Poor customer service & plain rude!

[deflatedbirthday]

I had a small shopping list so called at my local Tesco express on the way home from work.

I popped the items in a basket and headed to the self service checkout. After scanning one of the items I remembered my DH had massaged to say he had already picked up this particular item at lunch time.

I politely asked a passing staff member if they could please remove the item. There was a queue behind me and people at the other tills.

He proceeded to look me up and down and said quite smugly 'What's the problem? Do you not have enough money?' This was loud enough to be heard.

I said 'No. I just don't need it'. I could feel myself going red. 'Suuuurrre' he said whilst removing the item.

I proceeded to pay hurry out of the shop. I was mortified. The item was not expensive. I could have bought it but it was a fresh item and would have been wasted, hence my reason for asking for it to be removed.

AIBU that this was so rude and lacking any sort of customer service?!

Some people can be rude in customer service. There was a lady who managed a cafe who was rude to people on a regular basis. So YANBU

Yes I think this, my df has this sort of humour and gets some funny looks from time to time.

You can of course. If the lad had punched you in the face most people would agree that it's reasonable to assume he felt hostile towards you. In your case people aren't disputing your account just many of us are saying its unreasonable to assume he set out to humiliate you. There could however be further information we're not privy to. We all have different ideas of what is or isn't reasonable. This board is presumably so we can see what others think about a given situation. A good many people think you were over reacting and might have misread the situation but we'll never know and neither will you.

I’m a checkout manager and if one of my staff spoke to a customer like that I’d be having serious words with them.
Next time you’re in, ask to speak to the customer experience manager and tell them what happened. It might be that a customer facing role isn’t for him, or he might have been having a bad day and a quick word will be enough to stop him making someone else feel like you did.
If these things aren’t brought to the manager’s attention then they don’t get sorted. I would hate to think any customer walked away feeling humiliated or embarrassed and nothing was done about it.
Also, I have often paid for a customer’s shopping when they’ve been short or forgotten their purse. All but one have come back later with the money ( and once some delicious hand made chocolates from her shop) and I’ve seen other staff doing the same. We are in a small town though and I would see most of them almost daily.

All information has been given.

Out of interest what additional information would have tipped your view?

In a large toy shop in London I had asked to see two versions of an item so I could decide which one I was going to purchase (they were in a cabinet). I checked them both and told the assistant which one I preferred. She then shouts over to her colleague to get a boxed one "she picked the cheap one" is what was said.

I paid then requested to speak to the manager as I'm pretty sure there were several other ways she could have identified the version I had chosen. The one with the display box, barcode number, etc etc.*

Do people just get a kick out of getting other people into trouble?
She just identified the item, surely she didn't deserve to be disciplined because you'd had done it differently, she was earning a living, would you have been happy if she was fired and lost her home?

He was completely rude and out of line and requires a refresh of customer service training on how to speak to customers. It’s irrelevant whether he thought it was banter or not.

Think of some retailers who do pride themselves on customer service - perhaps Waitrose, John Lewis etc - who thinks the management in these shops would approve of such an interaction with a customer?

Agree.

It's a statement of fact. Would "She picked the green one, bring it over" also cause the poster to complain?!

Some... people just love to make themselves feel powerful in any way possible.

He's rude and he's lucky it was you in the queue and not me because I would have called him out.

Complain. Service will never improve while people think this sort of behaviour is okay.

But rest assured the customer has no power

Complaints are usually laughed at...or employees can lie and say no it didn't happen like that

All managers know what customers can be like so invariably the employee doesn't get disciplined and a managers can give a fake apology and/or throws some vouchers at the customer

Nobody has time to tell staff how to speak to people....and what's the point when someone is ready to complain at every little thing no matter how it's worded

YANBU all he needed to do was take it off the till as you requested, no questions asked. It’s none of his business why you didn’t want it anymore. What a strange and very rude man.

He sounds like a complete dick, and yes, it could have been the straw that broke the camels back for someone who was really struggling. Can’t believe anyone would say otherwise.

There are not many advantages to being a fat, 52 year menopausal female with a resting bitch face. But not getting crap like this from younger people is one of them.

OP, it's a shame you didn't snarl "are you fucking for real, don't talk to me like that, you little cunt", dropped your unpaid for shopping on the floor and stalked out, no doubt to applause or stunned silence.

But what's done is done. You can either forget it or write to Tesco's to complain, - you might get some vouchers in response.

@THisbackwithavengeance Cathy Bates’ character in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Eat Your Heart Out. 😂

😂😂

What world do you live in love?

I’m also wondering if he’s leaving next week so he knows he’s got nothing to lose.

What’s your problem?

Why are the first responses on threads often so shitty?

How much was the item, I also wonder if he was going to try to help you.

I think you're getting some of the replies you are because there's a big culture, that's ever on the increase, of people over exaggerating small things, or simply making them up when they are feeling uncomfortable because they've asked someone in a customer service position something like you asked and they feel uncomfortable or judged, even when they aren't being judged or have reason to feel uncomfortable, or they've decided before the event that there's going to be an issue and that they're going to be a victim of poor customer service, that's very fashionable at the moment, and apparently it's now the job of customer service staff to take the blame for that.

There's always a lot around 'looks' and 'tone' that can't be verified either way in these cases, but customers know that at least on the face of it, they'll be the one believed and will have a bit of superiority over someone else. And some people are just convinced the world is out to get them and they're that important that someone else will go out of their way just to piss them off.

Not saying that's what happened here btw, just why you may be getting some of the replies you are, because I've certainly experienced it more, recently, about how I apparently look at people or my tone of voice when I'm dealing with people just normally and politely like I do everyone.

I've had something similar with asking where the toilets are.
Some people are just arseholes being nasty to strangers to make themselves feel big.
There was a sour faced woman working in our local co-op (not a resting bitch face, she turned her lip up sneering, tutted and eye rolled!). She never smiled, only replied in clipped, one word answers. She also had this weird thing where she would not place anything in to your bag. She would go to huge effort reach all the way round a wide open bag to place the scanned items around the back of it. And it wasn't even because she didn't want complaints she'd packed it wrong and crushed the warburtons. The items could be a packet of crisps and a loaf of bread and she would still do it, like she was making some weird point that it wasn't her job? I just stopped shopping there because her attitude made me uncomfortable.

Staff are not allowed to lend customers money let alone give it to them! When I worked in a well known store it was against the rules to carry money on you whilst on duty.

If it was low cost he may have had the ability to give it free.

He was not offering the pay for it or give me it. Believe me.

Ok then what’s the point of the thread, what’s the AIBU?

@Fragrantandfoolish when I first posted I was a bit taken aback and shocked. I guess I just needed validation that what happened was to acceptable. Thanks to the sensible people here I can now see that it wasn't. And thanks to the batshit comments I'm even more convinced!