Way to NOT prove your point, lady...

[Rose2Bear]

I thought this was pretty ironic...

At Target the other day, actually two days before Christmas (so the lines were long to begin with) this women was holding up the line becasue she was upset that the price of orange juice was not ringing up to her satisfaction. She was insisting that it was a dollar more than it used to be, so the people checked with the manager, and the price had, in fact, been raised by a dollar. She could not fathom this and kept saying "well it USED to be such and such price" and the cashier was sort of just staring at her with a "what do you want me to do about it? I can't give you that price so either buy it or dont" expression (thats a lot to assume from one's facial expression, I know, but you can tell that was what was on her and everyone's mind who was watching).

The funny part, though, was the lady kept saying how "No one is going to buy it at that price, they won't be able to make a profit becasue no one will buy it and they are so stupid to raise the price, no one will buy it."  She then proceeds to buy two jugs of said orange juice...........

Don't you think she would have reinforced her rant better by simply not buying the orange juice?? 

More importantly, was she right to hold up the line for a long while making this pointless rant to the chashier, or is this an issue better suited for customer service?

Out of curiosity, does anyone else have a similar story of people complaining about something, then doing the same thing they are complaining about, or go along with what they are complaining about??

[TZ]

As if the cashier has anything to do with the price being changed!  That's pretty bad.

I was once at a bookstore, and there was one lady ahead of me in line.  She had returned something and bought something else.  After these transactions, the store owed her $1.38.  She didn't want the money.  She wanted the cashier to leave the line and help her find something that cost EXACTLY $1.38, which was, of course, impossible.  She held up the line for about 5 minutes with her complaining.  In the end, she left without the money.  Because THAT makes sense.

[Clara Bow]

I worked in retail hell for many years and I can tell you tons of stories like this. Most of the time I got chewed up for insurance copays going up. I live in a very small town and the largest employer here and in the town across the bridge is the state, so just about everyone has one of three different state plans. I myself have one of those plans as my husband works for the state. So here's what I know:
You get a letter in the mail once a week for close to a month and a half before the premiums and/or copays are raised
You also get a letter on your email at work, and all employees have a Sunpass email because that's how you get your paystub biweekly.
There are also notices posted in the employee services building about raises in rates.
But it never failed that some customer, at least two or three a day would tear into me about their copay going up, or their medication being removed from the formulary (something else that you get ample notice of) claiming that they had no idea this was happening and obviously it was a mistake on my part, calling me everything but a child of God basically. And I mean they would get nasty, extremely nasty. As though I work for your insurance company and this is all part of my nefarious plot to squeeze ten more dollars out of you. Like I benefit in any way from your copay going up. Hello?? The retailer makes the same profit regardless, the only difference is how much of that profit we get from them and how much we get from you! But it divides out to the same amount of money! Ack....

[Lunadiana75]

Sigh, I don'tknow why customers persist in the belief that cashiers are rulers of theknown universe, and at the same time, lowly peons there for abuse.  Cashiers have no control over the following:

1.  Prices
2.  Store hours
3.  Sales, when they occur, what's on sale, and the percentage off
4.  Staffing, how many employees are on the floor and whether or not there are enough baggers
5.  Store layout
6.  Stock of the store, this includes the coffee stand and the deli
7.  The fact that 5 years ago someone else at another store of the same name was really rude to you and now you want to punish the person in front of you for it
8.  The parking lot, number of spaces and behavior of people in them
9.  The behavior of other customers in the store
10.  The color of the store
11.  The number of napkins, forks, spoons, etc.. that are at the deli
12. The stock, employees, layout, and hours of a different store I have never worked at

Yes, I was yelled at for each and everyone one of those things, and so much more, during my days of retail.  People seemed to think I had control over all of that, and if something was wrong, I did it deliberately just to hurt them. 

[T'Mar of Vulcan]

Cashiers have no control over the following:
... People seemed to think I had control over all of that, and if something was wrong, I did it deliberately just to hurt them. 

People are crazy.

But! I went to Checkers two days before Christmas (and two days after it had been refurbished and reopened) for some groceries. I ended up in the queue behind a guy buy 150 bricks of butter. 150!! So the cashier was holding one brick of butter and waved it under the scanner 150 times!!!. Now, I know from shopping at Woolies, Pick 'n Pay, etc. that it's possible to type in the amount of items and then scan it once... but neither the cashier nor her supervisor knew how to do that - and not only that, but they insisted it couldn't be done, so I had to stand there for 20 minutes while she scanned this brick of butter 150 times.

The man buying the stuff seemed rather embarrassed - not by how much butter he was buying, but by the fact that the cashier was holding up a queue of people by not knowing part of her job. That annoyed me. But I was very polite to both the man and the cashier. Shouting wouldn't have helped the situation.

[behindbj]

Oh MAN do I hate the "must scan 800 times instead of the quantity times whatever!"  I am always terribly embarassed when it happens.

And it happens to me a LOT!  I "eat out of my pantry" as opposed to buying everything I need every week.  So, except for maybe some fresh ingredients I need to supplement what I have on hand or milk, I shop for my pantry.  For example, last week was "meat week." 

Heeheehee - "meat week."  Sounds vaguely dirty...

Anyway...When it is "dairy week," I buy lots of yogurt on sale - sometimes enough for a couple of months.  For "frozen vegetables week," lots of frozen vegetables.  And I love the fruit-flavored sparkling water with no calories or sugar.  So, I buy a bunch.

For weeks like this, I try to buy the same amount of each "type" of whatever, leave most of them in the cart place one on the counter (I bag when I put them in my trunk.  Faster all around), telling the cahsier what I'm doing.  I may buy 40 containers of yogurt, 10 each of four kinds.  You get the idea.

I stopped going to one particular supermarket because THEY COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT.  They had to scan every.single.item.  I was terribly embarassed, considering I had to take every single item out of the cart.  Gee, even when cashiers did the quantity ring thing, they counted the items in my cart (which is fine by me).  I have never had to take all of them out of the cart for them, though.  I kpt hoping that they would figure it out (as it was the closest store to me), but they never did.  So I go elsewhere.

Back OT, when worked at the bookstore, you could tell who bought a lot of books or, even if they didn't buy a lot of books, appreciated them.  These were the normal customers.  As for the abnormal ones:  My manager always waited until they said that they were going to take their business elsewhere.  His response was always some variation of "I think we'll make it without your one-book purchase."

And - just to make a long post even longer, reading the OP made me think of a series of Tank McNamara comic strips during one of the baseball strikes.  It had the ghosts of famous ballplayers talking to and taking around baseball Heaven a man and his young son.  The man was saying how he resented the strike and how the ballplayers behaved and how the prices for tickets and snacks just kept getting higher - but he paid for them anyway and kept going to the games.

To which the "angel" of Yogi Berra said "That's right - you did.  You ALL did."

Meaning that even though the owners and players treated the fans horribly, the fans sucked it up and went along.  I think of that whenever faced with an "orange juice" situation:  pay and deal or don't pay and deal without.

behindbj 

[fklwmn]

Oh MAN do I hate the "must scan 800 times instead of the quantity times whatever!"  I am always terribly embarassed when it happens.

And it happens to me a LOT!  I "eat out of my pantry" as opposed to buying everything I need every week.  So, except for maybe some fresh ingredients I need to supplement what I have on hand or milk, I shop for my pantry.  For example, last week was "meat week." 

Heeheehee - "meat week."  Sounds vaguely dirty...

Anyway...When it is "dairy week," I buy lots of yogurt on sale - sometimes enough for a couple of months.  For "frozen vegetables week," lots of frozen vegetables.  And I love the fruit-flavored sparkling water with no calories or sugar.  So, I buy a bunch.

For weeks like this, I try to buy the same amount of each "type" of whatever, leave most of them in the cart place one on the counter (I bag when I put them in my trunk.  Faster all around), telling the cahsier what I'm doing.  I may buy 40 containers of yogurt, 10 each of four kinds.  You get the idea.

I stopped going to one particular supermarket because THEY COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT.  They had to scan every.single.item.  I was terribly embarassed, considering I had to take every single item out of the cart.  Gee, even when cashiers did the quantity ring thing, they counted the items in my cart (which is fine by me).  I have never had to take all of them out of the cart for them, though.  I kpt hoping that they would figure it out (as it was the closest store to me), but they never did.  So I go elsewhere.

Back OT, when worked at the bookstore, you could tell who bought a lot of books or, even if they didn't buy a lot of books, appreciated them.  These were the normal customers.  As for the abnormal ones:  My manager always waited until they said that they were going to take their business elsewhere.  His response was always some variation of "I think we'll make it without your one-book purchase."

And - just to make a long post even longer, reading the OP made me think of a series of Tank McNamara comic strips during one of the baseball strikes.  It had the ghosts of famous ballplayers talking to and taking around baseball Heaven a man and his young son.  The man was saying how he resented the strike and how the ballplayers behaved and how the prices for tickets and snacks just kept getting higher - but he paid for them anyway and kept going to the games.

To which the "angel" of Yogi Berra said "That's right - you did.  You ALL did."

Meaning that even though the owners and players treated the fans horribly, the fans sucked it up and went along.  I think of that whenever faced with an "orange juice" situation:  pay and deal or don't pay and deal without.

behindbj 

OT, but...

I also shop for my pantry, but I love your idea of meat week, and dairy week, etc... I just eat till my pantry is almost bare and then shop to restock the whole thing. Your idea sounds easier!!!

But how in the world do you manage buying months of dairy products at one time?!?!?!? milk and fresh produce are the things I am leastl ikely to have in my hosue, and they are the things I shop for the most often. UGH, I hate perishables!

[Lisbeth]

Don't you think she would have reinforced her rant better by simply not buying the orange juice?? 

More importantly, was she right to hold up the line for a long while making this pointless rant to the chashier, or is this an issue better suited for customer service?

I think ranting at a cashier over the price of an item is not only fruitless but counterproductive, especially since they usually have nothing to do with setting prices.  And holding up the line behind you is very rude and inconsiderate to those behind you.

But I don't see that customer service could have helped her either.  Each purchase of the same item at different times is considered separate, and prices are always subject to change in between purchases.

[Secret]

247 tubes of toothpaste to be scanned individually.  Yep. I was buying for the disaster relief organizaiton I work for.  I was at the customer service desk with a trolly of necessities they wheeled out from the back.  These things included hudreds ot razors, mini deoderants etc.

Then halfway through there was a screw up.  Yep, she had to start over.  Then a manager came over and showed her how to bypass the system to do it quicker!

I was patient- I was on the clock!

[IndianInlaw]

People are nuts.

Accept that and move on.

[Pixie]

But one must also remember that politely telling the cashier that she has rung up an item for the wrong price, (often not his/her fault the item was mis-priced in computer) is NOT ranting.   Said cashier has the option of finding correct price and fixing the mistake, or calling the customer a liar because the computer couldn't possibly be wrong.    I have had many cashiers take option 2, and I usually  very politely ask for a manager.   

Just because I noticed the 4 boxes of pudding were 50 cents each and not the dollar you rang them up as, is NOT grounds to call me a b-word, and NO  I will not pay double the price because you're too lazy to check on the real price.  I do not shop in your store to be abused.... if it happens another time, I will do my weekly shopping at another store.    (General YOU in all cases)

Respect and courtesy go BOTH ways.

[Clara Bow]

About the quantity button on the register...not all stores have it. Mine did for a while, but they got new registers and took it away. The second store I worked at didn't have one either. Sometimes we have to individually scan....

[guihong]

Also, when I worked at a home improvement store, we had to scan each item individually because even if things looked the same, sometimes there were small differences in style and price.  Boxes of nails all look the same, and scanning one could mean a wrong total for the order.

gui

[blue2000]

About the quantity button on the register...not all stores have it. Mine did for a while, but they got new registers and took it away. The second store I worked at didn't have one either. Sometimes we have to individually scan....

Very true, and some stores don't allow you to do quantities because of mistakes. When you have 199 strawberry yogourts and 1 blackberry, rung in as 200 strawberry, you can mess up the computer counts even if the price is the same.
But most stores do have an "enter" button on the register. This would allow the cashier to push a button 150 times to repeat the butter code, intead of scanning it. I get a little irritated when one out of a large quantity won't scan because of a damaged UPC code, and the cashier takes five minutes trying to make it scan, and *then* uses the enter button.
Rules are good to have, but when they make the customers screaming mad, something isn't right....

[ImperfctMe]

I ended up in the queue behind a guy buy 150 bricks of butter. 150!!

I'm just dying to know what one does with 150 sticks of butter exactly...