How frustrating it must be for assistants in stores. I have
seen this happen before but not on such a scale. I first noticed the young lady
by the salad bar, hard not to while her toddler son was loudly reprimanded for
touching the fresh goods. It wasn’t his fault that boredom set in while Mum was
talking on the cell phone. I nearly gave her a piece of my mind but decided
against it and carried on shopping. I met them again at the cash-out and the
phone was still in use. While the assistant sorted and bagged the goods the
young woman continued to send a message to (what looked like) a Facebook
friend. That done, she put the phone in her pocket but immediately pulled it
out to answer a call. To her credit she gave a loud groan but instead of
ignoring it she answered and launched into a long chat. Meanwhile, her young
son helped himself to a few bars of chocolate. Did she notice? No! I was
pleased the assistant charged for the chocolate while the phone call continued.
I pity the poor lad when he was found out!
On another day, in another store, I waited while the girl ahead
of me in the queue bought and paid for what looked like a month’s food supply, doing
the lot whilst chatting on her phone. One handed she emptied her basket, paid
for the goods, took her change and walked out of the store without so much as a
nod or a thank-you or even a cheerio to the very patient assistant. Again at
our corner shop I watched the same behaviour. I said to the guy behind the
counter, ‘you should charge them extra since you do all the work. He laughed
and said he often thought of shouting ‘Fire’ to see what would happen.
It’s always girls. I’ve never seen a lad behaving like that, but
maybe that’s because lads don’t do shopping. Don’t you think that kind of
behaviour is appalling? Have phones completely taken over our lives? Come to
think of it, I use mine a lot, but if someone rings when I’m shopping I ignore
it and hope whoever it is will leave a message. I mean, I can always ring them back!
