Was I unreasonable or was she?

[PassingStranger]

I was in a shop.today and there was nobody behind the till. I heard the assistants mention it to each other.
I carried on with shopping and then went to the till.

Nobody was there. I waited and nobody came.
Eventually I went to find an assistant she was coming out of a back room.
I told her the till was unmanned and I could have just walked out with my purchase without paying. Till wasn't too far from the door.

She didn't like it that I told her this and got stroppy and told me it was up to me to come and look for an assistant.
She said they also had cctv so would know if anyone walked out.
She said they were busy as well doing other things.

Surely it's their look out , arent they ecpecting any customers then?

Surely you keep an eye out. Don't know if she was the boss didnt ask.
They obvs seemed to have a problem with the till as I heard them talking about it when I went in. This was before id even bought anything.
Should I just have stood there forever waiting?
What about their security. It's hard enough with shoplifters today, why make it easy for them?

Do people really go about being this grumpy?

also in British-English we like to go around the houses and don't say what we actually mean.

So in the usual way of things it's a PA way of saying "i don't like having to wait for you to finally get off your backside and come to the till to take my money"

I'm sure she knew perfectly well what the consequences are. As well as what other mitigating factors are in place - such as CCTV and, it sounds like, a general hope that the public are honest.

You were perfectly reasonable to be a bit annoyed you had to go find someone to ring up your purchases. To start lecturing the staff on the risks if they don't do their jobs properly was ridiculous and petty.

I'm not grumpy, but i simply cannot be arsed waiting around for someone to do their actual job of selling me stuff. If i need it then i go and find them and tell them to come and ring the stuff up.

Quite.

She probably hears this dozens of times a day.

It’s just so much extra hassle though, presumably you’re there as you need stuff, so you then dump it, habe to go to another shop. And start again, all as you can’t be arsed asking someone to open the till

talk about biting yout nose off to spite your face/

i said: if i need it i'll go and get someone.
I'm perfectly capable of deciding if i need something enough to go to the faff of getting someone to come and do their job. And i will tell them that it's shit service.

And before anyone starts: no i don't scream at them, or shout. I talk in a normal voice and point out that they are inconveniencing their customers by not being attentive and that it's not really inviting me to come again. what they do with that information is up to them.

She was grumpy but she’d probably was frustrated she couldn’t give the service needed. We were never allowed to stand at the till and wait for customers. We had always be doing something. And not ever task can just stop. It’ll be more frustrating for the staff member believe me. I never want to go back to retail.