... to complain about a member of staff at our local Aldi?

[InSearchOfMartin]

In Aldi two weeks ago I took five bottles of perfume to the checkout along with my shopping. I wasn't buying the perfume but I noticed they'd ben opened and squirted and one bottle was damaged. They were unsellable, total cost not a great amount about £35-£40. The woman on the checkout said they couldn't provide testers, so I said that it was a shame as they were losing stock. She said I could talk to the manager, who came out and I asked her about testers. She said Aldi didn't provide testers so I said, as the manager, couldn't you make that decision as you are losing sales. She said no, and I said well, then, it's a shame you are losing stock. I asked what would happen to them and she said they would be sent back. End of conversation, neither party was rude to the other.

I posted on the local Facebook forum about it, with the focus being not on the store, but the standard of customers who were entitled to open and spray themselves with perfume as follows.

What is wrong with people? I've been in Aldi today and found five boxes of perfume opened and squirted, two with damaged lids. Not testers. These are now unsaleable, and at about £7 for goodness sake just buy it and give it away if you don't like it. Really bad behaviour.

A few comments followed all agreeing with me, one person saying they had actually seen testers in a different Aldi in our city. Then today, this rant appeared from one of the Aldi members of staff!

I love how u have failed to mention the attitude & horrible, uncalled for comments to 2 members of staff on this post. U conducted ourself in the most awful & embarrassing way. U should be embarrassed, we all know u just wanted the perfume reduced, staff & customers that overheard, we all know what u were after. ok, just mind ur manners next time. It costs nothing to be nice.

So I want to complain about this. A member of their team is accusing me of wanting freebies, being rude, being embarrassing, awful and so on in embarrassing English, too. I was not rude at all. Nobody was rude. I was cross at the customers being so bloody entitled and thought I was doing the store a favour!

Conversely, this Aldi member of staff should be mortified at her level of English, customer service and ranting on a local Facebook forum. She's made herself look thick, and she's lying. Also, if someone at a doctor's surgery, library, local council etc wrote like this on a forum they'd be in trouble at work for it.

So would you complain, leave it or what?

The manager told me they did not do testers.

It's giving Karen

A few thoughts.

Have you ever worked in a shop OP? It’s often a relentless slog just doing the basic tasks, but dealing with all manner of nonsense from the public is a whole other layer of your energy sapping “duties”. Customers are there to come in, pay and leave. Not to quibble about policies set in head office, or bother themselves with profit loss. Just leave it alone.

The other thing is that you clearly look down on people for certain things. Yet don’t see that posting about Aldi perfume (that you didn’t even want to buy) being tampered with on a local Facebook group is incredibly embarrassing. Why do you care? It probably costs Aldi about 5p a bottle. And the behaviour you describe won’t only be in your town - it’s a massive multi-national company. They pay people to analyse these things and work out the company’s strategy.

Lastly, I wonder if you go around being unintentionally rude and this could be a useful awakening. Why would a shop worker say you were rude if you were perfectly polite? It’s worth giving this some thought.

You don’t want to be like Alan Bennet’s Irene Ruddock.

Why are you so over invested in how your local Aldi is run? Enough to raise it to a manager, post in fb and put it here 😂 I think I’ll stick with my Ocado delivery to avoid people! Just let it go. You were weird.

While we're in the game of giving our advice and opinions, OP, I suggest you should read Chavs by Owen Jones

How original.

Why on earth would anyone want to buy a perfume without testing it first, makes no sense
You could end up buying something that smelled like toilet water

If I were you I'd take it further and call the Attorney General.

I love how the OP took it upon themself to bring the 5 opened bottles to the cashier! Instead of just mentioning it or finding a passing member of staff! 🤣🤣

I expect they can also be seen dumping frozen items/refrigerated items onto the cashier too, because customers haven't put them back where they belong.

@ShortWide , I was also thinking of Lady of Letters. Spot on!

@TheresaCrowd Because there were no members of staff on the shop floor.

And a word in the cashier's shell-like was too difficult for you?

Now that is a brilliant idea. Do you want to word me a complaint, in the style of Google Gemini perhaps?

In all honesty OP I think you should go back to the store and make a big fuss about it. Reiterate the full saga again (I'm sure they still recall the 'tester' woman), and then show them both your post on FB, and on here, and jot down all the comments you've no doubt gathered from friends, family, colleagues, random people at the bus stop. Present them with all your evidence, and demand the woman who posted gets fired!

I'll be looking out for the Netflix series on it 👍

Or at least get her Daily Mail sad face on and get a photographer down there.

Read the OP again and you will have the answer.

@InSearchOfMartin You can do what you like, just leave me out of it.

When the staff member wrote "we all know u just wanted the perfume reduced" she was perhaps being a little bit presumptuous, in that she did not (and, indeed, could not) have had any hard evidence for that claim. But supermarket checkout staff have to deal every day with people who do pretend that they "found this or that item slightly damaged and can they have a discount please", whereas they almost never have people coming up who are concerned that head office's decision not to provide testers may be causing stock shrinkage and/or missed sales opportunities. So as a shortcut it's probably a pretty good one.

Supermarket workers are very busy people who are not very well paid and have to put up with all kinds of crap being thrown at them all day long, and while the supermarket may pay some kind of lip service to the importance of the quality of customer service interactions, realistically they may on occasion have to employ staff who did not get A* in GCSE English, or whose off-duty behaviour does not include the levels of emotional regulation traditionally associated with rabbis or psychotherapists.

I recommend spending 20 minutes listening to . It's not the first time that I have mentioned it on AIBU, but given the scenario in the middle, it feels like one of the most appropriate occasions.

Stop embarrassing yourself further OP
What a ridiculous waste of your time 😂

Fuck that, it was like wading through War and Peace the first time I read it 😳

You had absolutely no reason to physically carry the 5 bottles of opened perfume up to the cashier.

Not embarrassed in the slightest.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Have you ever worked in a supermarket, OP? I have, and it is an incredibly hard job. I do pride myself on my customer service and diplomacy skills, it was actually the part of the job I enjoyed most, but it really is a gruelling and demanding job with little to no prestige, respect or recognition granted to it. Just give these people a break, move on with grace.

The way you have criticised their English makes me think that it's likely you did come across as rude.

At that particular time there might not have been staff on the shop floor but at certain times of the day there will be staff refilling the shelves and tidying up. They will make the decision whether the opened bottles should be removed and written off or whether it could be sold at a reduced price. That's one of their tasks to do at work. You aren't the manager so you don't need to be pointing out a task that needs doing.
They know there will be opened packets of stock or freezer stuff abandoned in the wrong place or fresh stuff been dumped in the freezer. It's their job.
They didn't need you to be pointing it out.