The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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12:59pm on Saturday, 25th January, 2020:
Anecdote
Three separate incidents from today's visit to Sainsbury's.
In the first, a woman was patrolling the milk aisle, looking intently at the offerings. Frustrated, she returned to her husband and said, "They don't do pints of milke any more". He accepted her statement and they left, disappointed. The thing is, Sainsbury's does do pints of milk: they're on a separate shelf directly above where the 2-pint and 4-pint bottles are, right at this woman's eye-level. They were right there, but she didn't spot them.
In the second incident, shortly after, I was standing behind a woman who was looking in the pork section of the chilled meat aisle. She was blocking my access to the pork steaks we're having for lunch tomorrow. After a few seconds, she turned away, exasperated, and said to her approaching husband, "They don't have any pork steaks". He didn't get to answer, as she continued with a long rant about how it's ridiculous that you can't get pork steaks in Sainsbury's on a Saturday morning. The thing is, Sainsbury's does do pork steaks. I was looking through a pile of about 8 pairs of pork steaks while she was ranting, with more behind. They were right there, in front of her, but she didn't spot them.
The third incident was some time later in the biscuit section. A woman was on the phone, saying to whoever was on the other end that she couldn't find any coffee cookies but they did have some pecan cookies, would those do? The coffee cookies were right there, next to the pecan cookies, but she didn't spot them.
In all these cases, it's entirely possible that the customers were lying and knew perfectly well that the goods they wanted were available, they just had reasons to make it out that they weren't available.
No, of course I didn't point out that what they were looking for was right there. How polite do you think I am?
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Copyright © 2020 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).