It doesn't give you HIV

Kold

Had a bad day in work and I just want to clarify some things to everyone about going to their local newsagent/grocery store.

The paper on the top does not to the best of my knowledge give you HIV. Fair enough, you're allowed to be a little neurotic and take the one underneath but why must you insist on avoiding touching it at all costs usually leaving it in a mess that I have to go and clean up!?

Second, it is not, nor should you assume that it is part of my job description to bag your goods. This is a privelige I grant only the very frail, or the very hot. I'll stand just as long as you will staring at the bag I've just placed on the counter.

The 15c charge for plastic bags is mandatory, the shop gets none of it and giving you a bag would mean a loss. Do not roll your fcuking eyes and sigh loudly because it just gives me more reason to spit in your food.

Don't get me wrong, for the most I am polite and more than willing to be of service, if I seem out of order it's because you have shown me no respect. In which case, I will show you none.

Your local shop clerk.

impr0v

Kold wrote:

Had a bad day in work and I just want to clarify some things to everyone about going to their local newsagent/grocery store.

The paper on the top does not to the best of my knowledge give you HIV. Fair enough, you're allowed to be a little neurotic and take the one underneath but why must you insist on avoiding touching it at all costs usually leaving it in a mess that I have to go and clean up!?

Second, it is not, nor should you assume that it is part of my job description to bag your goods. This is a privelige I grant only the very frail, or the very hot. I'll stand just as long as you will staring at the bag I've just placed on the counter.

The 15c charge for plastic bags is mandatory, the shop gets none of it and giving you a bag would mean a loss. Do not roll your fcuking eyes and sigh loudly because it just gives me more reason to spit in your food.

Don't get me wrong, for the most I am polite and more than willing to be of service, if I seem out of order it's because you have shown me no respect. In which case, I will show you none.

Your local shop clerk.

If helping customers, providing hygenic, saliva-free food to customers and cleaning up the shop weren't in your job description, what the hell was?

If you want a job that commands respect while interfacing with the public then go and become a member of the judiciary.

It's a well known fact that it is not a pleasent job to deal with the public, they/we are stupid, disrespectful and ignorant, which is why (along with wanting some free time) the shop owner has hired you to do it for him. Grin and bear it, and collect your fee for doing so at the end of the shift, or go and find some other vocation which dosen't inspire such indignant whining.

Sarky

Wear a tshirt proclaiming that those who look at the tshirt are, not to put too fine a point on it, f*cktards.

Pigman II

Kold wrote:

This is a privelige I grant only the very frail, or the very hot. I'll stand just as long as you will staring at the bag I've just placed on the counter.

What if they're very frail and very hot? Do you doublebag?

Karl Hungus

You are truly beneath me.

Calibos

Sir, I salute you.

Usually the fcukers leave in a huff before you get a chance to explain the mandatory environmental levy on the bags They always fail to notice the giant Bag levy sign over my head too.

I love asking them whether they think Tesco's are money grabbing B*stards too, seeing as they probably spend a few hundred Euro on the weeks shopping and Tesco's still charge them for the plastic bags. Its the fcuking law you moron!!......oh and as you fiddle with your change, "I'm still not used to this money....." After 3 effing years??!!!

I'm not having a good day either and I'm only on a break. Back to the living hell that is saturday lotto evening. "With or without plus sir"...."YES"...."er Would you like that QP with or without lotto plus SIR"....."YES I said"!!!???

Sarky

Thank Christ I have no dealings with the public in my job. That said, the factory workers I have to occasionally talk to are morons...

ferdi

most people are ignorant idiots, anyone who deals directly with the public through their jobs can confirm this....i know i can.

elivsvonchiaing

Create a custom arena in Quake Arena based upon your most annoying customers. Keep playing this until the "kranky ould witch" ceases to outfrag you. Well it works for me anyway!

ApeXaviour

I work in a shop too and I agree with you entirely (and with gusto) with the exception of the bag packing. If it looks like they've got more than they can carry I ask if they want a bag. If they do, I bag it for them, unless they indicate that they want to do it (in this case I usually hold it open for them). I thought this was the case in most places...
If I asked for a bag and you just plopped one on the counter and looked at me I'd think you were a right ignorant little spa..

vibe666

congratulations on being at the bottom of the employment food chain.

when you've held down a few crappy jobs for a few years and finally worked your way up to a decent paying job, that's going to be you that you're bitching about at the moment, only then you're going to be bitching about how ignorant and miserable the little feckers behind the counter are, and how much of your hard earned cash goes towards keeping the miserable little b@stards in a job, and they can't even smile at you despite the fact that your custom pays their wages.

never mind, you'll be here bitching about it from the other side of the fence soon enough.

ApeXaviour

Vibe.. Who are you addressing?

sceptre

Calibos wrote:

I'm not having a good day either and I'm only on a break. Back to the living hell that is saturday lotto evening. "With or without plus sir"...."YES"...."er Would you like that QP with or without lotto plus SIR"....."YES I said"!!!???

You've my sympathy. Save yourself some trouble and shorten it to "Want Plus?" or "With Lotto Plus?" A yes to that can only mean a "with".

ykt0di9url7bc3

<bar rant>

1. I'll serve you when i get the time or when its your turn in rotation...
if you click your fingers or "HEY BOI - 2 LARGE BOTTLES" you are not next...

2. If its four deep at the bar, have your full order ready and have your money ready...Order Guiness first, not after 4 vodkas and redbull and 2 pints of bud. Ordering one drink at a time of a 4 drink order is not effecient, bar staff are not simpletons...

2.1 If you are looking for a larger shandy, say what larger and how much lemonade

2.2 "large cider" is not enough information, small glass/pint , ice or not

2.3 local names on drinks may not cut it, a pint of Derry, A pint of Oxford. Stick with cocktails at cocktail bars... Bars that do not have set cocktail procedures may charge you more and may not get it right

2.4 When given a choice, do not answer with yes.
Q. "Carlsberg or Hieneken?"...
A. "Yes please"
Can you see the problem

3. Barstaff have no influence on the price of the drink and do not care about the price of the drink

4. I may take in €5000+ personally on a very busy night so there is a good chance of a mistake or 2.

5. Last orders is last orders and the manager decides when that is

6. If you are the first into the pub/club dont complain about the first pint, it will be cold but not a fresh... especially Guinness. Let the young lads and the drunks run it through before you sample the quality product

6.1 If from Kilkenny and drink ale be wary of drinking ale in other counties, the taps might be used irregularly and some barstaff may not be aware of the silky head or how to properly put a Guinness head on it

7. Being young and ordering a treble vodka on top of a smirnoff Ice or Vodka Martini does not make you look cool, infact you'll usually end up very drunk and very silly...

8. If you are off your face the chewing gum vendor is usually in the toilets

9. You do not pay my wages, the owner pays them so shut up and let me earn them

10. Enjoy yourselves and I promise to serve you as fast as i can

</bar rant>

zAbbo

Bag my fooking goods you knob, its part of the customer service

Esel

Melina Mealy Water wrote:

<bar rant>


2.1 If you are looking for a larger shandy, say what larger and how much lemonade

</bar rant>

WHAT?

That large enough for you?

impr0v

The majority of people are walking around in their own little cocoon, not even thinking about their dealings with the person behind the counter, going to the shop to get Bread, Milk, 20 Benson and the Times is a minimal thought exercise, so they are probably using the extra capacity to think about some other stuff at the same time. You might as well be an automatic vending machine for all they notice. Answering 'Yes' to a question which required an 'A' or 'B' type answers is the equivalent of hitting the vend button twice, it happens.

The fact that the great unwashed public are also an ignorant and ungrateful mass has been long established and accepted, one only has to stand in any area where examples of the species congregate in numbers, e.g. a cinema foyer, Henry Street at Christmas, and take one look at their stupid, flaccid, self-absorbed faced to be convinced of this. However, someone who accepts a job which involves transacting with them in high volumes, on a face to face basis, without expecting to be exposed to these traits has added extreme naiveté to their own list of faults. It's not the customers privilege to get treated with respect, or served promptly and with a smile, it's their right. It's not the establishments right to have their business, it's their privilege and in an ideal marketplace it would have to be continually earned and retained by good service standards. The owner of the establishment wants to sell as many goods as possible, and the person dealing with the goods buying public should reflect that aim, even if they have to put up with a lot of customer behavior they don't like. If you're not working and someone expects you to put some stuff into a bag for them you can tell them to asphyxiate themselves with it or get the hell out of your face, whatever, but if you're representing an establishment, and getting paid to do so, then you should do it and smile.

Spacedog

People not queing if what gets me, you could be serving a 90 yearold woman and you get young 20something scummers pushing them out of the way shouting in your face for service, I got so pissed off with it the other day I dragged one out kicking and screaming. I recommend it, eases the tension.

ERR!

Pigman II wrote:

What if they're very frail and very hot? Do you doublebag?

ewww disgusting thought in my head

John R

ERR! wrote:

ewww disgusting thought in my head

Do everyone a favour and leave it in there.

ixoy

Hmm I'm in two minds about this:
One part of me is saying that it's your job. Oddly enough you knew you'd have to deal with Joe and Joesphine Public and you should show a bit of respect, as the shop pays you to do. It's not like you're doing a charity service here so, given you get cash for your time, you should do the job as required. Do you get uppity in people's faces? I'd hope not. As to the papers, well you see if one person takes the second from the top, then they'll upset the top and make the next person to come along even less likely to take it. This will continue onwards. And hey, we're allowed be neurotic if we want without the Almighty Shop Assistant looking down....

On the other hand, people who complain to you about something like the bag levy are idiots. It's a tax. It should be known by now that you don't get a cent from it, so it's hardly your fault they're being charged. Now you subsequently may not want to pack the bag, but it can be a help if there's a queue building up behind the person trying to pack the bag. It'd move things along. But since it's not in your job description.... Minimum work for minimum pay maxim....

Superman

Kold I feel for you brother, I spent to much time working in shops my self and understand the ****ness of it all.
What used to annoy me more than anything was when you would say "good morning" to customer and they respond with "20 petrol and 10 purple". I think it has to be the rudest thing any one can say to a shop clerk, its just an order!
Also customers not saying please or thanks is really bent, If people were polite they would get far better service.
Also when the customer insists they are right when they are clearly wrong!

Kold, my man, the best thing to do is not to take your job seriously..

Jamesobrady

Actually,
Having worked as a deli assistant, factory cleaner(mostly toilets actually),furniture mover,hotel porter,aircraft mechanic,aircraft electrician,avionics engineer...and a hell of a lot of crap in-betweeners..i have been dealing with the public for the last 7 years. My conclusions are this,

Old women are lonely. Give them a free anything you can and they will sing your praises to all their cute grandchildren and the cute student girl queing beside her..a la.." i come in here every day and this lovely fella shows me respect and kindness.....you should ask him out a girl as respectable looking as you"...it never worked but old lady was always happy.

Students at lunchtime are obnoxious.
But only if you're male.
I always made the largest rolls cos i hated where i worked and he charged way too much for two little....he made us agree to only put 2 slices of meat in any roll regardless of how much it cost. I defend my actions because he was very wealthy and paid me not much. The students used wait for only me to make their rolls cos they knew they were getting lots of free stuff....and they were still rude and "oh for fcuk sake"-y when I made an error. I was always polite and smiled. I hated every minute i was in that job. Smile at ignorant people....they know there's something you know that they don't and they will think about it all day....you will forget about them the minute they leave.

I always leave the do not disturb sign on a hotel door if im only there a couple of nights. I don't change my bedclothes at home every night and i don't expect a stranger to do it for me. Yes it is a housekeeprs employment to do it everyday...but honestly until you've done it you will never understand the sheer joy a room with a DND sign on it creates. Even just one. Somewhere inside you rationalise that you can have a 5 minute break as if you were doing the room. Also, that part of hotel staffing is usually wahhyyy understaffed and underpaid...so you're continually wrecked tired, mentally exhausted. and still trying to be friendly with everyone. If you can't be polite to someone who is doing a service for you, tip them and tell yourself they're below you...whatever....just tip them and say thank you. You don't have to let on its insincere...they'll never know. But you'll still be the nicest person they interacted with that day because you showed gratitude in some small way. Employers don't.

Before you pick on someone who won't put your crap in a small bag for you....do that job for a week if you can hack it. That is all.
I always try hand the money over as the staff get the bag so its natural they do the change while i pack my own sheet. I hate anyone doing what i'm perfectly able to do while i stand there trying to find something interesting to look at because i know exactly what they're thinking because i've done it.

If you work behind the counter...look for the subtle 2 handed motion of give money/take bag......I'm not the only person who does it a lot of people miss it and hold the bag off behind the counter so you end up waiting for your change and then they pack for you. I get embarassed.
Its comparable to asking the guy in the jacks who hands you towl paper to hold your penis because you've had a long day and are stressed out and you know you could do it yourself but he's representing an establishment and should be willing to give the best possible sevice.(i apologise but i loved that quote!..it was just always so overused by otherwise inteligent customers!)

The fact the same guy smells of urine and other peoples Bo when he goes home may not cross your mind....but thats cos you don't know he stays back 2 hours after the place closes cleaning up puke and sheet with a broken mop because his nightclub owning boss expects him to "make do" or "see what you can arrange" instead of showing a little respect and providing at least barely adequate conditions.Also...they're usually african and not even paid minimum wage. Would you clean up your friends crap for less then 7 euro? Would you clean up 200 strangers? Some poeple have to.

People who work in shops and are ignorant annoy me.....but only because sometimes they have no reason to be....sometimes all the staff chat away whilst you wait for whatever looking at them. If somebody pisses you off a really good thing to say is" Bad day?" The ones who answer "No...why?"..are the truly ignorant fcukwits. Everyone else will smile or grimace and say "yeah...big time...sorry" or something. Don't trust first impressions in shops....you have no idea what is happening in their lives and they are still SERVING YOU.

Please let people vent in forums without jumping down their throats....we've all had ignorance thrown at us....we get to go someplace else and give out to someone about it.....some people can only write down their annoyances hoping someone somewhere will relate and comfort them. I don't have anyone to bitch to...everyone i know is worse off then me but i still have bad days....so when i get down i write a rant in my blog or post something somewhere. The stress it removes from me is unmeasureable. If a group of people were to shoot em down in my blog because they didn't agree it'd piss me off cos they didn't understand my reasons for doing whatever. Admittedly nobody reads my blog....which i like....but....sometimes it's only stress killing if someone reads what you write and agrees.

Agree, disagree,Flame, bar me...i don't care. But give people a beak and you'll always get one. If you were lucky enough to go straight from school to college and into a job you liked then good for you.....but surely in your job someone disrespects you? Tell us about it? Some of us work sheet jobs not knowing where we're going to end up, why we're still single, why we're writing to poeple we don't know for relation to our lives, and why people can't disagree without it being personal.

My saving grace is the people i work with accept my various eccentricities and if i tell someone to fcuk off they're cool because im the only person they too can tell to fcuk off without it becoming a HR or "tell the boss" thing.

I like my current job.....its taken me 7 years of bull**** and study to get it though....and no, i didn't go to college. But all my friends did so im not a jealous student hater or anything.....this has just been my experiences.


This is Ellen Ripley....logging off.

WizZard

Jamesobrady, well said!

Kold

I can honestly say I do what is in my job description. I'm a polite and helpful worker. However when somebody treats you without an ounce of respect you can hardly tell me to grin and bare.

This thread was not merely my own whine but an appeal for people to consider their own behaviour when dealing with people in the tertiary sector. However, if, like Bazh, you want to be an ignorant, vile person. Go ahead. Just remember you're more at risk of getting that roll I dropped on the floor.

BuffyBot

Hate it so much? Get a new job.

Kold

I don't hate the job, I hate tossers like you.

jesus_thats_gre

I liked your post Jamesobrady. It reminded me of 4 odd years working in Tescos and another 3 years working in customer care while I was at school and then college... Whether it be brushing the floor every hour for the whole weekend, cleaning shelves on a saturday morning, moving every piece of free standing stock from one side of the store to another just so the floor can be polished, hanging signs from the roof while using a dodgy ladder or if you are lucky a cherry picker, using a windows scraper to remove any old sticky tape used for old posters, building 10 display bbqs every May, pulling 20 pallets of moss peat across a shopping centre every Tuesday and Thursday, carrying 200 litre bails of moss peat out to someones car, tidying thousands of cds and videos into alphabetical order, buidling the massive stand for the video release of Stars Wars the Phanton Menace, helping 30 others move 40 feet of shelving half way across a store, collecting trollies in the rain, sitting on a check out a 2am the day before Christmas without seeing anyone for over an hour, dragging a scumbag out of the store for threatning a female friend and then laughing at him after 4 gardai drag him out by his legs, getting the spend half my days helping my friends in the sports section, sitting in the ship window on sunny Sunday morning appreciating ladies in their Sunday best, finding about a thousand pillows when I was dying of a hangover and being told by some crazy old women, that my smile would brighten the days of many a people..

Pigman II

Kold wrote:

I don't hate the job, I hate tossers like you.

What? You've had people masturbating on you? I think you really should quit that job .... or at least start charging them for it.

Spacedog

I play this little game sometimes when customers are being dicks, I be overly nice to them, bordering on sarcasm, "Have a reeeeeally nice da sir" to see if there is the slightest possibility of getting them to feel ashamed enough to giving a begrudging thankyou.

gandalf

Hmmm this thread brings back the memories of student jobs and my first full time employment years ago in DIY Superstores. Joe Q Public on the whole is quite an ignorant task master but as Spacedog says the best policy is to be overly nice back to them. Why lower yourself to their level.

On the other hand I cannot for the life of me understand why Irish Shop Assistants are so bloody ignorant compared to non-irish ones (especially Chinese) who are always extremely friendly, pleasant and extremely efficient. Come on people being nice doesn't cost a thing.

Horsefumbler

i also work in retail but i have to engage in conversation with annoying chinless 93 yr old grannys on a regular basis. You have it soft kold

BuffyBot

I don't hate the job, I hate tossers like you.

You mean people who've done the job, got the money (the important bit) and not whinged about it? You must hate a lot of people on that basis.

Kold

BuffyBot wrote:

You mean people who've done the job, got the money (the important bit) and not whinged about it? You must hate a lot of people on that basis.

No, I mean people who think that it's ok to disrespect people. Oh, and idiots.

elivsvonchiaing

Kold wrote:

No, I mean people who think that it's ok to disrespect people. Oh, and idiots.

This for me is the distillation of the thread.

Wtf to people continue to feel the need to act like they belong to superior class/caste get so inthemselves that that they wouldn't acknowlege people they meet - (mainly because they regard them as unimportant or just simply just to busy to acknowlege anyone who is not critical to work).

Where have we got here people. Not civilisation imho. :eek:

Superman

Kold, quit your job, I got a proposal for you.
I need a young man to travel with my team to bolivia and broker a deal with a mr. Carlos Mendoza.
He is involved in the "sugar" business.

My job is crap! but it pays my pay and there is always worse < My statoil mantra

Waltons

I don't mind about the bag levee. It's not the fault of the person behind the counter, so there's no point moaning (Sidenote, I was in motion picture today, and when I asked for a bag, she wouldn't take the extra money for the bag cause she wasn't ársed taking out all the change :rolleyes: ).
What does annoy me though, is waiting for people to stop texting to serve me. Especially if it's the feckin same guy each time doing it

henbane

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

...dragging a scumbag out of the store for threatning a female friend and then laughing at him after 4 gardai drag him out by his legs...

Ah, memories - truly a golden retail moment.

impr0v

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

This for me is the distillation of the thread.

Wtf to people continue to feel the need to act like they belong to superior class/caste get so inthemselves that that they wouldn't acknowlege people they meet - (mainly because they regard them as unimportant or just simply just to busy to acknowlege anyone who is not critical to work).

Where have we got here people. Not civilisation imho. :eek:

So you want everyone to acknowledge everyone they meet? Do you have that much time to add to your day? To enquire as to whether the post man is having a good day, did he see the football last night? Hello, Mr. bus driver, nice weather today isn't it, how are your two kids?

For one that's an unrealistic expectation, and it's also very hard to reconcile with the other thread with people outlining their social ineptitude and neurotic inability to stand in an elevator with another person in case they might have to make idle conversation.

I for one don't think it's ok for people to disrespect others, but one is on an uphill battle if they think they are going to convert the masses to proper courteous behaviour, they're way too far gone, especially if the chosen method of re-education is to disrespect them in turn.

Lainey

i hate when someone asks you for ham then watch you take the turkey out of the slicer put in the ham, slice it and then ask you for turkey.. have to laugh or i'd slice some of them instead.. ahh, work is great........

CuLT

I read through Jamesobradys entire post without understanding what he was talking about with "sheet" until the end.

I have worked in those sort of jobs. In general, I'll try to be polite as possible to staff of a place, but if it's not reciprocated you can hardly expect the customer to smile politely and move on.

swimfan

I know how you feel I work in a supermarket its a total nightmare and the customers treat you like a slave!

SantaHoe

gandalf wrote:

On the other hand I cannot for the life of me understand why Irish Shop Assistants are so bloody ignorant compared to non-irish ones (especially Chinese) who are always extremely friendly, pleasant and extremely efficient. Come on people being nice doesn't cost a thing.

Well it doesn't cost the customer anything either... you can break your back for some customers, go above and beyond for them and they'll still treat you like shiet... my time working in a busy call center showed me just how ignorant people can be, they don't care that they're talking to another human being at the other end of the line, you're nothing more than a verbal punch-bag to them.

That's why when you get a customer on the line who deals with customers of his own on a daily basis, they're always the most decent, nice and down-to-earth customers themselves... they acknowlege you as a human who's just doing his job, and knows that sometimes your hands are tied, you're under pressure and your pay is crap.
These are the people who I'd go the extra mile for and it's an absolute joy to have them call when you've been dealing with 'norms' all day.

It's a two-way relationship a lot of the time, people feel they need to shout to get what they want because they're so used to dealing with service workers who suck at their job... it's unfortunate that the more capable and dilligent of us have to suffer because of their previous bad experiences.

A lot of people are coming out with things like "just grin and bare it, it's what you're payed for"... well I'm sure they get payed exactly the same wage wheather they deal with nice customers or evil bastards all day... it's not too much to expect a little common courtesy or at the very least a lack of bad manners/idiocy... I'd extend the same respect to someone I was sitting beside on a bus, yet I still get fat people sitting beside/on-top-of me who seem oblivious to the fact that they're cutting off the circulation to my legs, their umbrella is poking me in the ribbs and their vile secretions are making me wretch.

But we 'blank' so many people every day, just walking around town that it's not surprising that people occasionaly look at the cashier and see a pink squashy robot.

Robot
3. A person who works mechanically without original thought, especially one who responds automatically to the commands of others.

mike65

I would just like it to be known that this morning I picked up the TOP copy of both papers I bought. Thankyou.

Mike.

impr0v

But did you bag them yourself???

Lenny

While on the subject about HIV
My mate got this txt last night off a girl he was with a little bit back

"I've just been tested for hiv and I've tested positive, I've been advised to tell you to go get checked"
now that is scarey

Karl Hungus

You know the problem with you lower-classes? No respect anymore! Why if it wasn't for the bailifs, I'd bullwhip the next cheeky snot who even looks at me crooked. 15 cent for a plastic bag? You've got to be kidding me, I'd pay less to have you killed! And not half the bother of dealing with someone like you, I'd say.

You should all be lucky to have the chance to kiss my ass, and because of this ill-reputable character and his slanderous thread, next time I see one of you lowly curs so help me I shall tell him what's for!

Now you should all be happy with the privalage of cleaning my pee, because if it was up to me, you'd all be at the gallows.
Do I make myself clear?

Bunnyefey

Haha, you just made me laugh like an insane freak Karl. That post just proves that you are a KING and you deserve to have your pee cleaned by one of these low-lifes. Go you!!!!

As for not bagging the stuff in the shops.........I find that if you grin enough at the guy behind the counter, they usually feel obliged to put the stuff in the bags for you. I always say thank you though. My first job ever was a superquinn bag packer so I know what its like.

seamus

I only take the non-top copy of the paper, because the top one will usually be damaged/missing supplements/etc.

p

And people wonder why customer service in Ireland is so bad.

Karl Hungus

Bunnyefey wrote:

Haha, you just made me laugh like an insane freak Karl. That post just proves that you are a KING and you deserve to have your pee cleaned by one of these low-lifes. Go you!!!!

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