I love how they kiss up at Christmas time. This past December someone actually unloaded my cart for me, even the jugs of milk underneath. The rest of the year they could care less.

As a former grocery store cashier I can tell you the job sucks. Really.

Actually, the bonus cards are not about you at all. They try to convince you that they are with their little pennies off this or that, but it's just so they can collect data about your buying habits and then they or their suppliers send you coupons for other brands of items that you purchase to try and get you to buy brand X instead of brand Y.

I use mine solely because Safeway actually does decent discounts on their beef with the card and that's worth it to me.

As for the whole name thing, I wish they would stop. I get so tired of them looking at the bottom of my receipt which has my name b/c of the bonus card and trying to say thank you Ms. uh, er, mmm...because no one seems to be able to pronounce my last name right the first time. I've been known on a few occasions to correct not only the pronounciation but the fact that I prefer Mrs. Look at the left hand, people.

The excessive familiarity is getting to be an epidemic. Since when did it become accepted for someone I have never met to address me by my first name? I have never presumed to call a customer/potential customer by his/her given name.

Yeah - Beth's nailed it. They just want to spy on you so they can fill your mailbox with coupons for stuff you wouldn't take for free, much less ever buy. Do you like toothpaste? Then you'll love our unfiltered cigarettes!

The only one that's ever given me a respectable discount is the Harris Teeter card. I got $10 off a crown roast. Not too shabby!

Beth, I run into the same problem with my last name (though the only people who've called me "ms." did so over the phone).

We have a grocery store chain here in the Northwest called Fre Meyer (now owned by Kroger). Well, more than a grocery store -- they pioneered the "combination gorcery/department store" concept DECADES ago, long before upstarts like Target or Walmart. Anyway, their cards work differently. You don't get any discounts up front, you get a gift certificate for a percentage of what you spend there.

And I'm not ashamed to admit I use my Freddy's card and my Safeway and Albertsons cards -- our income is still low enough that a few cents savings is worth it.

You can usually ask for a "counter card," or ask the cashier if you can use their card if you want the bonus without signing up. And they tend to be worth it, especially on produce.

What I want to know is, why haven't they linked my bonus card to a credit/debit card, so I only have to swipe one?

Just so you don't have some reason for not wanting folks to know you were at the Giant that day, that time:

From The Times 28 January 2005

A MAGISTRATE who gave his wife a Rolex watch that had been accidentally dropped in a supermarket by its real owner has been convicted of theft.

Geoffrey Rowlett pocketed the £3,200 lady’s watch instead of handing it to police or trying to trace the owner. He then gave it to his wife, Margaret, as a 60th birthday present.

The deceit was not exposed for almost another two years when he took the watch to be repaired and the jeweller checked the serial number against a list of Rolex watches reported lost or stolen.

Using records from his supermarket loyalty card, police were able to prove that he had visited the Tesco store in Poole, Dorset, within two hours of the watch’s real owner on January 16, 2002.

Rowlett, 67, from Poole, was convicted of theft at Southampton Magistrates’ Court and fined £600 and ordered to pay £400 costs. He had denied the charge.

District Judge Roger Ede told him: “The conviction is the real penalty for a man of your standing. It was an act of folly and an incredible story.�

Detective Sergeant Ben Hargreaves, of Poole CID, said: “As a magistrate he certainly couldn’t argue that he didn’t know the law.

“He was given every opportunity to tell the truth but chose to keep his lies going. It is not the sort of behaviour you expect from a magistrate.�

The Rolex has now been returned to its owner, a widow who had been given it by her late husband.

Rod Brummitt, justices’ chief executive at Dorset Magistrates’ Court, said that Rowlett had been suspended as a magistrate as soon as the allegation came to light. He said: “He retains his status as a magistrate and any further action will not be taken until we know whether there is to be an appeal.

“It would be our expectation that the magistrate would resign. He has been a long-serving and distinguished magistrate in many ways, but clearly we cannot and do not condone that sort of offence.�
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None of that surprises me in the least - the system has worked as it is supposed to work.

What fascinates me is how his wife reacted to being given a beautiful Rolex only to find that the old man had actually found it on the floor in Tesco's.

I would rather face everything that the court had to throw at me than have to explain that to my wife.

I didn't credit my source for the above post -

http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_thelawwestofealingbroadway_archive.html

See, if His Honor had just read "Finders Keepers for Franklin" 3 or 4 thousand times, he'd have listened to Father Turtle's sage advice and posted some pictures of the watch around his playground.

Man, it's a horrible thing, but whenever I read the Franklin books to the kids I just get a burning desire in my craw for some nice Terrapin soup.

RE excessive familiarity, when I went through airport security in Phoenix, the guy who was scrutinizing my ticket and ID, who was apparently working with TSA while obtaining his merit badge in sekret police tactics, decided that it was okay to refer to me as "Steverino." Now that was truly odd, coming from the mouth of a 12 year old TSA employee.

I can top that. The TSA guy at the San Francisco airport last time I was there was serenading the line.

Growing up in New England (the real part, not where Steve grew up) I consider people actually speaking to me as excessive familiarity. I have real problems living in the deep south (yes, MD is the deep south for a kid 2h from the Canadian border) where people actually look at you and even speak to you. The horror.

My husband takes great delight in seeing how much he "saved" with his bonus card after coming back from the grocery. The last time he came home, he was telling me about all his great buys. He mentioned an item that he purchased and I said we didn't even need that. "Oh yes," he replied, "but it was on sale!"

I've always loathed the discount-card concept, for many, many different reasons. (Don't make list them, or we'll be here all day.) I hate it so much that I refuse to get a discount card, even though financially speaking it would make sense. One year my Christmas card from my GF's mother contained a discount card to Albertson's that she'd gotten for me, because she knew that I'd go to my grave without ever getting one for myself.

As a native mid-westerner now living in Boston, I take great pleasure in subjecting people to my excessive familiarity and unwelcomed friendliness. I'm every New Englander's worst nightmare to sit next to on a plane. And to tell the truth, I don't care one bit.

I've lived here my whole life and never heard anyone call it Gee-aunt. What the heck?

Sarah - That's just the regular one, too. In my neck of the woods, we also have a GRRR-May Gee-Aunt right across the street from it! (Although how it stays in business is a mystery to me, considering you can buy 95% of what it sells at the regular store.)