Give the check out assistant a medal and a promotion

That's my argument too back but the queues in our local Tesco are awful so needs must sometimes! We also have those scan yourself things - I hate those with a passion!

Our local post office has a notice up saying you will not be served if you are using your mobile phone. I find it astonishing that anyone thinks it is all right to do so - for me, the overwhelming reason is the utter contempt and disrespect it demonstrates towards the check out staff. I wonder if those who think it's ok would do it whilst a doctor was examining them?

The customer was rude. Sainsbury's has responded in a politically correct manner. I'm not sure why they bothered since the customer says she is going to shop somewhere else anyhow. My bet is she's ashamed to be seen in that shop again. I hope so anyway! Silly cow.

Whoops! I've managed to be rude AND politically incorrect in one post! How did that happen?

Bags well done!

Re self service tills, mostly there are about 6 tills in the space that would only accomodate 2 operated tills, so not that many staff places are lost.

Bags, that's precisely what I was thinking. Only you were much more polite than the words which almost came from my mouth.

Our local post office has the same notice, bluebell and I agree it's a good idea. The woman in Sainsbury's went to check if it was company policy that customers talking on their mobile phones wouldn't be served and when she found it wasn't, made a tremendous fuss. Why isn't it?. And why do they let people do their shopping when they are already at the till? I mean, put three things on the belt and then go off to get something else - or send a child off to do the same - sometimes several times while the queue seethes. It might be reasonable if you have unloaded a trolley-full which will take the checkout operator a while to deal with but not to wait to actually do your shopping until you're at the checkout! But I expect the person they are talking to on the mobile phone has asked them to get several things they hadn't thought of.

The Spectator's etiquette expert has just been on Today on Radio 4 and came out very much on the side of the checkout operator.

Lilygran - a favourite ploy of older people in France is to wait until all their purchases have been checked and loaded and then start to look for their cheque book in the bottom of their capacious handbags. Don't they realise they are going to have to pay? We also have the annoyance of many large supermarkets not having scales at the till, so when a visitor forgets to weight their fruit and vegetables themselves, we have to wait whilst they go back and do it. (Quite often, they decide not to bother and just leave them at the till).]
I am never in a hurry, but I do feel the irritation of people who are shopping in their lunch hour.

I agree with Glammanana. On principal I never use the self service tills either - not that I often have the opportunity, our little supermarket is 'manned' by polite, interactive assistants.

Ignoring the politeness angle, surely if a customer is distracted on the phone and possibly packing too, how can she keep an eye on what the assistant is doing? Scanning twice to make up for a previous mistake, short changing?

When people are so rude to unoffending employees who cannot answer back in kind, you do wonder how they treat their families, neighbours, elderly or disabled people who get in their way, dogs, beggars, immigrants, strangers of any kind . . . .

I'm sure the cashiers where I work would give this Sainsbury cashier a standing ovation for taking a stand against mobile phone users. It happens all the time. Unless it's urgent your phone can wait. Most of the time the phone user is just chatting away, how would she like it if it was the cashier on the phone. Actually where my son lives there are a number of corner shops, in one of them the owner is ALWAYS on his phone and just holds his hand out for your money. I was in a restaurant the other day and a group of young women came in, apparently they had taken one of their colleagues out for lunch as it was her birthday. No sparkling conversation there, all of them were on their phones either talking, texting or accessing their e-mail. It has killed the art of conversation in some cases.

I too think a lot of mobile phone users are very rude in the way they use their phones. I can understand it in circumstances where a short message needs to be left or a mini crisis is going on but just plain gossip and chit chat on public transport or in cafes etc is not acceptable.
I have heard what was probably an acedemic on her mobile discussing a students work while on train journey. Not acceptable. Neither is talking at the check out. Its plain bad manners.

I put my hands up to having had my mobile ring whilst I am at a till and previously tried to try to talk to both the cashier and caller simultaneously, which was kind of stupid. I think it appears rude to carry on a conversation without engaging with the person serving you. Lately I have preferred not to answer a call at the till and ring the missed caller back. I think it's not unreasonable for anyone serving you to expect you as the customer not to ignore them.

Apparently the offending shopper has said she will go to Waitrose in future. As a Waitrose shopper I do not welcome this development; I thought the purpose of Sainsbury's, Tesco et al. was to keep the hoi polloi out of my preferred supermarket.

Of course it's completely unreasonable to expect people to turn off their mobiles phones while at a check out, or simply to reject a call that comes while they are there and deal with it later ,

Not.

grumppa,

I think it might come as a revelation to some younger people that if you do not answer your mobile the minute it rings, you or the mobile will explode.

That should of course read.
I think it might come as a revelation to some younger people that if you do not answer your mobile the minute it rings, you or the mobile will not explode.

Well I won't be shopping at Sainsburys either - what a weaselly way to handle a complaint.
What they should have done would have been to say to the customer. 'We are sorry your feelings have been hurt, but our company policy is to expect our employees to be treated with the same respect that they extend to customers, so we politely suggest you take your custom elsewhere.'
That would have been a victory for both the workers and common courtesy

I think they were both in the wrong! Obviously it is rude to be on your phone at the check out but then surely all people in service industries have to deal with rude people? I can understand how the assistant would be feeling on a bad day but it is her job to deal with people like this.

My big irritation when shopping at places where there is one queue and several tills is the person who gets to the front of the queue and falls asleep. I feel so sorry for the assistants who have to keep shouting 'next please'. Then of course they have to find their wallet/purse!....................

I would n' t do it myself. But think checkout assistant was wrong to put her own tender feelings before doing the work she is paid to do.

Might have been better to get onto management and request a polite notice asking customers to try to avoid.

Absolutely! I would never do it either, but I'm not entirely sure what the assistant's problem was. Surely she doesn't expect to have a chat with each customer about the contents of their trolley?

The customer would have paid when the last item had been checked and the total came up - probably while still on her phone but at least she wasn't holding the queue up!

I am sure the checkout person had reached the end of her tether and perhaps that customer was the last straw - and how's that for mixed metaphors! I thing each owed the other an apology.