Grrr! Argentine Supermarkets

johnw100

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I wish i could understand supermarket mentality here, i really do. Like the driving I`ll never get used to it.

For example today I went at a quiet period, arrived to an near empty car park and someone had decided to park across one of the lanes of the car park in a big 4x4 toyota truck right in front of the entrance. They must have thought the wide grey area between the white lines wasnt where cars drive but in fact where 4x4 owners can park their big trucks and egos. Quality!

So anyway, went in to do our weekly shop. Tried to find carrots and potatoes, none on the shelves!? Went to get onions, they looked like theyd been run over on the route somewhere. Went to get some blue cheese nothing, terma - none, cornflakes - nada,Thoughts of Venezuela were creeping in.

Finished shop and went to the checkouts. 20+ tills and only two were staffed. About 6 people queuing, I check their trolleys to work out which might go faster. First 2 people in our queue went quite fast and then , theres always one, the guy in front of me with the full trolley. The cashier started putting all his goods through and he was just watching. Then when the Kilimanjaro mountain of food in front of his face got too much and things started to fall off , he decided he`d start bagging up, as slow as is possible. The cashier then started to help him, I was thinking of helping him aswell, she filled 5 bags whilst he was still confused about what he should put in his first empty bag, the big bag of cheesy puffs or his brains that had dribbled out of his ears earlier. So he gave up, confused, still holding the cheesy puffs and went back to watching the cashier fill the rest of his shopping into bags.

Meanwhile, I was putting the contents of my trolley onto the conveyor belt, I was taking it slow as it seemed we`d have all day, so the guy behind me thought he`d try it on and start putting his shopping on the belt as well even though I still had half a trolley full to unload. So I had to ask him to push back his shopping to get all of mine on the belt.

Then once the guy in front had all his shopping bagged up, he realised he`d forgotten some toilet rolls. So off he went . A minute later he came back with the toilet rolls and 3 women. These women and their 20 items of shopping all came past me , not a word was said, and then the penny drops, they were all one family. Its the good old Argentinan trick of getting someone to queue up and then when they get to the front of the queue, in come the rest of the family for a cheeky shopping drop at the last second. Its like the "hand of god" for supermarkets/banks/post offices/airports/delete as applicable.

Then to add to my disbelief ,a couple of items of the wifes part of the shop didnt have bar codes on. So the shop staff had to go and find replacements. They paid , partly with a credit card, partly in cash , just to speed up the process and left. Again not a word, no gracias, no disculpas, nada. I mumbled "de nada" under my breath as they left.
The staff didnt say a word neither , 45 f*@king minutes I was in the queue! Not a single apology, not a comment, nothing!
Today was the extreme but its not the first time and it does seem like inter-human pleasantries and customer service havent arrived here yet.

I left to go back to the car with my defrosted shopping, and who did I see getting in the 4x4 pickup. You guessed it. I had to laugh/cry.
 
Sounds like a terrible supermarket, to be honest. Which one do you go to? They all have problems like this to some extent or another, but certain ones (DIA for example) are bigger offenders. I tend to stick to the big COTOs or Carrefour.
 
That just made my day!!!

Not that you had to endure this, but that now I'm certain that I was not the only one.
For a time my wife would fault me for being paranoid, or say that I complain too much. With your shared experience, I can finally say "AHA... it's not just me!"

Kudos on not exploding! I know that I would have.

I had a curious incident at Jumbo after I stopped in to buy a few packages.
I went into the self-check-out line, scanned in 5 items, opted to pay by CC, then proceeded to the checkout person with my completed ticket.
The checkout person then rescanned all the items, and asked me for my CC again to scan that as well.
I asked him "Utilizando esta línea, cómo está más rápido o más conveniente ?" in which he checked to see if a supervisor was watching, looked at me squarely in the face and ashamedly answered "no se".
 
our local carrefour had 5 tills opened once... i was amazed as the queue is usually at least 6 people long with 1-2 open.

Coto is just as bad, 20 odd tills and they only open 5-6 of them.

I usually skip Dia's as they have the same number of staff as a chinese supermarket but a queue the goes from one end of the store to the other.

All of Argentina's supermarkets are terrible.
 
I have experienced this in a hyper coto near me at scalabrini orrtiz and santa fe and I scream literally I call for a supervisor screaming out loud tell the person(s) involved what is wrong hoping to shame him or her often this doesnt do it but sometimes the supervisor has the balls to enforce it but I am a native speaker so maybe this helps!
But I agree it happens all too often and it must be protested!
 
I have experienced this in a hyper coto near me at scalabrini orrtiz and santa fe and I scream literally I call for a supervisor screaming out loud tell the person(s) involved what is wrong hoping to shame him or her often this doesnt do it but sometimes the supervisor has the balls to enforce it but I am a native speaker so maybe this helps!
But I agree it happens all too often and it must be protested!

Some and it seems to be many actually, Argentinians have NO shame (they are utterly rude) I believe it is some form of mental handicap where their brains just do not work when it comes to the conscious consideration of others around them is public environments. I got all used to Uruguayans over here who have good manners and then in the summer the place was packed with Argies I had to restrain myself on more than one occasion they started to drive me crazy. I do not want to call the manager I want to slap them. But we all know where that will get me. Even when you yell at them they get oblivious and act like nothing was wrong or going on.

So you just have to take it for what it is or it will drive you crazy. I just started looking at the rude ones as if they were retarded handicapped people while I was living there it was the only way I could deal with it.
 
Did you consider leaving this country for good and be free of all such problems for ever?

With all due respect, sometimes when we as a collective criticize, and I'm assuming the original poster (being a person that lives here and came from abroad) is of a similar standpoint, it's out of a frustration for a country that we (again, using the word liberally and based on assumptions) have appreciation for - and yet, are frustrated by, because people tend to just accept mediocrity and not try to improve, and it's a very quotidian example of the root of a larger problem. I really think that this country has an incredible untapped potential and it frustrates me that people just seem to not care, about themselves, about other people, many seem to not put any pride into what they do, not have any motivation to meet that potential (and honestly, who could blame 99% of the country?). Personally, when I complain about the country, it's out of cariño. Tough love.

I think it's OK to be frustrated. I get frustrated when it's my turn to walk and I have the right of way and cars just speed up at me (I swear, I lost my cool this morning and stood in the middle of the street and looked firmly at the driver and just pointed at the crosswalk and said "do you not see this, punk?!").

And the supermarket experience. Unless it's a huge chain, and one of the bigger stores of that huge chain, usually the same deal for me. I had trouble at first because they would barely even accept my American passport as ID when using my card ("argentine card...you need an argentine ID"...uh...I don't have one yet..."ok then we can't take it"...BS).
 
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