The Back Wall

The other day we went to Loblaws to get some much needed groceries - at that point we couldn’t even remember the last time we went out to buy more than just the staples (milk, bread, pop etc), so we ended up buying A LOT of groceries!

We like the planet, so we brought our own bags with us to the store. For some reason, doing this seems to insult the cashiers at grocery stores, which I’ve written about on my other blog before. I guess this is what set our cashier off. Or she was having a bad night. Who knows.

What I do know is that that night I had the WORST experience grocery shopping ever. And until I went to the cash there were no problems.

We put our groceries on the belt at cash #10, which was being worked by a lady that I thought looked friendly, who was probably in her early to mid-40’s. She looked like the mom-type. Maybe this raised my expectation, but really I don’t think it was that.

Matt told her we had our own bags, and went to the end to bag our stuff. She didn’t respond. She didn’t say hi to me when I walked up to the cash area to wait for her to finish ringing everything through. She threw our groceries down to the bagging area. When she was finished ringing everything through, she just stood there. She didn’t tell me how much it came to like a normal cashier would do to prompt payment. She just stared at me with a stony expression. So I took my debit card out slowly to hand it to her, still waiting for her to tell me how much it is - I mean, some people decide how they’re going to pay based on the amount! Once the payment went through, she just handed me my card and the receipt. No thank you, no have a nice night. Nothing. Stone faced.

If I ever see her at a cash again, I’ll head straight for the self-checkout - at least that will tell me my total and thank me once the transaction is completed. Then that lady can wonder why she was so easily replaced by a machine.

Overall customer service rating at Loblaws (Queens Quay Market, Toronto): 2/10