Could You Please Get Off The Phone When I’m Trying To Serve You?

Ever notice how someone always manages to call you when you’re at the checkout counter at a store? In the 20+ minutes that you spent inside the store browsing your phone was silent, but as soon as it’s your turn to have you items rang in, your phone starts to sing it’s merry song.

Now, there are four things you can do at this point, of which two are the wrong thing to do, and two are the right thing to do:

DON’T!
Answer the phone and proceed to have a LOOOONG conversation with whoever is calling you, ignoring the cashier.

The people behind you in line will be very pleased if you freeze the motion of the queue by engaging in a conversation over the phone, especially if there’s just one cash register in use.

Don’t tell me to wait or hold on. I don’t care how slow you are, except that the people behind you will be in a bad mood once it’s their turn, and they might take it out on the cashier. By taking the call and putting that above everything else you ought to be doing, you’re exhibiting extremely selfish and rude behavior.

I’m sorry to tell you this but evolution hasn’t caught on and granted cashiers the ability to read your mind. We do actually need some kind of cooperation from you with the transaction, i.e. you need to give me some form of payment, specify whether it’s bank or credit, and actually sign the little slip or take the change.

There’s typically a little spiel which I HAVE TO shoot off at you, so I’d appreciate it if you’d listen to me. In addition, I might be offering to save you money, so listening to me might be in your best interest. No use in complaining afterwards because hey, you weren’t paying attention!

Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you put away your phone for just a bit so you could pack up and move along. You’re messing up everyone’s groove with this selfish “Hold on, I NEED to take this call” line of behavior.

The only time this is acceptable behavior (kinda) is when you are able to multitask and actually pay attention to what the cashier is trying to ask you or tell you.

Oh, and above all, DON’T TELL ME TO HURRY UP WHEN YOU’RE ON THE PHONE!!! The reason I’m being quote unquote slow is because you’re on the bloody phone instead of listening to me!

DO!
Answer the phone and tell the person calling you to hold on for a minute, have them call you back in a bit, or that you’ll call them back soon.

That wasn’t so difficult, now was it? You just saved everyone some time with this selfless act. If the cashier has your undivided attention, the whole transaction shouldn’t take more than a few minutes tops. I do believe that there aren’t many calls that you would receive which require you to answer the call immediately, calls which can’t wait a minute or two.

If you really do have to take the call, step out of the queue for the duration of the phone call, if possible. If you can’t leave the queue, try to keep your attention on the transaction as well as the call. An apology for speaking on the phone while the cashier is serving you would be nice…

DON’T!
Let your phone keep ringing until you have time to answer it, especially if you have a lot of goods to buy.

A ringing cell phone has the tendency to annoy people. When I’m trying to do my job, say the things I HAVE TO say, and try to sell you more stuff because I HAVE TO, I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to duke it out with the polyphonic beeping coming from your purse, much less the latest chart topping one-hit wonder.

This especially applies to older people who tend to be slightly hard of hearing. Why? Because they have their phones set on MAXIMUM volume! Everyone else around you is not deaf, so we’d all appreciate not having to stick our fingers into our ears just to drown out the “music” coming from your phone. Thank you.

This runs alongside a recurring theme of this blog. There are many things that you might have to experience just once or for a very short period of time whilst shopping, such as Christmas Carols. Thinking that you can stand letting your phone ring “just for a little bit of time” is really quite selfish. It might be just a minute or two of your time, but for the cashier who’s sitting behind the counter for 8+ hours a day, those minutes accumulate quickly, leading to a nice little headache…

DO!
Press a button to silence the call so it won’t bother anyone. Yes, there is such an option…

Your phone rings while it’s your turn to have your items checked out. You pull it out of your pocket or purse, glance at it, and hit the ‘SILENCE’ button which EVERY SINGLE CELL PHONE HAS NOWADAYS! Piece of pie!

Here’s a hint on how you can prevent yourself from letting your phone keep ringing for a long time: set the ringtone on your phone to an embarrassing song or sound. That’ll definitely get you to rummage through your bag or pockets just to stop the thing from making you look ridiculous! =) Some examples which I’ve seen (heard) recently:

• Britney Spears’ newest “hit” (Man in his late 20’s)
• A Finnish Christmas carol with rude lyrics (10yr old girl)
• Metallica (Middle-aged woman wearing a tracksuit)
• Crazy Frog (Business man in suit)

Each one of the above cases were quite quick to pick up or silence their phones…

Pretty much everyone has a cell phone nowadays. The proper etiquette with cell phone usage in public is a whole different genre in and of itself, so I’ve merely focused on cell phone usage in customer situations. It is really, really annoying to be faced with a customer who’d rather talk on the phone, ignoring the cashier and not allowing them to do their job. It’s disrespectful, and no, you are not that special…

“Hi, hold on, I’ll call you back in a few, I’m at the supermarket right now, paying. Bye.”

If you have a story relating to this post, from either side of the counter, or anything to add to his chapter of The Consumer Etiquette Guide, let’s hear it!

The customer is NOT always right. If you agree with this, or wish to know what to do and not do as a consumer, please subscribe to this blog’s updates by the way of the RSS feed or email subscriptions. Thank you for shopping at The Consumer Etiquette Guide, now go and make someone have a nice day at work!

“Slut, Where’s My Food!?” [Bad Examples]

I’ll kick off my Bad Examples section with a pretty bad case of a obnoxious, rude, inconsiderate, sad excuse for a human being. (I apologize for the crude language…)

Who in their right mind would call a cashier a, and I’m quoting through translation here, “fucking slut”? How badly has this person been offended to warrant this kind of behavior?

Fact #1: These is never, NEVER, any reason to call someone a “fucking slut”, especially if you don’t know this person.

Fact #2: Who was this particular character? A grumpy old man? A stressed-out business man? No. A 14-year old kid! 14! Baseball cap sideways on the top his empty head, a plastic dollar sign ‘bling’ necklace around his chubby neck, pants a mere inch from falling off, only saved from that fate by his fat ass, a t-shirt about 19 sizes too big for him making him look like Casper The Ghetto Ghost. 14!

I was standing in line at McDonald’s yesterday before going to work when this exchange occured. There weren’t too many people in line, but there were only two girls manning the cash registers and just one guy in the kitchen flipping the burgers. So obviously they were a little understaffed at the moment. Nevertheless, this exchange occured:
ME = Who else?
MC = Mousy Cashier
PAK = Pretentious Asshole Kid

PAK: (to his friends a few meters behind me) “What the fuck is taking so fucking long? Bitch should stop serving these fags and make my fucking burgers.”
MC: (to ME) “Hello. What would you like?”
ME: “Hi… (make my order)
PAK: (moving closer to counter) “Where’s my fucking food?”
MC: (glances at PAK, then gathers up my to go order and finishes up the transaction)
PAK: (to MC) “What the fuck!? Where’s my fucking food you fucking slut?”
ME: (turn around and stare at PAK in disbelief)
MC: (to PAK) “I’m sorry, but your order isn’t ready yet.”
PAK: “Fucking hurry up!”
MC: “I’m sorry, but I told you when you ordered that they weren’t ready and you might have to wait 5 minutes.”
PAK: “I’m gonna be late to fucking school cuz you’re so fucking slow! How fucking hard is it to make my burgers?”
MC: (to ME after I’ve received my food and paid for it.) “Thank you!”
ME: (to MC) Thanks, and hang in there with this asshole.
MC: “Thanks. Have a nice day.”
ME: “You too. Don’t let this guy spoil it.”
ME: (to PAK after pouring myself the complimentary cup of coffee and walking past him) “Shut up and learn some manners.”
PAK: (to ME) “Go fuck yourself, you fucking fag!”

Seriously, wtf? What the hell was up this kid’s backside? I’m not going to go into a huge rant about kids not having manners anymore nowadays, but seriously.

The mousy girl who had to endure this crap had phenomenal patience though. I though I was ultra patient, but someone give make this girl the Employee of the Month or something!

Oh, and in case you were wondering how long the kid had been waiting for his burgers to make him burst out like this, 4 minutes. That’s right. 4 MINUTES! And the cashier had told him it could take 5 minutes…

I’m sure anyone who has ever worked at any fast food restaurant will agree with me when I say this:
If you’re in a hurry, don’t order something that’s not ready and will take 5 minutes to prepare, and especially DON’T START CALLING THE CASHIER NAMES WHEN YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE TIME SHE TOLD YOU IT MIGHT TAKE!

I’m still in awe at the girl’s patience and in shock at the kid’s behavior. I have one more thing to add, a little message for the kid:
Good luck with the rest of your life, you worthless piece of garbage!

Ever had to dealt with this kind of Emmy Award Winners? Share your stories in the comments below!

The customer is NOT always right. If you agree with this, or wish to know what to do and not do as a consumer, please subscribe to this blog’s updates by the way of the RSS feed or email subscriptions. Thank you for shopping at The Consumer Etiquette Guide, now go and make someone have a nice day at work!

10 Things NOT To Say To A Clerk On A Busy Day

10: “Busy day, huh?”
Thank you pointing out the obvious. You’re the first person to tell me that today. I don’t think I would have noticed without you. Now move along, you’re holding up the queue.

9: “I forgot to weight my vegetables. Be a good boy/girl and go do that for me.”
Gladly. While I do that, would you be so kind as to explain to the 27 people behind you why they have to wait longer in line while I’m off doing what you should have done yourself.

8: “Why don’t you have more checkout counters open?”
Oh, we would if it were up to the clerks. Because it isn’t, you have to settle for what’s available, while we have to work harder and faster to clear the growing queues. Talk to
management.

7: “You need to open more checkout counters
to get rid of the queues.”
Really, Captain Obvious? Ever occur to you that we’ve already called for more checkout counters? It’s not economically beneficial to have 25 people sitting around twiddling their thumbs, just waiting for those brief periods of time when it’s really busy. We’re doing the best we can. See above.

6: “Hold on for a minute, I forgot some goods.”
The best time to say this is when it’s your turn and the clerk has already registered all your items. That way you’ll hold up the queue most efficiently. That was your purpose, right? No? Well you did it anyway.

5: “I’m going to pay with coins.”
Unless you have no other means of payment on you, please don’t pay with coins when it’s a busy day. It’s the slowest possible means of payment, especially if you try to come up with the exact change. Oh, and whatever you do, DON’T hand the clerk a piggy bank or a plastic bag full of coins and tell them to find the right amount, from the smallest possible denomination. No one wants to have to handle, let alone count, 2159 pennies. Go to the bank.

4: “Hold on, I have to take this call.”
Um, no you don’t. It’s rude to talk on your phone while making a shopping transaction. It’s inconsiderate towards the clerk, as well as the other customers behind you. Tell the person that you’ll call back or have them call you back. If you really do have to take the call, don’t forget that you’re holding up the line. The other customers won’t complain to you about it, they’ll complain to the clerk. Thanks.

3: “You can’t go on break now, you have to serve me.”
Um, yes I can, and I will. If you’re going to be a twat about it, I really don’t want to serve you. And you know what? I don’t have to. I have every right to take a break. Actually, it’s government mandated. So pipe down and move to another queue. There are other queues, you know.

2: “Why are you so slow?”
Let’s see. I’m tired. I’ve been at work for hours. I’ve been making the same back and forth movement repeatedly for several hours at a time. I’ve been yelled at. I haven’t had my morning cup of coffee yet. I might be new to this job.
Take your pick. Clerks are only human. No matter how fast we’re moving, it’s always too slow for someone. We do our best, depending on the circumstances.

1: “Move faster, I don’t have all day.”
It’s ok, we get paid by the hour, we’re in no hurry, we do have all day. Every clerk moves as fast and as efficiently as he or she can at that given moment. It would be cruel and unusual to assume that one can work at breakneck speed for in excess of 8 hours a day. If you tell us a plausible reason as to why we have to move fast, politely, we might just dip into that little extra energy which we might have stored up.

+1: “I want to talk to the manager.” (after your credit card has been rejected) [Contributed by James]
The manager isn’t going to be able to miraculously snap his/her fingers and make your card work again. If the card was rejected, there was probably a darn good reason for that. Wanting a second opinion is just going to make everyone in line have to wait a little longer. Btw, the manager will merely repeat the EXACT same things as the clerk. Your busted/closed/expired/empty/maxed out/etc card WILL NOT WORK NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES OR HOW MANY PEOPLE TRY TO USE IT! So hand over another card or gimme some cash.

I have purposely limited this list to just 10 banned phrases, plus contributions, in the interest of keeping this post short and simple. If you have any quotes to add to this list, please write them in the comments section below. Don’t forget, if you have a story relating to this post, from either side of the counter, let’s hear it!

The customer is NOT always right. If you agree with this, or wish to know what to do and not do as a consumer, please subscribe to this blog’s updates by the way of the RSS feed or email subscriptions. Thank you for shopping at the Consumer Etiquette Guide, now go and make someone have a nice day at work!