Rules are clearly more important than customers

On the evening of Thursday 26 October I did my grocery shopping at the Checkers in Northgate. It was when I reached the tills that my experience started to sour. This store now only displays empty boxes on the toiletry shelves, so I had to wait while the packer ran off to find the contents. When she finally returned, the teller had already rung up the transaction - and excluded that item. So I now hd to do a second credit card transaction. No problem - until it turned out she hadn't rung up enough bags as part of the first two transactions. I wasn't prepared to do a 3rd transaction just for 2 plastic bags bags, so 5 bags' worth of produce had to be stuffed into just 3 bags. The packer put the Jik bleach in with the vegetables and didn't even bother wrapping it in another wrapper. Checkers rule #1: don't give a customer even a detergent packet unless they pay for it.

While this was all going on, another staff member 'cleaned away' my trolley. So now I was left with three very heavy, over-stuffed bags to carry on my own. I eventually managed to find another trolley (it was evening rush hour so there weren't that many to be found) and left the store. Only to be chased down by a security guard who took the trolley away from me. Checkers rule #2: don't let a customer leave with a basket trolley.

So I had to stumble out of the store on my own, with no trolley, no help, too few bags splitting under the weight of the badly-packed bags. Needless to say, I didn't even get 15 metres away from the shop's exit when a bag broke and I had groceries all over the mall floor. The Jik bottle cracked and leaked bleach all over my vegetables, ruining them.

Did I get any help from your staff? No, they all stood there and watched. Because those are the rules, and the customer can go ***** themselves. Don't worry. I'll do exactly what you want: I'll avoid all Checkers stores from now on. I'll shop at Pick n Pay where customers aren't treated as if they're an annoyance.