99 Responses to “Every store needs to have this policy”

  1. NancyM

    I love it it is so annoy­ing when i have to wait longer in line to pay for or order some­thing because the per­son infront of me is too busy yap­ping on his/her cell phone :top:

  2. Hilda

    I would rather talk on my cell phone than deal with lousy cus­tomer ser­vice. Most of the time those work­ing behind the counter can’t even be both­ered to say hi and don’t acknowl­edge their customer.

  3. Louise

    I feel sorry for any­one who cant even take 5 min­utes of their time to order a cof­fee or fin­ish shop­ping with­out *hav­ing* to take a call. It must suck not get­ting any free/personal time like that. If only there was some way to stop these pesky calls from hap­pen­ing like an off but­ton on your phone.…

    It’s just com­mon cour­tesy and man­ners to inter­act with the per­son in front of you, this is some­thing that is lack­ing on both sides sometimes.

  4. Pettyfan

    I agree with this sign 100%..

    A few weeks back, I was in line at a cof­fee shop. In front of me was this guy, busy typ­ing away on a black­berry. he wasn’t really pay­ing atten­tion to how fast the line was mov­ing. When it was his turn, he still typ­ing away.

    The server looks at me, kinda rolls her eyes. Im get­ting a lit­tle pissed here, for all the rea­sons men­tioned above.

    Next thing that hap­pened stopped me in my tracks,and I felt stu­pid. The guy was deaf and he had been typ­ing his order into the black berry to the server could look after him.

  5. Katrina

    @Pettyfan

    Good story — I think we should all remem­ber that there might be another rea­son for such behav­iour OTHER than “the per­son is rude”. I think a lot of ppl on here need to save their judge­ment and get over themselves.

  6. Sara

    @ Natty. Where exactly did I say it was an emer­gency? I said I get calls I HAVE to take.
    Appar­ently you don’t grasp that peo­ple have jobs that require them to answer. Not the kind of calls that you just ASSume it would be.
    And yes, MOST (not all) stores can sus­pend the trans­ac­tion. But that would be a com­pletely redicu­lous thing to do.

  7. couponfreak

    I don’t think peo­ple under­stand they are not just being rude to the clerk when you are tak­ing your phone call you are being rude to every­one here is an idea you just have to take that call let the per­son behind you go ahead. I work retail and the amount of peo­ple who throw there credit card on the counter and yap on the phone tak­ing one item out at a time is ridiculous(not to men­tion stu­pid what if I dont see it on the counter and some­one walks off with it(credit card). Hon­estly I know many DOCTORS who get life threat­en­ing calls who will wait the under 2 min­utes to do the trans­ac­tion and call back or wait for the call back. And yes I know my ring time which includes your pay­ment time (total trans­ac­tion) it is well over 20 items a minute so do the math even if you have over 100 items and a credit card that you have to dig for or pen­nies that you want to count you are going to be on your way in under 5 min­utes quit being a slave to your phone! I hear so many peo­ple say oh this always rings at the wrong time well its ok to call screen just because some­one wants to talk to you at this very sec­ond doesn’t mean you cant think enough of your­self and oth­ers around you to put what you are doing first. I would love to be able to sus­pend the trans­ac­tion as so many peo­ple with phones then ask after you have rung every­thing thru how much did this come up at how much was that or oh I had coupons did you see this where did you put that.
    I have also had peo­ple who nicely answer their phone and say can you call me back in five min­utes or would you mind hold­ing I will be with you in a minute.I am pretty sure if you are not at your desk in your office it would go to voice mail or if you are talk­ing to some­one you would put the sec­ond per­son on hold.
    As for staff using there phone tell cus­tomer ser­vice where I work you can be fired for it we aren’t even sup­pose to have them on the sales floor.

  10. JP

    There are many rea­sons why ppl hold lines and it’s just not cell­phones. I have seen peo­ple hold the line because their kid starts throw­ing a tantrum all of a sud­den and he/she holds the line by attend­ing their child first and then com­plet­ing the order. Or what about those who take for­ever to find change or their credit cards in their purses when its pay­ing time. Or those who can’t make up their minds about what to buy, seri­ously, think before hand! It’s life and things hap­pen when you least expect it. Maybe a phone call does come and you have to take it. I am sure we have all been a sit­u­a­tion where we are wait­ing for an impor­tant call and it doesn’t come until WE ARE BUSY. If a per­son in front of me is talk­ing on the phone while pay­ing for their order, I hon­estly don’t have any prob­lem. C’mon we have all held lines unin­ten­tion­ally at least ONCE in our life­time for var­i­ous rea­sons apart from answer­ing a ring­ing phone.

  11. bambinoitaliano

    Noth­ing is more obnox­ious than some­one infront of you yap­ping away while being cash out. I think they should put the signs every­where in the check out counter. Unless you are a sur­geon direct­ing an emer­gency oper­a­tion from your cell or you work for NASA and aming a laser beam at a giant mete­orite come crash­ing down towards the earth. Put your god damn cell phone down and fin­ish the task at hand!! Para­phras­ing from a novel : You are just not that important!!

  12. Anne Dougherty

    Excel­lent! This should be pol­icy EVERYWHERE. And it would have to be POLICY see­ing as com­mon cour­tesy is becom­ing obso­lete. I recently went into a con­ve­nience store that I fre­quent on a reg­u­lar basis. My cell phone rarely rings because very few peo­ple have my num­ber. On this occa­sion, as the girl behind the counter was ring­ing up my pur­chase, my phone began to ring. I didn’t answer it, as there was noth­ing that couldn’t wait two sec­onds. As no one I knew was on their deathbed, and no one I knew had the poten­tial to go into labor at that very moment, I saw no rea­son to answer my phone while I was pay­ing for my pur­chase. The cashier, a young girl, actu­ally said to me, “I just really want to thank you for not answer­ing that.” How sad that she has to thank some­one for what should be com­mon courtesy.

  14. roseofblack25

    This should be manda­tory in all stores for ser­vice. Like the no shirt no shoes pol­icy. If you are on your phone then you have to wait until you are off it before being put through the till. The whole thrust­ing the credit card thing at me really ticks me off too. I don’t know how many times peo­ple have thrusted their CC at me while talk­ing on the phone so I can’t tell them they need to put the chip in the bot­tom of the machine…I can’t do any­thing with your card sorry you have to do it your­self and you’re hold­ing up the line. I can’t tell you that since you are talk­ing about noth­ing impor­tant to some­one who could wait 5 min­utes to find out what you are mak­ing for sup­per.
    Also ticks me off the peo­ple that will throw a hand­ful of change on the counter and expect me to count it out for them because they don’t have both hands free to count out what they owe me. Seri­ously?? If you can’t inter­act with me why should I inter­act with you? It’s like the peo­ple that walk up to the till grunt and glare at me and expect me to be pleas­ant. Sorry but its a two way street give the amount of respect you want to receive.

  15. Joyce

    I think this sign is just plain rude. As a sales clerk, your job is to process my trans­ac­tion. There is no need for me to speak to you if I’m busy tak­ing an urgent call. All you have to do is scan the items and take my money. No need for a con­ver­sa­tion or small talk. You’re paid to work the till.… not to tell me when and where to take my calls.

  16. JP

    @Joyce — agreed. Just like how we don’t tell you any­thing when you talk with other cashiers (quite loud actu­ally) across from you while doing a transaction.

  17. Skippy

    I think I should invent a cell phone zap­per and I’d make a mint!

  18. Lulu

    Word to the Wise.….I wax eye­brows and do facials etc for a liv­ing, I am REALLY tired of those that won’t get off the cell/stop tex­ting for 10 mins while I try and per­form good cus­tomer service…I may ACCIDENTALLY take off a lit­tle extra skin if you don’t ”smarten up and get over yourself”…please stop pre­tend­ing you are so impor­tant you look like a rude joke!

  19. T

    Sara…have some respect. The com­ments you con­tinue to make…your “one of those cus­tomers” that is so demand­ing that the world revolves around you. Don’t be so self absorbed and respect oth­ers. Do you answer the phone in the wash­room stall as well? C’mon. Try it for once…don’t answer the phone. You have con­trol over the phone…not the phone con­trol­ling you.

  20. Adam

    Lulu, I love you! I don’t blame you and please, if you ever feel the need to take off a lit­tle extra, just say, “I’m so sorry, your con­ver­sa­tion scared me!”

  21. meghan

    in gen­eral, i don’t own a cell­phone. my hus­band does. But i really think peo­ple have let cell­phones take over there lives and alien­ated them from real human con­tact. Cell phones have there place in this world. every­thing in moderation.

  22. Stephanie

    @ Joyce — Wow. Now who is rude, with or with­out the cell phone.

    I’ve worked retail, off and on, for almost 15 yrs. I really dis­like being ignored.

    Yes, my JOB is to ring you through the till, but we are also trained in cus­tomer ser­vice. I TRAIN my asso­ciates on cus­tomer ser­vice. Step 1 is greet­ing the cus­tomers when they enter the store — that now includes a NOD/ SMILE to the cus­tomer who walks in talk­ing on their cell phone. WE wouldn’t want to be rude now, would we?

    Then we need to fol­low up with a cus­tomer. What are they look­ing for? Who are the shop­ping for — them­selves, a gift? How much are they will­ing to spend? What colour? What size? Or if they know what they came in the store for, do they need assis­tance find­ing the item? Car­ry­ing it to the front? blah blah blah — that works fine, except the cus­tomer who is talk­ing on the phone. Can’t exactly be rude and inter­rupt their call now can we? Just got keep walk­ing around and hope they get off the phone and see WHY they came in the store.

    THEN they come up to the cash. How am I sup­posed to ask if they found every­thing today? I per­son­ally like to ask my cus­tomers how they are “today”. It makes them feel like I care, and I do. I need to ask them how they will be pay­ing. Ask them to sign, if needed. And how the heck am I to thank them for shop­ping at *blank* if they’re yap­ping on the phone? And wish them back to the store?

    I don’t care where I am (Tim’s or any where else). If I am on the phone, I sim­ply say to the per­son on the phone, “Hey, I’m just going into *Blank* I’ll give you a call back when I’m done.” PERIOD. Sheesh. How hard is that? Yes, I do use the phone in-store occa­sion­ally (Hey hon, do we need this item? or Hey hon, what size blind do we need again?…know what I mean? Short and sweet).

    Any­way, it’s not that hard to just “hold the phone” and show some respect. I like my job bc I love the inter­ac­tion with ppl. Kinda hard to do when you are ignored and treated like crap.

  23. bambinoitaliano

    Some of you are such self cen­tre gnats. This is not just about the cashiers job, There are other cus­tomers who’s lives are just as impor­tant as yours. While you press pause on some­one else life. Why don’t you fin­ish this urgent or impor­tant call on the side before you ring in your pur­chase?!! You can’t have your cake and eat it too!

  24. Brooke

    Every­one seems to have var­ied opin­ions. I think respect if the first thing. If you are on the phone while mak­ing a pur­chase, get off. If it is an emer­gency phone call then ask the per­son on the phone to HOLD ON A MOMENT.

    I hon­estly can­not believe there are peo­ple on here try­ing to say they HAVE to answer phone calls. I bet those are the same peo­ple that are dri­ving like idiots because they are on their phones! I pray that SARA doesn’t end up killing some­one in an acci­dent because she HAD to take a call and got distracted.

    I was totally fine with cus­tomers being on their phone, as long as they were apolo­getic and con­sid­er­ate. It doesn’t take much to ask the per­son on the other line to hold a moment. When­ever some­one was rude or on their phone while going through my check­out, I would just be extra polite, because those peo­ple obvi­ously didn’t have the oppor­tu­nity to learn proper man­ners, and I just seem them as rude, grumpy and mis­er­able. For­get them!

  25. Brooke

    And to Joyce who said “There is no need for me to speak to you if I’m busy tak­ing an urgent call.” I hope you don’t have kids, or know any­one who has kids, because we don’t need peo­ple like you breed­ing. Cour­tesy is com­mon sense…actually, after read­ing all this it doesn’t seem like it is! (man­ners, you learn them in kindergarden)

  26. save-a-lot

    I am a Phar­macy Tech­ni­cian and with­out a proper dis­cus­sion with our cus­tomers we could kill you! You are not more impor­tant than fill­ing your med­ica­tions and get­ting proper details so we can actu­ally do our jobs. We used to have a sign but we’re forced to remove it as it was deemed “rude” I now ignore peo­ple until they are fin­ished on their cell­phone. If they try and ask for help I tell them they will get my help once they wrap it up. I have had peo­ple say to the other per­son “ugh I have to get off the phone to get served” (in a super snotty tone). I am also more apt to give a longer wait time because of your rudeness.

  27. Joyce

    @ Brooke

    Don’t worry, I’m not a breeder like you.

    As for those who say, “You don’t have to take that call”.…. I run my own busi­ness and miss­ing a call can mean a mat­ter of $5000 to $20,000 for me. Yes, I need to take that call. Not all of us are stay-at-home moms who’s biggest con­cern is chang­ing diapers.

  28. bambinoitaliano

    @Joyce
    If the call is worth so much and deem impor­tant enough for you. Obvi­ously your pur­chase is unim­por­tant. Step aside and allow oth­ers to go ahead instead of mak­ing oth­ers wait. It’s not a hard choice to make. You are not at the oper­a­tion table. It’s not either or. Just some very basic com­mon sense. Since you are in the busi­ness of mak­ing a $5000 to $20000 deci­sion, you should be able to dis­tin­guish that much I assume.

  29. Lisa

    I’ve been behind some­one who was on the phone the whole time of the trans­ac­tion and then after it was paid for real­ized “wait, this shouldn’t be that much..how much did that and that and that ring in at?” well, if you were pay­ing atten­tion you would eff­ing know and know!

  30. Ciel

    So those cell­phone eti­quette rules that cell­phone users are to observe are mostly not observed. Also, it seems that the mobile phone users have not acquainted them­selves with their phones fea­tures to make reg­u­lar use of direct­ing calls to their voice­mail. Hmmm.…convenience for some folks means incon­ve­nienc­ing oth­ers. Yes, I agree with that visual dis­play of a sign at the counter–too many retail stores let cus­tomers walk over the store staff, not exactly con­ducive to staff turnover rates.

    I dis­like hear­ing a woman talk­ing on her phone in a pub­lic bath­room stall when I and other women are using the wash­rooms at the mall or office build­ings or dept. stores.

  31. Catherine L

    @Joyce

    Your atti­tude is hor­ri­ble. I hope I never have to do busi­ness with you. Refer­ring to moth­ers as breed­ers shows what kind of char­ac­ter you have. A mother’s main con­cern is not chang­ing dia­pers. They have every sin­gle aspect of another human being’s life in their hands, some­thing you obvi­ously do not under­stand. If you can’t have respect for the most impor­tant job in the world, then I can see how you’d think a cashier is too lowly to treat with some com­mon decency. And just for the record I am not a mother and do not plan on being one, but it doesn’t stop me from hav­ing respect for what they do and how dif­fi­cult their job really is.

  32. Rachel

    Sorry Joyce, not buy­ing it. I know peo­ple who are high up in multi-million dol­lar com­pa­nies and they are all capa­ble of let­ting calls go to voice­mail or ask­ing the other per­son to hold while they order coffee/buy lunch/ etc; You”re not as impor­tant as you think you are.

    For those that see no prob­lem answer­ing calls while con­duct­ing busi­ness, I have a ques­tion. Would you take a call in the mid­dle of a date? Would you answer in the mid­dle of a con­ver­sa­tion with your mother or your best friend? If it would be rude to treat your friends and fam­ily that way it’s rude when you do it to strangers too.

  33. Sally

    Its amaz­ing to read how peo­ple “have to” take calls. Remem­ber when there were no cell phones? Life still went on. Trust me there were just as many “impor­tant” must take calls back then and life still went on.…

    Joyce, your just being plain rude. Sim­ple as that. It was a “breeder” that gave birth to you so I think you need to rethink your harsh words.

  35. j

    I agree with Joyce and JP. But I also have real­ized that this site was sup­posed to be a fun place for me to find good deals and free­bies. Not a site to be annoyed by uppity issues such as using a cell­phone in line. As a mat­ter of fact, I may just use my phone in all lines for casual con­ver­sa­tions from now on.

    As for Smart­Canucks, I might just start using other deals web­site instead. That way I don’t have to lis­ten to peo­ples ridicu­lous opinions.

  36. bambinoitaliano

    @J
    Not fun place to be because peo­ple got call out for their obnox­ious behav­ior? It’s a free site . You can come and go as you please. That lit­tle tantrum won’t muz­zled oth­ers opin­ions because you can’t accept how one should behave in a civ­i­lized society.I was going to wish you find more deals in other site. Then I thought about those poor cah­siers and cus­tomers have to wait for you incase you feel like chat­ter away your impor­tant deals at the front counter.

  37. Brooke

    For the one who said they would go to another site because they don’t like the above con­ver­sa­tion, go for it! Unlike your cell phone, you do not HAVE to use this web­site. You don’t have to read these posts either. If you want smart­canucks for deals and free­bies, those forums are very clearly marked. So only go to them. :) I feel like I’m 18 again! (and by that I mean I feel like I am in high­school haha!)

  38. Brooke

    Oh and Joyce, I know all your mother wor­ried about was chang­ing your dia­per. But good moth­ers are busy teach­ing their chil­dren manners.

  39. James

    Any­one else notice the sign in the back­ground, looks like it says to text some­thing in order to get some dis­counted item from this store. A lit­tle odd. One sign telling you get off your phone, a sec­ond ask­ing you to sign up for their tex­ting deals right behind it???

  40. Lori

    Joyce, we all deal with cus­tomers like you and when you leave the build­ing we all have a nice lit­tle name for you too. We don’t con­sider you impor­tant, we con­sider you a b****.

  41. bambinoitaliano

    @Lori
    That’s just a very nice word con­sid­er­ing there are many more option of one can use. It just incensed me that some peo­ple have that kind of self-entitlement atti­tude like the whole world need to kow­tow to them. To these peo­ple I say, get your own island, sum­mit your appli­ca­tion to the UN to be an inde­pen­dent nation and declare your­self as the King or the Queen, then and only then you should feel enti­tled. Oth­er­wise shut your phone and shut your trap and move along. Step­ping down on peo­ple at a retail store does not make you look regal at all. Unless you are Oprah who can afford to tell the store to close down just for your own shop­ping plea­sure by drop­ping hun­dres of thou­sands of dollars.

  42. Alison

    I think this is really silly. Most peo­ple would not think twice about hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a friend or child while going through the line barely pay­ing atten­tion to the sales clerk. I agree it is impo­lite but a sim­ple sorry I am on the phone is suf­fi­cient and con­tinue with your con­ver­sa­tion. As a Mom, I am con­stantly multi task­ing to spend more time with my kids. I say please and thank you to every sales clerk and do not believe that me talk­ing on my phone affects their job. Most often they do not say any­thing to me anyway.

  43. My name

    Peo­ple, let it go, do the job you are paid for, serv­ing your cus­tomers and NOT edu­cat­ing them nor raisng them.
    Your job called: Cus­tomer ser­vice, so serve your cus­tomers PLEASE and stop cry­ing about the way they order their food, and if you don’t like the way things is, go find another job, simple.

  44. Joyce

    @ Lori. Honey, I could care less what a “cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive” says behind me back. Trust me, I have more impor­tant things to attend to. :)

  46. Brooke

    @Joyce, you could care less “what a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive says behind ME back”??
    So far your mommy for­got to teach you man­ners and now gram­mar. So sad..:(

  47. PeaceNLove

    @Joyce you sound like you are the type who would com­plain if the cashier went to the wash­room because they would be wast­ing your time…No lie I had a cus­tomer tell me to my face that I shouldn’t be allowed to use the wash­room while work­ing a 9 hour shift alone (we were very short staffed) because he had bet­ter things to do then wait for me.
    The cashiers are HUMAN they DESERVE to be treated as such.
    I actu­ally really enjoy work­ing store front. I work in the offices but when we are short staffed or busy I will work in the store. I am a peo­ple per­son and there are always 10 very nice amaz­ing peo­ple for every one com­plain­ing per­son that I have to put through. Some­times it makes me want to retreat to the office though out of frus­tra­tion when there is no pleas­ing someone.

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