Ways to Annoy your Grocery Clerk #32 – Consuming before Checkout

by PkWynn on April 12, 2010

Jon from I Don’t Want your Life asked…

Q:  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’m sure we all can agree consuming food before checkout is totally fine.  Just be sure to have something for us to scan when checking out.  Everything in the grocery store has a UPC scan bar but the items that annoy us when customers eat before checkout are bulk foods and produce.

Bulk foods and produce are weigh-able goods.  We have to weigh the goods on the scale before they are to be consumed otherwise it would be hard to determine how much was eaten.  At the same time we don’t want to question our customers so we just let it go.  Which is annoying to us because customers are clearly doing it in front of us while we stand there helplessly.

A girl comes into my line eating a bag of almonds from the bulk foods section.

Me:  Ma’am I have to scan that before you eat it.

Crazy Almond Alice:  I’m still paying for it.

Me:  Yes but I have to weigh it and if you’re eating out of it I don’t know how much to charge.

Crazy Almond Alice:  We’ll its only a few nuts.

It was at least 2 handfuls and the bulk price for almonds are $6.99 lb.

Me:  I’m sure it was more than a few nuts but next time please let me weigh it before you eat.

Crazy Almond Alice:  You want to weigh it?

BLAH!

She threw up the almonds and whatever miscellaneous foods she ate onto her hand.

Crazy Almond Alice:  Weigh this!

I can feel something coming up from my throat…

BLAH!

no throwing up 300x225 Ways to Annoy your Grocery Clerk #32 Consuming before Checkout

Tagged as: consuming

  • http://suzicate.wordpress.com Suzicate

    No she didn’t, cuz if she did, I have a name for people like that! I hate, hate, hate to see people eating from the produce section!!!!!!!

  • http://anne-a-bell.blogspot.com McGriddle Pants

    What. The. Fuck.

  • christopher

    What gets me is people eating anything really. Even if you have every intention of paying for it, doesn’t mean everything is completely under your control. I once had a food stamp paying customer politely ask me if she could start to consume this one product before the order was finished. I really didn’t mind, but I told her that it wasn’t a good idea just in case, for some reason, she couldn’t pay for it. Low and behold, her card didn’t work. She couldn’t pay for anything and she left the store.

  • http://www.secretstorytime.blogspot.com Secretia

    She was a bitch of a witch!

  • http://gropiusvseddie.blogspot.com Gropius

    Oh this drives me nuts….even when it’s a bottle of something that will cost the same AFTER you’ve already had half of it. I feel like that’s stealing, consuming something before you’ve paid for it. Husband & I have had heated discussions about this before…aghhhH!

  • Belle in TX

    I had a couple come to my register with a cart of groceries and an apple core asking to pay for the apple. I told them apples were priced by weight and I couldn’t set a price without weighing the apple. The man says “just weigh out a pound and charge us for that.” They never understood that I did not just having something weighing a pound lying around handy for me to weigh for them. They paid for their groceries thinking I was the idiot. Some people!

  • http://iamadick.squarespace.com mepsipax

    See….this is why I hate people. Also, this is why we should be able to punch people in the face. Problem solved.

  • http://notes-from-mother.blogspot.com Jon

    Thanks for answering my burning question.

  • attilathechecker

    Been a checker for a few months. Can’t people control themselves enough to go without eating for the relatively short time they’re in the store to shop?
    Checkers are chastised/ridiculed by the customer if they point out the obvious (-eating merchandise before you pay for it is stealing) and chastised by management when either you mention it or the customer complains about the “rude checker”. Rock-checker-hard place. I know I won’t be at this job very long. When the fickle-crazy-and just plain rude customers get to dictate policy so they aren’t “offended”, and management chooses to overlook this bad behaviour, it’s time to leave. You can’t fix stupid-but you don’t have to be a part of it either.

  • Tiff

    If she really threw it up into her hand, she’s a badass!

    I don’t get that too much at the store where I work, luckily, but I have had a food-weighing experience! I wanted to make some recipe a few years ago and it asked for a few leaves of something-or-other as a garnish, so I went out and bought the ingredients which included the suggested few leaves of something or other. They didn’t end up weighing even an ounce and man did I get a dirty look from the checker when she said they didn’t weigh anything and that she couldn’t charge me for them. :(

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