WIBU To ask for a different lady to scan my shopping?

[goodoldsussexbythesea]

I do my big shop in Tesco once a week. I usually have around 100 items. I do scan as you shop and I seem to get picked a lot for a random basket check. Fine.
There's one lady who always seems to be working on the self-scan when I go in. She's an older lady and she is incredibly slow. It's so frustrating as I usually don't have a lot of time.
I don't just mean a little bit slow either. I mean about 10 seconds or so between scanning each item. With lots of sighing and breaks and stopping. I think last time she could see the frustration on my face because she said "it's stressful, isn't it?" and I'm like yes... because you are being so slow (didn't say this out loud). I almost asked if she'd like to give me the scanner and let me do it for her but I didn't want to be rude.
Last time, the scanner was telling her she needed to scan over 80 items so it took absolutely forever.
And she puts it all back into the bags wrong too.

So anyway, today I went to tesco, got selected for random bag check and saw this lady was on. My heart sank. I needed to rush home and put it all way and then go on the school run. I didn't need another 20 minutes adding on. She started making her way very slowly towards me and I said, in the politest voice I could muster "do you mind if your colleauge does it?" She looked really taken back so I said "it's just I'm in a bit of a rush, sorry" I tried to look as apologetic as I could but she looked really confused and a bit upset.

The colleague heard the conversation, came over and started scanning. I was out of there and in my care in under 5 minutes.

I feel so bad though. I don't like upsetting people and I keep thinking of her face. I just couldn't do it though, it's so bloody painful.

I don't want to be mean enough to say anything to her supervisor but I really don't think she should be on that section. She should be sitting down on one of the tills, where she's not on her feet and customers haven't chosen a quicker option.

WIBU?

Ignore the trolls and those who haven't read it all OP. You are doing a fantastic job of supporting your family and it absolutely isn't your fault that the system sets you up to fail. Everything seems to be designed by those who have never faced the realities of the life of a single parent, and the people on here who are flaming you have no clue how hard it actually is. I have had the exact same problem as you, and strongly advise you to take the advice to do a small shop so the system trusts you, I did this and it worked. Good luck with everything, and don't let the bds grind you down 💐

It obviously sounds frustrating, but I don’t know the solution. I can think of 2 previous service users from my previous job that probably annoyed a lot of customers at their respective workplaces. One was a lady with epilepsy & history of brain injury who worked on a supermarket checkout - she sometimes got complaints about being slow and appearing unfriendly, but she couldn’t help this. The other had Asperger’s Syndrome (yes I know it’s not called this now) and worked in a cinema, and again would have been criticised by customers for coming across as unfriendly. There was a limit to the amount of non-public facing roles she could do in her workplace, so ended up having to leave her job.

It honestly sounds like it would be quicker for you to use a normal checkout. Although you have a limited time before the school run, surely anything would be quicker than the situation you describe?

Stop! You are just being pointlessly argumentative and judgmental. No one needs you to defend the workers here.

The OP didn't tell them it's because the woman was too slow.

And the employee is not just doing her job (or at least up to standard), that's the whole point. Saying things like, well she doesn't care you have the school run either, makes it even worse. Not really customer focused, is it?

Have separate checkouts for those not in a rush or allocate people to an area they're more suited to.

Completely disagree.

No person is more important than the other here. Everyone is busy, everyone has struggles and is dealing with life. It’s not a case of who’s life if harder, we should all respect individuals, including shop workers.

Being the paying customer doesn’t make you more entitled of time, we are all equal. OP’s incredibly tight restricted schedule is not this poor minimum wage shop workers problem or responsibility.

She did ‘scan as you shop’.

No one needs you to defend the workers here.

@pikkumyy77

This sentence actually tells us everything about you. 🤢

So rude and avoidable for you to plan shopping time better/use click n collect. When you go to a supermarket you expect delayed time, even with fast scanning like aldi. Maybe you should try there to see if you can organise your shopping perfectly into the bags.

Darling, we're all in a hurry but not rude and patronising to older staff who take a bit more time.

One is getting paid to do a job and the other is paying for a job to be done. No matter what anyone thinks is right or wrong, customers will end up going elsewhere.

There's a shop (nationwide brand) that I don't go to because the staff are so incredibly slow. And not one of them are older or have any physical disabilities. Only two miles up the road there is the same brand of shop and they're all on the ball.

Shop one is closing down soon.

Exactly! We're all in a rush, no need to be rude and hurt someone's feelings. Poor woman, clearly working hard still in elder years to be treated like this. A bit of compassion goes a long way.

Do you? That’s an odd thing to say.

That’s excellent then, because once you and the system have been introduced this way, you’ll find it really simple after this. (I apologise for saying more than once that you can rely on the system not wanting your dosh until the day of delivery; never occurred to me that the first time might be different, as I’ve been doing it so long I’d clearly forgotten)

Anyway, just wanted to mention the Delivery Saver deal, whereby a monthly sum gives you a much, much better chance of getting slots you want, plus it saves you a lot of money on delivery fees. (Very handy for booking slots at Xmas, Easter when demand is high) I don’t think Ive ever failed to get the slots I need.
Highly recommend it on a tight budget.

My God OP. I have nothing to add to this other to say how badly I feel for you, not only for the frustrating situation you find yourself in, but also having to wade through responses from posters who are too thick to read and/or fully comprehend a circumstance like yours - fuck it’s painful.

I hope you’re ok and your situation improves soon (irrespective of the slow lady in Tesco)

Your first paragraph doesn't make sense.

And she didn't refuse the staff member because she was old, she did so because she was slow, which is not a protected characteristic.

Not all old people are slow btw.

You said you only have Tesco and Waitrose in your town, but check if other supermarkets deliver, Sainsbury’s cover 98% of the UK with delivery apparently.

And for you doing your first delivery and it being tight time wise - do you have more flexibility during the school holidays?

And Sainsbury’s (it’s what I use but maybe Tesco are similar?) have a minimum ‘basket’ of £50 for a cheap delivery - under £50 I think you pay £7 delivery charge, but over £50 basket and you can either choose a 1 hour slot for £3ish, or you can choose a 4 hour slot for £1.

And if you pick it up from the shop (click and collect) it costs 50p. You just need to have your own shopping bags ready to transfer the food into, as they have it stacked in the van in those bread trays.

If there's one way to know that you are in a rush, it is to have 100+ items to sort and put away at home. Clearly not fit for purpose of scanning by being a bit slower than others, how dare they!

I don’t think you did anything wrong op. You were as polite as you could be under the circumstances.

Unfortunately many older people are having to continue to work past their ability to do so. 67 is too old to retire for many. Of course there are exceptions, but imo the retirement age should be lower. Of course that’s a separate issue and a costly one.

This kind of makes sense in a 'doesn't make sense' kind of way to me. I see their thinking, but it seems flawed. Surely, if you're going to try to steal something, you would just have 'oops, forgotten' to scan it in the first place, if selected for a rescan - especially if you know that the system works that way? A thief could so easily put in an expensive item, hoping to get it free, and then jettison it at the till (or slip it into their bag/pocket) before the assistant comes over if selected for a re-scan.

Supermarkets seem ro have developed a large number of ways designed to annoy and inconvenience honest shoppers, whilst the thieves won't be affected anyway. Like with the 'normal' self-service checkouts that check the weight of what is scanned against what is put on the scales: have they really not considered thieves just putting stuff in their bags without scanning or weighing it? Or, more likely these days, just filling their bags with stock and walking out without troubling themselves to go anywhere near the tills in the first place?

Ocado is more expensive, true. All supermarkets deliver to most areas irrespective of whether one is near by or not. I still don’t really get why OP can’t order it the day she gets paid to be delivered or click and collect the following day. I’m obviously just stupid.

Amazing how you have plenty of time to argue relentlessly on the internet about this incident, but not enough time in the moment to show a little understanding and common courtesy.

I've read every post and sympathise with not being able to do it online. I think it may be worth trying to get past a first one at some point when you are able to as it would make your life easier.

I do, however, also think you were unkind to the lady and I suspect she has been very hurt. That's just my opinion though.

I really am not getting the people whose 'solution' to OP being held up 25% of the time for an ultra-slow rescan done by this lady is to 'just' use the standard checkout and be held up with a slow service 100% of the time!

Even if the person on the checkout is quick at scanning, there are only ever one or two checkouts open, so there is always a long queue. I've no idea why they still retain large numbers of standard checkouts that are never, ever opened - even on Christmas Eve - rather than turning them over to self-checkouts or self-scan terminals, or just using the space for more stock-display space.

Also, it tends to be the slowest and least self-confident shoppers who choose the standard checkouts in the first place, so you'll invariably be held up by somebody who is very slow to put their shopping on the belt, or to find their purse and pack it afterwards, or who is lonely and wants a chat and so takes their merry time to deliberately prolong the interaction time.

I also think that some posters are deliberately minimising OP's plight here. It's not just a case of snapping at them if they don't jump to do it in a nano-second; 20 minutes would be an extremely long time for a huge shop on a standard checkout, never mind just for a rescan when using a supposedly speedy method. Our main local supermarket doesn't have their own car park, but the adjacent council car park is free for the first half hour, which is usually plenty of time - I would be massively annoyed if I had to start paying for parking every time just because a worker was routinely painfully slow; or worse, ending up with a big fine because of their slowness.

I don't understand why people use this argument, as though every block of your time is equal - and being able to choose when to go online to post/respond whenever you have a convenient couple of minutes is exactly the same as your time in the middle of your daily schedule, when you must get certain things done in a specific narrow window of time.

Totally disagree with this but maybe that's because I happily employ people with disabilities aswell as our usual work force and some may be slow etc but to see them work and not be sitting at home is the plus for me. Tbh thought that may have gone thru your head as you say you live with some disabilities in your household so a bit of patience goes a long way not just assume someone is deliberately holding you back when your the one who hasn't made time. Let's hope people have the same kind of patience once your older at work.