Grocery store etiquette

[jhart05]

I worked in grocery stores for around 10 years thru high school and college. (Which is why I now consider myself a "grocery store snob", if there is such a thing.)

 

Started in a full service meat department back home, at a little 4 isle store. Everyone came their for their meat, because they had the best in the area.

 

Finished up as assistant grocery manager at one of the better stores here in the Milwaukee area.

 

 

 

I have way too many grocery store pet-peeve's to list here.

[1992casey]

Per Brewerfan's political discussion guidelines, let's move away from the discussion of food stamps unless it can be applied to something like rude behavior at the checkout.

[Brian the Automator]

I live in Waukesha. I can't think of a business that I have been a customer at in SE Wisconsin (other than Real Chili) that does not accept check cards.

Divino Gelato Cafe in downtown Waukesha is cash-only, I believe. Annoying.

[tristarscoop]

Oakland Gyros is cash only.

[Ando Calrissian]

Athough the self check-out lanes are convenient, I refuse to use them. It's my own mini-protest against the decline of good customer service. If I have to check my own groceries and bag them, the store needs to be giving me a much better discount than they're already doing.

[Patrick425]

Divino Gelato Cafe in downtown Waukesha is cash-only, I believe. Annoying.

Actually it's not. My family and I go there all the time.

 

Great. Now you got me craving some of that Gelato.

[fondybrewfan]

I will only use self checkout if I don't have any produce. It just takes to long if you have to punch in codes for every vegetable or fruit you have.

[Crazyk1294]

I just found out the other day that it's okay to use the self-checker for beer. Yay technology!

[marquettefan13]

I always have issues with the self-checkouts at my local Pick 'N Save when I use coupons. I insert the coupon and then it says I haven't inserted it in the slot yet and then I have to wait awhile for an employee to come over. So now I generally avoid the self-checkout lines there if I have coupons.

[parkside21]

After having my car hit by a runaway cart in the parking lot last year, I guess my biggest gripe are those that don't put away their carts (as was mentioned previously). It's funny that express lanes were brought up though. I know it depends on the individual store, but it seems "express lanes" have gone from 5 item limit, to 10 items, to 12, to 20 items. I guess I didn't really realize 20 items is still considered "express". I forget where I was recently but they even had a SUPER EXPRESS lane for 5 items or less, which was different from their regular 20 item express lane. What gets me are all the different lanes you now have available....sometimes I feel shady going through the "family" lane by myself...is this just a new way of saying "candy-less"? Did kids pick up on this and they had to switch it to "family"?

 

One other thing that bothers me....overly chatty cashiers...maybe I'm just a grump, but I don't think so. I mean, I'm friendly to cashiers, I'm polite, say please and thank you, and give a quick smile....but that doesn't mean I want to hear them comment on every item that I buy, or volunteer information about themselves.

 

Ugh, one more thing. I suppose I don't want cashiers to get fired or anything like this, but I was recently at a store and the person's item in front of me rang up at 2.19 instead of 2.09, which is what the customer thought it should be. The cashier got on the phone, called the department, and we waited....and waited...for her to describe the item and the size, and brand, and color, etc. Finally, the person on the other end found the item and said it was indeed on sale for 2.09. We had to have waited at least 2 minutes for this to take place. Maybe not all stores give their cashiers this power, but when I worked at Osco Drug in high school (maybe that's why now they're out of business), we were told to just take the customers word, as long as it was within reason and they seemed genuine about it and give the customer the item at the price they thought it was. We were able to just punch the price in manually. Smiling and apologizing and ringing up the item for 10 to 30 cents less, even if 90% of the time the customer just made an honest mistake and mis-read the price, made for great customer service and kept customers coming back. Besides, it's not like the customer wasn't already paying 2 or 3 dollars more than store cost for it anyways, who cares if we lose a couple extra cents profit on the item, the point was to keep them coming back.

[dadofandrew]

Yeah, a dime is a waste of time. I gave my people permission to do up to 50% off, but some places you need a key (or code) to do any kind of override.

[Patrick425]

Ugh, one more thing. I suppose I don't want cashiers to get fired or anything like this, but I was recently at a store and the person's item in front of me rang up at 2.19 instead of 2.09, which is what the customer thought it should be. The cashier got on the phone, called the department, and we waited....and waited...

Ugh is right. I hate that when people haggle over a dime or a coupon's validity. There have been times where I have been so tempted to pull a quarter out of my pocket and flip it to the person and say, "Here, can we move this thing along now?"

[burniebrewer]

Ugh is right. I hate that when people haggle over a dime or a coupon's validity. There have been times where I have been so tempted to pull a quarter out of my pocket and flip it to the person and say, "Here, can we move this thing along now?"

Ugh, indeed.

 

The store is definitely in the wrong at times, so this can be a legitimate, but if people would just learn to read price tags and signs, many of these delays would be avoided. If something seems too good to be true, match up the code on the price tag, it's real easy.

[hawing]

One other thing that bothers me....overly chatty cashiers...maybe I'm just a grump, but I don't think so.

 

Ding ding ding, we have a match.

The Trader Joe's in Madison is on our way home from work, so we occasionally stop there (if for no other reason, I get the knockoff oat square cereal per AmyInTheSouth's excellent suggestion).

I think Trader Joe's employees must be instructed to drum up conversation with each and every customer.

In theory this is not terrible, but I seem to get the employees who have to stretch extra to find something to talk about. Sample from a day last October:

 

TJ employee: Hi!

hawing: Hi.

TJE (noticing ball-glove logo pin on my jacket): So...how's your...team...doing?

(obviously has no idea what team that is, despite recognizing my pin as some sort of...team...logo)

hawing: Well, their season ended a few weeks ago. But they did all right.

TJE: Oh.

 

If it's going to be that forced, I'd rather just exchange generic pleasantries.

[drezdn]

Maybe it's just the stores I've been to that have slow self-checkers, but I bet they take roughly the same amount of time (if not longer) than a regular checkout, it just feels like it's a shorter wait because you're doing something other than staring at the cashier while they ring up your groceries.

 

My personal pet peeve is people who block out the credit/debit machine after they've been rang up, preventing the person behind them from running their card. It seems like it mainly happens at Target where the end of the checkout is both where the bags are put and the card reader is.

[germanking]

Since I've yet to master the copy and paste feature, I want to bring up a story dealing with the shopping carts left in the parking lot. At Sentry in Delafield, my wife and I had finished putting our items in our car and I put the cart away. We both get into the car and start to leave when I noticed a person who did the same thing, but left their cart right next to their car with the cart return 10 feet away. So being the considerate fellow that I am, I asked my wife to stop the car. I got out to grab the stray cart, and very slooowly walk in front a very impatient vehicle, and put the cart in the cart return. My wife was laughing uncontrollably and the impatient shopper just sat there with an astonished look on her face, saying "I can't believe you just did that." That experience was very satisfying, for I finally got to bust someone for being inconsiderate and impatient.