So there I am, in Sainsbury's, I've the few items I want so I approach the tobacco kiosk, carrying them in my arms because I had no need for a basket. As I prepare for the daylight robbery goes on at the tills, Herbert manning the till explains, 'Oh no, it's gotta be less than five items here'.
Me, I'm not really one for kicking up a fuss, encountering individuals with an absence of consideration is far too common an occurrence. Yes I did once grab a guy forcibly by the collar and shove him to the side when he cut in front of me, while I was stepping up to the ticket window at the train station but that was something of an aberration. Yesterday though, I wasn't really in the mood for being a doormat, so I corrected him, 'It says five items or less on the sign'.
'Oh!' he exclaims, with a certain embarrassment at being caught out, then he proceeds to fulfil his duties at the till.
I didn't leave it there though, 'So how many people have you turned away?'.
'I didn't know about the limit, I've only just been told,' he says.
'Oh so it's just me then, what a surprise,' I retort.
I think he was a little stung and felt like he had to offer an explanation, 'I think they're trying to cut down on the queues here,' he says.
'Oh you mean like there is now,' I quip with as wryly as I can, there are three customers in the shop, there are no other customer within about fifty feet of the tills and I'm carrying my shopping in my arms. This doesn't go down particularly well with him, well that's tough I thought and I gave him my parting shot, 'Yeah, I do think I remember there being a queue in here once'.
Never have I ever seen anyone else challenged at the tobacco kiosk because they've turned up with too many items, yet somehow, this is the second time this as happened to me and on this occasion I wasn't even over the limit. So you know what I'm going to do today, I'm going up to that till with five item, then I'm going grab about fifteen items from the nick nacks they have on the rack there.
I wish you'd make your font larger, DSE - it's a strain on my old eyes. Easier to read might mean more readers. Anyway, the attitude you describe is all too common. I once worked in a watch repair shop. The guy before me was a right lazy b*st*rd. People would come in and ask me if they could get their watches resealed. "Sure," I'd say, "Give me 15 minutes." "The last guy that worked here said it would have to be sent away to get done," some of them would respond. "That's because he couldn't be bothered fiddling around with the screws on the back of the watch," I'd say, which was true. The guy now works at the till of a shop in the same centre. Someone I know was buying something from his shop that was reduced, but was charged full price at the till this plonker was manning. "I thought it was only £1.99," says the guy I know. Lazy b*st*rd shows him the price on the receipt without saying a word. However, a few minutes before, the same thing had happened at another till, and the assistant had asked someone to check the price. Turns out that although that item HAD been reduced, the bar code hadn't been altered to reflect this. With this in mind, I tell the person I know to get the item checked - turns out the same thing had happened, the bar code hadn't been revised. Plonker-boy should've called for the item to be checked, but didn't - mainly because he's a fat lazy b*st*rd. I hate these people.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the blog being hard to read, not quite sure why that should be. Seeing as it's just me, you and the occasional flood of referrals from Viagra dealers in Azerbaijan and Thailand here, I'd better do something about it. I had been mulling the idea of a theme change the other day but didn't get round to implementing it.
DeleteThey do that thing with the price reductions all the time in one particular shop close by. One day I split a tenner there and the manager, no less, gave me change of for fiver. He swore blind I have him a fiver, git.
It's hard to read, DSE, because the font is so bloody small. Crikey, I'm nearly 28 (cough), my eyesight isn't as good as it was. Larger type please. Did you get change of a tenner in the end?
ReplyDeleteI've changed the font size, strangely it was stuck on 13 pixels, a size which doesn't feature in the selectable options for font size. I changed it to a serif font too, I hope that fixes the problem.
DeleteYeah I did get my change, after he faffed about, pretending to count the money in the till though. I remember thinking, yeah fat chance of that coming out straight with him on the till.