Would you have complained?

[MamaGhina]

Here for the vote mainly.

Went to M&S for a couple of bits in the food hall. It’s a large store with food and clothes. Went to the self service tills to pay. There are 2 people in front of me, it’s fairly quiet. At the front of the queue is an elderly lady, followed by a middle aged man.

There is a self service till available, but the lady at the front doesn’t move. The man behind her asks if she is paying by card or cash? It’s card only. The member of staff ignores them.

The lady replies that she is blind and she is looking for tea bags but they must have moved because they are not in the usual place. The man initially waves at the staff member but he is also ignored.

He has a basket and is waiting to pay but (very kindly in my opinion) says, I’ll help you find the tea bags and takes her hand and walks with her back towards the aisles.

I’m now at the front of the queue. The staff member then walks up to me and shouts “move forward you are blocking the queue and there are people here who want to pay”. This is in front of the rest of the queue, which by now is long.

YANBU - I would complain about the member of staff
YABU - The member of staff was fine.

I don’t want to be accused of drip feeding so for full transparency. The member of staff was clearly well over 65 and had a sunflower lanyard.

I’d be inwardly cross and not bother to complain because life’s too short

I think the sunflower lanyard is irrelevant. Any member of staff should be able/willing to help a blind customer. Wouldn't it be up to the customer affected to complain though?

@tulippa I don’t think the blind customer had any idea that she was in the self service queue or that she had anything to complain about because the member of staff ignored her.
@Floralnomad usually I would feel the same, but I really didn’t appreciate being shouted at when waiting to pay. Plus by this point there was a large queue.

Sunflower lanyard? YABU.

No, she isn’t. The employer needs to make reasonable adjustments to help their staff. Customers do not need to accept being yelled at by staff given an inappropriate task. That is not reasonable.

I wouldn’t complain separately but would have said something direct to the person who shouted at me.

Oh for goodness sake, it all sounds just a bit of a muddle. The person to complain would be the man who was ignored then helped the lady rather than going through the til. I assume the sunflower lanyard means the worker possibly had additional needs. I would just put it down to one of those things and forget about it, you seem fit and able to navigate the situation.

It is rude but I think if you didn't complain at the time, to do so in retrospect will be a bit OTT. I would say if you encounter them and they are rude again, then go straight to management so you can point them out when it is happening.

This isn’t a hill I’d die on, personally

Where are all these shouting supermarket assistants in real life?

If Mumsnet is to be believed, the big 4 is dominated by shouting, screaming, sneering staff.

Yet I genuinely don't think I've ever witnessed supermarket staff actually shouting at customers.

I would speak to supetvisor or manager. Its not hard for rhem to say to staff member "if someone is holding up the queue, promptly if you can help them". IE explain that if theres a delay it is their job to politely sort it out by helping the customer.

It sounds like the staff member interprets their role as "get customers to check out promptly" rather than HELP customers to check out promptly.

Can't vote as using the app.

So she didn't help or get novices when required but told you to move when she didn't need to?

Ive got little patience for rudeness and am quick to make it clear if I'm not happy or someone has been treated unfairly so absolutely. If I was behind you, I would also say something if you didn't. Customer service is awful in a lot of places now and seems to be the norm.

I don't get it