Being well aware that many Australian and others would consider the British shop assistant rude and sullen (though I find being asked how I am and addressed by my first name by someone i don't know, and who doesn't really give a damn (my dear) about me, annoying and obnoxious), I am constantly surprised at how the Australian supermarket shopper is quite content to wait in a large slow moving queue because said shop has only staffed 3 of it's 18 checkouts at peak time, only muttering if the assistant forgets to say 'hello how are you' in that bored I don't give a f#$%$%%^^$ about you really tone. Yet in England there would be shouts and cries from the waiting mob for more tills to be opened - even when all available tills are open.

I know, I used to work in a UK supermarket.

And, finding myself needing to defend to some extent the brow beaten poorly paid (in the main) shop assistant - it has to be said that after a while using a calculating device, one becomes dependant on it, so what the tills says must be correct, especially with scanning - this is one reason why I don't have a problem with calculators in the classroom, so long as the little darlings can perform basic maths before being introduced to them.

I also have to say that as most shop management is only concerned about getting money into the tills, the cashiers are actively discouraged from thinking for themselves, and many shops (David Jones ooops) manage to have internal procedures that take up more of the assistants time (such as in refunds) than if the assistant was allowed to think for themselves and worry about internal problems later - or better still the internal problem should be the manager's responsibility.

Still I remember when in Australia the greeting phrase was ' Y'er Right there', so I suppose 'Hello how are you' is an improvement.

Please don't get me started.!!!

Colin

:: Fidgety, muttering customer at last hits the streets with drum
:: of CDs vowing never ever again to pick the wrong item off the
:: shelf
--
cdb, colin@btech-online.co.uk on 23/02/2008

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