Handling a Difficult Supermarket Situation as Best I Could

I grocery shopped at WnCo this morning. It had been 2 weeks since I stepped foot in a grocery store, and we'd been out of milk for a couple of days. So today seemed like the right day to do the shopping. I had a lot on my list this time. It seemed like we'd run out or low on many foods.

One notable thing happened. In the bulk section, I not only bought the usual dry foods like brown rice, chia seeds, raisins, and peanut butter powder, but I also stopped by the liquid and nut butter section of the bulk foods. I got another pint of natural peanut butter and about a pint of avocado oil. The store has plastic bottles to use for the liquids. There is a sign next to the bottles indicating that the bottles are free with a liquid purchase, but $1.28 if not filled. I had taken note of that sign a while back. I noticed it again this morning when I bent down to get one of the bottles from the shelf under the dispensers. I didn't think too much about it after that.

At the checkout, the cashier was ringing everything up, and when it came time to charge me for the avocado oil, she tried to also charge me for the bottle. I told her the bottle is supposed to be free, and there was a sign indicating that in the bulk section. Anyway, she seemed confused on store policy and kept saying she needed to charge me for the bottle, while I kept saying the sign said no she didn't.

At this point, she really should have called a lead over to clarify store policy, because clearly one of us had it wrong. In the end she took my word for the sign. After I took my groceries out to the car, I backtracked into the store to the bulk section, and sure enough the sign was still there.

I love WinCo. It's such a great place to shop and get deals. But this bulk liquids bottle thing has been an issue for the last year. About 6 months ago, I had the same thing happen. I cleared it up with the cashier quickly and went on my way.

After leaving the WinCo parking lot today, I felt unsettled. I hate having negative interactions with people. But I didn't want this to keep happening. When I got home I looked up WinCo policy on these plastic bottles. Right there on their instagram page they explain that the bottles are free with a fill, but a charge if not filled (like so you can buy a lightweight plastic bottle to use at home). 

Even though I knew I was correct on this, I still felt like something was left undone. I didn't want this to happen again to me or someone else. So I reached out to customer service with a suggestion to review with their front line staff the company policy on how to ring up bulk liquids purchased in the plastic bottles.

After retelling the situation to my husband, he asked me what would I have done if the cashier had insisted on charging me for the container and the oil. In the moment, I think I would have told her that I misunderstood the policy on the bottles, and I no longer wanted to purchase that oil. Adding $1.28 to the price of the oil would have made it a poor deal. But now that I've had time to think about this, I think I would ask the cashier to call a supervisor over so we could get everything straight. That would have solved the situation simply and clearly. The cashier would have received the training she needed on the spot. As I didn't have that mindset in the moment, the next best thing to do was to write a polite email to customer service explaining the situation and where I feel they need to review some policies with employees. I'll see if they respond.

As odd as this may sound, I think it's a good thing that this difficult interaction happened. Every time I encounter one of these situations with a person, I have the opportunity to work on patience. Becoming a patient person is a lifetime project for me. I don't expect to ever be completely patient. It seems that just as I master patience in one area, I stumble into another new area where my patience has not been developed. 

I've now closed the book on the bulk liquids bottle encounter, but maybe with a bookmark left in place should this sort of scenario arise another time. 

Sometimes my blog posts are me simply working through the last bits of the day's trials and triumphs. I believe that's what you're getting from me today. But tell me, have you ever had an encounter at the checkout of a store where you believed one thing about a price or policy and the cashier believed another? How did you resolve the problem?