Sabotaging Their Fowl Attempt

I work in a supermarket in the UK known for being a little fancier than the average. This particular shop doesn’t have weighing scales at the self-checkout, even though this story took place in 2024. Why? Maybe the company thought their clientele was so rich that none of them would ever stoop so low as to actually (gasp!) steal!

Anyway, I am assisting at self-checkout when a customer transaction catches my eye. 

I see two customers have scanned a whole chicken, but there’s a barcode that’s been stuck onto the packaging.

In our fruits and vegetables section, you can pack your own loose produce in a little plastic bag, weigh it on a small scale, and it will print a price label for you right there and then to stick on to the bag. This is the type of sticker I spot that’s been slapped onto the chicken.

I walk over, and see that the chicken (that we usually sell for between £4-6 depending on weight) has come up as 68p. The customers haven’t noticed me standing behind them, so I lean in and make them jump out of their skin by saying:

Me: “Oh, whoops! Looks like someone has made a sticker for 68p worth of onions, and stuck it onto this chicken! What a silly thing to do!”

The customers, recovering from the jump scare, start the feigning ignorance script.

Customer #1: “Oh, really? I didn’t notice!”

Customer #2: “Who would do such a thing?”

Customer #1: “Must be a prank!”

The produce stickers are designed to be easy-peel, so I peel it off with ease, revealing the real price as £5.01. I remove the ‘onions’ from their shopping, and scan in the chicken for them instead.

Me: “There we go, all fixed. I’ll stay right here and make sure you’re not the victim of any other ‘pranksters’ today.”

I watch them like a hawk while they scan a few more items. There are a few items left in their basket (an expensive bar of chocolate, a premium pack of beef) that have also been turned into single cheap vegetables via a label. The customers wisely leave those in their basket, pay for the remaining legitimate items, and scurry out quicker than a seagull spotting some chips. 

I placed the unscanned items (with their offending fake labels) on the customer service counter and told my manager about it.

 When the self-checkouts were finally updated with weight scales a few months later, it was long overdue!