Friday, January 14, 2011

An incident at a grocery store

I was waiting at a checkout to pay my grocery and was witnessing this incident:

A young man was checking out and wanted to pay his grocery with some restaurant tickets and cash. The cashier informed him that they can only accept maximum 2 tickets. He was surprised, asking when did the rule change, and he did not bring enough cash with him and he has no credit card. He was embarrassed and didn't know what to do, and the cashier was very cold, she told him that he has to return the items that he couldn't pay with cash. I really felt back for him so I proposed to the cashier that I would take his extra tickets and pay him cash in return. And she refused! She said she didn't want to create another mess. Well, I kept my mouth shut and keep watching the drama. The young man has no choice but to select among the grocery, slowly pulling out the tuna, endives, chicken...I peeped on his restaurant tickets, he was planning to pay 4 tickets with 8€ face value, so he was short of 16€ to pay for everything.

I sympathized with him, several times the words were at my lips but I just couldn't spell it out to him. I wanted to help but at the same times I didn't know if he would take it well. Anyway, the drama continued, the cashier announced that some of the items he bought could not be paid with a restaurant ticket, so she took more items out from him. Then, when she entered the two tickets, the system didn't want to accept them and she has to call someone else. What a mess! Ended up, we (there were a couple queuing between him and me) had to checkout with another cashier.

Conclusion: Always bring along spare cash / credit card with you when buying stuffs, you never know what would happen.

PS: Talked to hubby, he said by law it is illegal to have someone else's ticket, so the cashier was probably just following the rules. Still, her attitude was quite rude.

3 comments:

  1. I've been there - I understand the shame when the tickets aren't accepted but....

    There are rules and we all have to abide by them.

    I bet the cashier didn't qualify for restaurant tickets though?


    All the best

    Keith

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  2. Frankly I would just offered to pay that 16€ for him whether he wants to pay me back or not. I would be so grateful if ever I got caught in such a situation and someone offered to pay the missing sum for me and I'll pay that person back later.

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  3. Hi Keith,

    I don't know if the company provides ticket resto to the cashier or not.

    Pam,

    I thought of doing that, but I don't know if the guy will think that I'm insulting him. Sometimes people don't take it well, and I didn't have enough cash to pay anyway.

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