to think that supermarket etiquette works like this

[franklymydear]

in a busy supermarket like Sainsburys on a saturday, you finish shopping and join a horribly long queue.

Suddenly you remember something which happens to be in the next aisle along, so you leave your trolley in the queue and dash to get said item.

When you come back you expect your trolley to be in the same place and not to have been moved to the side and an old bloke with a basket in front of you starting to unload his basket.

Shopping etiquette says you wait your turn right even if the owner of the trolley in front is not there for a couple of minutes.

This thread is like a scab I can't stop prodding.

I'm in sweden mustrunmore and funnily enough I often say that it's like england thirty years ago, so your perception is dead on. The supermarkets are so depressing - really dingy with fruit already going rotten and not having the same lines of produce from one week to the next. Oh God, I hope there's no swedes reading this thread because that's going to open up a whole other world of hurt (must stay away from AIBU in future), but really, swedish supermarkets - Waitrose they ain't.

And we joke about having 'supermarket etiquette', but, really, there is, and swedish supermarket etiquette is very different from british supermarket etiquette (trollies left as markers in queues notwithstanding).

Are the dividers (yes, dividers, that's what they're called!) not around anymore in british supermarkets then?

I'm still with frankly, despite her strange shopping list.

I don't think it's rude actually. if the person who 'owns' the trolley is nowhere to be seen and the queue has moved on then it's perfectly acceptable to go in front. yabu.

What are you going to do with 10 bags of rice, frank?

I can't believe I've come back to this and no one has asked.

the bags are quite small and I have 6 to feed so a meal will be a bag and a half - 2 bags. I have stocked up to last the next month (I hope) because i hate shopping and don't like ocado rice as much

THE QUEUE HAD NOT MOVED ON - ONE WOMAN IN FRONT FILLING THE ENTIRE CONVEYOR BELT - JUST 10CM HAD OPENED UP AND BLOKE HAD ONLY JUST PUT HIS BASKET DOWN AND REACHED FOR THE NEXT PERSON SEPARATOR AND WAS TRYING TO FIT IT IN WHEN I GOT BACK WITH MY BLOODY ALPEN!

ROAR

nope,really annoying if someone bags a place then wanders off.you lost your place tough titty.franky id do the same - a "couple of minutes" is unacceptable

There's no need to shout.

Alpen, eh?

Shopping AIBU by stealth.

As I said, he arrived at the checkout and you were nowhere to be seen, just an apparently abandoned trolley. He was not rude, cheeky or anything else.

Well if I had arrived at a checkout I would assume that the trolley signified someone in the queue and would not have moved it because to move it would have been rude.

If the person being served had been nearly finished or even if the conveyor belt was 50% free then maybe I could see your point. But it had cleared about 10cm (is there an echo?) and the bloke had obviously dived in, realising there was someone there and not cared.

rude

I got back just as he was putting the separator down and said Oh as he took his first item out

I have not been enraged by it but have been vaguely diverted byt his thread

Instead of saying "oh", why didn´t you tell him that he´d taken your place in the queue?

Oh in a pointed way though not a passing little Oh as in Oh well or Oh look but a pointed Oh that sounds frankly a little passive aggressive.

Would it not have been less rude to have said "I am so sorry, that is actually my trolley and I think I was ahead of you in the queue."?

well as I said at the start

By franklymydear on Sat 26-Sep-09 13:08:28

I said "Oh" quite pointedly and he said "oh I didn't see you, anyway I don't have much" - he had about the same as me.

I didn't need to, he knew that he'd taken my place as soon as I looked at him. And he didn't care, ask if it was ok. If he'd said "do you mind" or "Please may I" it would have been different.

What queue?
An old man and your trolley?

YADNBU

HE was Very Rude Indeed!

YANBU.

That is only slightly ruder than shovelling out a great trolley-full of a week's shopping on the conveyor belt while the person behind in the queue has to wait to pay for their loaf of bread and pint of milk. My pet hate, very inconsiderate, I think - trolley-full is going to be there ages, so adding an extra thirty seconds to allow the person behind to pay for their couple of bits isn't going to make much difference.

I agree wondering. I always let the little baskets go first. Sometimes there are lots of little baskets though. I only let one go in front. Them's the rules.