As a till monkey myself
I shall put some (potentially useful) advice in the comments section here. Far too long for the main QOTW.
( Bats, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 7:45, 4 replies)

Here we go.
My advice is to keep calm and not get into an arsey fit if a price is wrong when an item scans. Mistakes do happen, the person on the till isn't out to get you and shelf-edge labels don't always get changed properly and more often than not you should be able to get it at the price advertised.

I always do my best to keep customers on the right side of me and the supermarket, not for any loyalty but for my own mental health. If a customer sulks or gets sarky, it really can ruin the rest of my day - smiley customers are much more sociable.

At a nationwide supermarket (Grazda?), the best course of action is to talk to your till monkey first - if she can't help or isn't sure, she should ring her supervisor. If they won't help, offer to show them to the SEL (shelf-edge label) that's wrong - but don't do what a previous customer has done and accuse me to my face that because I work for Grazda, I'm obviously trying to scam him out of his money because 'computer says no'.

Oh, and if you get IDed and aged between about 22-30: your till monkey can see you're old enough. We're not all fucking idiots, just some of us. Grazda has a bloody stupid IDing policy (Challenge 25) that gets us as checkout staff a metric fuckton of complaints. There's nothing a seasonal colleague working lates and getting stick from her manager for overtime can do about the policy.

You have two options if you are legal, but without ID: 1) The till monkey cannot sell you the product once she's asked you for ID and you don't have it. That's the store policy, at least. She'll take it off you. Go get another one, go to a different till and hope you don't get IDed. If you do, you obviously look very young and should either carry ID or grow a beard. If you don't: Yay, beer! Option 2) Get into a huge sulk, say you're the manager of the local nightclub and you NEED this crappy bottle of champagne for an event. This might potentially work if you, unlike the lad before, don't look 12.

If you are legit, but your mates aren't - get them to disappear LONG BEFORE you get to the till. You never know when you might get asked for ID, 'and where have your friends gone?'. It's called 'intent to supply', and you can be refused the sale of anything age restricted because of it. Unsure if this is just where I work or more generally but it's worth noting down.

This sort of thing isn't usually a problem, but I've had to refuse a sale a few times because young men assume I've gone blind to them swapping cash then all but one scarpering.

Tip: At Grazda at least, offers change on a Tuesday. They also change frequently. If it's cheap now, stock up - more often than not the price will hike back up within a day or three.

Tip 2: Damaged packaging CAN be a cause for price reduction. If your bag of cereal has split, either ask for a new one or if you're feeling cheeky, ask for 30p off and you'll just stick the split one in a carrier bag. We don't want split cereal over our tills, so chances are you'd get the discount.

Tip 3: Self scan. The self scan machines operate on weight. The 'bagging area' is the long rectangle of metal that you put your bags on, and it is extremely sensitive. As someone who works on them, here's how I put stuff through. Scan the item so the scanner beeps and (unless it's glass) chuck it down *anywhere* on that rectangle. Bag it later. The machine can't tell, it just wants the weight. Once you've pressed 'Finish and pay', the scale is turned off and you can shuffle and arrange your shopping to your heart's content. People picking up and putting down carrier bags mid-scanning is the #1 cause of 'unexpected item' errors.

Last tip: Reductions (sticking yellow barcodes on things to make them cheaper) occur at set times of the day. There's first, second and last reductions, which depending on the store happen mid-afternoon, mid-evening and just before closing time/11 o clock (if it's 24 hours). If you're a real bargain hunter, it can be worth your while asking someone with a large gun-shaped scanner what time the last reductions are - s/he'll most likely tell you and there's some bargains to be had if you're lucky.

I hope this enlightens somewhat, and lessens a few complaints?
( Bats, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 8:06, closed)

Great tips there, thank you!
I love Grazda. I pop in there around 9:15pm after support group meetings and nearly always pick up knock-down curries and pizzas. Cheers me up NO end!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 8:58, closed)

My other half works for De-Asda as an events co-ordinator or something similar (they changed the job title recently)
and I have to agree with the above, + the extra 10% discount is always useful!
(Kip, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 15:16, closed)

I work for Borrisons...
*applause for the list*

The self-scan tills are the worst. I once had to tell some guy to keep his bag on the weighing area 5 p**sing times... *sighs* bad times.
(fuzzyjumpers savaged a lion on, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 19:22, closed)