The pettiest, jobsworth bollocks you’ve encountered? Probably won’t top this.

[ermwhatypu]

I was in Morrison’s today. The woman at the till was handing out vouchers on a strip as an offer with 3 pounds off. There were three on each strip that you had to tear off. I had a screaming baby with me and was trying to find my phone to pay. As she handed me the strip one of the 3 pound vouchers fell off the strip onto the till… right in front of the woman. I said I will use that one please, as I wrestle dd back into the trolley. She looks directly at me and says I must hand her the voucher for it to be valid. She handed me the voucher back and I gave it back to her. She then scanned it.

Why are people like this!

She doesn't make the rules. Get over yourself.

Modern life/rules are baffling. Like common sense has been removed. Totally with you OP!

Only on MN do you get such awful responses... I agree its insane, I've worked in retail and never come across stupid rules like this... if it was on camera, they can blatantly see its not fraud by the cashier... what happens if you are disabled with no arms?

I agree OP, she was a bit jobsworthy .They don't sit there monitoring the cameras every second of the day and I'm pretty sure if they did look they would see that the voucher was in the process of being handed to you.

No

Behind every stupid rule that is enforced, there is a background story about what happens if you don't.

It's not worth going against the policies. Would you risk some arsehole on a power trip sacking you from your much needed job just for the sake of saving some woman you don't even know, two seconds?

Bonkers

Yeah! What if she had no arms?!

I have come across stupid rules I had to obey. If we knew someone was under 25 but over 18 and asked for ID then we had to ask every single time. They came back in 30 minutes later, ask for ID. They came in every single day for a year, ask for ID every time. They're my friend's son and I was at both their 18th and 21st birthday parties, ask for ID. We could get in serious trouble is we were seen to not be asking for ID.

Oh come on now. If she had no arms she wouldn’t have been on the till handling cash, pressing buttons and handing out vouchers would she.

My ExH works for Morrisons, they have to be handed the voucher by the customer because customers will sometimes accuse them of applying vouchers when they didn't want them to.

I meant what if a customer didn't have arms to hand the voucher over? But a staff member can have none technically, I have been to sainsburys were one staff member was very clearly disabled with some chronic pain and couldn't really touch and scan anything and in asda a girl in a wheelchair who had a carer pushing her and she had no use of her hands and just a computer monitor- companies are very diverse these days. Ps the carer was not a staff member and no doubt wouldn't be allowed to touch the voucher.

Getting silly now.

My dd was born without her arm and we know a few people who have no arms. I can assure you for your concern that they would be most put out to find you saying they couldn't pass things over and would be more than capable of doing so in their own way.

Yes, what about if a person had no arms no legs no eyes and in fact was see through and didn't know what a voucher was????

🙄

Obviously adjustments would be made to account for this. It's not the same as an able bodied person who is capable of handing it over, in just one second after they're finished putting their baby down.

Aldi has a new policy of checking empty shopping bags at the till. The staff hate asking but they have to. I now offer my bags to be checked so they don't have to ask. I really feel for them as some shoppers take offence and have a go at the cashier.

While I understand everything that has been said here about policies and the reasons for them, companies and organisations make up (often ill thought out, sometimes nonsense or even unlawful) policies for either their staff of their customers all the time, and then think they automatically have some kind of standing because 'it's the policy'. Well no, not really - they can be challenged in a number of ways depending on the circumstances. And should be.

In this case there are issues around whether the policy has been impact assessed with regard to protected groups as per Equality Act 2010 (including the example given of a disabled customer, but like the OP people dealing with babies which would come under maternity and could also come under sex if women are much more likely to be affected, statistically). It also needs to be checked whether official variances to the policy have been applied correctly. "It's policy" + BLANK STARE is by itself is not adequate.

The till operator was a 'jobsworth', because there were lots of better ways she could have handled this, including alerting a supervisor to what had just occurred so it could be logged at the time rather than it being a potential problem later. And just staring vacantly at the customer rather than explaining and empathizing in a "this rule seems silly but it is because... sorry, don't worry, deal with the baby first" pleasant kind of way is just strange - she should equally be in trouble for that with management because it is poor customer service.

Aldi has a new policy of checking empty shopping bags at the till. The staff hate asking but they have to.

Aldi has no right to be looking in people's shopping bags without due cause. And they might not be empty anyway because (shock!) people go to more than one shop on their shopping trip, it's not Aldi's business what they got at the chemist etc.! Another business to be avoided. Or, challenged.

But the OP didn’t have a disability, she had a baby. There was no difficulty for the OP handing over the voucher, she’s just not being very pleasant about the woman doing her job.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest she sounds autistic.

I’m autistic and if my boss said to me ‘each customer needs to hand you the voucher’ i’d take that really literally unless someone then told me it wasn’t meant like that.

Sometimes we in the SEN community come off as massive jobsworths, we don’t mean badly we just struggle to interpret rules.

In this case there are issues around whether the policy has been impact assessed with regard to protected groups as per Equality Act 2010 (including the example given of a disabled customer, but like the OP people dealing with babies which would come under maternity and could also come under sex if women are much more likely to be affected, statistically). It also needs to be checked whether official variances to the policy have been applied correctly. "It's policy" + BLANK STARE is by itself is not adequate.

It's against the EA for someone to have to hand you something? Surely you could then argue that every single part of supermarket shopping is more difficult if you have a child with you?

You've never worked in retail, have you?

The till operator was a 'jobsworth', because there were lots of better ways she could have handled this, including alerting a supervisor to what had just occurred so it could be logged at the time rather than it being a potential problem later. And just staring vacantly at the customer rather than explaining and empathizing in a "this rule seems silly but it is because... sorry, don't worry, deal with the baby first" pleasant kind of way is just strange - she should equally be in trouble for that with management because it is poor customer service.

What exactly should the supervisor be logging? "Customer couldn't hand a voucher over due to baby." Should she also be exempt from having to pay because getting her phone out was more difficult than if she didn't have the baby?

but the whole point is that OP didn't have THAT voucher to hand to her.
It fell off before she could give it to OP.
So OP thought to save her the effort and just use the fallen one rather than ripping a second one off the strip, handing that over, and then the cashier handing her the original one back, which makes complete sense.

It's fair enough if she had to follow very specific rules but I agree most people would acknowledge it with a bit of a wry 'I know it's silly but you literally have to hand me the voucher or it's considered fraud, mad huh?!' rather than just blank face 'computer says no,' although obviously you can't mandate how someone talks to customers. Perhaps she just couldn't be arsed!

I used to work in a cinema chain where when we were first given an alcohol license the policy was to ID EVERYONE even if they were clearly decades older than 18. I always used to make a joke/explain it - firstly because you're supposed to have friendly interaction with customers anyway, secondly because I'd feel ridiculous saying deadpan 'can I see your ID please' to an 60 year old without any explanation, and thirdly because it tended to pre-empt customers getting annoyed and thinking I was being a jobsworth!

The example given may have been a poor one, but the issue of disability is a real one. A lot of people have trouble with manual dexterity due to age or medical conditions/disabilities, and the situation can be made worse by being rushed or stared at. People also find supermarkets noisy, busy, and anxiety-inducing for a variety of (disability-related) reasons. The staring till operator wouldn't know if the OP had any hidden disabilities as well as dealing with the baby, and should have exercised common sense and courtesy as they should to all customer. I think that is the issue here. Frankly the way many supermarkets operate, and what they expect of their employees, is contrary to equality and decency. I have the luxury of avoiding places I find to be like this, but many people don't. It's not on.

most people would acknowledge it with a bit of a wry 'I know it's silly but you literally have to hand me the voucher or it's considered fraud, mad huh?!' rather than just blank face 'computer says no,' although obviously you can't mandate how someone talks to customers. Perhaps she just couldn't be arsed!

Who has the head space to think to say all that?! She has other stuff to think of like being timed on how quickly she scans items and to keep the queue moving and to also follow the rules.

If anyone needs such a wordy appeasement of their ego then the problem lies with them, not her.

I haven't read the thread- but I do hope people remember that it is not the customer facing person who makes the absurd rules-it's usually not their fault. And for some bonkers things there sometimes is a really good reason.

I tend to try to be empathic and compliant in these situations as you never know if the staff member has been ordered to do it a particular way by their manager. I don't really see the point in getting arsey as it just stresses everyone out, including yourself.

Rest assured OP that the majority agree with you according to the poll, clearly people more likely to support jobsworthiness/ridiculous rules/policies etc are also more likely to be bothered to write a post here