When did it become okay to eat in every store?

[Sparklyturtle]

My store offers free clementines and bananas for under-10 kids, which of course means tons of peels and rinds left in carriages and on random shelves. And when the summer rolls around again, the ones left in carriages are going to attract plenty of bees.

I've read about stores doing that, and it doesn't make sense to me. In addition to the peels and rinds left in carts and on shelves there will also be sticky fingers on merchandise, kids possibly getting sick or choking in the store, and all kinds of fun things like that. When I worked in the Navy commissary we'd get the people who'd take the time to remove all the grapes from the stems and then bring us a bag of just grapes, or the ones who'd remove the tops from the strawberries or the pineapples and leave all these things all over the place. While at least these customers were paying for what they were getting, I wonder if they realized how little the weight of the grape stems or the strawberry tops made in their purchase.

[EricKei]

ST - In my experience, some of them honestly seem to think we can figure out roughly how much the items they ate were *supposed* to weigh, and then type that into the register (Managers with keys could technically do the latter). Well, the honest ones, anyway. Some just wanted us to throw away their trash for them.

[jedimaster91]

I will admit up front that I have no kids. However, I have to wonder why the parents don't let the kids snack in the car (ha ha, I don't really wonder about that) or, alternately, ensure the kids have been adequately fed before going out to browse. OR sit in the food court to eat.

As the parent of a toddler, I carry snacks. Minion is usually pretty good when we go out somewhere, but when he's hungry, it's a quick trip to meltdownsville. And sometimes he outright refuses to eat what we order for him at a restaurant. So it's either feed him his toddler snacks or subject everyone to one of his tantrums. I don't like dealing with him like that and I'm sure no one else does either.

I also don't leave his trash everywhere or let him put yucky fingers on things.

[Slave to the Phone]

TGK, my sweetie makes it a habit to ALWAYS have a drink in his hands when we are in the mall. If I'm looking at a store he wants to enter, he drops his drink in a trash can. If he doesn't want to come in with me, he says he wants to finish his drink first.

(That actually works out pretty well because if he comes in with me to look at clothes or presents for family or that sort of thing, I will ask his opinion and he will say which ever you like better and I'll say that I'm shopping for HIS mother and he should have an opinion and he'll say that I know what she likes better than me and I'll say that I've only known her for 30 years, he's known her for 64 years and etc.

After all these years, we aren't even bickering about it, just repeating our lines out of habit. Its faster and easier to just stop at a coffee stand as soon as we enter the mall.)

At the food stamp offices in our state, we are officially forbidden from giving any customer food due to fear of choking, allergies or some sort of other bad reaction. (We are all people so there are times when one or another of us has snuck food to someone. As long as we are quiet about it nobody "notices".)

We actually encourage people to bring food and drinks for the wait, the lobbies are designed to be cleaned easily, laminate floors, laminate kiosks and desks, plastic chairs, etc. The wait is long and people need to eat. Considerate people eat and drink and throw their trash in the bins. Inconsiderate ones leave their garbage all over and let their children write on the windows with slobbery cookies. They do this in full view of the other 300 people who are also sitting there waiting for hours and now are waiting in a dump.

At my last office, the worker area had a new remodel. New carpet, new furniture, new paint, new cubes, new everything. Within the first week, we had a child coloring on a cube wall and carpet, goldfish ground into the brand new carpet, several drinks spilled and chocolate smeared on the new paint.

Management decreed that NOBODY could eat or drink anything but bottled water in the worker area. That went over about as well as could be expected, there were times when the security guard had to get involved before the customer even got back for the interview. Fun times.

[Lace Neil Singer]

ST - In my experience, some of them honestly seem to think we can figure out roughly how much the items they ate were *supposed* to weigh, and then type that into the register (Managers with keys could technically do the latter). Well, the honest ones, anyway. Some just wanted us to throw away their trash for them.

Back when I worked on checkout, a lot of parents would grab an apple or banana for their kids to eat during the shop, then hand me the peel or apple core, saying, "He/she ate this, ring it up". I would call over a supervisor, who would then go and get the biggest, most expensive fruit they could find to be weighed and charged to the customer.

There'd also be people who'd take sweets and crisps off the shelf to feed their kids with and try and hide the empty wrapper/packet among their shopping in the vain hope that I'd not find it.

[Minflick]

When I had littles prone to a melt down at the store before we got home for dinner, I would let one eat a banana, find another one the same size, and have the checker ring that one up in lieu of the one eaten, and then leave that banana behind. So, still creating a bit of mess and go-back, but being honest about it. I think that's the lesser of two evils, and sometimes I HAD to hit the store on the way home.

[eltf177]

Inconsiderate ones leave their garbage all over and let their children write on the windows with slobbery cookies. They do this in full view of the other 300 people who are also sitting there waiting for hours and now are waiting in a dump.

This is when you loudly announce that these slobs are going to the back of the line!

At my last office, the worker area had a new remodel. New carpet, new furniture, new paint, new cubes, new everything. Within the first week, we had a child coloring on a cube wall and carpet, goldfish ground into the brand new carpet, several drinks spilled and chocolate smeared on the new paint.

One hopes security did something and that damages were paid for.

[wordgirl]

When I was working retail in college, it was considered perfectly OK to tell people to leave the store if they had food or drink.

They still did it, though.

Just about every store in my chain had, at the time, an ivory satin chaise lounge in the middle of the store. We were told to display two items on the chaise: A gorgeous cashmere robe in a pale color and an ivory silk charmeuse and chiffon peignoir set, both of which had price tags in excess of $300. People kept trying to sit on them, but the one that really took the cake was the woman who plopped her two smallish children down on them, gave them Cheetos and juice and told them to be good while she shopped. About three of us converged on her but it was ... tragically ... too late.

We damaged out probably 5x more of those peignoir sets than we actually sold.

[Mr Hero]

My store offers free clementines and bananas for under-10 kids, which of course means tons of peels and rinds left in carriages and on random shelves. And when the summer rolls around again, the ones left in carriages are going to attract plenty of bees.

Bees everywhere!

[Monterey Jack]

[Nic Cage]"No, not the bees, NOT THE BEES....![/Nic Cage]

[taxguykarl]

[Nic Cage]"No, not the bees, NOT THE BEES....![/Nic Cage]

The Wicker Man 2006.

[AnaKhouri]

Thought of this thread because last night at work I vacuumed up five separate piles of crumbs in the kids' area. I rarely go shopping long enough for my kids to get hungry, and if it so happens they do I bring raisins or something that I can easily pick up if dropped, not crackers that will crumble into a trillion pieces and get ground into the carpet.

[Slave to the Phone]

I don't know who did this, but I was seriously annoyed. I was going to powder my nose and saw a big puddle of pink colored liquid on the floor and a large drink cup in the trash. Nobody was doing anything about it, so I hobbled to the restroom, grabbed a bunch of paper towels and cleaned it up. It took me at least 7 minutes to do so because I don't move as fast as I used to.

Nobody stepped up to take responsibility for the mess. I highly suspect a certain co-worker because I knew that she had specifically gone out to get a pink colored drink from the place the cup came from. I can't point my finger at her because its also an area that the public walks through when going to someone's cube.

I'm trying to believe that it wasn't my coworker, but I really don't think I'll ever see her the same again.

Public areas are for public use, not abuse.

[JarethsPet]

Our mini mart is quite small. I found a cup of chewed dip left on a rack yesterday.. I never saw it come in.

[greensinestro]

-A woman eating cheezits then rubbing her hand on fabric (this is why I always prewash)

That's just nasty! I wonder if I should really look at whatever clothes I buy in the future. I can't even believe people do things like that.