Today I dropped into an upmarket supermarket Azbuka here in Moscow.  A brand new location for this famous chain but none the less they managed to fill it up with cashiers with diplomas in antibusiness majoring in organizational destruction.

 As I aproached the line of shiny new cash desks I was faced with a choice of at least five neatly uniformed young to middle aged cashiers.  How to choose?  Well the cashier closest to me was an easy option which I soon regretted.  As I placed my 112ruble ($4.35) loaf of freshly baked wholemeal bread on the conveyor she caught sight of the 1,000 ruble note that I was preparing to pay with. . . .  This is where the troubles started!

Quite calmly but matter of factly she announced ‘Without change I won’t’ (bez zadacha, ya ne budu)!  Quite often it is the case that shops run short of change but it’s just as common for the cashier to ask for small change quite politely, even in Russia.  So I showed her all the small change I had, which wasn’t enough of course and we stood staring at each other wondering who was going to break sentense next.  I knew if it was me she would come off much worse.

Before long she said, ‘give me the 10 rubles’ refering to the note that she saw in my small change.  I handed it over knowing that it didn’t help her reduce the amount of change that she had to give me. Snatching it from me and angrilly punching the amount into the key pad was expected and acceptable behaviour from her now so I let it slide without incident.  Next though was different.

When she opened the till to place the money and get the change I noticed that there was money of all denominations in plenty sufficient quantity for our transaction.  Here is the exchange that followed:

[Me] Rudely but not as bad as I could have been ‘what’s that’s not enough?’

[Her] Point blank ‘If I give this to you then there will be nothing left for the next customer!’

[Me] ‘There is plenty there so what was the point in telling me that without change you won’t sell it?’

[Her] No response, just a stupid direct stare.

[Me] Still calm but getting ruder ‘this is complete rubbish, not my problem and anyway doesn’t mean you have to talk like you did!’

By this time I had my change, had made my point and was on my way with my toasty warm and expensive bread.  Looking back the cashier was of course recounting our conversation from her perspective to the remaining cashiers.

Each time I make it through an incident like this I think, how much money can a good well run business with polite staff make in this town???

Filed under: Living in Moscow