s happened to just common decency??

I haven’t come across this sort of system (there’s usually loads of self checkouts with staff nearby, with separately staffed normal tills) so I’m not sure what I’d do. I don’t really shop at Poundland though

To be honest it would solely depend on the other person, if they were otherwise rude or hostile I’d have said the same as OP. Or if they were nice but they had loads of stuff I would have still gone too, but I’d maybe be a bit kinder.

If I was her, I’d immediately get the attention of the staff, even if they were currently serving someone. She should have alerted staff to the self checkout issue as soon as it happened, eg whilst cashier was still serving the previous customer so the staff member could radio for assistance or decide what to do instead of leaving it to the customers!

I don’t understand these people saying “but she didn’t leave the line” of course she did! She made a conscious decision to step out of one line into another so she left the queue and op had the right to go next. The fact the self scan till ended up being faulty is just tough luck. If this happened to me I would expect to be put to the back of the queue, my crappy choice to use the self scan till and try to cut corners. All these mumnetters saying that they would just let her go next are a lot better than I am because I agree with the op, she lost her place when she stepped out of the line so tough luck. And I’m a doormat when it comes to most things but this annoys me

Ah see, maybe I got it wrong but I thought it was more like the “basket shopper” arrangement in (our) M and S, where it’s one queue and just filters to cashier/self serve when you get to the front, as opposed to 2 entirely discrete queues like in asda for example. If it was 2 queues she shouldn’t have shoved in I agree.

I am shocked at those saying this woman should have went to the back of the queue.

She was there before you. You can’t expect her to queue again. The decent thing to do would have been to graciously let her back in. You were mean and rude not to do this. You did set a bad example to your child.

The self service machine was working, she did manage to scan a few items, and then it stopped. All she had to do was to alert the staff so they could scan the machine with their card, and she would be able to continue. If the till genuinely wasn't working, and there was a long queue I probably would let her back in, there was only one customer behind me. But she tried to cut corners, made a mistake with the self service till and tried to push her way back in. Nah.

Leaving the queue is when you go back into the shop, not when you walk a few steps towards a machine.

Of course that is leaving the queue. She walked away to a self service machine and was using it, she cannot have been in the original queue in that case.

She wasn't before her, she was using self service. If someone did this in Asda it wouldn't have the same responses!
She should of pressed the help button on the self service not just stand there like a lemon and suspect people will know!
she's definitely a CF.