Stupid things customers ask on Xmas Eve Eve

[Mokel]

I have done enough years in supermarkets at Christmas.

I remember one question raised by a few customers when putting out bread.
”do you have any bread dated after 28th”
I said if you go to a supermarket on any other 23rd, the latest date on loaves is 28th. As the bakeries always put the date as X days ahead, regardless of the time of year. I remember seeing one of these customers on Jan 23rd and asked them could they find a date longer than 28th. They couldn’t. Retail worker 1 customer 0.

”Is it possible to collect my turkey on Xmas Day?” Erm no.

In retail my whole working life, the last 30 running our own art and framing high street business, with an on site framing workshop. Chrostmas Eve we closed when it quietened down, around 4.00. The two framers would have a bet on what time the last framing job would come in. I think the record was about 3.30 . In the days before Black Friday, when sales started straight after Christmas, we would start to rearrange the shop stock, ready for the sale, after lunch. DH would start with the window display, putting the pictures in ready to have reduced price tickets later in the afternoon. He loved it when someone bought the pic at full price before he had repriced it. Made his Christmas!

The shop layout is not done for the convenience of the customer. It is to maximise sales, and 'encourage' customers to choose higher margin lines. Merchandising is a key part to the success of any retailer. Peter Kay used to have a routine about 'Eye level, is buy level' absolutely right. Eggs are one of the staples that most customers buy, so are often placed at the back of the shop so we have to walk all the store, putting more products in front of us as we shop.

Yes my friend’s DD was a picker for Sainsbury’s. She worked 4am-8am 4 or 5 days a week.

Deliveries come in all the time and later filled. She has done picks at 4:30am where a few items where the location was empty - not on a promo shelf/stack either. Then when she does her last pick, the item missed out on the earlier pick was now available! As a colleague put cases of that line out

Asked how are the picks are assigned in order. She says it’s on slot, locations of customers’ homes.

Sainsburys have a Christmas food ordering service which starts 1st Oct and last day of ordering is c15 Dec. I’m unsure if you can tag the Xmas food order to your normal grocery order so gets delivered. So don’t have to get to the store to pick up the order.

5.20, surgery closes at 5.30. worried mum who has been at work all day calls. DD is with gran, 80 miles away, unwell. Has been unwell all day. What can the doctor do- right now to cure her?

I was at the customer services section in Tesco last night asking for first class stamps with envelope in hand.

Sales lady was looking at me as if I was dumb.

They'd run out and only had second class. I then asked if they had a letter box and you could almost hear the inward tutting.

I've only just moved here, Christmas cards were sent off last week but received one from someone we hadn't sent one to.

Thought best send it even if it's late, as it's the thought that counts.

Yes Moira and your judgy eyes, I know it was the 23rd and it wouldn't make it till after Christmas, but you didn't know the story behind it.
Keep your head tilt to yourself.

The year my local supermarket had sold out of marzipan was the year I discovered how much I preferred homemade marzipan and how easy it was to make.

Some of the responses on here remind me of my snooty manager when I was a Christmas temp in a shop. One lady came to the tills with a large bag, not sure what it was but it was like flour - the bag had a small hole in and she asked for a bit of tape to cover the hole so it wouldn't leak whilst transporting it home. There was no tape by my till so I called over the manager.

She got really arsy with the customer then said we couldn't sell her this bag as we didn't know where the hole had come from (fair enough I s'pose) then huffed off. The customer asked me to still sell it to her and she'd deal with the hole so I did and when the manager came back to ask if she'd bought it after all and I confirmed she had she gave me this smarmy, smug look as if to say 'knew she'd buy it'.

She was always happy to buy it though?? She only wanted a bit of tape which I don't think was unreasonable??

I did 4 years selling clothing / lifestyle across 3 popular firms. IME working Christmas Eve was girl with a curl- people would either be lovely and it would be a happy day or they'd be appalling. No in between. Someone once had a real go at me for being stood at the counter between our 2 busy tills - I wasn't staying, I just had to pick something from behind there very quickly and had to rummage for it. She ignored the fact that no one else in the 2 queues had moved forwards (because there wasn't a 3rd till), dumped stuff on the counter and got extremely nasty because I couldn't serve her.

Very very few questions are silly questions and often people are out late -shopping on Christmas with good reason but occasionally you do meet some people / get some questions that just defy common sense!

A couple of stand outs: 1) "Where's the sale section, then"? From a customer facing a tonne of sale signage over rails of newly put out sale clothes. I'm guessing she had shopping fatigue!

2. The guy who rocked up around 21st-22nd December with a catalogue we sent out in October. His wife had sticky-tabbed pages with stuff she wanted. Items + sizes noted on tab. She was a very average/ popular dress and shoe size. He was horrified to find out we were sold out of everything she wanted in sizes that would fit her. We suggested online but checked and stuff was sold out or wouldn't be there in time there, too. Ended up suggesting he try the extremely expensive jewellers up the road or go to either of the department stores (pre Debenhams and HoF going under) and try beauty products or perfume etc. He didn't seem to have cash issues, he'd just been putting it off!

Special mention to people who don't treat you as an equal human. "Gosh how awful, you're open Boxing Day" from people SHOPPING on Boxing Day! You get asked to try jackets etc in for people who are trying to fit items for gifts- and will tell you that "she's a big girl, like you", "she'd over busty, like you" etc and expect you to pliantly help. This is all year but intensifies at Christmas. We also had someone appear on the dot of 4 on Christmas Eve, to a just-locked door, yell through it, get hersef hysterical to the point of almost having an angina attack, be let in anywsy as she collecting a left behind bag rather than shopping and we took pity (we blocked her coming much beyond the door mat) and seemed a bit puzzled that we didn't want to chat more - she kept restarting conversation / finding new topics. We'd closed early and I had to get a train - they were also finishing early- AND pick up a forgotten item in a supermarket for my mum. My boss just wanted to go home and we were both back in on Boxing Day. Completely bypassed this lady that we had lives outside the shop. We had to seriously force her out. She also kept clasping my hands and I think I was allergic to her handcream/ masses of pet hair combo because I had a rash for the next 24h.

People would also see us doing sale set up a couple of days before Christmas- we'd be in the lit up front of the shop after hours, surrounded by chaos and sale signs- and would try to open and then bang on the locked door, which had opening hours prominently displayed, gurning expectantly for the private shopping session they were imagining they had cleverly managed to get. We'd firmly ignore. Someone even RANG IN to say they could see us and asked us to open up. We only answered the phone as other branches and our staff called it, too and we figured no customer would be calling at that hour.

I started life in Yorkshire, it was common there to clean the house from top to bottom and then put the tree up on Xmas eve.

When we moved to Lancashire my parents would have been the people asking for a tree on the 23rd.

Just to say I can never find eggs!
No consistency as to where they are in supermarkets.
Sometimes near the bread, sometimes near the milk, sometimes near the home baking.

It's not retailers to facilitate miserable Yorkshire Grinches.

My miserable Yorkshire Grinch Grandfather turned into a Christmas Fairy. It's my dad who was this Grinch about no tree until the 24th. There was no cultural reason for it, just miserable gitism.

I use the term misog (miserable old git) which also most of them are misogynistic.

For women whim (whining old Minnie)

What's grinchy about wanting to celebrate Christmas at Christmas rather than in Advent?

I'm not bothered by decorating at all abd when it happens so DH and DC do it when they want to but Ieft to my own devices if I did decorate I would be quite likely to do it on Christmas Eve ready for the 1st of the 12 days and not before and wouldn't consider that unreasonable

The doctor can’t cure her but could assess whether she needed urgent care and refer her to hospital or out of hours, the mum may only just have spoken to her daughter and realised gran was quite poorly.

I used to work for Woolworths and later Morrisons and we'd get so many people coming in on Christmas Eve kicking off because things were out of stock. I never minded the questions, I did mind being treated like sh*t because mince pies or the latest game were sold out at 3.35pm on Christmas Eve for a 4pm close. So glad I don't work in retail anymore, it's awful at Christmas!

Eggs are always in the fridge at our supermarket.

With regard to the Cadbury Creme eggs and mini eggs, they are deliberately not marketed as Easter eggs so they can be sold all-year round. People just think they're Easter eggs though because that's when some people mainly buy them. But they are not actually an Easter product.

Buck's fizz? Oh dear - a waste of good champagne and good orange juice.

Which supermarket is it that 1) requires staff to walk a customer to where the recant item is/should be, and 2) then requires the staff member to ask if they need help finding anything else. I want to shop there!!

PS Is it Waitrose?

I think Tesco staff are trained to do this, at least it's been my experience. Even when I've said that I just need to know which aisle to go to they come along with me.

I am a gp and appointments are an absolute premium Christmas week.. one woman brought 2 healthy kids in “ I want to make sure they don’t get sick over Christmas … I told them unfortunately I had left my crystal ball at home.. I also made feelings clear about a wasted appointment during an extremely time.

How did she manage to get them is past your receptionist they are normally like Rottweilers.

I know someone who works in an electronic store. It’s full of men iust now trying to get phone contracts and failing the financial checks.

@LunaTheCat
How silly - they are more likely now to go home with some virus they’ve picked up in the waiting room!

My mum and dad used to have a corner shop way back, the amount of times my dad opened Xmas morning for batteries and cigarette sales phenomenal!!