To have been horrified by shop assistants complete lack of empathy

[WDY23]

Hello,

I have just come back from the local (ish) shop and the lady in front of me was taking her time at the till adjacent. Didn't think much of it initially, until I hear "no, that's not enough, you need to put x amount back". Very sharp and very cold. The woman, who I would say was in her 50's, had hearing aids and possible learning difficulties and was really struggling to understand what she needed to do. The 'assistant' was just staring at her through narrowed, icy eyes and folded arms.

The woman kept asking exactly how much did she have to put back, but the assistant clearly didn't think it was her job to offer any help whatsoever - just said "keep going", as this woman nervously scrambled through her shopping bags, putting them back on the counter. She clearly wasn't trying to get away with stealing or anything, she just needed a bit of help. I heard her say it was so expensive now, to which, you guessed it, the assistant responded with another cold, judgemental glare. She clearly didn't deem her worthy of a response. She then started apologising for the trouble, very nervously and I honestly could have cried for her.

The items she put back were essentials - bread, milk etc and I was appalled at the complete lack of humanity shown by this woman. I asked her if everything was OK and was even tempted to offer to help her pay for those essentials, but was also worried I might offend. She didn't really understand and just said another very sad "sorry" to me and to the assistant and she just rolled her eyes and shouted "next!".

My blood boiled. I was so cross, but I didn't know what to do. I was very close to confronting her, but my dd was with me and wasn't feeling well, so I didn't want to make her feel worse. Tempted to call and suggest that they offer this woman some extra customer service training, which would hopefully include some training in kindness and compassion. Maybe you can't teach this.

Anyway, I needed to share.

I sincerely hope I'm not alone in thinking how depressingly cold hearted this was....

All of this.

Yes mumsnet is rife with bots and the writing style is very similar.

@DorasAuntie nope....op herself has said she should have offered but didn't!

Actually the OP just asked if everything was ok. How is that offering help? It’s a pretty lukewarm response.

This happens regularly in a shop, especially local ones. It's not fair on the assistant.

One easy thing to do (well easy-ish) is to bend down to the floor and come back up with a £10 and say "I think you dropped this! No I'm quite certain if fell out of your purse!"

And if you didn't want to embarrass the customer I would have stayed a minute and asked the person at the till if her reactions were really necessary.

Frankly it doesn't matter to me if some customer is tiresome, that the woman serving has had a bad day, it's a bad image for the store to project that it's ok to be obviously rude to someone. I wouldn't want to go back to that shop on the off chance that I might be subjected to similar treatment. Something should be said and the woman serving can try to justify her actions or not. If I asked about it and just got tutted at or told to mind my own business I'd be asking to talk to the manager.

Op posted saying she knows she SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE

This. The assistant was doing her job, she can't let customers not pay for their shopping.

Yes but there's a way of approaching it. She could have asked how much money she did have and what was the most important items she wanted and see what she could afford to take.

Doubt the shop assistant would care about some mumsnetters 'choice words' or a telling off!

Too busy for that

Possible explanations

Shop assistant was probably embarrassed and awkward and handled it badly.

Minimum wage employee lacking in the skills and trading to handle it.

Not a very nice person.

It's a shame though.

I used to work in a shop where a couple of times a week a woman would come in and fake fainting. I’m sure people would think that we were cold hearted with the way we would talk to her too.

One easy thing to do (well easy-ish) is to bend down to the floor and come back up with a £10 and say "I think you dropped this! No I'm quite certain if fell out of your purse!"

Or for that little touch of theatre, say "excuse me what's that behind your ear... look at that, it's a ten pound note!"

I'd write a short letter to the manager of the shop. If the customer in question is a known chancer/trouble maker (to the extent staff have been given carte blanche to treat her like shit!) she'd've been barred from the shop long before now. It sounds like the checkout woman has zero customer service skills, and is just a nasty twonk.

Or for that little touch of theatre

😂

I heard her say it was so expensive now, to which, you guessed it, the assistant responded with another cold, judgemental glare. She clearly didn't deem her worthy of a response.

I don't think exclamations of how expensive shopping is nowadays really necessitates a response. Surely it's a fairly closed statement.

I struggle to understand what exactly you expected the shop assistant to do.

As others have pointed out retail workers have to deal with scammers all the time. Maybe this customer wasn't a scammer, maybe she was. The workers have no way of knowing. In any case your tolerance for this kind of thing wears thin very quickly when you're in this line of work.

Shop assistants can't win

There have been threads moaning about queues before....this kind of thing is how queues build!

Shop assistants can't win

Nobody complains about kind shop assistants

People complain about retail and retail workers, kind or otherwise!

Hello everyone,
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And just so you know - we have no reason to question the veracity of this thread, as far as we can tell the OP is genuine and they have been with us for a number of years.
MNHQ

So would I.
What is the point of complaining after the incident ?
Should have said something at the time.

But you didn't say anything to either the woman or the shop assistant so why all the bosom hoiking afterwards? 🤷🏼‍♀️

You're the one who needs to read the thread.

OP says herself she didn't offer to help.

That's so sad.

It reminds me of a time about 20 years ago when a young man with learning difficulties got on the bus I was already sitting on.

He was slightly short for his fare (can't remember how much as it's so long ago), and the driver was being really stern with him.
The young man was shaking. He explained he needed to sign on at the Job Centre.

I gave him the difference, and he was so grateful.

About five years later I was pushing my child in a pushchair, when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You're the lady who helped me when I was struggling with my bus fare. I have never forgotten. Thank you".

this kind of thing is how queues build!

When a shop assistant is being a giant arsehole? If she'd've shown a shred of compassion, everybody would've got back to their day that bit quicker.

Takes time to work out how much money the customer has and then to discuss what they actually need or need to put back.... yes, a queue will build if they are doing this!