Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:21 pm  

You can be on the phone and acknowledge the checkout chick without causing any offense. You can bet this woman was being rude with her body language as well and completely ignoring the checkout woman. You can also assume she was then sent into a furious rage by being challenged over it.

Lack of class from the customer, but the checkout girl should just have carried on regardless.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:34 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

The customer is always right.

No, you may want them to think they are always right but they are not always right. Sometimes in some situations they need to be told that they are not right. Often earns a lot of respect.
In this situation it was just bad manners on behalf of the customer. That said, supermarkets pretending they want to interact with customers, even at the checkout, is laughable, they are not about customer interaction that was lost when they forced the closure of small, owner run local shops.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:46 pm  

Hmm. People seem to be commenting without bothering to read any report or article. I have read the Wail report and it includes teh following:

‘There was no one behind me in the queue, it was quite quiet and I just phoned my brother to quickly tell him I was about to leave. He was waiting, so I just gave him a quick call.

‘I was standing at the foot of the till waiting to bag my shopping up, yet the lady on the checkout was just staring at me.
‘When I stopped my conversation and said “Is everything okay?” she said: “I will not check your shopping out until you get off your mobile phone”.
‘I ended my call swiftly, and said to the lady on the checkout, “Apologies, I didn’t realise that it was Sainsbury’s policy that you are unable to use your phone at the checkout”.
‘She said “You learn something new every day”.’

Miss Clarke checked with the customer services desk on leaving the store and was told there was no such policy.

Whilst having an endless and loud convo about pointless inanities would indeed be rude, this doesn't seem to be the case at all here. The shopper seems to be harmless, and I can't see what she did wrong.

In general though, if I've loaded a trolley for which I'm paying, and if I choose to have a conversation with anyone at the checkout, I am struggling to see what it has got to do with the checkout operator. His/her ONLY sensible course would have been to raise it at a staff meeting or later with a manager and IF Sainsbury's wanted to bar customers from mobile phone convos at the checkouts then that is a decision only they should be taking.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:03 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

....
What if this woman only had a 30 minute work break to get the shopping done and received an unexpected call from her husband who's a serving soldier in Afghanistan?...

Oh well, if we are dreaming up unlikely alternative scenarios to justify what was clearly plain rudeness, what if the checkout lady had an undiagnosed mobile phone phobia?

FWIW, the checkout lady should have put up with it, even though the one with the phone was, in my view, bloody rude.
People operating checkouts are people too and deserve eye contact and acknowledgement of their existence.

Just extending the area of discussion slightly, I often see people, even couples who are obviously together in a restaurant or pub, spending more time fiddling with their phones than actually conversing.
If anyone did that when I was out with them, I wouldn't be out with them much longer.
I recognise that I am of an earlier generation but, come on, what is so important in all these people's texts that they can't wait?

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:27 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Oh well, if we are dreaming up unlikely alternative scenarios to justify what was clearly plain rudeness, what if the checkout lady had an undiagnosed mobile phone phobia?

Actually it turns out that her children had super glued it to her ear It wasn't her fault.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:28 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

You didn't witness the event. No one on this thread witnessed the event. But you're all condemning the woman.

What if this woman only had a 30 minute work break to get the shopping done and received an unexpected call from her husband who's a serving soldier in Afghanistan?

She should hang up on her husband so that she doesn't offend the cashier?

No, what she should do is excuse herself from the queue and let other shoppers go first.

You moronically troop out the customer is always right without a bloody clue what you are talking about and then back track to the customer is sometimes right.

Good manners cost nothing and not talking on the phone while you are being served in a shop is plain good manners.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:44 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

No, what she should do is excuse herself from the queue and let other shoppers go first.

But from the Wail article THERE WAS NO OTHER SHOPPERS.

You moronically troop out the customer is always right without a bloody clue what you are talking about and then back track to the customer is sometimes right.

If I was a cashier working on a checkout I would have to deal with you being the **** you are by simply doing my job and serving you.

Because I am on this moderated forum I would tell you to "**** *** you ****."

If I hadn't crossed the banning boundaries so many times previously I would have got round the word filter and left you in do doubt as to what I was saying.

If you gave me that attitude on the street then I would be saying that to you.

Good manners cost nothing and not talking on the phone while you are being served in a shop is plain good manners.

I've always said that was the customer did was rude. But it was even ruder for the cashier to sit and stare at the customer until she got off the phone. As an employee of Sainsbury's she was an absolute disgrace.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 4:07 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...I've always said that was the customer did was rude. But it was even ruder for the cashier to sit and stare at the customer until she got off the phone. As an employee of Sainsbury's she was an absolute disgrace.

The employee stepped out of line, true, but that is not ruder than the customer and, far from being "an absolute disgrace" was provoked into it which cannot be said about the rude cow of a customer ... who is now going to shop at Waitrose apparently, I do hope she gets no joy there either.

On the Telegraph website, thousands have responded to a poll ... 90% think that approaching a checkout whilst on the mobile is rude.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 4:34 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

The employee stepped out of line, true, but that is not ruder than the customer and, far from being "an absolute disgrace" was provoked into it which cannot be said about the rude cow of a customer.

She sat and stared at the customer. She said to the customer that she wouldn't serve her until she got off the phone.

When the customer said that she wasn't aware it was store policy that customers weren't allowed to use the phone, she replied "Well you learn something new every day."

Her behaviour is far ruder than the behaviour of the customer. It was confrontational.

She is an employee of Sainsbury's. There is no way that Sainsbury's would ever approve of that.

On the Telegraph website, thousands have responded to a poll ... 90% think that approaching a checkout whilst on the mobile is rude.

100% of people in this thread have said that she was being rude.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:05 pm  

The woman could have caused less damage without her smarmy 'Sainsburys policy' comment. That would have set me off. I refuse to believe that she was having a 'quick call' and she put the phone down swiftly. My mother/significant other have never indulged in a quick phone call before and i refuse to believe they ever will.

Admittedly the checkout operator could have been a bit more subtle and not been so sarcastic but it just seems like two bad mannered people coming together and blowing up a teacup.

I'd have issued an apology for PR sake and left it there. Hopefully this woman has had her 2 minutes of fame now and will go away again.