"Do you need any help with your packing?"

[Bozza]

It's like a challenge isn't it...?

"Sir - you truly look incapable of placing your groceries into bags, so I shall patronise you by offering some help. You retard."

And they even ask if you're only buying a few things.

The ones who don't ask are the young lads. For them it is a game. They are shit hot when it comes to scanning items and sending them in your direction. They know if you care about protecting your soft bruisable items, they can whizz stuff down at a rate that may leave you floundering to keep up. The way to deal with this is to make sure you buy some alcohol since, not being old enough to sell alcohol (nor old enough to drink it too), they have to ask Shirley on the next check out if it's OK to proceed, and this really slows the buggers down.

 

[bhaexpress]

In the US it's pretty much the norm to have an assitant standing along side the cashier to do your packing for you. It's annoying as they pack things as they come past the till and your eggs can end up under your cans of beans.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

My 9 year-old and his class went up to Asda last week, to 'help' people with their packing. They raised £400 for a local kids' hospice in an hour, so fair play to them, but the punters would have been better advised to pay them NOT to help!

God knows how many people got home with broken eggs, squashed cakes, etc.

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

The thing is they dont ask when you do need help!!! When at uni i shop on my own, and it can be really stressful when people are waiting behind you while you struggle away!

 

[Race]

It's like a challenge isn't it...?

"Sir - you truly look incapable of placing your groceries into bags, so I shall patronise you by offering some help. You retard."

It's obviously part of their training to ask, but they need to work on their enthusiasm a bit more, it makes me smirk when they sit there with a face like a smacked arse when you INSIST you need some help!

 

[British Bulldog]

And they even ask if you're only buying a few things.

If they're daft enough to ask me if I need help packing 3 or 4 items then i'm daft enough to say yes and let them get on with it.

 

[Seagullible]

Woolies pee me right off at the mo with the 'have you got everything you came for?' followed by 'XYZ product is on special offer at £5 and for just an extra £3 you can have some chocolates. Would you like me to add this to your purchases?'

 

[Lady Bracknell]

In the local Waitrose they manage to make this request sound genuinely helpful - and if you are plastered like wot I am at the moment, it's a courtesy I welcome. Not that I actually take them up on it because I've got a system of packing groceries quickly and cack-handedly. In Tesco, however, they've perfected the art of irritatating the perfectly capable packers or ignoring the customers who might genuinely need help. But having watched the enthusiastic but truly chaotic results that the Scouts created in Sainsburys a couple of Christmasses ago, I decline their assistance very politely and bung some dosh in their collecting tin instead.

 

[Stoichkov]

I purchased some cheap £9.99 xmas lights at Homebase at the weekend and the assistant asked me at the till if I would like to take out a 3-year insurance policy for them!

needless to say I signed myself up

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Waitrose is a partnership owned by the people that work there - that's why they actually sound genuine.

Commercial on TV at the moment for some grocery chain (maybe Somerfield??) where old bag wife and cashier chat whilst hubby sent off to buy stuff. He comes back with the things but has forgotten the tonic. She sends him back then turns to the cashier, rolls her eyes and says "What are they like!!". Cashier laughs. I HATE that commercial. Patronising, sexist stereotyping in much the same vein as "Do you need help packing you incompetent fool who is probably only doing the shopping once a year...where is the wife anyway?"

 

[Napper]

i always find if you unload all your fruit and veg first as this takes longest to put through the till, by which time you can have at least 10 empty bags ready for the rest. 9 times out of 10 they are really slow anyway

 

[Meade's Ball]

I went to Woolworths yesterday and when i reached the counter with my toys and 'worth it' pack of tumblers the woman asked me if i had everything i wanted. I looked at her for a few seconds wondering if she'd asked me the perfect question, whether she wanted us to visit a cafe, that i had the sort of face she'd like to listen to the words of as i struggled to keep the tasty flapjack crumbs in my mouth mid-sentence, that i seemed tired and lonely and she felt it necessary to offer me attention and out-stretched hand as perhaps my eyes opened and dribbled morosely halfway through the tale of uncertainties. I then looked down at the few, cheap items i had clasped in my mordant arms and nodded apologetically, stating "Yes, i think i have.". £9.87 i spent in total there. I hope no one ever finds out their presents this Christmas were virtually without cost, and that that girl behind counter one day finds someone she immediately wants to spend time with.

 

[Easy 10]

In America, they use elderly suicidal ex-cons to help you pack your shopping you know. I saw it on Shawshank.

Anyway, I had some fun on Saturday in Tesco, Hove. The wife self-scanned a load of items through, paid for them and off she went. Then I rememebered I'd forgotten the SPROUTS, and decided I wanted them badly enough to go back and get some. So I scooped a handful of sprouts (its only me that likes them) into one of those clear plastic bags, and went back to the self-scan thing. I selected the sprouts on the screen, put the bag on the weighing wotsit, and it told me it would cost 27p. Then out of curiosity, I thought I'd find out how much a sprout would cost individually. So I lifted up the bag, took one out weighed and priced it, and it worked out at 3p. It was quite a big sprout though, I probably could have found a few cheaper ones, but I thought "what the hell", popped it back in the bag, and paid for the lot.

I just don't know where the day goes sometimes.

 

[Blackadder]

I do have to have help with packing sometimes because I can't open the bloody bags! It all depends on the batch of bags they have in (at Sainsburys).

I do have some of the decent bags at home but I always seem to forget to bring the damn things.

When the youngsters whiz the goods down to you, make 'em wait for payment.

 

[Lady Bracknell]

Waitrose is a partnership owned by the people that work there - that's why they actually sound genuine.

Sometimes they go beyond mere helpfulness because I was recently offered an oiled youth.

Unfortunately, his services were limited to filling my trolley.

 

[Easy 10]

Sometimes they go beyond mere helpfulness because I was recently offered an oiled youth.

Unfortunately, his services were limited to filling my trolley.

Is that a crafty euphemism ?

 

[Gazwag]

I got told off last week for using the self scan machine when I have more than ten items in my basket

 

[Frutos]

Woolies pee me right off at the mo with the 'have you got everything you came for?' followed by 'XYZ product is on special offer at £5 and for just an extra £3 you can have some chocolates. Would you like me to add this to your purchases?'

Working in Woolies myself, I entirely agree about how much of a pain in the arse all that crap is, both for us to have to ask and for customers to have to be asked. I tend to "forget" half the time.

What's important though is to try to remember not to take your annoyance at this out on the member of Staff doing the asking, they are only doing what they've been told to do by their managers.

 

[Captain Haddock]

Working in Woolies myself, I entirely agree about how much of a pain in the arse all that crap is, both for us to have to ask and for customers to have to be asked. I tend to "forget" half the time.

What's important though is to try to remember not to take your annoyance at this out on the member of Staff doing the asking, they are only doing what they've been told to do by their managers.

I really hate all that Americanised 'up-selling'. It simply doesn't suit the mild disposition of Mr and Mrs Blighty one jot...someone asked me if I: "need any help at all?" At all? It was in HMV! I thought I was safe in there and was sorely tempted to flex my filmic and musical muscles by asking a barrage of awkward questions but I bottled it, reader.....and I, er, couldn't think of anything to say anyway.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

What's important though is to try to remember not to take your annoyance at this out on the member of Staff doing the asking, they are only doing what they've been told to do by their managers.

That's what the Germans said after the war!