Cheating AND Bad Customer Service?

Today I stopped by a food store, which shall remain nameless. It was late and there were very few customers in the store at the time. Despite the low number it appeared that all three of us were headed to the deli counter at the same time.

As the three of us stood waiting for the one clerk to acknowledge us I watched as she filled containers with chicken salad, one after another. At first I thought she was doing this to stock a display. I thought something was fishy about what she was doing when she put a small box of yellow stickers up on the scale and created a “chicken salad” price sticker that weighed in at less than three ounces and attached it to each container. She set those containers aside and finally offered to help the man in front of me.

As I was still waiting I watched as another employee came by and thanked the deli girl for the containers and took them away. Finally the deli clerk turned to me and I got my order.

I went to the check out and that same clerk who took the under priced chicken salad was there ringing up her own chicken salad. I didn’t say anything because I have no idea what the store’s deal is with employees, but it all seemed very fishy because of the box of stickers being used as the weight on the scale, rather than the actual chicken salad.

I am not accusing the clerks of cheating, but at the least it seems like they should wait on customers before they wait on each other. It is not normal to use some lighter weight item to create a price sticker for things that must be weighed, and it certainly should not be done in front of customers. I’m not sure I will visit this store again, or perhaps it won’t matter because I’m not sure how long they can last with these kind of employees.