Feeling a bit shaky after an encounter in Sainsbury's

[HelenSkeleton]

I just went to a Sainsbury's Local and picked up a bar of chocolate advertised at £2.40. It scanned at £3.00 and there was another shelf with the same bar at the higher price so I went to the counter, explained that I was confused about the price and the woman behind the counter went to check.

While she was doing that a woman who looked like a manager came up to me and very rudely told me there was "no need to get like that". I wasn't like anything. I was not rude, unkind, nasty or anything. I was perfectly calm. I told her I wasn't "getting like anything" and was merely confused. I was also confused by her attitude. She was very argumentative told me that "we make mistakes" which I acknowledged but she continued arguing with me saying"I've just told you we make mistakes". I hadn't even complained, simply asked for the correct price. I told her she was protesting too much at this point.

She was really confrontational at which point I said "you know what, let's just leave it" and I left the shop. I'm actually shaking and I don't know why. Her reaction was out of all proportion. I feel quite sick.

Now I've complained I'm wondering if there will also be an issue about incorrect pricing? All I was reporting was the rude customer lack of service.

Yes, possibly.
But if so, she's not well trained enough...

The woman was unnecessarily unpleasant and confrontational and I think you did very well to reply as you did, sometimes you are so taken aback by this sort of encounter you can't think what to say.

Finding her full name on social media so you have the info to complain is totally fine imo

Her full name is actually on the Sainsbury's website along with contact details. I'm baffled why people think it's weird. Sainsbury's have put that information out presumably for contact.

So first you used Google,
then you checked out her LinkedIn profile

and all that time the info had been on Sainsburys' website...

Also, the first thing that came up with googling "Brenda+Sainsbury's+Chester" was LinkedIn. Of course you're going to click on it to see if you have the right Brenda.

@OlderGlaswegianLivingInDevon When you complete the complaint form it asks for the full address of the store. I only knew the street name. Googling that gave me the street name, number, postcode and "Brenda Blenkinsop, Store Manager". However I only included her first name in the correspondence on the web form.

It's normal to feel shaky after someone is aggressive towards you OP. Definitely her problem, not yours.

The local Sainsbury has a ‘customer experience manager’ totally useless!

If you complain to her - after she’s used the excuse about staff being too busy to keep an eye on price changes - she takes a member of staff off the shop floor to do a price check instead of going herself!

What the actual chuff? It sounds like she was OTT in getting involved but could have been having a bad day or misjudged the situation or misheard what you said to the assistant who went off.....but you're looking her up on the internet and have now decided "she went into management for the wrong reasons"......Did you pull a muscle when you did that MASSIVE stretch? If that's what you took home from that interaction then I'm questioning your measure of exactly how nowty she was in the first place. I bet she wasn't half as bad as you're making out when you're making such ridiculous assumptions. Give over.

Maybe I was having a bad day, @FarmGirl78 , just like Brenda!

Yeah, we kept losing the new badges or tippexing out our surnames. It was awful, management wouldn't listen and this was a large department store.

There was one woman on my department with an unusual surname and she was the only person in Wales with her combination of first name and surname. Might as well have printed her address on her name badge as well.

Don't know why they couldn't have used fake surnames. Different department store did that in my DGM day.

I decided yesterday that we will not shop in Sainsbury’s any more. Their nectar prices can fuck right off. My nectar app wasn’t accessible- I asked the guy next to me if he’d scan his card so I could access the nectar prices - an officious ‘manager type’ told me we were not allowed to do that - I ended up leaving my shopping at the till.

I once reported an elderly guy ( 70s ) on the tills at Waitrose - it was about 3 weeks after the EU referendum and I bought the new European 1st edition - as I went to pay he said ‘what are you buying this propaganda shit for, we voted, end of matter’ - like you it really jolted me - I sent complaint in to head office, strangely didn’t see him again on the tills for around 2 years.

Get a grip. You had an argument with a store employee. It was neither physical and you didn't receive any verbal abuse. Grow up.

Genuinely have no idea why looking on the public LinkedIn site is different to looking on the public Sainsbury's site

Having a bad day usually affects your snap responses to things and how you react or feel about what's happened. It doesn't mean going home to google someone after the event and then making assumptions about their life choices 🤣.

Did you actually shake? Yabu for shaking if so.

I did and that's what I was puzzled about. It felt like a mild panic attack. I couldn't understand it. I'm well able to stick up for myself, but I wasn't going to continue to communicate with someone berating me in the shop. It was ridiculous so I walked out and told them I'd just leave it. The involuntary response surprised me.

Probably because she’s a customer experience manager and not a member of the price integrity team who are responsible for all the labels being correct 🤦‍♀️

How dare they enforce the rules. I tend to find that the people who say they won't be back are the people the staff don't want back.

I can entirely sympathise. It’s really upsetting to be cornered like that. Years ago I was at the National Theatre going into the auditorium when a woman in front of me dropped her purse and coins went everywhere. I bent down to help her pick them up and the member of staff who was scanning tickets shouted at me that it wasn’t my money (as if I was trying to steal it). I was mortified and couldn’t settle to watch the play. I did complain and got an apology and a voucher for a drink, never used as I haven’t been back since! It’s surprising how just an embarrassing verbal attack can shake you. Definitely complain!

lol - happy to shop anywhere because their own app doesn’t work reliably and I don’t want to pay inflated fake prices. You have a great day overpaying for your groceries and I will go elsewhere. No issues here - I am perfectly nice and respectable.

If this person was an employee, definitely complain.
There was no need for her to behave as she did. I can understand if you'd kicked off, but even then, she should have remained professional.

I wonder if the men who run out of supermarkets while ACTUALLY stealing something and have bottles of Jack Daniels under their arms get confronted as much as women who are only suspected of stealing do. I wonder if men get falsely accused and confronted about it as often as women do. A survey needs to be done on this.

They don't. I saw something last year in Tesco. They said they weren't allowed to challenge them. Apparently it was a daily occurrence. Booze there is now in a glass cabinet though. They more or less admitted they are allowed to steal with impunity.