Questioned over Covid tests in Tesco

[Chouette77]

So I bought two Covid tests with my quickly shop. Young male cashier picked them up, held them up and said, "do I have anything to worry about?'. I said what do you mean. He said "these, do I have anything to worry about - if you have it I have it". I said you probably don't, and paid. I'm irritated though! They weren't even for me, but if they were I wouldn't fancy having my health issues publicised! Am I being unreasonable to be a bit irritated?

Perhaps you don’t mix with any vulnerable people, but plenty of other people do.

There are people who still test.

And he would have been inappropriate to question someone's purchase.

He may not have a limitless range of job options.

So being considerate of people with a health vulnerability is now considered unreasonable behaviour.

I hate it when the checkout operators make comments about anything in your shop, I don't mind them commenting on the weather or general stuff but not what is in my basket. That is why I use a delivery service or the self service tbh.
I think all depending on how I was feeling at the time I would have probably said something like " better than a pregnancy test" or I might have given him one of my famous withering looks😡

and that definitely would be unfunny. Imagine if it was the other way round and he was coughing and spluttering all over your fruit and veg.

It never fails to astound me what people will take offense to.

Imagine what it's like for the staff! They have to keep doing it all day, knowing that they're being annoying.

I worked in a department store, we were supposed to make eye contact with every customer who came on the department and go and ask if they needed any help. The customers hated it.

I test before visiting my friend who is CEV, because I care about her wellbeing.

We'll also test before visiting our DPs - I'm sniffly all winter so wouldn't necessarily know if I was coming down with something. And DS is still in primary school so is also usually sniffly.

For some people covid is a very sensitive subject. Some people lost multiple family members to it, or nearly died themselves. Some are still living with long covid effects.

i do think he was just joking, but it’s unreasonable to say it’s not sensitive for lots of people!

My friends are testing before coming to see me as there is a lot of people with covid in my local area currently and I’m having chemo, so my already crap immune system from Crohn’s disease is getting an extra kicking. I can really do without it.

Decent human beings test if they suspect Covid.

those of us with vulnerable household members still have to deal with Covid. The danger hasn’t gone away.

I work in Tesco and I'm pregnant at the moment. I also sold someone some tests and just making conversation as I was curious about why someone would need to test nowadays. I found out it was for the customer as he was feeling bad and just wanted to know if it was covid or not. It was useful for me to know as I took extra precautions and tried not to touch my face or anything and went straight to some hand sanitiser after serving. I had recently had 2 bad colds and getting covid ontop of that in pregnancy was something I really wanted to avoid. So, remember we are people and sometimes it's fair for us to know things so we can look after ourselves.

Probably a thousand posters have beaten me to it by now but in case they haven’t it was Caroline Aherne in The Fast Show.

Not funny and extremely impolite. It's not something I'd want him to lose his job over but I think you should have made him aware that it's not acceptable.

I hope he's not planning on making a career in comedy. He'll starve.

I'm always stunned by the delicate flowers on MN. I would have laughed and taken it as the joke it was. Honestly, what a fuss over nothing - how on earth do some of you cope with life in general?

Why?

He was trying to be funny. It failed. You could have cleared up any problems by saying 'no not at all, the tests aren't for me'

But you didn't

Good grief - if I ever get to the stage where I find someone on a checkout making conversation about something I have purchased "tiresome" I would like to be put out of my misery,

I would have faked a massive coughing fit and said ‘no it’s all fine’. Then had a giggle in the car.
well I wouldn’t have had them in my trolley in the first place but that’s your business and prerogative not anyone else’s.

I'm going to go against the general opinion here, I don't think it was offensive to ask, not in a tongue in cheek kind of way. He, or someone at home, might have underlying health issues that mean he would want to test too if he had been exposed to Covid. He might not be doing a public facing job through choice, but because he couldn't get anything else, or the hours suit. I still worry when someone is coughing on the bus, or in a queue in a shop and avoid this where I can. He could have put it better if he wanted to know like, 'hope you are feeling ok' and hoped you would tell him from there.

It is different though, because you can leave an online chat at any point, but when you are buying groceries you are a bit of a captive audience.

It’s not like she was having her flaps waxed though, the whole interaction can’t have taken more than a few minutes, and you can easily just ignore.

He's clearly not read up on the latest risk levels of COVID-19.

Smart arse knobber.

My thoughts too.

Jeez people are prickly 🫤

Whether he was just making conversation to be polite, or concerned about possibly catching covid himself, and maybe passing it on to someone vulnerable, it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say to me, and I certainly wouldn't be bothered by it.
(sorry to dig this thread up from the grave, but I was looking up covid test prices at Tesco, having recently picked up one of the new FLiRT variants)