A few mornings ago I ran to the closest grocery store to pick up a few things for an upcoming picnic with our friend Ruth. I sauntered through the store grabbing my goodies and when my basket was full of things like artichoke dip, freezedried chocolate covered cherries, and sliced Tillamook cheese, I looked at what was available to check out at. The self serve machines had a few openings which is different than in Germany. Because of five years away, I forget this is an option. There is no grocery store in Berlin that would have this option. Why not? It is kind of brilliant! It is quick when it works well and minimal interaction with others as you check out.

But on this day I decided to go for the human check out line option. I picked a line that had only two people with a few items in front of me and a checker who looked nice. Then there was a problem at the check out. The guy who was buying some fish, had a weird order and before the price could print out, the price cut off but no one knew it until this very moment when the scan wouldn’t work. So the checker had to call the guy at the fish counter to come and re weigh and re scan at the fish counter…well, you see what is happening here….a moment in time. The guy just in front of me with two small items immediately jumped ship. He pulled his items and ran to the next line. You think I am kidding but I am not…ran. But I was in no hurry and surely this can’t take too long and now I am next in line.

The line grew, the time grew.

Now, here is where it gets to be a whole presentation of different cultures for me.

Here is what happened in this scenario. Finally, the fish counter guy came to take the fish to the fish counter. The checker, a super nice woman, starts to get a little frazzled because she knows that this is going to take a minute and her line is growing. She starts to apologize to us in line and smiles. The woman who is bagging (yes, in the US there is someone just to bag groceries at each line) makes more bags ready to be filled. The checker starts to ask if people will eventually need bags and if they have their rewards card out for this grocery store. We all do. We are ready. She looks around to see if she can do anything else…she tells the guy to put in his credit card to get ready to pay…he already has.

We wait for another few moments. It really isn’t very long but at this point mutiple store employees are apologizing to us and thanking us for waiting.

The fish guy comes. They scan the newly packaged fish and off they go. I step up with my groceries and the checker says, “I would ask all sorts of questions right now for pleasantries but I am guessing you just want to get home. Again, I am so sorry.” I smile and tell her it really is ok. I pay. I leave.

End scene.

And all the way out the door I am chuckling.
Because….this would NEVER EVER happen this way in Berlin. Customers are rarely right and usually are at fault for such delays.

Groceries are way more expensive here which was a shocker when we moved back but on top of that I am regularly shocked at the amount of customer service that is expected here.

When I lived in Berlin there was a day where the checker slid a bottle of something to me and I didn’t catch it. It slid right off the counter and smashed on the ground. Liquid everywhere. Instead of apologizing or helping, the checker proceeded to lecture me about wasting time. She told me to apologize to everyone in line and then feel badly about what I had (or in this case had not) done. This was my fault she said. By the time I had checked out I was crying. This was the most extreme case of grocery store lectures and stringent line behavior but it happened. There was no offering to get a new item to replace. No apologizing for what happened and certainly no way to make me feel better about it.

A tale of two grocery store mishaps. The shockers keep coming.