This past Friday, I did my family's food shopping right after work, because it appeared as if we were going to have a busy weekend, and this would save us some time on Saturday, when we normally do our shopping.
So I am in the supermarket, get all the things I wanted to buy, and go to the checkout area, where I have my choice of having an actual cashier handle my order, or I can do it on my own in the self-serve area.
I choose the self-serve checkout, and this is apparently where the fun began.
I put all my groceries on the conveyor belt, and start to check them out.
About three-quarters of the way through doing this, two people come to the checkout area, and they began to wait for me to finish and be off on my merry way ...
Or so I thought.
They move up to the conveyor, and as I am checking my groceries out, I find that they are taking things off the belt.
Yes, removing my groceries so they can put their own groceries on.
"Excuse me," I said, probably a bit loudly. "What are you doing?"
One guy says to me, "What is this?" holding up one of things he hasn't touched yet.
"That happens to be my groceries that you are taking off. What is the matter?" I said, again, probably pretty loudly.
He had the wheat germ in his hand, and I told him to put all the groceries back that he had removed.
He did, but it didn't stop there.
As I was still checking out my stuff, they started to put their stuff on there, rushing me out the door.
I told them that, 1) I still had more to do, and that they really should be showing some patience; 2) I also had coupons that I needed to scan; and 3) they needed more bags, because it just so happened that I used up all the bags on the checkout.
I finished scanning the groceries, started to scan my coupons, but a couple of the coupons, for whatever reason, did not go through, so I had to call over for some help ... and yes, they had to wait even longer.
Once that was done, it was time to pay. I used my debit card, but the duo had moved right behind me when I used the card.
"Look, do you think you can move back?" I asked. "I am using a debit card, if you don't mind."
They did move away (yes, I covered up the pad as best I could with one hand while I punched in my PIN number with the other hand), I did what I had to do, and I proceeded to leave.
One of the duo then said to me, "Have a nice day!"
I swear to you that this is true.
Now, I have had people who are jumpy behind me in the self-checkout area. They stand right behind me when I am paying, they put their groceries on before I am done, but I never had an instance where my groceries were being removed while I was still in the process of checking them out ... until now.
I find that some people waiting on these lines have absolutely no patience at all, and they show poor manners and are nasty about it.
I had an instance a few months ago when I told a young girl to please move back when I was checking my stuff out, and she gave me an argument like you wouldn't believe. She yelled at me, "Who do you think you are? You think you are entitled?"
"Yes," I said to her. I was entitled to check my groceries out without being harassed, don't you think?
I think there should be a sign with etiquette rules at every checkout station, including that the next person should wait until the preceding party is completely finished before putting their own groceries on the conveyor.
That is exactly what I did just before I put my groceries on there this past Friday. I gave the preceding person plenty of room to do what he had to do.
I would expect the same courtesy from others, but I guess that is asking too much.
But I will tell you, the next time this happens, I will ask for the store manager, and have these clowns escorted out of the store. As it is, I don't trust the people that I encountered this past Friday, and will be checking my debit card periodically to make sure there is no funny business associated with it.
You never know, these people may have had one of those pocket scanners on them, grabbing my number as they acted like idiots on the line.
But you know what? I don't think that that happened.
I just think, after thinking about it, that they were being extremely rude, and nothing else.
To be in a rush like that, what are you checking out groceries for, a fire?
Give me a break, please.
Have a nice day indeed.
There's no excuse for the bad behavior they exhibited, but I fully understand their frustration. The self checkout stations are designed to accommodate a small order of groceries, not a week's worth of food for your family. Your full cart belongs at a station with a cashier, not at the station designed to get customers with just a few items out of the store quickly. A full cart of groceries at the self checkout lane is almost as bad as a full cart in the express lane. Don't believe me? Read this: http://classroom.synonym.com/etiquette-self-checkout-lines-11154.html
ReplyDeleteSorry, I don't agree. I would if there were maybe one or two self checkouts in this store, but since there are six of them, and just three regular checkouts in use at one time (there are others, but they are not manned), then a self checkout is fine to use for a full cart of groceries. If the store wants customers to save the use of self checkouts for a small amount of groceries, they should have more cashiers at the regular checkouts. Obviously, they save money by not doing this, and when there are six self checkouts open versus three regular checkouts, if the regular checkouts are full, then why not use the self checkouts. And, as usual, you look at only part of the story--why was the person taking my groceries off the belt? Bad manners, that is what it was, but of course, you lose sight of that. Should I expect anything more from you?
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