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David Porter » Blogs: My Own

Grumpy Old Shopper 1 – Announcements

I try to avoid shopping like the plague. It’s the seventh circle of hell, made worse by the fact that I am in the minority, quite clearly. For so many customers and retail workers, it is a vocation.

No choice, had to go to Norwich as we needed stuff for an upcoming family wedding and our brief holiday.

I just wanted a pair of trousers and a jacket to teach in again next term, which starts soon enough.

Bad enough that this necessitated sweating in a cubicle and trying on 4 – yes four pairs of trousers. By the time, I’d chosen what I wanted and got two pairs of the same, I was exhausted.

They didn’t have any jackets for my age and – I hesitate at the word – style. So I settled for that. My old jackets will do. Very cleverly my wife had got my task out of the way at the beginning, so I could be allowed to sit somewhere and read and/or people- watch while she got the remaining 90% of the items off our list. I sat and calmly tried to analyse what was so bad about the experience. Thirty minutes of my life that I can never have back.

The most annoying thing was the announcements. Attention please, staff call for Kirsty, please pick up extension 356, that’s Kirsty, please pick up extension 356, thank you…

Why in the name of sanity do they have to say it twice? Is Kirsty so thick or lost in conversation with some customer that she is unaware of a message?

Why can’t she have a little bleeper thing, so the entire shop doesn’t have to hear the instructions?

But the most annoying thing is why do they say thank you, at the end? They all do it. Tescos are the most irritating of all, as I have to listen to several such idiocies each time I’m forced to get what I want in that place. Their worst announcement is – all till trained staff to checkouts, all till trained staff to check outs, thank you … why can’t they just send an electronic signal to all such staff to get to the tills and let sensible customers part with their money, collect their loyalty points and get out?

Who is being thanked? That’s the Big One. Kirsty for being a moron? Or me for being forced to listen to it?

Nobody else seems to be aware. My wife just doesn’t hear these messages.

Neither it seems do the staff they are intended for.

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