At my age.......

[englishangel]

I don't often get asked for ID when buying an age restricted item, but I self-scanned a DVD in Tesco today and when it came up as 'age-restricted' the young male assistant* said I could have it if I had ID.

And this pornographic/violent/morally corrupting film?

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.



*he was joking

[J.R.]

Oh, what a modern world we now live in !

'Elf & Insanity.'

Kom-pen-pay-shun claims.

You couldn't make it up, could yer ?

[sejintenej]

I don't often get asked for ID when buying an age restricted item, but I self-scanned a DVD in Tesco today and when it came up as 'age-restricted' the young male assistant* said I could have it if I had ID.

And this pornographic/violent/morally corrupting film?

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

*he was joking

Whilst I can understand your post, look at it from the other side; according to the bestseller supermarket cashiers live a life of hell - customer rudeness, customer accusations of getting the bill wrong, customers' stupid complaints, management offensiveness ........................... Remember that if you were a well made up teenager looking a groggy 70 then he personally would have been taken to court and fined had he not checked.
YOU were brought up to be polite and wouldn't be rude so he realised that here was the one on a hundred person in front of whom he could let off a bit of steam, politely!

I hate to think what Rudolph was getting up to to be age restricted (and I don't want to know); that is merely more evidence that our government and authorities are getting totally obsessed with violence and sex. Don't you think you should report the cameraman and director to Social Services because I am sure Rudolph was under 18 (the age of consent) when the CD was filmed?

[cupcakemom]

Along similar lines ... recently a friend of mine took her strapping fifteen year old son supermarket shopping. They just picked up a few bits and pieces ... including a bottle of wine. He offered to carry the carrier bag. When she handed it to him the cashier said she would have to carry the bag herself ... We're not exactly helping these young lads give their mums a hand now and again, are we!

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I regret to say that TBA has remarked to friends " He IS over 18 --- but doesn't act it !! "

[sejintenej]

I regret to say that TBA has remarked to friends " He IS over 18 --- but doesn't act it !! "

Just remind the Lady that you do not intend to compete with Charlie Chaplin who fathered a child by some young(ish) slip of a girl when he was in his late 80's. That sort of thing is a pre-18's predeliction so you are not "acting like it".

[Angela Woodford]

Whilst I can understand your post, look at it from the other side; according to the bestseller supermarket cashiers live a life of hell - customer rudeness, customer accusations of getting the bill wrong, customers' stupid complaints, management offensiveness .......

David makes some excellent points again.

Last Christmas, I thought it would be fun and a source of some extra spondulicks if I got a job as an Extra-Christmas-Staff Girl at a famous High Street chain store. Fun? "Life of Hell" really does sum it up. However, the customers surged and jostled and bustled and queued in three floors of hell in a sort of resigned acceptance that this was Purgatory, and that they just must endure it for two more weeks before the Heaven of getting Christmas over.

Christmas? There was only one small reference to anything traditionally religious - I encountered some Frankinsense Room Spray. The whole heaving hectic remorseless operation was determinedly secular. Nativity? What Nativity?

I was amused at the panic with which many customers added a new bathmat and loo brush to their huge stashes of presents.

Management offensiveness... oh yes! I know that companies have to be careful about staff security. However, I never knew when I would be pounced upon by a Security male-and-a-female and told to empty and turn out my pockets, open up my locker, supply a taste from my bottle of water, show the content of my make-up bag, empty out my purse and step out of my shoes. This could happen twice in the day. I was snapped at with fury by my sharp-tongued "coach" when I asked if I could make a trip to the loo. (The Ladies Staff Loo was on an upper floor - escalator trip , stair climb and two card-protected security doors.) Nobody has spoken to me with quite so much shaming scorn since Miss Jukes! It was humiliating. At my age!

I found myself becoming more and more exhausted. The sales ethos was completely task-orientated. Nobody seemed very interested in the products/garments at all. I'd like to say that, with the drive for "queue-busting", that this was just a Christmas thing, but I think that it was probably the case all year round. Nobody cared about what they were selling. The emphasis during the day was who was enduring at the till, who was guarding against theft (rather than helping a customer try on something splendid) in the changing room and who was categorising discarded items to be put back. The nursing world would have called this "task orientation".

You could be seen to be displaying mega-efficiency by voluntarily crossing off who had gone where on the who-goes-where chart! The most efficient muttered furiously to themselves for extra effect when a manager rushed by.

I was in trouble for allowing a disabled customer in a wheelchair who wanted to try on a bra into our non-lingerie changing room. (She and her chair pusher were worn out in the crowd.) It seemed that it was a legal minefield if I had helped with the bra if I wasn't a qualified bra fitter. Oh dear. But they were so tired!

One manager behaved very like a prison wardress - stern, bossy, righteous, gimlet-eyed and furious whenever possible. I was summoned to her office - but was granted a moment of mirth when it appeared that a customer had rung in to say that I had been the most helpful person ever - totally wonderfully marvellous! "Continue to give good service" said the Wardress fiercely, and with marked reluctance. It was obviously agony for her.

I never did master every function of the till + vouchers, giftcards, special offers, three-for-the-price-of-two, a points system, etc, etc. I just don't have that sort of brain. Horribly, I seemed to exert a negative influence on barcodes.

Well, it has been an experience. At my age!

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

OH ANGELA !!

What a tale of woe ! But it does remind me of the pact which TBA and I, have, of turning a Disaster into an Adventure, and . witha bit of "Embroidery" dining out on it for months !!!

I really think your splendid and detailed Saga would qualify !!

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Also --- at my age --- I was senarading TBA, one morning , this week, with "All the things you are"

I'll be seing you, in every lovely Summer's Day
In every thing that;s bright and Gay
I'll always think of you that way ----------

Collapse of TBA in a fit of Giggles ! ------What has happened to our Language ?