People find this super annoying about supermarket employees #2

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: This is what people find super annoying about supermarket employees #2.

The line at the checkout, the unfindable products and the hassle around the divider bars: there is plenty to get annoyed about in the supermarket. After our article about annoying situations in the supermarket, we received a flood of additions, because there is much more irritating than we initially thought. ‘That hysterical shouting that a checkout is opening, please!’

Maybe our world has become smaller because the winter sports are not happening, the restaurants are closed, and the choir rehearsals have been canceled, maybe this has been a lingering dissatisfaction for a while. But the cesspool of misery that opens up when talking about irritations in the supermarket is unprecedented. The divider bar! The slow packers! And the nonsense from the cashiers! Look at it this way: if these are the biggest problems in your life, then things are actually going quite well.

It takes days
Sometimes it goes too fast at the checkout, sometimes too slow again. Johan is getting wild. ‘Cashiers who wait until the conveyor belt is full and then start scanning. That is really annoying. I don’t have all day.’

Shuffle with those items
Your groceries are scanned at lightning speed and then swept onto a pile, where your bottle of cola ends up on the bag of chips and the jug of milk lands in the bag of arugula, that is a common complaint. Judith experienced it again recently. ‘The cashier was shuffling the scanned groceries. I said something about it, but she didn’t do anything, she just kept shuffling. I then shuffled the groceries back, went to the manager and left without groceries. Of course, also without paying.’

Packing up, getting out
Mirjam has little patience with people who calmly pack their groceries. ‘In this bag, oh no, in that other one or oh dear, that needs to come out because this needs to go underneath… Do that at the packing table or by the car please!’ Emotions, emotions. Eline wants to teach Mirjam to think differently: ‘You could turn it around by asking for a bag and helping to pack? That way, you both get helped at the same time.’

Doubted about Belgium
Packing those groceries and that they slide past too quickly on the checkout belt to be able to put them properly in your bags, our southern neighbors have no trouble with that at all. Charles explains: ‘Long live the Colruyt system in Belgium, the cashier transfers all your purchases to another cart, you pay and drive the cart to your car. No purchases piling up on a conveyor belt, the only thing the customer has to do is check out.’

Foghorn
Annoyance number one, according to Suus: ‘The hysterical shouting from employees that a checkout is opening and then it still takes 10 minutes before the checkout actually opens!’

Discussing all weekend
But Suus is not done yet. ‘Oh and while we’re complaining… The shelf stackers who are discussing their weekend plans in the aisle or looking at their phones.’ Many respondents don’t like that: come on, a little chat with a colleague should be possible, right? Suus is unyielding: ‘If you can’t handle that you have to keep your mouth shut during work, then you’d better work at a call center.’ So, does that relieve the pressure, Suus?

Good afternoon!
Hennie always starts her grocery adventure cheerfully, but she never manages to keep it up until the end. She cheerfully says good afternoon, and then? ‘The most annoying is no ‘good day’ back, talking past you with a colleague or other customer(s) and then looking very strangely when the customer (I) hardly reacts. (…) Apparently, my friendly good day is not appreciated.’

Two-way traffic
‘But cashiers also want to be greeted,’ says Angella. ‘I say: good day. That is then x please? And the receipt please. Have a nice day.’ And then you’re still not looked at. Or you get one word out, very blunt: ‘Pay.’’

The National Checkout Day
It’s time for a holiday or a commemoration, or something of both, thinks Sonja. ‘I’ve been saying for years that I wanted the ‘Cashier Day’. That we as cashiers could have one day a year to show how we were treated the whole year. That day will probably never come, unfortunately…’

Your turn
The divider bar had not previously appeared in the endless list of complaints and irritations. Until now! Anita kicks it off: ‘Is there anyone who also gets really annoyed by people who don’t put a divider behind their groceries to indicate that they are done? And especially looking angry when my groceries come up with their receipt. As if it’s my job to indicate when my predecessor is done putting groceries on the belt.’

Passive-aggressive
Recognition with Sharon: ‘Then I deliberately don’t do it either. They stare at you stupidly: no, those groceries don’t belong to me! No, exactly: put a divider in between then.’ Nancy: ‘Recognizable. I usually put a divider in with some ‘noise’.’

When nature calls
Recognizable: busy store, and then a checkout – the one you’re in line for – suddenly closes. What’s that about? Margo has been an assistant branch manager, she explains. ‘Keep in mind that the cashier may already be waiting for a replacement and urgently needs to go to the toilet. Because no, not every store employee is a cashier and when you have to go, you have to go.’

If it’s not there…
You’re looking for something, you ask for it and the answer is… the big annoyance of Sandra: ‘They say: ‘Yes, over there and if it’s not there, we don’t have it!’ Walking with the customer is no longer done in many stores, very unfortunate.’