Grocery store etiquette

[shepgirl]

Guess we can all relate to these happenings. My worst peeve are the people who get in the express lane but have a huge load in their basket. Hubby complained to the girl once and she told him management did not allow them to stand empty even for a few seconds...doesn't sound fair to me when just a few seconds elapse before someone comes in with only the 8 items allowed.
And the chatters blocking the ailses , staring at you as if you are the intruder makes me want to scream...I usually just turn around and go around another aisle after saying excuse me a few times with no action on their part.

[Edwina's Secretary]

I never saw this until California...

people here do NOT put their empty cart back at the building or even in the cart corral. They leave the cart in the parking lot. Whereever...

Which means parking spots are often not available because the spot is occupied...by a cart. Or carts roll around hitting cars.

What is the excuse? In Chicago where it rains and snows and etc. people put the carts back. Here in the land of perpetual sun...they cannot be bothered.

I suggested to a woman once that she could walk the 10 feet to the cart corral. She was extremely offended and said..."with a baby in the car???"

[Medusa]

Ok, so may be it isn't an Ohio thing after all. LOL Wow!

[sparks19]

I never saw this until California...

people here do NOT put their empty cart back at the building or even in the cart corral. They leave the cart in the parking lot. Whereever...

Which means parking spots are often not available because the spot is occupied...by a cart. Or carts roll around hitting cars.

What is the excuse? In Chicago where it rains and snows and etc. people put the carts back. Here in the land of perpetual sun...they cannot be bothered.

I suggested to a woman once that she could walk the 10 feet to the cart corral. She was extremely offended and said..."with a baby in the car???"

OOOOOOOOOH that is another one that burns my butt. There is a cart corral in every lane in the parking lot... you don't have to walk more than MAYBE 20 feet to put it in there. but apparently that is too much to ask lol

one time... this lady was parked one space over from the cart corral... and she left the cart on the outside edge of the corral. WTH? and it was nowhere NEAR full.

[RedHedd]

Y'all are shopping at my stores! The cell phone people and chatters are the worst. I'm with the peeve on those who leave their carts wherever and walk around to shop - blocking the aisles. The stores themselves do not help by the way the pile items so we have to navigate around them - ostensibly to improve sales, it just pisses me off as I often can't reach the items I need because they've added a display right in front of what I want.

And when checking out, I know I can start swiping my card and entering codes, etc. as soon as they start ringing me up - at least I can do this at my Safeway and Trader Joe's, not at Walgreen's. This way by the time all my items are rung up, the SA just needs to hand me my receipt and I'm off on my merry way.

Oh and what is the deal with them asking if you need help to your car with your purchase every time? Sometimes I'll dash in for a quick sandwich or some cat food - it's a teeny bag - and they ask if I need help out. Sometimes I say yes, just to see if I get a reaction - I often do not

[shepgirl]

No Mary, it isn't an OHIO thing. Matter of fact when we cross Ohio to go warm up we find the people going out of their way to be pleasant to us.

You want another pet peeve besides people leaving baskets in the parking lot instead of the corrals? It's people just leaving them to roll wherever and having the basket land on your car leaving a nice ding. And the worst one yet is when you really have to get some shopping done and get to the handicapped parking spots only to find them full, check inside the vehicles and there are no cards anywhere in sight - where we are those cards have to be visible if you park there. The store managers refuse to enforce this because they fear losing customers - meaning handicapped people have no money to spend in their stores I guess.

[Medusa]

No Mary, it isn't an OHIO thing. Matter of fact when we cross Ohio to go warm up we find the people going out of their way to be pleasant to us.

Wait. What? You come to Ohio to warm up? I want to move out of Ohio because it gets so bloody cold! Where in the world do you live, Antarctica?

[Catlady711]

I can sypathize with ALL of you including the cashiers. I worked for a few years at a 24/7 grocery store, although at that time we had old fashioned cash registers with buttons, not scanners and I worked the off shift so no baggers available, but if slow we'd bag for each other.

I have encountered all of the rude/inconsiderate people you have regardless of which side of the register I'm on.

However my BIGGEST pet peeve is baggers. Now maybe it's because I bagged my own customers stuff (never had a one complain) or maybe I'm just finiky by my gosh no one seems to know how to bag anymore!

I mean does it take a genius to figure out if you pick up an item and it's cold you should probably put it in a bag with other items that are cold? This whole 'bag by shape' thing is ridiculous. I don't want my 5 frozen meals spaced out in 3 different bags with boxes of cereal, boxes of trash bags and my cake mixes. I definately don't want my frozen OJ bagged with my canned veggies. and I CERTAINLY don't want 20 separate bags because the person can't figure out more than ONE bag of chips can fit in a bag or if you put the eggs on the bottom you can still put a bag of chips or a loaf of bread or something on top that won't squish it. (yes it's the one area I allow the cold to be different).

It's so bad I've seen stores with a little chart showing shapes that are allowed to go into same bags. Heaven forbid if you buy something that doesn't fit the shape they don't know how to bag it.

And to top that all off I've OFTEN told them I want to bag my own groceries and was told that they'd get into trouble if I did. I tell them, 'if your manager has a problem with it please send him/her over here and I'll gladly speak with them, there is no need for you to get into trouble over this'. Most times nothing happens because it's busy and they can use the baggers on another full line.

Only thing that bugs me is I'm not as fast bagging against a scanner as against the old fashioned cash register, but close. lol Besides I've gotten so I always put my items on the belt the way I want them bagged to TRY to avoid having dumb bagging if I'm not doing it myself. They STILL manage to get it wrong.



Oh and it isn't just people in grocery stores that stop carts in the middle of the isle to chat. I'm starting to see ALOT of that on the street with people in their CARS!!!!

[DJFyrewolf36]

Around here there are a LOT of people on cellphones that are oblivious to the fact that they are taking up the entire isle...
People who don't put carts away bugs me too. I usually end up putting carts away, especially if they are in a close parking space

[ILoveMyAbbyGirl]

I have to add, because I worked at a grocery store for three years, lol.

-Yes, the cart thing is annoying as h*ll. Even now, I work at Petco, and granted, we don't have a cart corral, people are still too lazy to walk 20 feet and bring it back in.
-CELL PHONES! Don't get me wrong, my cell phone is my LIFE, but I make an effort to NOT BE RUDE and GET OFF MY PHONE when it's my turn in line, or wait out of line until I'm off the phone. I HATED that as a cashier!
-People getting mad at cashiers for items coming up wrong. Not my fault, thanks!
-Crabby people! If I'm nice to you, please try to be nice to me and acknowledge my existence. Don't take your bad day out on me. =]

I hated working there. People are so rude.

You know what? I think all of us PT'ers should just buy our own town. We'd be wonderfully mannered citizens with tons of lovely animals, lol.

[IRescue452]

One thing that bothers me most is that so many people complain about being unfit or fat, and then so many people can't walk a extra few feet from a further parking spot or put a cart away. People take an extra ten minutes searching for a close spot when they could have been in the store already, sometimes holding up a whole line of cars to wait for somebody to back out.

The other thing is not putting something back. The other day I found a half gallon of milk in the chips aisle. It was still cold so I took the time to bring it 3aisles down to put it back. How lazy can you be?

And, if a kid ever runs into me with those heely shoes with wheels in them, I will not hesitate to be in their way or trip them. How'd these people like it if I put on some rollerblades and skated into them int he store.

I hate the self-serve checkout and never use them, they always take a million times longer when I'm with my sister who only uses them. First, something won't scan and we have to wait for an assistant; then, something needs to be confirmed for weight or something like that, another wait; then, something won't work in the machine; another wait for the assistant; and lastly she needs to check the receipt for something. Good lord, by the time she's done checking out a handful of things I've slumped down on the floor dead of exasperation of why after this happening so many times she still used the damn self-checkout! I could have use a regular checkout half a dozen times already. And there's always some boxo waiting in the self-checkout line behind you when this happens, even when the regular checkouts are open. Why would you wait half an hour to checkout when the regular ones are open? Maybe if you had something embarassing like a box of condoms, but I've yet to see the person waiting behind us with something seemingly embarrassing.