Give the check out assistant a medal and a promotion

Check out assistants are only human and they must get fed up of rude customers. So, yes, perhaps the check out assistant should have bitten her tongue but I don't blame her for speaking out.

And I still think the customer is a silly cow (a) for being on her phone at the check out, and (b) for making it into a big issue by getting her "I can do what the hell I like with my own phone regardless of other people" attitude into the papers.

The fact remains that check out assistants are not machines and should not be treated as such. It's rude to behave as if their job so removes them from humanity that a bit of politeness during a bloody boring job is too muchfor customers to cope with.

That saying about the customer always being right is only about getting sales. It cares nothing for people.

If I am offered change by somebody who is not making eye contact, I just don't take it until they actually look at me. I give respect to everyone with whom I deal, and I expect to get the same back.
I used to go to work on the bus, and one day a woman who was sitting by the window just stood up and looked at me. I looked the other way. Eventually, she got the message and said 'Excuse me' in a very belligerent voice.
Another thing in I have done in my battle against rudeness is to go after somebody who has not thanked me for holding a door open. I say to them 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said'. Of course, they reply that they had not said anything, leaving me to say 'Oh, I thought you might have said 'Thank you'.
Small things, but they give me great satisfaction.

I think the checkout person objected, quite rightly in my opinion, to being treated like a Victorian skivvy, expected to serve her betters and keep her eyes downcast to her task while being totally ignored.

Online shopping, that's the answer - you can text, watch Corrie, pick your nose, scratch your backside and offend nobody.

Whilst undoubtedly mobile phones have great advantages, I know I wouldn't be without one, I think it would be safe to say that pretty much everyone who subscribes to GN will be of an age (I think, unless we have some very young grandmothers) who would remember a life without them. The situation described in Sainsbury is one of the obvious downsides, of which there are a few. People walking along texting without looking up and getting stroppy if you don't get out of their way is one of my bete noires, I guess we all have them and for this particular cashier not being acknowledged was one of hers. I agree with a previous poster who said not exchanging a hello at least, relegates them to an inanimate object, so why not use the automated machine. It really comes down to common courtesy and I think unfortunately we are on a downward spiral as far as that is concerned. I don't think it occurs to a younger demographic that they are being ill mannered. I'm always amazed at people who have very public and quite loud mobile phone conversations on a crowded train, sometimes of a personal nature. My son's girlfriend will think nothing of being in the middle of a conversation with us and taking a call without saying, excuse me one moment. I personally find it quite rude but I wouldn't point that out to her because it would probably come across as nit picking. She is like a lot of her generation and this is how they behave with their peers. Our children were not allowed to have their phones at the dinner table when we were having a meal, but my son's girlfriend thinks this is a definite step too far! Sadly with the march of progress, basic things like focusing on the people you are actually with, can get lost along the way.

Well this story has gone viral - now on Breakfast

Maggiemaybe I would hope Sainsbury's working conditions and wages are a lot better than that given to a Victorian scivvy. She needs to do the job she is paid to do. She can't set the rules for Sainsburys. Only management can do that.

I would hope it was a vital phone call. Perhaps to do with her work. People lead different lives these days than they did when we were young. Work intrudes.

Can I recommend these for your keyboard Maggie.

Can I recommend these for your keyboard maggie.

Oops! I recommended twice.

The need did seem great.

Sorry jo8 but i have had the misfortune to work for Sainsbury's and they are horrible to work for and have no interest at all in the welfare of their employees.
I have every sympathy with the checkout girl. I have spent too much time being pointed at and having money thrown at me while the customer carries on a long telephone conversation.
A friend of mine was on a flight to Australia and heard another passenger being absolutely vile to one of the stewardesses. The passenger's wife tried to stop him and he said "It's alright, she comes with the ticket" This seems to be becoming the general attitude to workers in service industries.

I took a work call once whilst at the check out - mouthing my apologies to the cashier. In my pathetic attempts at multi-tasking, I left some of my purchases on the counter, dropped my change everywhere, held up the queue, got glared at by half a dozen people - and I've never done that again. "Can I call you back?" can be said in less time that it takes to exhale a breath.

than it takes ...

We all agree that it's rude to talk on a mobile when being served by someone - the Post Office can make their own rules as they don't have competition so that's not a comparison. As I said, I volunteer in my local hospital coffee shop and people ordering stuff, glued to a mobile, happens. No big deal as they are contributing to the profits of the enterprise. I wouldn't dream of telling a customer to put down their phone, I'd serve them and take their money, no problem.

If I owned Sainsburys, my instructions to my staff would be to serve people - if customers were abusive, policies should be in place to deal with that, a transgression of manners is a different matter and up to each individual company.

Not sure I'd re-visit a shop where the proprietor was talking on his phone - that does take the biscuit

I'm all for a National 'Leave your Mobile Phone at Home' Day.
Come to think I often leave mine behind, ditto my purse, my door key, my brain.

We have always had a rule that ringing phones are to be ignored at mealtimes and it's never been a problem for the family, but I have noticed more recently that when we have visitors dining with us and we ignore a ringing phone they are horrified. Asking them not to answer their own phones at the table usually elicits an incredulous response; think McEnroe and his, "You can not be serious" comment. I honestly believe that for some people there is a kind of Pavlovian response to a ringing phone.

What are you recommending for my keyboard, j08? I hardly dare ask....

Have you noticed how the customer who started this controversy has dropped completely out of sight? Opinion has been so solidly against her.

Knee jerk. People haven' t thought it through.

I think people have.

I do think that many people now are more self centred and do not think that there might be a need to consider how there behaviour may be making others feel.

If it becomes acceptable that we do not communicate face to face with people around us but OK to chat to people on phones I think it illustrates a sad erosion of traditional values.

As for the Apprentice style approach of 'as long as I get my money' I don't care.. perhaps that is why British businesses are all collapsing..they have forgotten it is actually all about people..not money!

'their' behaviour' not 'there'..

In the first decade of this century I spent a lot of time dealing with, visiting and sitting with various elderly relatives in hospitals all over the south east and I came to the conclusion that almost without exception British born and bred staff, regardless of ethnicity lacked the capacity to feel or empathy for or even care about how their patients were feeling or at times that they were even human. All the thoughtful care my family received came from medical staff born and raised in other countries. Not just developing nations but from countries like Germany and The Netherlands.

I think we as a generation have brought up our children to put themselves, their interests and their demands first and to walk over anyone who gets in their way.

This lady can only have been late 30s/early 40s. The fact that talking on her phone all the way through the till process meant treating the till operator as if she was a self checkout machine would never occur to her. She wanted to talk to the person on the phone and nobody should dare to interfere with what she wanted to do. The fact that she lacked so little insight into others that she thought this event was worth contacting the papers about expecting universal acclaim for her actions says it all.

I think the article said the rude woman is twenty-six. (testing my memory – I'll go and check now).

yes.