No, I won't do your shopping for you...

[Grrrrrrr]

Monday morning, I am working out on the pharmacy floor, and I am my usual sleep deprived self. I am puting up merchandise as fast as I can as we were hammered with freight yet again, when one of the techs behind the pharmacy flags me down.

CW = Coworker
Me = Dead turkish poet Nazim Hikmet.

CW: Okay Me, I have a customer on the phone, and she is calling because she has a list of over the counter items, and she wants us to look up the prices.

Me: Did you say a list?

CW: Yes, she wants us to look up the prices for 12 over the counter items.

Me: ...

CW: Come on, can you do this for me?

Me: I... she can't be serious?

CW: She is serious, she said she called Friday and someone in the pharmacy promised her that we would call her back with the prices (bullshit) and they never got back to her. If I write the list will you go get the prices for me?

Me: That is a little ridiculous. If it was one or two items that would be one thing, but 12? That is a shopping list. She can check the prices on the store website... or come in and shop!

CW: Me, don't get me fired.

Me: I don't think we will get fired over this.

I always get along with the above coworker, and she is always a very kind and patient person, but I really felt that this was just a customer crossing the line on blatent inconsideration. My floor manager agreed with me about the request being something that we should not try to accommodate. My two biggest fears about doing the shopping list for the customer was that #2 I did not have the time with all the freight I had. My manager actually had to leave work early for a doctors appointment, and for the first time EVER I had to leave freight for the night crew, which is something I hated to do, and #1 if we do the shopping list for the customer this time, you can bet the bank that there will be a next time. Later on I asked my manager about the customer, and she said not to worry about the customer or the shopping list. The irony: Most of the items on the customers list were NOT pharmacy items.

[Food Lady]

Ya know, it would be a perfectly reasonable request if your store were located in, say, 1952. This lady is obviously living in the past. Everything now is pretty much serve yourself.

[Anthony K. S.]

I completely understand where you're coming from.

Bookstore customers are notorious for this. I still cringe every time I think of all the people who have called us on the phone or come into our store with a long list of books and expected us to find ALL the books for them.


Two stories in particular come to mind :

(1) A woman called us and said, "I have several books that I need for my classes . . ."

<Sigh> I wound up searching through the store for each of the seven titles she gave me, and managed to find four of them. I actually thought that four out of seven was pretty good. Naturally, she thought otherwise.

Not even bothering to say thank you for all of our effort, she asked, "What about the other three books?"

I told her that we could order them for her, and she replied, "No, I need them for a class tomorrow!"

Trying to contain my annoyance, I informed her that there was no way we could get those books for her by the next day. She would have to call a different store and see if they had them on hand.

She then had the nerve to say, "Well, your store is not very comprehensive, then! I wanted seven books and you only have four of them!"

Witness . . . A person who is arrogant enough to (1) expect us to find an entire list of books for her, (2) show no appreciation for all of our effort, and (3) think that the entire question of whether or not we do a good job of maintaining stock is dependent on whether we have the books that she wants.

I bluntly told her, "Ma'am, we maintain stock as best we can, but most of our customers who need books for classes usually order them in advance instead of waiting until the last day to get them."

That seemed to shut her up.

(2) Our company was opening a new bookstore nearby, and one of their managers came to our store looking for a long list of books. We looked them up and told him where he'd be able to find the books in the store, if we had them, and that we'd order for them for him if we didn't.

He seemed genuinely shocked - Shocked! - that he was being expected to go look for the books himself . . . He wound up going to three or four different employees on the floor, trying to get somebody to find the books for him. And, of course, he made sure to toss out a few words about "good customer service."

Again, .

I really felt sorry for the employees who would be working for this guy.

(I finally got fed up and asked our own Manager on Duty to have a word with him. Our MOD understood, nodded, and said "He really should know better," before heading off to find the guy.

Later on, I was talking to one of my co-workers and I noted that the stores in our area frequently have to rely on each other when one store doesn't have a particular book that a customer wants. I darkly reflected on how it was not a good way for a brand-new store to start business, with one of their managers pissing off the entire staff of a nearby store.)


I have often wished that our managers would let us hang a sign above the service desk saying, "WE ARE NOT PERSONAL SHOPPERS!"

[Android Kaeli]

I can understand a couple of items and if the customer was coming in within the next hour to hour and a half, which is usually the case for most of the customers I have on the phone. The only exceptions I'll make myself, is if the customer in question is really nice, and I have Boss Man's approval to do a small list of items for someone. I will not, however, spend an hour of my time trying to find a laundry list of items for a customer that may not even come in to buy these items from the store.

There was this one lady that had a list of items that she wanted us to find and for us to send the items to the closest store to her to pick and pay for. Which would be fine and dandy if not for the following reasons:

A. She hadn't faxed three pages of items that she wanted us to find,
B. She actually had someone else write the list for her, as most of it wasn't readable by even the DM,
C. She didn't live half way up the next state and well out of the way of our local UPS route, which would have cost a bit more to send,
D. Didn't throw a hissy fit when not only did the SM say no way, but the DM refused to do anything about it,
AND
E. It wasn't over $250-plus of various art supplies and other such things ( from what little was legible on the list anyways ).

[mattm04]

We had a SC call say, the deli and place a order of a 1/4 lb of cheese, then hang up and call grocery and rattle off a list of 15-20 things such as peanut butter, cereal, bread, etc, and repeat for every dept in the store. Someone would come in for her and pick it up the next day.

We did it once, than of course we had to do it again said the SC with the famous last words "you did it before." And we had to pack this specially, say two plastic bags for the cheese, in opposite directions. Even if we did the SC would call back and complain that is was wrong and argue as long as we let them.

We knew when the SC would call because their would be a page for say dairy, 2-3 minutes later another, a minuter later another, a minuter later another and repeat 8-10 times. You just knew it would be your turn soon. .Eventually we tallied the hours, and the GM and DM stopped it.

They kept calling bet we were told to tell them no and hang up. We later learned that they had started calling us because every other supermarket in the area did the same thing.

Why the SC couldn't give her helper/relative the list I will never know.

[fireheart]

Thankfully we haven't had this happen to us...yet.

Worst we'll get is someone wanting us to hold 1 or 2 items overnight and they'll pick them up the next day. As we're a small store, we will hold them, but only 1-2 items MAX. NOT half a freaking trolley (unless it's a school or social group order)

[SuperRTL]

I've had people do this before. Now, if they're calling from another store, need the fabric today and are just on their way over, we'll hold a bolt or 2 of fabric for them at the cut table. It's the ones that call with a list of fabrics they need, no numbers, just descriptions and expect us to cut them in to multiple pieces and hold them to pick them up in the "next couple days".

No, I am not your personal shopper. You will walk your butt into the store. You will find the fabric you want. You will get one cut of fabric per bolt. If you're nice, I'll tell you to have a nice day.

[depechemodefan]

Sometimes when I go through the pharmacy drive-thru, I want to ask, "can you get me milk" or "can you get me..." but I figure they are busy, and if not busy, they just don't want to make a habit of it.

[Kiwi]

this was one of my pet peeves at the craft store, my department had sewing notions and at the beginning of every school year we got heaps of mother/daughter combos trying to just hand us a list of stuff they needed....

honey if you want a personal shopper go to the EXPENSIVE sewing shop across the way that has 20 staff for a shop 1/10th the size and they will collect everything for you. There are 6 of us for the entire shop right now, I have 10 people waiting in line, 2 waiting on the phone and you don't even know if you need a flatback or round needle ...it ain't gonna happen!

[Ben_Who]

It makes me wonder if there's some sort of failure of...well, organizational literacy, I guess you might say, on the part of the customer. That is, when they walk into a store, they're incapable of finding things on their own, because they can't "read" the logic of the shelves and discover where they are.

To someone like this, a supermarket must be chaos. Department stores would be a nightmare. An employee might be able to point them in the general direction of the shoe department, but once there, the customer would be helpless.

I'm sure that most of the time, the fetch-and-carry routine is just for people who can't be bovvered, but I wonder if there's one elderly customer who's had someone holding her hand all her life and is actually incapable of finding something on a store shelf.

Love, Who?

[mattm04]

I'm sure that most of the time, the fetch-and-carry routine is just for people who can't be bovvered, but I wonder if there's one elderly customer who's had someone holding her hand all her life and is actually incapable of finding something on a store shelf.

Love, Who?

That was most likely the case with the SC i mentioned before. They were used to the old days whey you went up to the counter adn gave the clerk the list, then Piggly Wiggly changed that.

[I don't work here]

I think that people are just lazy, and in this economy.......

It really bugs me when people do this. I make the effort to find what I am looking for, and if I can't find it, then I will ask someone. Never have I given an associate MY shopping list - I don't expect it. I especially hate it when people are barely in the front door and they ask if we carry an item...in grocery... and I am in fashion.... and then get and at me when I can't help them (do these thongs look like potatoes???). I am all for customer service, but this pushes my buttons (and not the good ones!!)

[Lace Neil Singer]

Happens sometimes at the petrol station. You see, with the supermarket over the road selling tons of different grocery items, we are limited as to what we can sell at the petrol station. What we tend to have, apart from the standard junk food, is bread, milk, sandwiches, cakes, biscuits and a few random basics, like butter. We occasionally get a customer coming in and asking for something we don't stock. Sometimes the conversation goes like this:

Customer: Do you have catfood/cheese/apple juice/baby food/insert other grocery item we don't stock here?
Me: Sorry, we don't.
Customer: Oh. Can you go over the road and get me some?

NO NO NO! WE ARE NOT PERSONAL SHOPPERS! ARGH!

[Becks]

Some grocery stores *do* have personal shopping.

Fun!

[Peppergirl]

Some grocery stores *do* have personal shopping.

Fun!

God, can you imagine? I wonder what the markup for a service like this.