People on phones all the time in supermarkets asking questions to person on other end of call

[uihd]

If shopping for a friend or relative. Or your OH who doesn't do the shopping, please be more descriptive with your shopping lists!

As in Aldi today, I kept on being near to 3 different people who kept ringing whoever asking what do you mean by chicken? What size milk do you want?

Chicken - whole, portions or cooked for salads/sandwiches? Milk - size, type and fresh or UHT?

Everyone has their own way of writing shopping lists but only them can decipher it. Perhaps their OH if they actually know the workings of their partner's list writing.

Due to them standing right in front of the shelves, it made it difficult for other shoppers to just grab something they know what to do buy.

I think you just need to learn to live with this as that genie is not going back in the bottle!

It doesn’t matter how descriptive I make the list, my husband will still call. Don’t blame the list writers for incompetent shoppers.

a household that buys the same exact milk for 20 years should not need to have the size or type of milk written on the list. Nor should the list need to include a contingency if the preferred size is out of stock. An adult who has lived and participated in the household should be able to figure out a solution.

Maybe their partners need to take on some of the mental load and figure it out for themselves

My friend’s ex OH didn’t take notice of the type of milk in the fridge. When made a hot drink or pour milk over cereal, he just got the bottle out and put back. He is one of those men that thinks any milk will do. As milk is milk!

Tbf I'm very fussy when it comes to subs so my partner although could use initiative doesn't because I'll complain 😂 does it really matter though if people are calling to clarify?

My other half is like this, back in covid times he used to do the food shop as he was furloughed and I was working. I wrote down a list (in the order of where things were in the supermarket) and I still got loads of phone calls, size, which brand etc, he's a bloody grown ass man and seen the brands/sizes we use in the house!
Thankfully it came back to my job when he went back to work.. 🙄

It’s annoying, but I’m more annoyed by those people who engage in loud work calls whilst walking round the supermarket. You see them and then you keep seeing them. I have no desire to hear the ins and outs of your business.

My DH is the annoying bloke taking photos of whole shelf in supermarket and sending them to family whatapp so we can choose what we want.

Exactly. If these men people are incapable of doing grocery shopping then they need more practice.

It was one of the most annoying things about the pandemic when only one person was allowed in supermarkets. Men decided that the lesser of two evils of looking after their DC vs doing the grocery shopping was the latter but of course they were incapable without their female DP virtually holding their hand and making all the decisions so supermarkets were cluttered up with men on video calls pointing at the shelves going 'what type of bread do we buy'.

Good job none of them has an important job that requires them to use their initiative or make decisions. Oh, wait......

My husband will phone if they don't have in what I want, to ask about an alternative. I preempt this where I know the thing isn't always in, by giving a b option, but I don't do it for everything on the list. I'd rather he checked than guessing wrong or coming back with nothing.

If you were working and he wasn’t, why were you preparing the shopping list and not him. When DH does the food shop, it’s his list not mine so I don’t need to be involved.

I don’t mind about people being on the phone while browsing the shelves but it irritates me when they don’t hang up when they are using a staffed checkout! So rude

We're like this but it's dh who is an awkward arse. It's a much more peaceful life if I just ask what he wants. It doesn't happen often because we're terrible pensioners who shop together 😂 but never when it's busy or weekends.
I no more want to go shopping when families are there than they want us there.

I must live in a weird area because when I go shopping the people who are constantly on the phone while shopping are overwhelmingly women.

The men seem to be doing their best to be in and out as quickly as possible. By contrast there is a sizable subset of younger women who seem to see an hour or two in Tesco as the ideal opportunity to be on a continual video call, holding their phone just underneath their mouth so that the other person on the call must have a perfect view up their nostrils, debating over what to buy, where they're going to use it, and what the alternatives are.

My 16 year old daughter does it when I send her to lidl for me, I'd rather she did that than stand around not knowing what milk or bread to pick because she struggles when there's so much choice, she phones me I tell her what to get, job done

Especially now that so many have things in chillers and the phoner is standing holding the door and blocking anyone else getting something.

Can't you tell her before she goes there?

oh just get over it. It's not that big a deal, just say 'excuse me' and reach in for what you want.

Well you could see this both ways. The person doing the shopping could be lacking initiative but the person at home is also likely to be fussy and difficult to please. If dh came home with the 'wrong' mushrooms or yoghurt I'd just get on with it and explain next time what would be better. I can't imagine getting all upset over it to the point that we need a conference call from the supermarket.

She prefers to call me when she gets there incase they don't have what I've asked for which has happened quite a few times so she finds it easier to just tell me what they have and I tell her what to get, it's only a minute phone call and she just picks it up and pays for it so I don't see an issue

Oh I think it would've got on my wick big time if ant of mine had done that. Mind you when ds was about 11 and went to shop I took picture of what he needed to get of there was likely to be lots of options.

😆 🤣 😂 bless him!

Totally agree.

I’m that person too!!

The only time I've done that is when DD asked for pads and I took a photo of the dozens of choices and asked her to clarify which ones she wanted. I don't think she appreciated just how wide the choice was in the local Sainsburys superstore.