Annoying characteristics of supermarkets.

I also get annoyed when people stand in the queue for ages and dont get their money ready to pay until the end. People who get too close to me. 

I had to visit a large supermarket last week as it had a pharmacy.theyd changed the layout the last time I'd been so I was prepared but already unhappy. I arrived and theyd not only changed the layout again but had brighter lights, were painting somewhere as it smelt so strong and the tanoys were so loud! I ended up in tears sobbing struggling to breath when I reached the car. 

I love my local small morrisons who arent perfect but arent as terrible as asda near me

Oh and people smoking around the doors! One it affects my asthma and two I have this fear of cigarette smoke and damage it does so I hold my breath as long as I can

I listened to a very interesting article from The Guardian about Aldi. Many people suffer from "checkout panic" as their items whizz towards them faster than they are able to get them into the trolley or bag! I think Alldi approve of this. They like to keep their customers as well as their staff in a state of anxiety.

The lighting

Lack of Windows 

Illogical ordering of goods on shelves

Other customers

The trolleys squeaking

The thought of all the other people who have touched the trolley handles

The light reflecting off the floor

Shoes squeaking on the floors

Entire families doing the shop when one person could take the list

Too much choice

Too much packaging

The announcements over the speakers

The tinny music

Having taste tests thrust at me

Screaming children

Goods that aren't groceries and shouldn't be in a supermarket

The capitalist, corporate greed

The consumer greed

The carrier bags

The car park

Wonky signs that need straightening

Wonky produce on shelves that needs straightening

People putting goods down in the wrong section

The beep at the tills

The Americanisation

The dead animals in the meat section which is impossible to avoid

The dairy free section containing products which have animal derivatives in them that just aren't from cows. 

The lack of natural light

No clocks

The waste of my life that will never be returned to me after spending time there

The rudeness of other customers

Other customers trying to make conversation 

Other customers blocking aisles 

The lack of a one way system to navigate the aisles

The ridiculous slogans used to sell goods 

They're just the ones that come to mind straight away but I've not been to a supermarket in four years so in all likelihood things have deteriorated further.

I enjoy some supermarkets , hate others.

One of my favourite ones was a Safeway near Roundhay park in Leeds.  It was a nice medium size, never too busy and never empty, large windows on three sides, so lots of natural daylight.  A large Tesco was built about a mile down the road.  And that took most of its business.  So this supermarket became a quiet backwater.  Nice and relaxing to visit whenever I was in the area.  Later it became renamed Somerfield then co-op.  But the atmosphere remained the same.

A couple of years ago I got a shock.  It was taken over by home Bargains and rebuilt.  The windows were gone, replaced by brick.  All artificial light inside and different layout and stock . Absolutely hated my visit.  Haven't been back since then.

Now for other supermarkets and my opinions.

Aldi, in my city Aldi's all look the same,. Same stock in the same places, staff very busy and frightened, working very quickly.  Aldi run a tight ship.

Lidil, very different from Aldi,. Stock similar, but very relaxed, fewer customers, and not as well stocked.  Atmosphere very different.

Morrison's, again usually very relaxed.  I've gone off their  cafes,. Often long delays , out of stock meals and lukewarm food.  Overall an excellent supermarket.

Sainsbury's, again no complaints.

Waitrose, .again relaxed and good food.

M& S,. One of my favourites.

Asda,. Depends on the branch.

Co-op.  Current branches very over priced in middle class neighborhoods. Even more expensive than Waitrose.

Tesco.  I've only recently forgiven them for chucking me off one of their training courses for being autistic.

I usually pick up a basket in the supermarket. Armed with this new knowledge about how to pack your bags in Aldi, however, I decided on a trolley. All of the trolleys were chained together just outside the store. I spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out how to free one of them. Then I spent another couple of minutes looking for a loose one in the car park. Eventually I realised that people were starting to stare, the very thing I'd hoped to avoid, so I used a basket as usual.  

I went in Aldi yesterday and tried to pack my bags at the checkout. This is bad Aldi etiquette apparently. You're meant to quickly shove all items back into the trolley, pay the bill and then pack your bags on a shelf at the back of the store.

Gradually I am getting the hang of how to blend in unobtrusively with other bipeds.

blank_smile said:

Years wasted as a youngster playing tetris on the gameboy perfectly prepared me for the checkout.

Me too - the checkout people often comment on my amazing packing skills - I tell them I'm the European Tetris Champion 3 years running.

Spot on! This is my main contribution to the family weekly shop, after getting the kids their free fruit, helping by putting the garlic bread, milk and my weekly crisps in, the rest magically happens whilst I navigate the trolley and try not to over excite the kids!

Years wasted as a youngster playing tetris on the gameboy perfectly prepared me for the checkout. I even hear the music when I logically order the products, sometimes I even sing it..

There is a right way:

1. all large/heavy items first - so they end up in the bottom of empty bags

2. all unbreakables (tins/packets) to fill in all the space around the bulky items

3. all the fragile stuff so it ends up on top

4.  squashy/fresh stuff like bread - maybe in its own bag.

Also - in the boot of the car, all heavy stuff goes on the left - so if the load shift around roundabouts, it keeps the fragile stuff safe.

My checkout belt is more in a logical order than photogenic. Logical to only myself that is.

Took me a while to realise why I was attracting unwanted attention at the checkout in sainsburys. I finally realised that I was arranging my shopping much too neatly and carefully on the conveyor belt. It was partly a way to distract myself from all the noise and chaos going on around me I suppose. Anyway, one day someone asked if she could take a photo of my beautifully laid out shopping and then hurriedly added "only joking" when she saw the expression on my face.  

I'm a bit late to this thread, sorry!

Mum and myself used to go to the supermarket later in the evening, precisely because it was more quiet, and only a few other shoppers and staff around.  At this time, I didn't have a diagnosis.

But one time, a few days before Christmas, for some reason or another, we had to go one afternoon when it was full of shoppers, corny seasonal music (as another poster pointed out), and I absolutely HATED it.  I was so relieved when the shopping was done, and leaving the supermarket I told Mum I felt really drained, and was so glad to get out of the store and go home.  Once I read up about autism (not connected to the visit), I understood why I found that particular supermarket visit so stressful.

It was soon after that visit we decided to do our shopping online, and it's SO much better to be able to sit at home and choose the items.  Having done online shopping for three years or more, we wouldn't go back to visiting a store now.

I dread supermarkets.  From the shout outs on the loud speakers that I half miss then worry just incase there was some thing I should have done or heard, to the continuous music, to the person who starts to whistle - this is particularly bad for me as I find it painful.  Then you have the pickers who are doing others shopping with those massive carts that make me loose my balance when they go past.  The horrendous smell of meat and fish competing with perfume/aftershave or worse still body odour/smokers.  By the time I make it to the till I am often very worked up. The tills them self offer a whole new kind of hell.  First if you are unlucky you have the shopper behind you who think its ok to start moving your shopping up - after you have spent ages picking and digging for the least touched items in the first place.  Yes I do leave gaps in my shopping but I like to see what I have and plan how I am going to bag it so that I can get it home safely and unpack it in the best order possible.  Then you get trapped.  The one in front is yapping to the person at the till, you have got in line and the next person has come up behind.  I HATE the places.  I have be banned from one shop for an out burst because in the bakery part people were picking up the bread rolls with their bare hands and putting them back down, and being a germ a phobe it all became just too much for me.

I'm not a fan of anywhere where people randomly stop in your path, block entrances / exits to have a chat, don't have their payment method ready when at the checkout and excessively busy environments.

Don't get me started on people that are seemingly unable to navigate efficiently with their own legs.

I used to work in a supermarket, well it mostly in the car park collecting trolleys. I loved it especially since I was literally working with a guy named James Bond.

I hate supermarkets that are too big and that keep moving stuff around. I know why they do it, but I write my shopping list out in the order that I will encounter items in the store and I get flustered when things aren't where I expect them to be. I do a weekly online shop from Sainsbury's and then go to Aldi at the weekend for fresh fruit & veg and some other items which are cheaper. I can cope with Aldi as it's smaller and usually has more checkouts open, meaning shorter queues. Also they don't play annoying music and don't have those annoying "self service" checkouts where I usually fail to check out successfully and have to get a member of staff to help out.

I don't like Aldi for that reason.  I prefer the self-service supermarket checkouts. 

Why go into Aldi at all if that's a common experience for you?

I rail against it because I know that there's more than enough for supermarket workers to do, and working against tight deadlines, without having to return dumped stuff to the shelves or throw it away.  One of the reasons I didn't stick it at Morrison's was that I could no longer cope with the whip-cracking schedules: stock to rotate, stock to replenish, deliveries to unload, audits to do (all very time-sensitive), waste to account for, reductions to be done (loads on produce).  Like I said, we had to cut corners all the time, which meant not doing the job properly - something my autistic brain found hard to deal with.  And just to make matters worse... there were all those baskets of dumped shopping that I had to run around the store putting back on the shelves because someone couldn't be bothered to do it.

One of the reasons that people shop in supermarkets (apart from the lower prices on many things) is the convenience.  Everything under one roof.  So, it saves time having to go to lots of different shops.  If people are therefore saving time, is it too much to ask to spend a little of that saved time returning unwanted goods to the shelves?

One of my obsessive compulsions is visiting supermarkets every day.  If I don't I get very anxious about missing a bargain.

Every supermarket has a unique character.

I have to confess that I am one of these people who doesn't put things back where they find them.  I sometimes get to the checkout and find the queues ridiculously long.  So I dump the shopping and leave.  Most often in Aldi.

We have hyper-markets around here.  Way too big to be bothered with.  When I go for a loaf of bread I don't want to have to hike through LCD tvs, pots & pans, BBQ equipment, gardening tools, car accessories, toy department, clothes and furniture on the way to the bread aisle.

Five miles?  Two hours?  Blimey!  You visit some huge supermarkets, Plastic  Sounds like you're feeding an army!

If it's a small item, as you say, then I'd just hand it over at the checkout or to a staff member and say I've changed my mind.  But if it's a chilled or frozen item, I take it back.  Otherwise it's wasted.  Thrown away.  We throw away enough good stuff in our society.

It used to disgust me to see the pile of wasted stuff at the end of the day - usually just chilled or frozen stuff that had been dumped because someone had changed their mind and couldn't be bothered.