A trip to Marks & Spencer and what I have learned from that trip

I shop in a variety of supermarkets depending on my mood. There are three that are within realistic distance of me shopping at. Asda is a 25 minute walk away. Sainsbury’s and M&S are both in the town centre, which is a five-minute train ride away and I live not 30 seconds from the train station. So I mix it up depending on what I’m wanting to buy. Yesterday I decide to shop in M&S for my food and something was rather stark.

Whilst looking at some food I noticed two people looking down their nose at me. This isn’t exactly abnormal but still I noticed it. Also looking around I did not see one ethnic person in the store and I did not see anyone younger than myself (I’m 27). I was in the store a good twenty minutes and 95% of people were white middle to upper age women with the other 5% retired gents with their wives. In twenty minutes milling about the aisles that is all I saw. Weird I thought.

Next up was the queue for the till. Only one person in front of me. She was probably in her 40s with the person on the till in her 50s. She was taking an absolute age and gossiping. I took out one of my iPod headphones and overheard their conversation and they were talking about how working class and scummy Tesco was. Both women agreed that they would never shop in there. All a bit OTT if you ask me but the woman on the till was being rather pleasant to the customer. Next it was my turn and she looked at me and her tone changed.

She didn’t say hello or ask if I needed help with my bags. She didn’t look me in the eye and nor did she even wait until I’d got my bag open. No conversion just ‘that would be £38.90 please’ and then she gave me my change without saying anything. It was most rude. As those of you who are unfortunate enough to have met me will know that unless I have to dress up and look half-decent I wear slacks, a hoody and I hadn’t shaved in a few days. It was like she didn’t want ‘my kind’ in there. She seemed stunned that I paid in cash probably thinking in her head that I’d just cashed my giro.

This comes on the heels of my last visit to M&S were two old ladies in the queue were commenting on my hoody and were hoping that I wouldn’t stab them (they didn’t realise I could still hear them even though I had my iPod in and on). My response of ‘those kinda people rarely shop in M&S’ stunned them. It just seems really snooty.

I love M&S food. It’s great but I’m really not liking some of the people who work in and shop there.

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