Finger waving cashier in Carrefour

Summer is over and the lack of sunshine is making us grumble...
just a little?

I remember attention to detail in the London supermarkets and I

also can recall being treated very badly. It is the same here?

Working in a supermarket is a job but it is not a dream job and when dealing

with public you need to be extra tolerant and sometimes forgiving.

Have any of you worked in a supermarket?

My younger, Daryl, is so 'correct' Germanic type Swiss that I am sure we could find something like Minister of Tidy Shelves or Punctual Opening and Closing.

Brilliant idea Catharine, my kids can be their juniors and they can run rings round everybody in three languages. Seems like your daughters have the same attitude as mine and their little brothers just sit there and let it happen as life is easier that way:-)

Tracy -I'm sending my kids in :)

Daisy will be Minister of Overseas Trade Protocol

Tilly will be Minister of Overseas Customer Service

Max will be Minister of "he's a gay man now" - that's ok cos his sisters will smack anyone who takes the piss :)

I get narked when they won't let me IN the damned hypermarket, forcing me to walk miles to official entry at the far end and back again. I've got away with this crime a couple of times, but I have actually been apprehended once by a security bloke. I was at least quick witted enough to say "right I'll shop elsewhere then" and to leave. But WHY?

Comment by Catharine Higginson 16 hours ago

Aha but we CAN change it. And will do eventually :)

Love your confidence Catharine, I'm generally a positive person but sometimes you have to be realistic. You need to get a job at Carrefour - provided you have the right diploma - BAC plus how many, train up to Manager and start changing things from the inside. Your comment about pointing out about selling a card to James was spot on.

Don't get me wrong my last managerial job was for Virgin Holidays where I'm sure most of you know, customer service was everything, so it winds me off the clock when I have bad customer service anywhere. I usually complain but my husband is a natural, grin and bear it kind of chap but I am most definitely the person who never goes back after bad service. It's also why I am one of those Brits that buys stuff from the UK all the time, including a right hand drive van as it is so much cheaper:-)

James. I agree with your lady wife's comment that the person on the checkout should've found out if you had a Carrefour credit card and if not should've at least tried to get you signed up to one. Very short sighted of her. Better luck next time. I had a rude checkout person who threw a discoloured 2 Euro coin back at me, saying she wouldn't accept it, after showing it to all the other customers. I felt 10 inches tall and wanted to die. I didn't go back in that shop for almost a year.

Indeed, and sometimes you just have to laugh and/or shrug it off. I'm not surprised at the glum faces in my local Carrefour - the place is freezing (summer or winter), and they still haven't worked out the system (which is standard in Ireland anyway) that if paying by cheque, you get it cleared at Customer Service Desk first, NOT after you've checked through all your shopping.

And ordering on line - ordered something from Carrefour on Sunday, got a "bells and whistles" email thanking me for my order, etc., etc, and another one on Monday morning saying the parcel had been despatched. Got email from Colis Privé promising an update on delivery - when I clicked through, this was the message:

DĂ©finir une date de livraison :
RDV impossible : ce colis a été remis à un confrÚre,
et vous sera livré dans les prochains jours.

These people are very carefully selected and trained vigorously for the highly esteemed position of checkout thug
many stumble and fall on the journey and go on to the lesser training to be Oneida the elite French SAS,so I say salute these brave checkout bandits they have fought hard and long to be in a position of not caring a hoot
so if you don’t like it go somewhere else and be ignored 


Sorry....but I dont think its acceptable practice to behave that way. If it were my business, a member of staff would be hauled over the coals for that. Politeness doesnt cost. If I had a member of the public abusing a member of staff then I would stand up for the staff member and let security get rid of the idiot, but no, staff should be polite, they are earning money for doing what they do and as such, should behave appropriately. Same as the NHS....staff are expected to be polite or are disciplined...members of the public being rude and abusive is not put up with.

Yesterday I went to the big Leclerc in Bergerac to do my 6-monthly looroll shop, there were about 2/3 of the tills open & all had queues.

A manager-type person (with her arm in a huge complicated splint thing, no skiving there) came past as I approached the tills, saw me and my 384 loorolls, said "is that all you've got" & I said "no I have a couple of edible things too" & she took me to a closed till, opened it & sent me through the check-out. No waiting at all.

So they aren't all mean & grumpy & unhelpful. I haven't yet met a till-operator here who is (MG&U), that said.

(I bet I'd be vile to everybody after a while if I worked in Leclerc etc, but then my idea of utter hell would be working in a supermarket in whatever capacity. I'm sure not everyone works there by choice, or gets the hours that suit them, etc.)

If you really want rude, miserable service try Amsterdam! They make the French checkout operators positively joyful ...

Shoplifting? Yes, was behind a woman in a large-ish casino who had picked up two empty cartons/boxes in the back in addition to some shopping. The cashier asked to see them, tucked up under the flap of one was a packaged piece of beef steak. The cashier just gave her a look and the woman said she didn’t know how it got there. Cashier took the steak and continued with the checkout.

Good point about the 70's and 80's...

FRENCH SHOPPING as I understand it is shop lifting, unfortunately the hole country gets tarred with the same brush as the worst places for this crime are Paris and Marseilles. Every city has shoplifters and pickpockets especially Paris.

Back to basics every one, would you at a toll drive up to a auto payment booth and try to pay with cash, of course not. the same with credit or store card checkouts. As long as they are posted and visible. any way the checkout operator should have been polite and informed you that her till is for credit cards etc, basic customer service.

SFN should forward these customer care comments to all supermarkets and see where it gets, they could send the accounts to local newspapers etc stir up a hornets nest and watch the change in the way the French do business.

all you have to remember the French have been down trodden for centuries and only now are they starting to improve, the country reminds me of the UK forty years ago, Yes Britain was like this way back in the 1970's and 80's.

So all ways look on the bright side of life, you are over here living your dream.

French shopping!!
Has anyone seen any shoplifting going on in since they

have been here?

I think the idea is that people who have their credit card get served quicker (by having their own checkout) when the queues are bad, so of itself it's understandable. They have the same in our local monoprix, but fortunately there they seem to operate it with sense and good manners.

I agree Bill but....

If it was my shop I would have expected the cashier to say something along the lines of "I'm terribly sorry Sir but this checkout is reserved for Carte Pass. Do you have one? No? Would you be interested in having one? Can I get you a form" etc etc.

The post was not about processing of shopping but about the unapologetic attitude.

It may be me, but if this till was reserved for Carte Pass (which it apparently was) I would not expect the cashier to process my shopping. Similarly, I would expect anyone attempting to take 16 items through an "up to 10 items" till to be publicly humiliated in some way (eg. stocks, flogging? I'm cruel but fair).

As regards the rudeness of the cashier, is it possible that they believed that ignoring the shop's rules was also rude. I find that smiling at such people as I apologise usually works as they realise it wasn't worth getting upset about.

So, the answer to the original question would be, "Yes, in spades."