The ten worst customers who shop at grocery stores

[freeatlast]

I almost always take my own "green" bags and cold bags. Not that I am a big environmentalist, but I live on the second floor and the green bags have long enough handles to hang over my shoulders. This way, I can normally take all the groceries up in one trip. I take a cold bag because I never eat lunch before grocery shopping. Unlike most people, if I am not hungry when I shop nothing looks good to me. When this happens, I buy lots of laundry and cleaning supplies and no food. Then I don't have enough in the freezer and pantry to cook dinner all week. So I stop and get lunch on the way home from the grocery. I often go in to get my food rather than waste gas sitting in the drive thru line and the car gets hot while I am in the restaurant. The cold bags are great for keeping the ice cream and frozen vegetables from melting.

[blas]

Oh I must agree with people taking their bad mood out on you. I dealt with that at least 1 or 2 nights a week when I was still friends with Chef Ramsey at work....not to mention with my most recent ex (he's gotten another chance but he's quickly blowing this one too). It's not my fault you don't sleep and don't do anything all day, then you say you want me to call you, and when I do, you ignore me, fall asleep, or snip at me. And with Chef Ramsey, I'm not his wife or one of his 100 kids....it's not my fault they pissed you off today....so stop taking it out on me.

[Applerod]

Regarding "people who don't understand lines" -- I think I've figured out the main reason why people behave illogically, i.e. ignoring open cashiers in favor of queueing in line: People tend to follow other people. Tonight at closing I was one of two cashiers, stationed at the register directly behind my co-worker. First, a guy with a big order left my co-worker standing to retrieve the item he forgot. I was open, but the next customers placed their 2 items on the counter in front of my co-worker, who was waiting for the guy to return. I was going to attract their attention but since my co-worker and the customers were hispanic I figured they would prefer to be checked out by someone with whom they could communicate, so I said nothing. At this point, another customer got in line behind the three customers already waiting. Now this is just frustrating -- me standing right there, no more than 7 feet away, at attention, doing nothing, and going unnoticed. I know it was never personal but it's hard to see this behavior repeated 150 times a day, so I said nothing until my co-worker finally directed customer #4 to the open cashier directly behind her.

- On the subject of bagging etiquette, my position is that the customer is under zero obligation to help out. That being said, help is almost always tremendously appreciated.

- I'll add two more types of customer that are hard to deal with:
I) The 'victim of inadequate service'. These are customers who complain about things they should be monitoring themselves. Example: "Last time I bought soup here it spilled all over my backseat on the way home." After I take the time to seal your soup in a plastic bag and place it in a second paper bag it is your responsibility. You must place the soup on the floor of your car and brace it with an object if you don't want it to spill.
II) The irresponsible parent. This one should be familiar to all. At my work, the checklanes are separated by metal railings, and kids love to climb all over these railings. I know kids by nature like to play and explore, and you can't watch them every second -- but I keep getting the feeling that some day some child is going to get seriously injured.

[joetheman]

"Now this is just frustrating -- me standing right there, no more than 7 feet away, at attention, doing nothing, and going unnoticed. I know it was never personal but it's hard to see this behavior repeated 150 times a day, so I said nothing until my co-worker finally directed customer #4 to the open cashier directly behind her."

Haha i've gone from frustrated to confused to the point at which I just laugh to myself and say it's not my business. Sometimes the ones at the end of the line look around a lot and move, but once they have put their stuff down (unless its like one or two things) it's like a "point of no return".

Though one time about four years ago I was shopping with my dad iirc and they had just put the easy scans in (self check out)so we wanted to check them out, this actually wasn't at the store I work at, but a competitor. Anyway this guy in front was using the easy scan and he had a big order and he had scanned about 75% of this stuff and something was wrong with the computer or he was impatient so he got pissed off at the person trying to help him fix it and proceeded to take ALL of his stuff, unbag it, put it all back in his cart, and go to a register with a cashier.

what the hell?

speaking of which what happened to a bunch of posts in this topic.

[depechemodefan]

I probably am thinking people are more complex then they are, but:

I think if someone is standing in line and sees another line open or is unoccupied, that they race to the open aisle, and then someone gets in front of them. Then either they wait behind the person who got in front of them, while the first line they were in gets unoccupied, or they race back to the first cashier, and someone gets in that line ahead of them.

Or a person is walking around and they go to one line that is open (no waiting) and the cashier tells them "I'm not open". So people start to think "It's safer to get in a line where people are already in line, then I know it's open, then go to a line where no one is waiting, and the cashier tells them they aren't open."

To be honest, those two cases happened to me (racing to an empty aisle and get cut off and go to a cashier who isn't helpng anyone and she tells me that she isn't open) but I will go look for an aisle that has no customers.

[lastofthesummerwine]

Return Retard

I hate those chazzers who walk up to the CS desk with the confidence of a punch drunk village idiot while spouting off about how they need a refund-- only to present you with, let's say, a milk container that is so close to empty that you can count the remaining droplets.

"What's the problem?" you slowly ask.

"Why, the milk is sour, of course!"

Don't think I don't ask why it took so long to make that determination. Usually, they say they found out while stirring up some large dish. There's only one think they're stirring up, far as I can see...

[edible_hat]

3. The bad budgeter

This person will come with a decent amount of stuff, and say they only have 50 bucks or something to spend. The total comes to 50 bucks at like a quarter of the way through their stuff, forcing everything else they bought to be sent to reshop, and most of it's usually cold. Seriously if you only have 50 bucks why the hell did you pick out all that stuff? Come on.

I was guilty of that... once! Since then I've used the calculator application on my phone to add things up as I went along. I grab essentials first, then I know how much I can spend on luxuries (if I desire).


edit: around here the cashier does the bagging. Sometimes I re-bag, but only when the cashier hasn't been trained properly and does stuff like cans on top of bread.

[depechemodefan]

You know one of the customers I don't like? One with WIC (x amount of chesse, milk, beans, ceral the gov't will pay for) who never get the correct amt./type. HOlding up the line, ugh.

Or food stamps where they dont' have enough left on their card so they have to scramble for other type of payments.

and the people who decides they dont' want an item that will spoil without refridgeration, and just leave it on top of the candy rack instead of handing it to the cashier. People who have no problem berating a cashier will of course be afraid that she/he will bite his/her hand off for not wanting a package of chicken wings.

[Gawdzillers]

I hate the ones where you come in after pushing carts or taking out the trash or whatever, and start bagging their groceries. Three bags later, the customer says, "Oh, I want those in paper".

Oh, great, thanks for telling me beforehand.

[joetheman]

what exactly is WIC? I've heard it mentioned a lot and it sounds like foodstamps but I've never had anyone use it.

occasionally a customer has these weird forms that you have to fill out some little thing and run it through the check machine but i'm pretty sure that's not WIC.

also i'm gonna add one to the list

11 - People who think I'm psychic or have magical powers

No, I am not psychic. Sorry. If you want separate orders, tell me before I scan half of the second order. Or just use a divider. If you're only buying one thing, put it on the belt and use a divider, or else how the hell am I supposed to know you aren't with someone else? I don't know if you have coupons in your bag that I'm supposed to use my x ray vision to see, just give them to me at some point before the transaction is done. I've got in the habit of asking people now if they have any, to avoid OH WAIT I HAVE COUPONS SORRY when I give them the receipt. If I am a bagger, I cannot use my super vision to see that you have bags in your cart at the front of the register if you're still unloading while the cashier is ringing stuff through already. And finally, I cannot read your mind to tell if you want paper. If you want paper, tell me.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Over here, we have milk tokens which seem to serve the same need as WIC; you can buy liquid milk, formula, fruit and vegetables with them. I sometimes wish I could have them; not for formula of course not having kids, but the money off the rest of the stuff would be handy. XD

I always used to hate people who didn't bother to put fridge or freezer stuff back if they didn't want it, but instead dumped it someplace where it wouldn't be found til it was too late. Like the dingus who stuffed a load of ham down a magazine rack, ruining all the magazines as well as the meat. -.-

[Misanthropical]

The one thing we noticed is, we can be in an empty store, the only customers in the place, but as soon as we get in line to pay, a hindered and one people get in line behind us. Where did they come from? It's a mystery.

[depechemodefan]

what exactly is WIC? I've heard it mentioned a lot and it sounds like foodstamps but I've never had anyone use it.

WIC=women, infant, children. Preg. women and with kids (I forgot at what age is the cutoff for kids) get a voucher every month (or maybe 4 for every week in that month) to buy get free milk, beans, rice, cheese, cerial, but not vegitables or fruits. And it has to be 1 and 1/2 gal. of milk and 1 small chesse and one large cheese and weird units like that. and if they dont get the 1 and 1/2 gal of milk, then they can't use the voucher for latter to get that. So a lot of time people scramble to get the items they forgot, holding up the line. Oh, and it has to be certain "approved" items. Ie, no brie cheese, no C-3POs or PotC cerial.

[Evil Queen]

one of those insulated bags, I don't understand why people need those, are you planning on spending the day out with your cold stuff in the car all day?

'Cause sometimes you live an 1/2 an hour away from the grocery store, and sometimes its 90* out, and sometimes you're paranoid about your meat going bad early, and you don't want your ice cream to melt.

Or, like myself, you go to more then one store because Store X doesn't carry something you want or need but has a better price on meat, whereas the other store has a better price on dairy.

And, I carry my own bags (those handy dandy fabric ones) in to keep from having to many little plastic baggies in my house. I don't have any pets so the baggies are useless.

I also bag my own goods for reasons such as last night; I was too tired from work to bag my own and the bagger put raw meat in the same bag as the raw Anaheim Peppers. Big No-No in my book, thanks. I don't care if they're double bagged; I don't want my pork to taste like The SO's peppers.

[LewisLegion]

I use big insulated bags...but generally only because I got about ten of them free through work. That, and one can carry two gallons and two quarts of milk, PLUS stuff piled on top of them...and I buy a lot of milk. Now I can make it inside in just one trip rather than three or four.