Ways to Annoy your Grocery Clerk #26 – Shopping in Line

LOL, I may have done that once or twice before!!

This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves. And what really gets me is that, after waiting on them for 5 minutes, you see them just leisurely strolling back up to the checkstand. It’s like, “Oh no, go ahead and take your time, I don’t mind. I really love dealing with all the impatient and irritated customers I have to ring up after you. Oh wait, we didn’t scan your preferred card. Let’s all wait for you to go through every corner of your wallet trying to find it, and then through 10 different phone numbers that don’t work. Because that’s normal for a person to even have 10 possible phone number options. Oh AND you’re writing a check? Great. Go for it. I get paid by the hour… I’ll just stand here and watch the line back up down the frozen food aisle until you’re ready.”

But my favorite is the customer that walks up with a full basket, leaves the basket completely blocking the checkstand and goes back to do more shopping without saying anything. So when you finally notice, you don’t know whose it is, if they’re coming back or if you should start ringing up other people ahead of them (and when you do the owner of said full basket returns only to be upset that it wasn’t OBVIOUS that their full basket of groceries were holding their place in line… This isn’t Disneyland, and your basket isn’t your fastpass.)

Sorry, got a little carried away there. I feel much better getting it all out. haha.

I actually prevented a dumb woman from running back to get stuff after she finished getting her large order rung up, people in the line behind me cheered me for that.

Secretia

I will only shop on line if I have my kids or my husband with me and they can run back and get that one thing. If they are not back by the time my total is rung I forget it and go ahead and check out.

I refuse to hold other shoppers up. Bananas just aren’t that important.

There should be a little countdown feature for checkers to use, like a light flashing at the top of the lane number light. This will let other patrons know this lane is paused, and if the shopping-in-line person doesn’t make it back in time before the countdown is finished, the order is voided and you can start helping the next person.

Yes, I find that very annoying. And I am invariably the person who picks the WRONG line. Shortest but with slowest people.

I hate it when people do that!

Oh wow, that brings back one really bad memory. It happened some time last year. I was behind a woman and her father. It was about noon or so, a weekday, so the grocery outing should have been quick. Not with these two. She was buying ingredients for dinner and she had to go back 2 times for crap she forgot. Plus she had issues paying with her card. And that was the only line open in the store!

LOL…So annoying…

I will sometimes think of something I forgot while I am waiting in line, but I will only go get it if I am sure I can be back before I get to the front of the line. Sometimes I hurry back and then think of something else to get, but I limit myself to something (like the bananas) that is located close to the checkout line so I can be quick.

Not Ready Betty. That cracked me up.

I’ve never had this happen at the big store I go to, but the little one, where you bag your own stuff, people try to do it all the time. You just want to knock all their groceries off the conveyor.

Pretty hilarious and real blog you’ve got here, Paul.

What are your thoughts on the customers who eat food that has not yet been purchased while walking around the store or standing in line?

I have forgotten items, and realized it when in line, and AFTER I checked out, gone and gotten them. Really, it’s that hard to go get something you forgot after you’ve gone through the line? No, no it isn’t.

I have also realized that I forgot something just as I was getting in line, and turned the cart around and forfeited my place in line to go get it. I just don’t see the need to inconvenience everyone else in the free world just because I had a forgetful moment.

When I’m shopping with my parents they always leave because the forgot one thing and I’m left to wait in line with the groceries and I get all mortified they won’t be back in time and I’ll be through the checkout holding up the line waiting for them. The checker must have that feeling multiplied by 10. I know my friend had the experience of someone saying that and then never coming back.

[...] goes down or behind an elderly lady with a handful of coupons or that obnoxious person who’s shopping in line. Doesn’t it make you want to look up towards sky, raise your arms in the air and say, [...]

When this happens I just tell the waiting customer to come on ahead, if I haven’t started the order.