To wonder who decided that customers want small talk at the till in a shop?

[YouWonJayne]

Seriously I want to know their names. Which suits sat in a boardroom and said “Do you know what customers really want? When they’re stressed and frazzled trying the find a plain black shirt and black skirt for a 9 year old’s school play, which BTW are nigh-on impossible to find, when they get to the till they want the assistant to ask what they’re up to this morning and if they’re busy? That will keep customers happy!”

The poor girl on the checkout was trying her best not to look bored as she asked the woman in front of me “Have you got much planned this morning? Do you have a busy day” especially when the woman have details of all the wedding outfits she needed to buy for her grandchildren.

I hope the assistant was relieved when I just gave a “No” when she asked me the same. I really couldn’t be arsed.

I noticed this everywhere now. Is it just me who doesn’t actually want small talk, who just wants to buy my stuff and get on with me day without being a conversationalist extraordinaire? Don’t get me started on upselling! Or the people in Lush who pounce when you’re through the door. It’s completely insufferable.

The worst part is these poor people (probably on minimum wage) get bollocked if they don’t behave this way. I can’t imagine any of them want to behave this way.

I feel like it needs a serious platform, a campaign called Leave Shoppers Alone (half joking) 😂

Actually the Lush I was in at the weekend had yellow baskets for "happy to be left alone". Reading some of the comments here I'm wondering if that was store specific and not standard for Lush.

Or you could wear a lanyard, thus taking the responsibility and workload away from the staff.

What would the design be 😆

telling the girl at the till won't achieve anything though, she probably hates it as much as you. If you wanted to make a difference you should have asked to speak to the manager or contact head office. They obviously make these stupid policies based on some sort of market research, so the only way they might change them is if they get significant feedback saying the opposite!

You all need these!

You want to know the cringiest thing? My daughter works at a Scottish airport for an American airline. If American US military personnel come through, she is supposed to thank them for their service.
She doesn't

Likewise, shop workers need to learn to read the signals, whether busy or quiet. It's pretty obvious when someone wants to chat as opposed to being stressed and in a hurry.

Believe me, we can read the signals - we just don't have a choice.

I did a decade in retail and we had to talk to people no matter how much they (and we) hated it. In the last shop I worked in, we had to greet people within 30 seconds of them coming into the store - if we didn't, we got a bollocking. If that person happened to be a mystery shopper, we failed the entire mystery shop, no matter how well we did on the rest of it.

If we failed a mystery shop, we got a written warning. Multiple failures would eventually lead to people being dismissed for poor performance.

I can't believe that shops operate like this and that they've been allowed to get away with it.

It's got 'unfair dismissal claim' written all over it.

Businesses can dismiss you if you're not doing your job properly though. It's perfectly legal - and it's even easier if you've been there less than two years.

If your job is to do X and they can prove that you've repeatedly failed to do X despite training and warnings, there's not much you can do about it.

Why would it be an unfair dismissal claim? The company are the employer and they set the terms of the employment, and as long as it's not illegal, discriminatory or immoral then the employee is expected to follow those terms and if they don't they can be disciplined and fired. In fact even immoral I'd say is a rocky area because the way a certain high street newsagents pushes upselling at pain of disciplinary action if you don't happen to nag enough people into buying an obscure flavour of dairy milk, is immoral to me - still perfectly legal to discipline or sack you for not meeting your targets though.

Those terms being misguided, a pain in the arse or putting off customers doesn't matter - they're still the terms imposed by the employer that the employee is expected to adhere to.

And as I've said, there must be a basis somewhere to the investment of these policies because otherwise they wouldn't keep investing in them.

Different coloured baskets/trolleys for those of us who want to left alone please

And what happens when these people want to ask the staff where the butter has been moved to or when you’re getting pink toilet paper in back in? Are we allowed to talk to them or not?

Maybe you could try and make our jobs even more complicated?

Yes this is exactly what I mean.

I don’t mind anyone saying hello or asking if it’s still raining/sunny outside but it’s the false narrative they’re forced to bestow on us. It’s SO patronising for these companies to treat their customers like they’re stupid, like they really believe Chloe from Next wants to know what they’re up to this afternoon.

On another point I think mystery shopping is a dreadful, ridiculous concept. How about just employ decent managers! Because they never consider if the mystery shopper actually WANTS what they’re told to expect from a member of staff.

Different coloured baskets/trolleys for those of us who want to left alone please

But what if they've run out of 'leave me alone' blue baskets and they only have 'please accost me relentlessly' red ones left? Do you have to awkwardly carry all your shopping in your arms or take the wrong basket and glower at people as you go?!

Reminds me of an event I once helped at. Everybody was supposed to have a badge, but one last-minute helper hadn't had one made up for him, so in order to comply with the request, he borrowed one off a chap who was away for the session - and he seemed genuinely surprised when everybody kept calling him Pete when his name was actually John

Light chitchat fine, but some staff really don’t have any idea what this is.

I was in a store the other day a customer was buying a regular household item and said to the assistant something along the lines of I am buying these instead of using the expensive ones bought as wedding gifts, for the assistant to ask “are you still married?” The customer replied, no, I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Why on earth would you ask such a question?

I always remind myself of this, usually in Tesco, where the Staff never hurry anyone along and are always friendly (Aldi not so much 😂)
It brightens me up- even if I am rushed and stressed- just to have friendly smalltalk for a moment while I'm packing/paying.
It doesn't hold anyone up.

Good grief what a melodramatic overreaction!

This

I find Waitrose very bad for this. Checkout staff don't seem to care if there's a queue forming because they appear to have a mandate for chatting with customers. Supermarkets are not a destination for me, I go in to buy what I need with a quick hello and thank you, and I'm off out of there...

I can just about cope with that but I do not like it when they paw your purchases. I spent time picking a nice-looking, ready-to-eat salad, multiple ingredients and a sauce of some kind. I saved it to last item so that I could put it on top and the contents remain undisturbed only for the checkout person to proclaim that it 'looked nice', turning it upside down to see what the ingredients were. I was really annoyed.

Just stop. If you cannot read people and respond accordingly then just do the minimum with politeness, you can't go wrong there.

And the flip side - I walked out of two shops yesterday without spending anything because the owners were rude twats without a shred of social skills and I'll never go back.
If you can't be arsed to be friendly and polite then you don't get my money.
The ability to actually speak comfortably and easily to other humans seems to be slipping away from some people.

Surely it is part of being human, as someone else said it might be the only time a customer has talked to someone all day.

The ability to actually speak comfortably and easily to other humans seems to be slipping away from some people.

It will continue to do so if people take exception to normal human interaction. I bet they’re the same people who won’t answer their door.

Part of being human is also knowing when to shut up and leave people alone though.

If customer wants to talk that's not a problem - it's when sales assistants are forced to talk to people who are clearly uncomfortable or uninterested that it becomes a problem.

My husband has inoperable gall stones - he's on blood thinners and heart Medication after 2 strokes hence the inoperable - I read somewhere online a lady (to whom we will be forever grateful ) saying Apple juice Apple juice Apple juice . So he drinks at least a small carton of Apple juice every day . Touch wood he's been fine ever since.

The objection OP has seems to be the forced corporatized small talk that cashiers are required to make by company policy. Not natural interaction where everyone is looking for and trying to read social cues.

If staff choose to pass the time of day with you while you’re standing in front of them putting your shopping away, why would you not have the courtesy to engage with them?

That's fine if they choose to. It's when it is obviously not what they choose to do. When they are just reciting from a script. Unless, a teenage part-timer in Tesco really cares if I've had a busy day today. They certainly don't sound as if they do. It is just so unnatural. Unfortunately, my natural response is to answer rather abruptly when I know it's not the poor kids' fault.

It's because staff have to do this shit as they are observed by management and then you might be the mystery shopper.

As I said to management when I worked in retail the customer just wants eye contact , a smile , a hello and then to be processed as smoothly and as quickly as possible . I was then accused of being negative and threatened with a warning if I did not make every moment special for the customer.and that meant making inane conversations usually to try and upsell something.

I bet you are that person who tells her sad little life story to strangers on buses.