12x annoying behaviors that drive supermarket employees absolutely crazy
They patiently wait while you enter your PIN incorrectly three times, effortlessly scan twenty bonus stickers per customer and even say ‘have a nice day’ while you’re loudly talking on the phone with your AirPods in. We take our hats off to supermarket employees. But what they really don’t deserve: all these bizarre things customers pull in the supermarket. Stop with these irritating supermarket habits, thank you.
1. Holding a reunion in the middle of the aisle
As if the shelving wall were the perfect place for a reunion of old classmates. Shelf stackers with a full cart need to get past, but you’re standing there on ‘nothing else to do today’ mode, chatting away between the stock cubes. Move over, please.
2. Children + supermarket = chaos
Supermarket employees can handle a lot. But children pulling plastic bags off the hook, hanging from the orange juice dispenser and wrecking magazines while Mom and Dad are in ignore mode… that’s simply too much. Parental supervision isn’t an optional service in the supermarket contract.
3. ‘Let’s just check the stockroom’ (as if it were Disneyland)
Some customers think that behind the scenes of a supermarket lies a magical thousand-square-metre stockroom. Spoiler: it doesn’t. If an employee says it’s out of stock, then it’s out of stock.
4. Walking away while they’re helping you
You ask whether the employee can get something from the stockroom, and when they come back, you’re… nowhere to be found. Disrespectful and a waste of their time.
5. The classic: ‘Then it must be free!’
When the scanner refuses to scan a product, the customer comes out with the joke we’ve all heard 874 times already: ‘Then it must be free, right?’ The fake smile you get in response? Oscar-worthy.
6. ‘We come here every day, it gets us out of the house!’
Some people do their grocery shopping every day as if the supermarket were a day-care centre. Children included. And then they also complain that it’s busy. Go figure.
7. Putting items back in random places
Changed your mind about that curry sausage or goat’s cheese? Fine. But put it back where it belongs. Don’t dump the frozen lasagna by the shampoo. Or a tub of ice cream in the newspaper rack. You don’t put condoms between the potatoes at home either, do you?
8. Sharing your life story at the checkout
A friendly chat? Lovely! But going through your entire life story while a queue of eight people is waiting? Not so handy. Keep it short and sweet.
9. ‘Do you have to work on Sundays too?’
Asking that question to someone working in the supermarket on a Sunday while you’re doing your grocery shopping? It’s about as logical as saying to a firefighter: ‘Gee, do you also have to go outside when there’s a fire?’
10. Bursting in right before closing time
And then shouting triumphantly, ‘Just made it in time!’ Maybe for you, but incredibly irritating for the employees who want to close up.
11. Gingerbread panic in October
The stock is gone and you’re disappointed, fine. But shouting ‘Why don’t you just order more?’ at a shelf stacker is like telling a hairdresser that your hair needs to grow faster. Nice try, but it doesn’t work that way.
12. Dumping rubbish in the shopping cart
Nothing says ‘I’m a disrespectful customer’ quite as loudly as leaving your banana peel, empty coffee cup or snotty tissue in the shopping cart or basket. Ugh. Just. Ugh.
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