I call it The Phenomenon.
There could be a single customer in your store and yet, despite all the products they could camp in front of it, it is the one thing you're trying to stock.
This is infuriating because it happens every damn day. We're tired of it.
Yesterday I was trying to stock a few cases of nuts/trail mix and a family of four decided to camp out in front of that very few feet of shelving I needed to stock. They inspected every variety as if they were going to find one that had a golden ticket inside.
"They all have 5,000 calories in them, regardless of what you buy, you're going to eat it and gain a pound."
Being a good manager, I didn't say that. I asked them if I could help them find anything, chatted them up to expedite their decision process and nothing worked. There they sat, like they were waiting in line for the last Harry Potter film to open its doors.
I wanted to walk up to them and say politely, "I know you don't have to be anywhere in the next ten hours, but I should have had these three cases done twenty minutes ago. So could you please get the hell out of my way."
The action that really breaks our balls is when you subsequently leave your cart exactly where we need to be and go play in a completely different section of the store. You're like the kid who leaves his bike in the middle of the street. I'm always tempted to take your cart and start putting everything back on the shelves.
So the next time you're meandering through a grocery store, have some respect for the other human being who is working along side of you. To reference a previous post, it's Customer Service, not Servitude. I respect you, you respect me. And you can respect me by grabbing what you need and taking a few steps down the aisle so I can get back to work.
And the family of four? They didn't buy a single bag! They wasted twenty minutes of my time by buying NOTHING! ... Well played, Phenomenon.
And with that, I'm off to work.
Sincerely,
Your Neighborhood Grocery Store Manager
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