So I went shopping with my mummy

[AirHostess]

My mother is not your typical SC. She is part housewife part Human Resources Manager and she can be pretty damn scary-I would not want to have her as my manager! Without being downright rude to customer service staff she can be pretty...grating.

Today we went shopping as she is having a dinner party tonight and tommorow at home. She was quite stressy and she wouldn't let us go to Asda Walmart which is nearer our home as 'it would be full of common people' (her words, not mine!!!) so we drove to Sainsburys instead.

She kept picking things up and putting them down again in the wrong places and had the nice cheese counter assistant running around after her as she spent 10 minutes to decide which cheese and olives to select.

She was then complaning about having to wait for a few minutes at the check-out and was quite polite but icy cold with the poor young chatty lad on the till.

Argh I need a lie down now!

[matty]

I don't think my mother would be quite as bad as yours - I rarely go shopping with her. However, my sister shops with her sometimes, and talks about how Mum can be a difficult customer.

When we were talking about this once, my mother said "Well, I just like sales assistants who know what they're talking about, instead of just wanting to sell you some random thing."

And the other thing I've noticed that she hates is when sales assistants continue to try and persuade her to buy something after she has decided that she wants to buy it (to be fair, I find this a bit annoying myself, too! )

[Nakajo]

My grandfather is the SC in our family.

Went out with him the other night, and the following came from his mouth straight to the waitress:

"Can you tell me what is actually GOOD on this menu?"
"My water is too cold!"
"I just didn't like the taste of it... take it off the bill." (after he ate the WHOLE THING)
"This potato isn't loaded enough!" (overflowing....)

He also criticized the chairs, the tablecloth, the way the place was decorated, the fact they brought the salad out too early for him (perfect for the rest of us) and also got mad at her when he stained his shirt.

A big guy... eating PASTA.... with a white sweater on....

The worst part is that I see my sister, my mom, and my aunt all get exceedingly angry as he goes on because the waitress was lovely, and he was just being a jerk. We kept our mouths shut, because we love Grandpa, but all peeked at the check that he INSISTED on paying to make sure he tipped decently. ($30 on a $150, 20%, thank goodness)

My mom, sister, aunt, and I are all former or current restaurant workers and/or waitresses/bartenders. We felt the pain of the waitress and secretly apologized to her when we left. Also, the extra $20 we left behind should have helped.