Give the check out assistant a medal and a promotion

I wish I had
a) been the checkout assistant
b) had the nerve to respond by getting out my own mobile phone and talking into it until she had stopped

Good for her, maybe the customer might learn a few manners from this!

Oh come on! You go to Sains to get your shopping, not to have a social event with the checkout lady.

Should be sacked.

Yes - 'The customer is always right'...

Common courtesy as far as I am concerned to acknowledge whoever is helping me where ever I am. It would have been polite to have made some communication with the checkout person, a quick., 'thank you, I am ready, sorry about the phone' wold have probably been the thing to have done!

If the woman with the mobile did this then the checkout person may have been over sensitive, if she ignored the checkout person completely then she was just rude!

I think the staff have enough to deal with without having to listen to other peoples conversations,and her actions must have registered some thing for her to ask at customer services,my eldest boy now works at S's as a Store Manager and what he tells me about the rude way people treat the staff would make your hair stand on end,how he stays polite all day I have no idea,but then he was brought up with manners and would not even think to be using his phone whilst conducting any other business.

I wonder if the customer even took the hint. I have the opposite problem at our local shop - the assistants are always on the phone & rarely look at you while serving.

You can still nod and say "thank you" while you are on the phone.

Ah, that's different Gasabut. I hate that. We are the paying customer.

How did your name come out like that?!!!

Gadabout. Sorry.

I think staying on the phone when going through the checkout is not just the height of bad manners it is dehumanising the checkout operator and treating her as if she was a machine. If she wanted to be served by a machine why didn't she use the self service tills?

Probably because the sainsbugs ones are liable to bugger up.

I think the checkout assistant was quite right, but I see that Sainsburys have apologised and offered the woman some vouchers! All of which makes me fear that the checkout assistant may have been reprimanded, or worse, for embarrassing the company. I hope not.

The checkout assistant is doing a job. So long as she does it and you nod a thank you at the end, why should it matter to her if you are on the phone or not?

She was being ridiculous!

I agree.

I don't

This story has even reached the radio news in New Zealand. Apparently, the majority of comments in the UK about it are supportive of the checkout assistant. I reckon that mobile phones are the invention of the devil and foster appallingly bad manners, so my vote goes to her as well.

I have never known Sainsburys self-service tills fail to work. I just resent using them.

about it reaching the news in New Zealand!

Wonder if the checkout assistant is a GNetter and perhaps will see the support here for her

I find these links to the Daily Mail online interesting. These stories never appear in the paper version and yet they are searched out by trusty GNetters! Well done them

I'm in the WRVS and work in my local hospital coffee shop. Many customers order and pay whilst glued to their phone conducting a conversation. I think it's discourteous and wouldn't do it personally but then sometimes, it is necessary, especially in a hospital. Not a problem as, ultimately, they are the customer.

She was being ridiculous.

Hmm. I don't think I would want to do that to a volunteer.

I have the same mindset as a volunteer as I did in my own business, a sale is a sale. No problem, I'll smile pocketing the money

I've never used a self service till in any of the super markets,they are in fact doing someone out of a job so I refuse point blank to use them,there is a row of 8 in the near by Tesco with one girl over-seeing the lot so to me that is 7 jobs lost to the local community.

Good point Glammanana