Upset a staff member in tesco.. feel bad now but was I wrong?

[SpringIsSpringing23]

Last night I popped into tesco. At the checkout, the young lad (can't have been more than 18) was looking at his phone, didn't speak to me, kept chewing his nails and sticking his fingers in his mouth.

When it came to pay he didn't tell me how much. I was getting irritated at this point and just stood there until he looked up and I said you've not told me how much (obviously I could see on the screen). I said "you're too busy playing on your phone, and it's not hygienic to be chewing your nails when you're going to be handling food". I didn't have a go but said it in a firm manner.

He went bright red, muttered sorry and didn't give any eye contact the rest of the transaction. I then realised he had tears running down his face. I said I'm sorry, is everything OK? He ignored me so as I left I explained to the security guard (nobody else around) what happened and he said he'd go talk to him.

I feel absolutely awful that I've upset somebody... but was I wrong to have said something to him?

I would have probably thrown up all over him to be honest.

...it was worth it to flush out the nutcase who thinks that two world wars were arranged with the sole intention of killing off the manly....

Last time i had my phone on me at work, i was waiting for a call to see if my mum had survived her surgery.

Think something like this is more likely than him just being shit at his job especially if he was crying.

This was my first thought too. It was fine to ask him to tell you how much as I find it can sometimes be difficult to see the till screen.

The rest of it was you laying into him unnecessarily though in my opinion. You don't know that he wasn't dealing with bad news from home or something.

'Whether you think I was right or wrong, I don't get why so much response.'

Because many of us will have teens who will have come in from work upset at a busybody causing trouble at work, also most of us shop in supermarkets and couldn't give a rat's ass about the chat or finger nail biting at the till. Just have some perspective and stop bossying shop staff about.

Not much middle ground here it seems. Either OP is a Victorian era snob or the cashier is a lazy moron who should be in the Army. Perhaps they met on a bad day ?

Must admit I was tickled by ' this wouldn't be allowed in Waitrose'. So what goes on in Waitrose I wonder. Perfumed gigolos dancing attendance on one's every whim no doubt.

Someone should have taught him how to do the job properly. His manager should have said something, but since s/he didn't, it was only a matter of time until a customer did. Now he knows.

Not stating the total and staring at his phone was unprofessional, but if he rang everything up correctly, I probably wouldn't care. The nail-biting thing is gross. I don't want someone's saliva all over my purchases. I doubt I'd have said anything but I'd have been disgusted.

@SpringIsSpringing23 unfortunately you don't get to dictate how many replies you get and how long a thread lasts. You posted in the first place. It lasts as long as it lasts. I'm glad it will make you think twice though before you start having a go at someone who appears to have been struggling and having a bit of a rubbish day.

I don’t think you said anything that would have made him cry. It sounds like he had other things going on and he was feeling emotional.

I worked in Tesco and was told off by an old man for not counting the change into his hand. He was so angry and it stayed with me. I didn’t count the change but I did make sure I told
people how much change they were getting back as I handed it to them. I didn’t cry though!

Exactly this. My daughter was 16 working when a woman told her she should smile more. It really upset her. Why are people such bitches. We had a death in our family and she still went into work and carried on. You never know what people are going through we need to remember that.

Classic fundamental attribution error.

That’s a stupid response. The OP was better than him because he was not doing his job and behaving in a customer-friendly way. How dare he?

As are you in that response. The mods take a dim view of a personal attack on a fellow poster.

But her behaviour was mean and horrible.

Even if it’s the truth?

It’s ok to describe the behaviour in that way.

Nah, she lost it when she kept going & she knows that hence the guilt.

Exactly. The PP said she was mean and horrible and she was.

A spade is a spade.

If she’d paid for her shit and left with her head held high that she was able to rise above it … you may have a point.

however, what she did instead was belittle a teenage lad to the point were he cried and then came boasting about it on the internet. So in this case, he is so much better than her and I hope he knows this.

I wouldn't overthink it it's just one of those things. He was probably biting his nails as he was stressed about something else and you might have just hit a nerve. We've all hurt and been hurt unintentionally so don't be too hard on yourself. You'll probably remember this moment and learn from it ❤️

YANBU. Unhygienic poor service is unhygienic poor service.

It was fine for you to comment as you did. It’s sad that he was obviously going through stuff and that just added to it. But you asked him if he was alright. It’s a shame but this is real life. He needs to learn not to stick his fingers in his mouth when serving people food no matter how bad he’s feeling, pretty quick. He could have been sick which then could put you at risk. You can still be sympathetic which you were.

I would like to know what sticking fingers in mouth was as this is not normal behaviour from a stable human.

Being told to smile is the worst. Both my dds have put up with this and worse from customers. But what the op did was nothing like that. You and others are projecting your DC’s bad experiences. This lad was being a gormless dick and the op rightfully called him out.

Because people are absolutely obsessed with customer service at the moment and many actively looking for ways to be a victim of it being bad.
I don't even think it's about free stuff that often tbh, it's pretty easy to spot those ones, most of them aren't as clever as they think they are and you'll only get away with it once and in all likelihood they know then but just want you to go away and shut up because you're taking up time they could be serving customers that genuinely just want their stuff or to enjoy themselves and forcing their hand in reducing customer service to the other customers in the place. That's why you get free stuff half the time, not because you've hoodwinked them. It's a service to the other customers.
It seems to be more about the attention it gets and ranting on about 'shit customer service' and demanding the impossible or improbable and then going
"Ha! See! I knew that I'd be treated badly!" And if all else fails you can always accuse the staff of being rude like some trump card.

And from the other side as some have already said, there's those that have teens and young adult children in these jobs and have to see the effect that basically getting shouted at for some pocket money has on someone's mental health and self esteem.
I have stepped in more since covid when adults are having a go at younger members of staff because they think they can, men and women on both sides. It was rising before covid but it's so much worse now.

And people like me who have been around the block a fair bit and have noticed an increase in customer behaviour and are in all honesty sick of being treated like an enemy, and people deliberately trying to trip you up and catch you out and less willing to take the shit anymore. And employers that are starting to wake up to the fact that if they allow their staff to be bullied by customers then they don't have them long, so they're defended when they're in the right more often - just about everywhere you go now there's a sign up saying that abuse towards employees won't be tolerated - and some employers are actually backing that up with action.

Which upsets the balance of power and that damned saying "The customer is always right" because anyone knows that logically, not every customer can be right about everything, all the time, and it's misused anyway, it's used as a way to excuse treating service staff badly and not being held responsible for that.

So many have jumped on this bandwagon of 'poor' customer service and it's made out to be a traumatic event that in the majority of cases, it just isn't, this thread is a prime example - don't think OP was that bad tbh, I have experienced far worse (not that that makes it ok!) But then I don't think what the lad serving did was that bad either.
But if you had read some of the responses without the knowledge of what they were responding to, you could be forgiven for thinking something really bad had happened from both sides of it here, rather than what was basically a non event.