To think shop workers shouldn’t have to deal with this?

[ItsCalledAConversation]

Overheard in higher-end supermarket this afternoon. A boomer-age woman shopper being helped by a student-age woman shop employee. As you do in supermarkets, we seemed to be taking the same route around the aisles so I overheard their convo a few times.

Employee repeatedly and calmly tried to help shopper: E.g, finding items, comparing prices. Shopper complains loudly, rudely and vociferously about: finding items items in shop. Availability of items on her list. Price of items. Whereabouts of staff. Whereabouts of employee as if she should be by her side throughout and acting as her personal shopping helper.

The poor employee, to her credit, kept her cool throughout this barrage and seemed professional. I was shocked by the level of vitriol and abuse. Her calm demeanour seemed to imply she was used to this kind of treatment. I almost said something (along time lines of “are you ok? You shouldn’t be speaking to her like that” but was with young DS and didn’t want to embroil him in a scene. I felt so so sorry for the employee.

Is there anyone here who acts like this toward people in shops? Is this in any way explainable? Or acceptable? I am shocked.

You wouldn’t routinely include someone’s race in a post, so why would you include someone’s age?

In my teens I worked in a Primark. I earned £2.30 an hour, and my God, I should've been paid a lot more in danger money.

I was covering the returns desk one afternoon, busy Saturday, and there was a queue. A lady comes to the front, immediate attitude problem about the wait-back then there was just one person in returns in a small cubby to the side. 16 year old me apologised and pointed out it was busy and I was trying to get through people as quick as possible.

She gets her returns out the bag, and it's underwear. There are signs everywhere in that department saying no returns. There is a sign in the returns bit saying it too.

So I say, I'm so sorry madam, we cannot accept a return on underwear.
She then gets really angry. Tells me I will be doing a return, and I best do it now it else. I said I'm very sorry but there's nothing I can do.
She starts shouting that I'm accusing her of having a dirty undercarriage, that I'm insinuating she's unclean.

Again, I say no, it's not my policy, it's the rules.

So, she says, "you'll fucking regret this you little slag". She turned and walked off.

I'm thinking she is going to wait for me to finish work, and wondered if my boss would mind me phoning my boyfriend at the time who worked in a shop up the road to give me a lift and meet me outside. (Pre-mobiles).

Next thing I know, I've heard an almighty roar, and can see her, running at me, snarling like a wild animals.

I had a split second to get through a door that led to a little space with one door to the changing rooms, and one to the staff carpark, along with the door I flew through as she vaulted over the desk with some impressive skill. I locked it just as she hit it with her full body weight and could hear her screaming and smashing the door, first with her fist and feet, and after with the metal rail we put clothes on that were returned, which she pulled the top off and used as a battering ram.

An older staff member came through the changing room door and checked what was going on, and radioed upstairs to get someone to call police

They came swiftly and she was taken down by 4 male officers as she was totally wild.

My boss, god bless him, sorted me a cab home and gave me £50 bonus.

For weeks after my dad used to pick me up in case she ever came back. She was taken to court and fined.

I am always polite to shop staff. They don't earn enough and don't deserve customers being rude.

I used to be a regular at a coffee shop but they always, always make a mistake and I just feel like as a middle aged women I can no longer complain and ask for the correct drink to be remade no matter how politely I would ask. It's staffed by late teens and early 20s and they give you absolute stink eye even though it's their mistake. On one occasion I pointed out the wrong drink had been made, they aggressively snatched the receipt to check and then threw the entire drink across the serving area into a sink causing it to splash everywhere. I was mortified and hadn't even done anything wrong! Waiting for the new drink was so uncomfortable.

Ageism is definitely getting worse, as the OP so ably demonstrated. No doubt they were all calling me an entitled awkward boomer.

So, in essence, a customer was very rude and demanding to an employee of Waitrose or M&S?

Yes. I voted YANBU for the question but definitely YABU for saying boomer age - the age was irrelevant in any case.

Ugh, pensioners. I'm including my Dad in this; he's got a shitty attitude to waiting staff in restaurants, bossing them around, and showing himself up. I worked at a garden centre years ago and we used to dread the days the coach trips came in; dreadful manners from retired people, the demands for personal attention, preferential treatment, strolling around the shop then 5 minutes before their coach was due to depart, storming the till and hassling you to serve them faster. Ornaments from display cases needed boxes that were stored upstairs, it was a nightmare. Never want to go back to a customer facing role again.

Working in retail for over 20 years I can honestly say nothing the general public does or says surprises me anymore.
One woman was so awful to me on a regular basis I used to get palpitations when I saw her in the queue and another woman physically attacked me.

Worked at Sainsbury’s for years while at school and uni. I actually loved the job and had some lovely customers. There were some occasions where people were simply horrid and we had some ‘regulars’ who were known to be difficult. One particular repeat offender was apoplectic when we cut up his credit card. He’d reported it stolen and the found it again so we were following the bank’s instructions. It was a very big Christmas Eve shop. I have to say I felt a warm glow at that.

@Bluevelvetsofa glad you’re all caught up 😂

So sorry to all the posters who have worked in retail and suffered similar experiences. It’s horrid some people (of all ages) can be so self-entitled, impatient and unkind.

Some millennial with their avocado's and netflix.

@kitsuneghost ok, you’ve given an example of a generalisation there. But that’s not what I did. So I am not sure what point you are trying to make?

I'm in retail, work for a naice department store, very popular with the middle class. We are paid 8p over the minimum wage. Bonuses etc are a thing of the past. Staff discount is good but not much use when you get 10.50 an hour. And we have to buy our own uniform which they tell us what colours and styles are appropriate. And because other department stores are closed eg. Debenhams etc, its our fault whatever happens in store eg. Our fault the customer can't find what they used to get in Debenhams, our fault the prices are high, our fault there's not enough fitting rooms, our fault the tills are short staffed, our fault we have to ask for ID when the tills prompt us, our fault we have to charge for bags.... I could go on all day. For a department store we are apparently partners of, we have absolutely no say in what happens on the shopfloor, no matter how hard we try.

For 10.50, less than a kid earns in McDonald's, we are expected to know so much and do so much, whilst getting treated like shit on a regular basis by people who seem to think we own the store, rather than work for buttons.

I'm a bit puzzled by all this boomer stuff. Born in 1946, the word which followed me through school and college was The Bulge. Always changing things to get ready for next year messing us about. Never heard boomer.
(Reminds me though. I need to go to the O2 shop to apologise for losing my cool. Mind you, to be told repeatedly they can't change my email without the one which the provider no longer provides.....)

That's a lot of assumptions based on no evidence at all. None of those reasons give someone the right to be rude to another person.

OP, do you often tone police other women?

Shopper complains loudly, rudely and vociferously

I've heard it used my entire life to describe that generation. It did come into more regular use a couple decades ago when the newspapers were constantly complaining about millennials!

The 'OK Boomer' insult was much more recent than that and was used as an insult against millennials who were seen as always complaining (often about Boomers!). Much like the 'OK Grandad' would have been used in the past. I've not heard it used as an insult against the Boomer generation.

@ItsCalledAConversation just helping you to condense a wordy post. 😂

Boomer comment is out of order.

Maybe someone called this woman a boomer and she was upset? How’s that for a hypothetical reason @ItsCalledAConversation ?

My sister worked in Primark on the changing rooms when she was in Uni. She said someone having a poo in one of the cubicles was a weekly occurrence.

The people who treat retail workers like shit are also the people who moan about unemployment, I bet.

And yet there they are bullying people who are doing their jobs… possibly pushing them to leave. And then they moan about unemployed people.

Idiots.

This! I didn't bother reading the rest of your post after seeing that.

@BrendaMcPherson no, or the rest of the thread before you commented, evidently!

When I was a student 20 years ago I worked in MKOne (remember that shop 🤣) and we had in the changing rooms those lamp fittings that were semi circles with the flat side facing up. At least once a week we’d find a shit in one 🤮