To have laughed out loud at this retail worker

[Shmee1988]

Today I went to a highstreet branch for some painkillers. I asked the lady behind the counter if they had some cocodomol. She said 'yes, we have our normal cocodomol and our max strength'. I asked if I was allowed to come and read the box and she said no (behind the counter so fair enough) I then asked if she could please explain the difference between the 2, I obviously meant the difference in strength in the active ingredient. Her honest to God, genuine response was 'yes of course, this one is our max strength version...... and this one ....is not'😂I was so taken aback by the utter ridiculousness of her explanation that I had no idea to respond, I just laughed. Anyone had anything similar or did I just encounter a particularly unknowlegable retail worker ?

You acted pathetically and she proved it to you. Laughing at her just made you look like a tweakier too.

And again... "that she'd of had a look".

It is she'd HAVE.

Right next to that is the perfume counter and customers are allowed to wonder freely.

And what are they wondering about?

And if the sales assistant had said "Well, the normal one is £3.99 and the max strength is £4.50", then OP would have likely said, "No, sorry, I didn't mean the price difference, I meant the difference in active ingredient". But the assistant answered "yes of course, this one is our max strength version...... and this one ....is not." Regardless of what "difference" the assistant thought OP was asking about (price, number of pills, brand, active ingredients, etc.) how was her answer in any way sensible to any of those queries?

Yeah posting on here for others to mock her too, along with calling her unknowledgeable and ridiculous was kinda cunty unkind too

When asking someone selling otc medication I'd of assumed that my question was a fairly obvious one.

You have a degree in English, yet repeatedly make this error! How odd.

Laughing out loud at a shop assistant (as per your thread title) is completely unnecessary. Maybe asking them a more specific question would have been a more sensible idea.

Not when they are saying that they laughed AT someone for their perceived lack of knowledge (or should that be 'knowlege'?), no.

I would expect a pharmacy technician to provide a better explanation of the medications and know what you meant. A shop assistant in a high street store may not be aware. Either way I wouldn’t laugh in their face , I would just ask further questions to explain what I meant.

I worked in retail for many years and it’s hell sometimes with the rude people you can encounter and the pay is often crap. I’d be cutting her some slack.

She’s probably sat at dinner now telling her family about the dim woman who asked her the same thing twice after laughing at HER!

It's not extremely obvious at all. The assistant could have been thinking that the OP was really dim.. She did not phrase the question well enough for the other person to know what she meant. What she should have said is what are the difference in ingredients. No one could assume that was what she was asking, it could have been difference in strength/price/ingredients.

Why is it obvious?

Good catch, I missed that. Her English is quite atrocious.

Bit like when I asked the bloke in PC world what the difference was between 2 Android phones and he said one was blue and one was red. 🤷🏻‍♀️
Readers, I went elsewhere...

It is

Why ask if you were being unreasonable to laugh, if you weren't laughing AT her?

'Today I had a chuckle with a shop assistant about a misunderstanding over painkillers' isn't an AIBU, is it? You obviously knew you were mean, hence the post.

I'm so glad your 'everyone pat me on the back for belittling some minimum wage teenager working in Boots' post hasn't gone the way you hoped, you're coming across like a right cow.

When you spell everything out to everyone in the future, will you be spelling it correctly?

I'd have just probably laughed in an awkward but warm way, as if I didn't understand, then just said 'sorry, I meant how much codeine is in each?'

She could've been new. Or a bit daft. But I don't see why she wouldn't let you look at the packets to compare them if necessary. I often say 'can I see' and they hand the box for a second if it's something I've not bought before.
That's probably the boss's fault though not hers.

🤣👏🏻

I don't know how to explain without basically saying that you'd have to be extremely thick to think she was asking about the difference that she already knew.

This is exactly the point.

Extra strength is stronger,lol. I also thought it was funny and I’d have laughed too. Bc, it’s so obvious.

Or literal thinking? Like autistic?

Are you this ignorant and offensive about all disabilities, or just some?

("Oh, but I don't meeeeean them!")

I wasn't mean I didn't belittle anyone. She gave an answer that made me laugh. End of. It was a silly answer. I wasn't unkind or rude. Christ alive.

No, a literal thinking person would know she already knew the difference in the names because she used the names in the question.

It's not unkind to refer to someone as unknowlegable? Or ridiculous?
Is it not unkind to incite others to do the same?

I think you are ridiculous and unknowlegable about why someone might answer the question you asked, rather than the question you had in your head.