Annoying Manager at Ralphs Store

Today I took my mum grocery shopping at a Ralphs store in Irvine, California (this one is on Culver Drive near the 5 freeway). We bought a bunch of stuff from their discounts aisle including chocolate and sprinkle mini donuts, bread, garlic bread, and a cake. The cake looked very nice; it was a fudge brownie cake with smooth chocolate icing that was on the manager’s special price. Greatly pleased at our baskets full of goodies found during our shopping spree we proudly walked to the cashier line.

The store was not crowded at all and we went to a counter that just had one customer who was about to leave. There was no line so we did not go to the self-checkout since the Ralphs cashier could just scan in the barcodes for us. However, a manager walked by us and asked whether we are ready to check out the products that we had collected. We told him that we were, which turned out to be a regrettable mistake.

The manager walked us to the self-checkout counter and started scanning in our products. “Oh well,” I thought. At this point I did not have any problem with this Ralphs manager. However, after scanning in the items that we had bought and putting them in plastic bags he started talking to us about upgrading our Ralphs rewards cards. He gave us a marketing spiel saying that the old rewards card used to give customers a 5% discount but now it doesn’t. Although the old card can still be used to get the discount prices, there is no additional reduction on the final purchase. The new card on the other hand has some points system where you get $5 back after you have made purchases totaling to $500. This did not sound so good to me since in essence he was saying that now Ralphs is only giving 1% instead of 5% discounts. Anyway, my mum agreed to sign up for the new card.

So this is where this manager at the Irvine Ralphs store becomes rude. Of course his language is still all sugarcoated but his actions are disrespectful and selfish. He stops scanning the products from our shopping basket and goes off looking for a sign-up form that my mum has to fill out to get the new Ralphs rewards card. As he trots off my mum asks him what we need to do about our groceries and he says we need to select the “Pay” option and make the payment. So my mum completes the process on the self-checkout machine by herself. After that we just look at the manager wandering about in the store and then from a distance he says that he can’t find the sign-up form so we will have to come and fill it out some other time.

The story gets worse. I pick up the 2 shopping bags hanging on the self-checkout bar and put them in the trunk of the car. When we get home my mum checks the receipt and we realize that there are some items missing, including the chocolate fudge brownie cake that we were looking forward to eating! Although I do share the blame in this mishap occurring, here is what I think happened: the manager either did not take out the cake and other remaining items in our basket to scan on the self-checkout machine (although the items are on the receipt so this probably was not the case) or after scanning them in he put them in a shopping bag and placed the bag somewhere where I did not notice it when it was time to leave the store. You see there are many empty bags at the self-checkout counter and when a customer scans the items he or she knows which bags the items have been put in, but when a manager does it without handing over the bags to you or at least indicating which bags the customer needs to pick up they can easily get mixed with the cluster of empty bags and left behind. On a regular cashier counter I always check that I have not left any shopping bags behind, but this is harder to do at the self-checkout machine especially when someone else is processing your items. I wish this manager at the Irvine Ralphs store had just minded his own business rather than pretend that he wanted to help us just to act busy or look for an opportunity for a sales pitch. Now we have a bag missing from the groceries that we brought home and there is a delicious cake either sitting somewhere in the store in Irvine or has already landed in the stomach of some other customer who came by it while using the self-checkout machine. Just to clearly indicate the level of agony involved in this incident I’d like to remind you that this was a fudge brownie cake with creamy chocolate icing!

After-note: I called the phone number for the Ralphs store in Irvine the next day and they said they would replace the missing items. We managed to get all of the items that were missing, including the cake that was no longer on manager’s special price, although I did have to drive out there again. I told the manager upfront how I felt about the whole experience and he apologized, and I know people are just trying to do their job so I don’t hold any of this as a personal grudge. It was partially my fault too for leaving the bag behind but still I feel I shouldn’t have received such poor customer service. It got to me at first but now I’m okay!