To hate customers

[rahjama]

Somewhat lighthearted.

Working in hospitality/retail, what things do customers do that really, really annoy you when you're working? I'll start

• Booking for 6 people and then saying "Hope it's okay we're now a party of 194"

• Paying in cash but they're 1-20p short. "Can you cover it?" No I cannot

• Sitting on tables that are dirty/unset/in the process of being cleaned when there are clean and set tables literally next to them. Then complaining about the lack of cutlery.

• Buying the cheapest pint, saying it's flat/doesn't taste right, then swapping for the most expensive pint.

• Picking up an allergen menu and then saying "is this all you do?" No that's all we do GLUTEN FREE it says at the top!!!!!!!!!

You can tell who the entitled arseholes are on this thread that most of the posts are about 🤣

some people never had to be lowly hospitality workers because mummy and daddy probably funded their entire lives and it shows !

If I was a waitress I would write down who ordered what so could just put the food down in front of the right person.

Lol, did you actually read any of the post you highlighted? The bits about having several orders backing up, desserts to make etc?
Yeah, you just stand there fannying about with your little pad and see if you last out your first shift before you get potted 😂

Wow.

@MrsToothyBitch current retail manager over here…still the same,that was a cathartic read , thank you!

I have another 2 from this evening as I was working but they're more general annoyances rather than related to anything tonight.

Trolleys, particularly kids in trolley baskets and using the basket only self service tills when it's busy.

For starters, it's really not safe to be having your child sat inside the trolley and not in a seat. If your child is too big for the seat then they're also too big to sit inside the trolley. I know you think they're contained and will cause less issues but trust me they're just closer to grabbing stuff and sitting on it or helping themselves instead, I hear enough parents complaining about this that I wonder why they keep sitting their kid in there. It especially frustrates me when it's a small child able to fit in a seat but instead they're sat in a shallow trolley where they could so easily fall out of it. Your child is safer in a seat, not in the trolley basket and not running around the shop floor.

Using the basket checkout with a trolley doesn't bother me when it's quiet, use what you want then but when it's busy it's so inconsiderate of everyone else in the basket queue. They take up much more room in an area that's tightly packed and meant to be used for quicker transactions where you might have 15 items in a basket, not 50 items in a trolley. There's also not going to be enough space on the scale for everything to fit without having to pack it vertically. Just wait that extra 30 seconds in the trolley area and have a better experience without inconveniencing other shoppers who can't move passed you and have to wait longer for a till to be free.

I had a customer email a complaint about me to a store I have never been employed by. Recently we had food shortages (Australia), and she was verbally and racially abusing the poor girl who’d been tasked with loading whatever meat had been delivered into the shelves. This girl was only about 15 and was too shocked to stand up for herself, so I did. (Pointed at all the cameras and threatened to call the police, as her behaviour was out of control and racial abuse is illegal.) Of course I was frequenting the place to try and buy loo paper, etc… The manager came over and introduced herself and thanked me and said that she had never had an email of complaint about her “staff” that included someone who clearly didn’t even work in the store.

Using the basket checkout with a trolley doesn't bother me when it's quiet, use what you want then but when it's busy it's so inconsiderate of everyone else in the basket queue. They take up much more room in an area that's tightly packed and meant to be used for quicker transactions where you might have 15 items in a basket, not 50 items in a trolley.

And, invariably, those who bring in a trolley to the self service check out will plonk it in such a way as to take up as much space as possible. During lockdown when we were being asked to shop alone where possible, I had to fight my way past an entire family including late teen/ early twenties 'kids' plus their trolley in the self service area at my local Tesco. It's not a spectator sport, couldn't some of them have stayed outside. 🙄

Where I work has started restricting the amount of cooking oil people can buy.
This'll be fun.....

I think we restricted ours a few weeks ago as we have a large local population celebrating Ramadan so it was already becoming an issue. In early pandemic restricting items seemed to push more people to buy them even if they didn't need it. I once had someone ask if his and his wife got 2 baskets and did 2 transactions if it would be ok. Don't think it was even an essential item it was just because they were only allowed 2 so wanted more. If everyone just bought what they needed not what they wanted because they were told no we wouldn't have had many shortages at all. One day I had to take toilet roll off a pallet in the warehouse as I knew come end of shift there'd be none and there was only 1 roll at home. I think one pallet we put out was timed, last about 8 minutes I think, for an entire pallet of 9 pack Andrex.

@RachelGreeneGreep they seem to always choose the till that's nearest the entrance and place the trolley in the most awkward way possible for anyone else to get by. I wasn't going to mention the audience but I agree, always need a handful of people for moral support. It's as though some days the supermarket is a family outing even though you can tell they're just browsing but the entire family is there. If you're just browsing please be considerate to other shop users and try not to stand 4 abreast and just wafting around store looking down at your phone because you had nowhere better to be on a Sunday.

Our local Tesco is really hardcore with this lol, if you have a trolley and try to go into the basket area they'll stop and redirect you. Once a chap let me through because I only had one item and only had the trolley because it allowed me to plonk my child in while shopping.

My local supermarket put up extra signs about no trolleys, and placed the signs really close together to try to physically stop trolleys, but people would almost knock over the signs - and probably did - forcing their way through.

they seem to always choose the till that's nearest the entrance and place the trolley in the most awkward way possible for anyone else to get by. I wasn't going to mention the audience but I agree, always need a handful of people for moral support. It's as though some days the supermarket is a family outing even though you can tell they're just browsing but the entire family is there. If you're just browsing please be considerate to other shop users and try not to stand 4 abreast and just wafting around store looking down at your phone because you had nowhere better to be on a Sunday.

Yes, absolutely! I saw a whole family arriving just after Christmas 2020, the lot of them to 'attend' the grocery shopping. They even brought along one child's tricycle and the other's dolls buggy. Almost like they were going to the playground 🙄. And this was while we were still in lockdown and being asked to be considerate about shopping. Get in, get out and shop alone where possible.

I also encountered a couple, during lockdown, who had to hold hands while they meandered through the supermarket, thus blocking aisles, and completely oblivious to anyone else even being there. I realised actually, in the last two years, that many people seem to be incapable of doing the grocery shop alone.

If you go to the ' big' tesco near me on a Sunday morning it's always young children / older teens in football kits with their dads looking a bit lost!
I can't understand why everyone has to go round in a big group , but the worst are the ones who meet up in the aisles and have a discussion as if they are up the pub or something , blocking everything up whilst discussing their latest holiday to the ' costas'!
It must drive the staff mad trying to restock the shelves around them too.

Customer: " I want to send some flowers"
Me: " Sure, who are they going to ?"

" My mum"

" Okay, so your mum's name is...?"

"Mum."

"No, her actual name."

"Mum"

"No, her name, like Susan, or Chloe..."

"Oh. Anne."

"And the surname?"

"What?"

"Her surname. Second name. Last name."

"Oh. Johnson."

"Thank you. Right, so if I can just take her address?"

"Her what?"

"Address. Where she lives. Where you want the flowers sent to."

" You know the block of flats by the roundabout?"

"No, sorry. I need the road name and house number."

"But it's the big flats next to the Roundabout with the green roof."

" I can't take that as an address madam, I need the physical address of where she lives."

"Oh. Ok. Hang on."

< INTERMINABLE PAUSE WITH VARIOUS AUDIBLE BANGS AND RUSTLING NOISES>
^
"^Ok I've got my address book."

"Great, so her address is....?

"24 Church street"

" And the flat number?"

"What?"

" You said she's in a block of flats, so I also need a flat number."

"It's the fifth floor. "

" No, her door number."

" The blue one."

"The number on the door?"

"Ummmmm. Hang on."

^
^
"^It's flat 24"

"Flat 24, 24 Church Avenue? Are you sure?"

"Ummm. Hang on."

"Flat 38."

"Great, thank you. So what would you like to send her?"

"What do you think she would like?"

"Does she have any favourite colours, or flowers...?"

" I don't know, that's your job. You're the expert."

"Sure, I just wondered if you knew there was something she'd particularly like."

"How am I supposed to know that?"

" No problem, we'll send a lovely seasonal selection for you. How much would you like to spend? Our bouquets start from thirty pounds plus delivery."

"Delivery? But it's just by the roundabout!"

"Be that as it may, madam, my driver still has to take it there, which costs petrol, and his wages."

"can't you walk it down there?"

"No I'm afraid not. But you are welcome to collect them if that's easier for you?"

< LOW LEVEL GRUMBLING AND MUTTERING>

I won't bore you with the rest of it, but taking payment took just as long and I couldn't get a contact number for her mother out of her for love nor money as "it was just by the roundabout".

As you've probably guessed, the whole order was a complete bin fire with the wrong delivery details, repeated attempts at delivering and a resulting angry customer screaming in my face three days later that they hadn't arrived. Her mum was home, didn't we know she doesn't answer the door to strangers, why didn't you let me know they hadn't arrived ( we did, left repeated voicemails and texts asking her to contact us, which I showed her. Further screaming that I had RUINED HER LIFE.) Ended with threats to put bricks through our windows and leave shit on the doorstep.

Honestly, I'd like to tell you that this is uncommon, but it's really not.

Oh @LadyOfTheCanyon that just sounds draining.

I was in a pub over the last holidays. A man came in and ordered a 'lager'. The barman asked which one he preferred and he finally chose one. Then he said he would like 'a toastie' The barman asked which one (there were 5 on the menu- tuna mayo, ham and cheese etc) and the man exploded with rage and started yelling he did not expect 20 fucking questions in a bar. The poor barman was so patient.

Yeah, even allowing for hidden disabilities around comprehension, so many people do not seem to understand how basic question and answer exchanges should go.

"What shall I buy my girlfriend?" is such an open ended question and you can spend ages hammering it down to the fact that she likes pink, or roses, or whatever. The person then seems to reserve the right to turn their nose up at it -DESPITE 5 MINUTES AGO NOT HAVING A FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY WANTED and demanding that you make something else because apparently they've now remembered she loves yellow.

I mean, I get that it's my job. But fuck me people are exhausting.

The good part of it is that working in retail my whole life makes me an exemplary customer ( we do exist!)

@LadyOfTheCanyon interactions like this make me wonder how some people manage to function in their everyday life if something like this is such a task.

@the80sweregreat and @RachelGreeneGreep it's the phones on facetime time as well. People have literally become incapable of doing a full shop (or some cases anything) alone. I'd really rather you didn't walk around with your phone in front of you recording all the shelves and me behind my service point because whoever's at home needs to know everything you buy (I'd find this so boring as either person). If you can't do the weekly shop without a list and need telephone support then maybe you're the wrong one doing the shop. These also seem to be the same people who can't wait to be served but will butt in, arrive and immediately demand service or approach a colleague at a different station to ask for service rather than wait where you actually want service.

I will admit to making a man wait until he put his phone down before serving him. I could hear his conversation and it wasn't about the food he was about to order (will wait patiently then) but it got to the 5 minute mark as I asked him if he wanted anything, he said he'd been waiting there to be served and I'd just ignored him. I then (unusually for me) had a little push back and said he needed to put his phone down if he wanted to be served which he did but still seemed to not understand why this was the case.

See also: people who try and push in because they are in a hurry.

"Excuse me, can I just..?"

My response is now " Don't ask me , ask the person you're pushing in front of."

They usually then stand back and wait, while the customer who I was serving have a little eye roll moment at each other.

Parents who use their children to shoplift are awful. DH was the night security guard for a local supermarket while he was at university and he had that a few times.

Two boys aged around 8 and 12 tried to push a trolley load worth around £250 out the door. The security guard (not DH) approached to stop them and the younger boy left the trolley and ran into the car park to hide as he was terrified. The mother was in the shop the whole time watching what happened but said and did nothing. DH started his shift early that night and found the child hiding in the bushes. The mother was barred for allowing her children steal but they strongly suspected that she had been the mastermind behind it as most children would try and steal one or two items not a trolley load but they could never prove it.

I used to work in customer services at Boots head office and someone once posted a prawn sandwich. The smell of that jiffy bag being opened up remained with us for weeks 🤢

Lol waitresses don't have the luxury of that kind of time to do that!

Lol waitresses don't have the luxury of that kind of time to do that!

Indeed! And it's not like you're going to know their names at all. What if it's a group of 12 similar-looking men in near-identical grey or black suits? By the time you've concocted your detailed e-fit description of them all, noting whose hair is half a cm longer than his neighbour and who has the pince-nez glasses and who the horn-rimmed, you're much quicker just asking "Whose was the mixed grill?"

If you can't do the weekly shop without a list and need telephone support then maybe you're the wrong one doing the shop. These also seem to be the same people who can't wait to be served but will butt in, arrive and immediately demand service or approach a colleague at a different station to ask for service rather than wait where you actually want service.

@YarnHoarder absolutely agree. Also re yapping on phones while standing at a till, to my mind that is the height of ignorance. I have noticed some shops with signs telling people to put down their phone in order to be served. Its basic manners, sad that some people have to actually be told.