Etiquette, not pictures.







Wasn't there, didn't witness it so can't really comment on the customer being rude or not but in general, doesn't this kind of rudeness p&ss you off?



Imo, all buildings open to the public should have mobile phone signals blocked. Anyone wanting to use one should be forced outside, like the smokers are.

I heard that story on the radio news this morning, what is most annoying about it is that Sainsbury's offered the customer an apology and vouchers for free shopping.



They should have ignored the complaint.

That would also interfere with email, text etc.



But I agree on the rudeness. And Mr Chicken's point about Sainsbury's actually apologising to her.

Shouldn't have apologised and I bet the majority of people would agree with what they did.



If I'm ever on the phone or have headphones in, I'll always end the call/take them out. It's just good manners.



One thing I can't stand though from cashiers in shops is when they're serving you and they're having a full-on conversation with someone on another till, barely even acknowledging you're there.

I'll tell you another thing that is correct etiquette and yet I bet at this time of year most people won't do (I learned this in a hot country

), removing your sunglasses when speaking eye-to-eye to other people especially if your glasses are mirrored or extremely dark - in the Carribean and in Portugal (two random places where I've done it) its regarded as polite to remove them when talking to others, especially in a business setting.

The customer is always right.



I think she was being rude, but she was being rude while spending money in their store.



The cashier was COMPLETELY out of order by doing what she did. She was LYING to the customer about it being store policy when it was clearly not.



The woman has been offended by the cashier and said she'll shop at another store now. Sainsbury's are the losers in this, when really it was only the cashier who acted incorrectly.

So your mother calls you on your mobile phone with some "emergency" right while you're at the checkout of Sainsbury's.



Your priority is to not offend the cashier, rather than your mother?

That anecdotal phrase is one of the least correct sayings in regular use today, I work in customer service at the sharp end and believe me, the customer is not always right.



Our MD likes to use the phrase often but soon changes her mind when I start sending service engineers on 200 mile round trips for free because the customer said they were on a service agreement when in fact I found that they were not and should have been charged "But the customer is always right" would get me sacked under those circumstances

Unless you personally witnessed the event how on earth can you make this statement????

Well that excuses any behaviour.



I know of shop assistants who have been slapped by an unhappy customer: 'always right', though.



Mind, that was in Knightsbridge, so it's a posh, rich person's right, innit?

I'm terrible at answering the phone so it's not the best example to use for me! I more often than not call people back and if my phone went while I was at the till, I'd wait until I was done to check it - I wouldn't know it was an emergency until I answered it. If I was already on the phone and it was a real emergency, I'd be leaving without buying anything.



And I agree with what people say about the customer being right. Experience from when I worked in Tesco when I was younger showed that the customer, in a number of instances, is rarely right. I had a jar of peanut butter thrown at me because the till was closed, I was verbally abused on numerous occasions because certain items weren't in stock, and more that isn't coming to mind at the moment.

Clearly when a customer is trying to con something out of the company then the "customer is always right" maxim goes out of the window.



But that doesn't extend to cashiers refusing to serve customers for minor breaches of etiquette.