At afternoon tea with my extended family today, one of them asked in relation to my spots on 612 ABC: "Do you have to have a grumble about something every week?" I pointed out that it wasn't compulsory, but I usually found something about everyday life annoying enough to talk about. I soon realised I wasn't alone. We got on to the subject of bad service in supermarkets and discount stores. Complaints ran thick and fast, about:
+ How you can set out your things in a sensible order - all the cold things together, the vegetables and meat in one place - and then the person at the checkout will then just put them randomly in different bags;
+ How there's been a new staff intake at one major chain and everybody is hopeless;
+ How the checkout operators can't identify fruit and vegetables (I suggested that next time an operator ask what an item is, the respond with something like: "It's either a cucumber or a zucchini, depending on which is cheaper").
But this was the best one: my sister buys all the new magazines on a Monday morning, and several checkout operators have stopped to flick through them before putting them through the scanner!