29 Sep 08
The checkout clerks (girls mostly) at my grocery store have a strange habit of not acknowledging the next customer until the current one has paid. So there’s often a point where the current customer has passed the cash register to put their groceries in a cart, and they’re just waiting for their credit card to go through.
I end up standing right in front of the clerk, who won’t say anything, even though you know they see you out of their peripheral vision. They only say hello as soon as the previous customer has been rung through. Like they’re computers who can’t handle more than one task per person at a time.
It’s quite awkward.
I too have noticed this trend. Unless its a local mom and pop store where everybody knows everybody and they speak to everyone in the store at the same time. Long gone are the days of people being capable of multi tasking and even longer gone are the days of true customer service.
I think what is happening more and more, is the cashier ringing your whole order through and not bagging anything. It’s very frustrating and it seems that they want the customer to do all the work.
With a large order, the competent ones don’t bag as they go along so that they can put the heavier, stronger items at the bottoms of the bags; course, the corollary of that is the nitwits who just drop everything in willy-nilly so that the eggs and bananas are destroyed and your crackers and chips turned into dust.
I don’t think anyone who’s worked a cash register at a Taco Bell here could say that the days of multi tasking are dead, oh no, quite the opposite.
As for the not speaking to you thing, that is a purposeful signal to you that they are not yet waiting on you, since the person in front of you (at least where I shop) frequently turns around with their reciept in hand, JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS TIME FOR YOUR TURN, to whine and complain that the clerk didn’t take some stupid coupon price off their total, or some such rubbish. Clerks are now making damn sure they are finished, because trying to untangle a mess once you’ve started to ring up another customer on their new computer systems is a pain in the ass.
@Lucy — What really gets me is the speed at which the clerks move. Even when I purposely go to a store during off-hours to avoid the lines, it seems like they know it’s not busy so they take their time.
@J. — I have to admit, the clerks at my store are good at making sure everything is bagged, sometimes even making sure there’s an extra person at the end of the counter. It doesn’t quite make up for the rude service though.
@Michael — At my store, each checkout line has two or three bag holders, so the clerks have a bit of buffer when trying to pack items without squashing them. I purposely put the heavier items on the belt first though and proceed by weight to make it easier for them, and maybe this is why I’ve never seen them have a problem bagging things.
@Xibee — I can see your point there, about how much of a hassle it is to untangle a mess once you’ve moved on to the next customer, but at the time when the previous customer is waiting for their credit card to go through and you’re face to face with the clerk, a simple hello would suffice. It’s not necessary for them to start scanning your items to acknowledge that you’re there.
Perhaps they think that it’s only right to give their 100% attention to one customer at a time?
I agree with Xibee and pelf . I use to work in retail (I will never go back). And most of the times it’s because when you acknowledge a customer they automatically assume it’s their turn. I’ve had customers who have literally pushed an old lady out of their way because they are just to impatient to wait for her. (I know! Yikes!)
@pelf — Personally, I don’t think that saying hello to someone take the attention away from another customer (unless they were mid-sentence, of course), but that’s just me.
@chunlei — I can totally see an acknowledgment leading someone to believe it’s their turn. Maybe the patient ones among us pay for the rudeness of others.
This just proves to me that you’re Canadian. Pleasantness and goodnaturedness is so accepted as a given requirement in Canada. I experience it when I go to Vancouver all the time.
It’s like the sentence that my husband and I burst out laughing over on some crime show last night. A character was telling a detective about the whether the victim, a young girl, might have committed suicide. He replied in the negative:
“She had that Canadian thing going on, you know?”
“How do you mean?”
“You know — happy for no reason.”
I’d say that a lot of it also has to do with the fact that I work at a company which really emphasizes service. I’ve learned to go above and beyond what would be considered regular service, and it’s ruined me for anything less in return.
just to add to what xibee said, a simple eye contact from a clerk is enough to get the next customer in some cases to start in a monologue train that can’t be stopped and then the almost finished customer is put in the position of butting in when their turn wasn’t over yet.
I forgot about the loquacious ones, and can totally understand when one of them feels like they’re being snubbed if the previous customer has an issue with which to deal.