Attention shoppers!
Don't be that person!
These 12 supermarket no-no's will have you saying "bag it, tag it, and move to the back
of the line!"
If there's one thing grocery store employees really get fired up about, it's finding random
items strewn across the store, left by customers who didn't want them.
This goes beyond finding pasta in the cereal section or toilet paper by the paper towels.
Stories on Reddit abound of finding raw chicken in the cookie aisle and melting ice pops on
a cardboard display case.
This is a massive waste of food.
Not only is the perishable item lost, but so are the products next to it if contamination
is a concern.
No one wants raw chicken juice leaking onto a box of cookies or snacks that are sitting
in a puddle of sticky melted ice pop.
One Redditor has, quote, "bonus hate" for people who hide perishables in non-refrigerated sections.
Even if the item isn't perishable, employees have to spend time walking it back to its
proper place.
Employees understand that shoppers may be injured, disabled, or in another situation
that makes returning items more difficult.
But not everybody.
Please, if you don't want something, don't leave it "wherever."
Put it back where it belongs, ask an employee if they can put it away, or give it to the
cashier at the check out.
Juicy grapes, crunchy radishes, chocolate-covered peanuts — the allure of bite-sized foods
is strong when you're hungry.
Besides, they're small.
The store won't miss them.
Wrong.
It's shoplifting.
All those pilfered snacks add up, and the store loses money.
Not to mention, employees have to clean up after you.
One Redditor posted their pet peeve, writing,
"[Customers] eat cherries and leave the stones in their baskets, as if it's my job to pick
up this stone that's been in your mouth."
Unfortunately, many people don't view this as a problem, as evidenced by a Reddit thread
discussing favorite candies to steal from bulk bins.
"Excuse me, ma'am?
Are you gonna pay for that?"
"I wasn't planning on it."
"I didn't think so."
What's worse than the monetary loss, however, is the germ factor.
After all, you're dipping your hand directly into a bulk bin or bag of food you aren't
taking home.
Given that a YouGovAmerica survey showed that over 40% of people admit to not washing their
hands either some or all of the time after using the bathroom, we have to wonder who's
been sticking their nasty hands in those bins.
Grocery store employees have plenty of complaints regarding shopping carts.
Whether it's customers leaving their carts in the checkout lane, asking cashiers to watch
them while they get more items, or parking them in the middle of the aisle, it's all bad.
You're in somebody's way.
To those who shop, pay, then expect the cashier to watch their stuff while they go back for
more – stop it.
"What is it about grocery stores that make people behave crazy?"
One Redditor vented,
"People will even leave entire shopping carts up near checkout to grab a handbasket to return shopping."
If you're in line and realize you forgot something but you don't know exactly where that item
is, come back for it later.
And as for parking in the middle of an aisle, both Miss Manners and Maralee McKee of the
Etiquette School agree: you need to pull your cart over to the right so that people can
pass you.
"I have the right of way."
"Right.
Sorry."
Something about service industry work in general brings out the worst in customers.
Many seem to translate "customer service" to mean "servants," and does it ever show.
Tales of customers insulting employees abound, and things can even turn violent.
A shopper in Virginia punched a deaf employee because they didn't respond to a question.
During the pandemic, the violence became widespread, with stories of customers shooting employees
tasked with enforcing a mask mandate.
Insider suggests that this attitude stems from the saying:
"The customer is always right."
"You can't put eggs at the bottom.
Is this your first day?"
One unexpected source of rudeness is Instacart.
One Redditor summed it up, writing:
"Stop shoving your phone in my face while I'm stocking in produce and demanding I tell
you where to find something in dairy.
I don't work over there.
I don't work for Instacart.
[...] They don't pay me to pick items.
That's your job."
Another employee posted that they got so tired of the rude behavior that they switched shifts.
Some Instacart shoppers pushed back, claiming their rudeness was in response to rude employee
behavior, while another wrote that:
"Every store has at least one grouch."
Litter used to be so commonplace that entire ad campaigns were created to convince people
to throw garbage into trash cans instead of on the nearest lawn or road.
Campaigns like "Don't Mess With Texas" had generally good results, and in many places,
you can now report litterbugs and have them fined.
But progress seems to have missed the grocery store parking lot, where litter abounds.
One Redditor vented about all the trash they had to clean out of grocery carts and parking
lots, including:
"Coffee cups, fast food bags full of trash, glass liquor bottles and cans, used diapers
– yes for real!
– banana peels, apple cores, dirty used kleenex, old dirty clothes, [and] large bags
of household trash."
The problem got worse with the pandemic when grocery store parking lots were covered with
discarded gloves and masks.
Employees were tasked with cleaning it all up.
While that may not seem like such a big deal now, at the start of the pandemic people thought
you could spread the coronavirus through touch.
And those gloves and masks were seen as highly hazardous.
Please be kind to employees and throw your trash in the nearest receptacle.
And if you can't find one, take it home.
Grocery store employees really wish you'd stop having loud phone conversations in the
checkout lane.
Or anywhere in the store, for that matter.
If you're shopping for a relative with a bad phone connection who can't text, sure, you
may have to speak up to find out which loaf of bread they want.
But no one needs to hear about the jerk in the school drop off line this morning or how
much you loved that açaí bowl you had for breakfast.
"Shut up!"
It's noise pollution.
Stop it.
You may think people can just tune you out or leave.
But cashiers are captive audiences.
It's a miracle that grocery store employees manage to stay on the job as long as they do.
So instead of driving staff nuts with your loud, overly personal conversations, text.
Or better yet, wait until you leave the store.
There comes a time in every parent's life when they are finally able to ignore their
children's cries of "I want it!"
It's a survival skill and hopefully teaches the kid that crying to get something is useless.
"I want one!
I want a golden goose!"
Unfortunately, some parents let their kids run rampant in stores where they get underfoot.
And, oh, the infernal screaming.
In a thread about employees asking a single mother to remove her unruly kids from a store,
Redditors were very supportive of the employees, complimenting them for thinking of other customers.
Many were understanding of single mothers but agreed the staff had done the right thing.
Think about that the next time your child acts up in a grocery store.
Now might be a good time to start teaching them to respect others' property and space.
Not to mention their eardrums.
Lots of people are super savvy with coupons and store deals and can slash their bills substantially.
It's called "super-couponing."
"Hold on, I got a coupon for that!"
But it requires lots of time at the register as the cashier scans each slip.
Even if all the coupons scan perfectly, which is rare, it creates delays for other shoppers.
And it annoys cashiers to no end.
Two Redditors mentioned how much they hate "coupon queens," noting that they tend to
be terrible, demanding customers.
In 2015, a customer suggested to Kroger that they add a lane for people who needed to move
more slowly.
And a supermarket chain in Finland actually added a slower lane for senior citizens and
disabled people.
A slow lane would be perfect for customers writing checks or using umpteen coupons.
But until stores add these lanes, save the super-couponing for less crowded hours.
Cart return corrals are usually spacious and easy to find in supermarket parking lots.
It's annoying enough when someone leaves a cart in a parking space a distance away.
But it's just plain weird when someone leaves it right outside the corral.
If it's a busy shopping time and the corral is full, that's understandable.
But if there's room, and you made it over there in the first place, go the extra inch.
"When I do see that some lazybones has left their cart out, I turn on the wand of justice
and activate the mouth siren."
Sure, people sometimes have good reasons for not returning carts.
Maybe they don't want to leave their children unattended or a disability makes it difficult.
But leaving the carts in the corrals when you can is the right thing to do.
It makes it easier for an employee to move the entire bunch at once.
And it's just good manners.
The express checkout lines are meant for people who only have a few items.
These lines are supposed to move faster and help customers get out of the store quickly.
Filtering out customers with fewer items also helps reduce the wait time at regular registers.
However, since the express lines seem to move faster, lots of shoppers try to sneak in with
extra items.
"You mind if I get ahead of you?
I'm in a wicked rush.
That okay?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, go ahead."
"You're a doll.
Hey, kids, over here!"
Cashiers really hate it when you try to go through the express lane with a ton of items.
We're talking 30, 40, or more items in a lane where you're supposed to have 10.
One Redditor complained that Instacart shoppers often try to go through the express checkout
with two or three times what the lane limits allow.
Instacart or not, please don't go into the express lane and slow everyone down by ringing
up a full cart.
That goes even if the lane is empty, as one Redditor pointed out; when someone brought
48 items to their express lane, seven other people lined up behind them in the time it
took to ring the groceries through.
No, it's not free.
Whenever something won't ring up at the cash register, there's at least one customer who
will proclaim that the item must be free as they chuckle at their own cleverness.
Please stop doing that.
The store employees have heard your joke before, the item's not free, and you're not making
anyone any happier.
Once again, cashiers are stuck listening to your bad jokes and annoying comments.
Don't make their day worse.
"Frank.
I need a price check."
And in case you're wondering, when items don't ring up via the register scanner, it's because
it can't read the bar code.
Either the code is in a hard-to-scan area, it's folded up, or it's too small to effectively read.
In rare cases, the item isn't in the register's database, but regardless, the cashier has
to enter it manually.
Maybe help them instead of lobbing a tired, old joke their way.
Sock/bra/underwear money
There are annoying things customers do, and then there are those things that are utterly disgusting.
Possibly the worst is handing over money that you've kept tucked away next to your skin.
Cashiers note this as a major pet peeve, with many Redditors complaining about customers
who pull damp money out of their underwear or sweaty biking shorts.
It's gotten so bad in some areas, especially in summer, that various stores across the
country have had to officially ban the use of wet cash.
"They should just wear gloves.
Yeah.
'Cause, I mean, how would they know where the money come from?"
Even without an official ban in place, some stores allow cashiers to simply refuse the
sweaty bills.
One Redditor facing a repeat offender admitted,
"I ended up putting up a sign saying “We reserve the right to refuse money extracted
from underwear.”
Yes, holding cash securely can be difficult if you don't have pockets and don't want to
carry an extra bag or purse, but that's no excuse for making people at the grocery store
handle your body-fluid doused money.
It not only feels gross, but it could also transfer bacteria or fungi to the cashier's hands.
If you think going through the self-checkout lane will solve the problem, it won't.
First of all, the machines routinely reject old, faded bills that sensors can't identify,
so sweaty cash may not make it through.
Second, employees have to collect the cash after the day is done.
Using self-checkout only delays the disgust.
So instead of storing your grocery cash in dank places, be a good person and get a cross-body
bag or clothes with pockets.