Enough already! No, I don’t want fries with that

No this does not annoy me at all. I am perfectly capable of saying no as most of you should be. I do sometimes feel sorry for the assistant/bank worker/shop worker who is told to ask this question. I sometimes say “yes” when asked do I want help packing my bag and the response is usually one of great surprise. You should all say yes even if you just have a couple of items….just for devilment.
But it is certainly not worth getting annoyed over.

Richard’s article quotes my letter – which, granted, may have been a bit strongly worded, just as I got home from town, the post office being one chore too many! I’m struck by the generosity of the people commenting so far and wondering, am I really so uncharitable?! I don’t actually object when a shop assistant mentions a cheap deal on, for example, a bar of chocolate, as it takes a second to be told and a second to say no. But it’s the big financial institutions who try and sell you their financial products that bother me (nb not the person at the counter who’s obliged to do it – which is another reason I’m annoyed with the institutions!). Many of the banks are not in the public’s good books, for good reason, and listening to cold-selling when you’re innocently withdrawing your money or purchasing stamps – all couched in friendly sales-speak – really does irritate me.

I get really irritated by petrol stations that make it compulsory to buy chocolate if you buy fuel with a credit card. Well I tell Mrs PA that they say that anyway.

What I always do is say “you know, despite what your manager told you, upselling really *doesn’t* work”. If they’re then dumb enough to repeat their pitch (most of them aren’t), I say “see?, look at it not working on me right now”. I’ve only once had someone dumb enough to try and launch back into their script a third time (in WH Smiths), at which point I just handed my item to them and asked them to return it to the shelf for me as I was no longer interested in even making the purchase I’d come in for let alone listening to more of their failed attempts to upsell. I sincerely hope their trip to the freezer to return the item in question (an ice lolly) peed them off, and I’ve a feeling it did.

It’s only when you waste the assistant’s time as much as they are wasting yours that this discoureous and greedy behaviour will stop. And please don’t attempt to make me feel sorry for the person behind the till – they get paid to annoy people, so they can deal with the consequences. By not patronising them and playing along with their attempt to impose on my good manners, maybe I’ll even encourage them to get a job that’s actually worthwhile.

I am a WHSmith employee. I know you are annoyed at being asked to buy extra stuff but we have no choice. We have targets to reach. We also have to scan and give out a voucher with every transaction. If our standards are below expected then we will get fired.

As s person who works in retail and indeed has to ask these questions on a daily basis; I would like to let you know that we have to make a percentage of our sales on upsells. They normally want £30 an hour in upsells. If you don’t meet this percentage for the week you are given a warning, 3 weeks you are brought into the office for a talk on where you went wrong, 3+ you most likely lose your job.
I know this is not the customers fault but maybe think next time someone offeres you an extra candy bar.