To expect the checkout woman at the local Tesco Extra store to help me pack whilst I unload the rest of the trolley instead of her just sitting there like a cat who has just sucked a lemon !!

[CaptainUnderpants]

Ok went to the smaller local Tesco today , couldn't be bothered to drive to a Superstore . Needed stuff which I knew I could get in the smaller store .

Had a small trolley and took my owm Tesco Big Blue bags with me .

Anyway get to the checkout and the conveyer belt is quite samll due to the nature of the store , I start unloading my shopping and the checkout woman reaches for the plastic bags I say to her that I have the reusable ones and put them at the end of the checkout .

She puts a few items through, doesn't pack them in my bags , then sits and wiats as the end of the chekoput is getting full of my unpacked shopping and I am still unloading the trolley.

I stop unloading and say ' I'll pack shall I? hint hint !!

So I start packing , then I go back to the trolley and start unloading again. During pauses of not scanning the woman just sits there !

NO bloody help ! I have been in stores in the past when they offer to start packing whilst you unload the rest of the trolley then leave you to do the rest . Fine , no problem with that but when they jsut sit there and you are back and for packing , unloading , it is tiny bit annoying !.

Anyway got a bit pissed off and when I paid for the shopping I went over the fill in a customer 'satifaction' card and found none there !
Was I being unreasonable to expect some initally help in packing the bags ? especailly when I am in the throws of PMT !

If I had used the plastic bags she would have done it !

Glad to see there are others who group things together and pack them together to save time when unpacking! Our Tesco has new tills - longer bit to unload on to, but a much shorter bit for packing which does not have a conveyor belt!

Waitrose are tops but tbh I do most of my big shops online now...much easier. Actually when I had baby in sling/toddler in trolley combo, before the days of online shopping - the most helpful thing was someone to UNPACK while I packed - easier on the back while wearing a sling. I realise this depends on staff, but Waitrose are always ultra helpful in that respect. If there's a spare person to help, I'd rather pack in my anal way and have them unload the trolley.

And sorry Piemama...but you'd annoy me in a queue.... Get on with paying and get away and pack elsewhere in your own time !

LOL YM, OI and Aitch. I went to LIdl for the 1st time on Sat and didn't know about the trolly technique.

I nearly collapsed with the speed of trying to pack as she scanned. (kept up though, just)

Great shop though. Felt like I was on holiday.

I am definitely not a control freak! But I do like to pack my own shopping, with or without kids in tow. I have never met a bag packer at any of the stores that can pack stuff properly.

You get home and the loaf of bread you bought has turned into pitta bread it's so flat! The eggs have been scrambled prior to cooking, the tins have to have tle leaking milk wiped off them, the crisps are sawdust and there's no telling what the bottles of bleach and deodorant and shampoo have done to the veg!

I love Asda, £30 a week for the 3 of us goes a long, long way in that store. Though have to admit to a hatred of the inane conversation being mumbled at you from the checkout staff but that goes for every shop I've ever been in!

Oh apart from Matalan, they're great!

chantilly... get thee to lidl, you'll love it. so true that it's like being on holiday.

Aitch I have been to Lidl a couple of times and it does remind me of holidays of yesteryear walking through Spanish supermarkets etc.

Ours is pretty crappily stocked though so only usually go if I happen to be passing.

Maybe the last person she'd helped without asking had been rude to her?

Maybe you should've said, "Ooh, can you just stick a couple of bits in the bags so I can clear the trolley, please? I'll be done in a sec" and smiled at her.

And Clumsymum:
"Oh and IMHO all those who say "I like to pack it myself so I know this goes with that etc" are control freaks with too much energy and too little to worry about"

Or perhaps they feel awkward as fuck when some silent, glaring type starts to pack their stuff without asking if they want it packed, whilst they're standing there like a lemon waiting to pay and puts children's pyjamas in bags with ice cream and spuds on top of eggs and strawberries?

Why do they ask whether you would like help with packing when I have DS (12) and Dp with me and we buy say 20 items BUT NOT when I am by myself with DD (7 month) and a big shop???

What's the Tesco motto ' Every little helps '

like louii, if I have to go a supermarket, i wait till i'm finished packing before i pay if they don't ask to help.

Lidl: fab wines, coffee, sausages, parm cheese, snacks, cloudy fizzy lemonade without friggin' artificial sweetners, sweet roasted peppers, jellies, olives, nuts, couscous, bags of rice, sunflower oil, creme liqueur, cans of mixed pulses, juices, tinned meats

Hav eonly read op(i know should read whole thread first but hey ho!)

It is deathly dull working on a checkout, she'd probably had a long day. But she should've asked if you wanted help and helped. Maybe she'd just had a shitty customer and didn't feel like being nice

I often find that the older ladies are far far more helpful than the younger ones too. A generalisation but true IME.

NExt time just ask for help, much easier than getting het up

But in answer to you question YANBU to expect help

oh and they have to ask if you want help even if there's only 2 items because you could be a mystery shopper and they have set questions they are supposed to ask so they should ask everytime. But it is a bit silly

With all this talk about Aldi and Lidl I thought I would put my tuppence worth in. You can sign up for their weekly news letters which give you the bargains to be had for 2 weeks in advance (one week sooner than the leaflets), so that you dont have to go to the shops to get the leaflets. At the moment one of them is doing some pretty nice power tools for the bloke in your life or Xmas pressies. And both will be doing fireworks from next week.

I'm in the anal corner to I like to do my own packing and put things on the conveyor belt in the right order. I never go to a checkout that is waiting for customers. I always choose one that has a small queue so I have enough time to get all my stuff on the belt before they start scanning

Would it not have been easier to say "Could you help me pack, please?" instead of going to find the complaints form and all that?

No .

Why?

Because I have PMT and she should have known that as well as helped me pack

Tesco "Every little helps" my ass!

LOL, I see

seriously though, there is no harm in asking

I reckon she thought you wanted to do it yourself as you had brought your own bags (probably high correlation between people who do both, I am one of them )

you could have just said "could you pack while I unload, please?" and saved yourself all this aggro

I think the slogan is 'very little help', not 'every little helps' as they would have us believe!

I totally see your point but let me just relate to you my experience if I may.

I too went to the local Tesco Express and there I saw a mum who I often see on the school run. She moved here from Indonesia four years ago with her three kids and husband, 'Because they are chopping all the trees down there'. When I saw her (about 20 minutes ago in fact) I said, 'You're woring here now too? Wow you work a lot' I also found her working as a cleaner at another friends house last week. She has just told me she also works five nights a week in MacDonalds.

I've come home feeoling really sad for her. Too much work but she says she needs to just to pay the bills and I can understand that. It's so expensive down here.

Anyway, I was just musing that if she didn't help me pack my stuff I wouldn't mind one bit.

Buts its not rocket science is it when you see someone juggling between trolley and packing to help pack , not just sit there just looking at the conveyer belt.

I thought at one momnet she was going to do a Little Britain on me and say 'the till says NO !

Well done for bringing your own bags btw. Good for you. I still forget to do that and kick myself every time.

More points , come to think about it I dont think she put green points on the receipt , now where is it .....