Regret causing a scene in Aldi

[Liiz92]

I went to Aldi earlier. While I was scanning an item at the self checkout, the price was more expensive than the price on the sticker on the shelf. I asked the assistant if I could quickly go back to swap it. I was away for only about 2 minutes.

When I came back to the till, there was a man arguing with the assistant, saying she had to remove my items so he could use the till. I explained that the items were mine and that I had just gone back to swap something. He started shouting at me, saying I had “jumped the queue” and that I shouldn’t go to the till until I had finished my shopping.

I stayed quiet for a few moments. When he was in the queue, I approached him and pointed my finger, saying, “don’t fucking speak to me like that again, or at any woman.” He shouted at me in response, telling me not to point my finger or swear at him. I said, “You’ve chosen the wrong person to be rude to,” and went back to DD.

We finished paying at the same time, and he was walking close behind me, looking at me. I said, “I didn’t appreciate you shouting at me in front of my child.” He then said, “I’ll see you here at 4pm next Sunday.” I said I wasn't from the area so no chance and continued walking to my car.

As time has passed, I regret my actions and wish I had just stayed quiet.

The staff do nothing and say nothing re a customer abusing another customer, I had the same in morrisons I had a customer shouting and swearing at me in the que, I had actually said or done nothing, the cashier asked the woman to stand back so I could get to pay. The woman was very intimidating, looked high on drugs as though she would pull a knife out. Checkout woman did nothing,didn't call security or anything

Pearl clutching bollocks, and how does a poster swearing on MN mean she swears in front of her kids 😂😂

A snobby Mrs perfect type!

Not every member of staff like to deal with twats

I suggest you show up at the proposed time with a cross bow and broken lambrini bottle. See if he’s pistols at dawn then.

Yeah, OP was all 'clucking this' and 'clucking that.' Disgusting.

I get that she said it was fine, but you were saying it would be quicker. You would have already called them over to cancel the item that scanned at a price you weren't expecting so when you did that it would have made more sense to me to say to them that it had a different price on the shelf, so could someone please check this.

Wondering if actually you made a mistake and this drama is more that you forgot an item rather than this whole palaver of changing something and maybe you just felt that sounds better than saying that.

Thank you so much, everyone, for all your comments. I have appreciated reading them all and am grateful even for the harsh comments, as they reminded me that I can handle similar situations better next time. There are certainly better ways to respond when someone is rude. I have learned from this.

Thankfully, it’s not the Aldi I usually go to, so I will never go there again.

Overall, it was an awful experience. There was also a man who had stolen bottles of alcohol. As I got to th checkout till, the cashier was loudly telling the security guard that the man walking toward the door hadn’t paid, and the guard stopped him and made him return the items he had stolen.

Of course I’ve seen men speaking aggressively to other men. Of course I don’t expect that men arguing with anyone will lead to fisticuffs. I have seen men use their physical size and masculinity to intimidate and bully women on too many occasions to count. Women and girls are socialised to be nice and kind, so are easy targets if you want to make yourself feel big - if you’re a bullying misogynist. They’re not likely to send a 6’4” bodybuilder off close to tears and questioning his actions in this situation, so they don’t bother.

Of course you would. 🤣🤣🤣

Good on you @Liiz92

"The staff do nothing and say nothing re a customer abusing another customer,"

To be fair, I don't blame them - would you risk an physical altercation for minimum wage?

You sound as bad as each other

Good on you for standing up to him. More women should learn to do this.

👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
Good on you for telling him how you felt!
We need more women to do that.
How dare he shout at that shop assistant doing her job, and then at you?
Highly unlikely he would have been shouting at either of you if you'd both been big men.
You're unreasonable to doubt yourself. Well done, I need to be more like this. Most women need to be more like this!

Just came on to post that ….

this wouldn’t have happened in Waitrose / Booths 🤦‍♀️

Blimey, society is going off to hell in a handcart if that's the way everyone is going to respond with the odd comment or nosey judgement when they're out and about. There are all sorts of reasons that people could be acting like that, alzheimers/dementia, mental health issues, on drugs or medication (or NOT taking their medication), people with extra needs and who have no filter, people who are just violent horrible people, AS WELL AS those who are "bullying men". You'd do well to teach your daughter about these possibilites, OP, and that it's not wise to escalate situations by reacting aggressively yourself as you don't know the person and why they are being like that.

As it was you ended up both in the wrong for having a slanging match in public in front of kids, and swearing, over nothing. Making it all suddenly turn very Jeremy Kyle with the potential for escalation and the staff having to get involved. Yes, it's embarrassing for you, and that's why you feel embarrassed.

I'm surprised at some of the responses here and assume they are younger, with less-developed social skills and assumption that all men who say anything like that in public must just be saying it because they are a bully trying to intimidate a woman. Yes, a meek apology in response, and rushing to finish, would have been the unassertive and weak way to deal with it that sort of interaction and yes, it would have let the man believe he was in the right and you were totally wrong whatever you were doing. But you CAN be assertive without being aggressive, and that's a skill that everyone needs to learn.

Was it busy? If it was then you were unreasonable to leave the checkout in the first place. But never mind about that part of it.

You are right to regret your behaviour, it sounds like when you approached him and pointed your finger, the incident was already over by then. Not sure why you felt the need to go and re-start it. Especially in front of your child.

@MassiveWordSalad I have seen men use their physical size and masculinity to intimidate and bully women on too many occasions to count. Women and girls are socialised to be nice and kind, so are easy targets if you want to make yourself feel big - if you’re a bullying misogynist. They’re not likely to send a 6’4” bodybuilder off close to tears and questioning his actions in this situation, so they don’t bother.

1. All people are socialised to be nice and kind.
2. I don't recall ever seeing a man using size, specifically, to intimidate someone else. That sounds really strange.
3. As I already said, men can, and do, get into arguments with much larger men. I already stated that size and build are irrelevant. If I'm pissed off at someone in a supermarket, what difference does it make if they're 5 inches smaller than me or 5 inches bigger?

People have to nip away from the tills sometimes, maybe it turns out something is leaking, dented, needs to be swapped for whatever reason. You have to do it yourself these days due to lack of free staff, and the till attendant knew what OP was doing. The man could have used a different till, but he wanted to make a point.

I adnire what you did OP. You set your daughter and excellent example by refusing to be bullied by some cunt of a man.

Slight side point, but those people who object wildly to their children hearing swear words - can I ask why? Swear words are part of life, they are commonly used, everyone is going to hear them in their lives. So why do you feel it's so damaging to your children to hear them below a certain age? I'm genuinely not trying to be shitty here, I have just never understood the obsession with this.

I never made any special effort to shield my daughter from hearing swear words, I just taught her when it was and wasn't appropriate to use them. And I never heard that she used them inappropriately. But she also grew up without a massive fear of them - someone swearing at her doesn't have the power to horrify or destabilise her - and I think that's a good thing.

They are just words. Albeit, words do have power. But these words don't actually injure children in and of themselves.

" Women and girls are socialised to be nice and kind"

This is an often quoted trope made famous by that Lindsay Lohan classic "nice and kind girls" 🤣

Yes I agree. I wouldn't regret the standing up to him but I would regret the swearing. It brings you down to their level (and really isn't good in front of kids).

Agree with a pp that men expect women to be docile and get very offended when they are not. Remember, women are abrasive when they dare to have opinions. Men are assertive.

You don't get this kind of thing going on in Waitrose.
You have both behaved appallingly.

No it's not, you're right. And the op has repeatedly acknowledged it too.

When faced with an unexpected and unusual situation we can all react in ways that, on cooler reflection, we wish we hadn't. It'll be a learning experience for her.