Vile people

[caddyman]

Realising rather belatedly that my stock of instant coffee here in the office was running low (I didn’t think about it at lunch time), I nipped across to M&S to buy myself a new jar. It’s not as cheap as Sainsbury’s but it is good coffee of the instant variety and fairtrade to boot, so I can feel smug and hyper all at the same time.

There is a very nice woman who works on the tills regularly who wears a badge stating that she is hearing impaired. Judging from her speech, I’d say she is quite deaf and is one of those people who have learnt to speak despite the handicap, or who lost her hearing quite sometime ago and her speech has just developed like that. Either way, as I say, she is a very nice woman, almost invariably pleasant and helpful and all she requires is that you speak to her clearly and preferably while looking at her so she can lip read. Not too much to ask.

While I was queuing to pay, a woman in front of me tried to pay for her shopping with a Scottish tenner. Scottish banknotes are not strictly speaking legal tender in England and Wales (I don’t know about Northern Ireland), but since the banks will honour them, they are de facto legal tender. I am quite happy to have Scottish money: it passes the prime test – can I buy something with it? Yes. Good enough for me. I know there are potential moves afoot to make it properly legal tender in the whole of the UK to minimise embarrassment and confusion, but it ain’t there yet.

Anyhoo, this woman didn’t know whether she could accept the Scottish money or not and rang for assistance that, naturally, was slow in coming. In the meantime the customer was grumbling and fussing and not making the slightest allowance for communication difficulties and when the manager gave the go-ahead, she berated the cashier further with cries of “you should have known that!”

I was close to making the decision that rather than buying my jar of coffee to drink, it would have been a good investment just to smash the jar over the whining git’s head. Especially as she immediately went into slow motion and carefully counted every penny and the receipt back into her purse before rearranging everything in her bag just so, in complete defiance of anyone waiting behind her.

Sometimes, I just loathe people.

Comments

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

My response to such a situation would have been an extra-pleasant demeanour to the cashier immediately after the grot bag stepped away. I was in a similar situation at the DHSS once, after a loudly ranting guy had left, and the lady behind the counter looked so relieved when I smiled and said hello, that I felt good about it all day.

[theo]

I rather enjoyed the woman ahead of me who, following similar behaviour by someone ahead of her, said "Well, that's the low point over. Now you just have nice people like us" as she beamed back at the rest of the queue.

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

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<ljuser=theoclarke> : Oh I like that, I think I'll remeber that for future use.

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

me too! that is definitely a phrase to store up for future use

[w00hoo.livejournal.com]

Similar thing over Christmas with a woman RANTING about being asked if she 'really needed a second plastic bag.' The cashier explained it was a policy to ask for environmental matters and then the whole, not small farm shop, was treated to a tirade about how her husband was sat in the car outside and was the owner of a multinational oil company with an amazing environmental record and how she'd never been treated so badly in the whole of her life and how she'd never shop here again... (Although, of course, wasn't going to not buy the stuff she had there and then, there's principles and there's convenience after all.)

Once the manager had set things straight and she'd left quite a few people were nice to the cashier, who was quite shaken. I think I mentioned having a good idea why he'd stayed in the car...

I was tempted to follow her out and have a chat with her husband about his oil companies amazing pro environmental policies though, they sounded quite rare.