I’m a good customer. I pride myself on it.

I’m consistently polite and courteous. I always say “hello”, “goodbye” and “thank you”. I always smile. If they give me too much change, I always tell them – and if something costs more than stated on the price tag, I never complain. I always have my cards and cash ready so I won’t cause a delay, and I reuse and pack my own bags when appropriate. I treat shop assistants like the human beings that they are (or at least, most of them are).

So why do they not pay me the same courtesy?

Of course, there are some good ones out there. Usually older people who understand what it feels like on both sides of the till. These are the shop assistants who can hold an entertaining and amusing conversation while you pay for your items. They ask you how you are and they laugh at your jokes (yes, those weak and rather pathetic jokes that customers come up with when they can’t think of anything else to say). The staff at the Body Shop would always humour my grandfather with a quiet giggle when he wandered in for the third time that week and inevitably said “so where do you keep the bodies?”. You know that they are just being polite, but it sounds genuine enough. These people are professional, warm and polite.

Then there are ‘shop girls’...

This is where the shopping experience starts to degrade. I don’t expect people to be ecstatic to serve me, but sometimes I feel that I should be apologising to them for ruining their day by attempting to buy something. You stride up with your 3for2 purchases, smile and say “hello”. They stare at you blankly for several seconds with a look of pity and contempt, then scan everything through separately – charging you full price whilst throwing the breakable items into a bag and creasing your Christmas cards.

Sometimes – if you’re lucky – they’ll grunt at you when they require payment. Their sullen expression remains unchanged as they snatch your card away and ram it into the chip-and-pin machine. They tell you to enter your pin number when you are already doing it, then bend your card as they wrench it from the slot. You gather your bags and scuttle away (trying to put your card away as you walk), while the shop girl barks “NEXT!” into your ear. Merry bloody Christmas.

The saddest thing about all of this, is that the good ones – the funny, mature, polite ones – are just too good for their jobs. How did they end up there? I can’t help but wonder if they were made redundant at some point, and somehow this was the only job that they could find. I’m left with an overwhelming feeling of guilt – you want them to go on to better things, and yet you want them to stay right where they are forever so that you can look forward to buying your shopping. Who doesn’t choose their favourite checkout at the supermarket? Of course this means that the nicer you are, the more customers will come through your checkout – whilst the moody gormless ones will bask in the satisfaction of shoppers avoiding them like the plague.

Suddenly it all becomes clear...