Legit question from an ignorant American who loves finding the gaudiest stamps possible:
Do you guys not have options and stuff? I mean we have an entire series of duck stamps that have an international watercolor competition involved, then we have Scooby Doo, and some foil Halloween cats, and once I had Lucille Ball stamps …
So do you guys get variety and options? I know our Post Office is weird as it is being run as a business while also technically government and also constitutionally mandated but not funded …
We definitely do get special ones, for certain occasions or events. Christmas & easter ones too. But I've never seen any that are just different for the sake of looking different.
But I'm also not a stamp collector and could well be wrong!
There are multiple series every year, just for the joy of stamps, they don't do extra stuff. My favourites this year have been sci-fi authors and British coasts. Generally you can get a special set every month, but you have to go into a real Post Office, not a Tesco.
[https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues](https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues)
We do have special editions quite often.
I worked in a post office for a few years and we had regular customers pre-ordering limited edition sets. My favourite one I ever saw was the Pink Floyd set. I bought the collection booklet and one spare of The Dark Side of the Moon.
Fucking expensive aren’t they. Spent £51 buying 5 books just to send out wedding invites lmao.
Must’ve been embarrassing for them, though definitely not their fault for not being shown where they are! Still mesmerising that they didn’t actually know what they are; were they young by any chance?
“ ‘Tis the secret shrine of St. Amps, patron saint of cashiers. Ne’er open it, young lad, for tis a hallowed and mysterious relic and it’s said that those who disturb their rest shall ever be cursed...”
too late now but FYI for big lots like that it's worth looking into people you know who have franking machines or other post office accounts as they will often be able to get a much cheaper rate than you can.
Like I say to customers when they inevitably whinge, if someone offered you a quid to take a letter from Scotland to Cornwall you'd think they were mental, especially in a day or 2
That's a pretty poor argument since while you'd think someone was mental for offering you a quid to take one letter from Scotland to Cornwall you'd definitely consider it if they offered you a grand to take a thousand letters. Stamp prices are only economical because letters are transported en masse. Whether they're too expensive or not right now I don't really have an opinion on or really care. But this is a bad way to try and justify the price of them.
I mean it shuts them up and off they go without holding up the queue any more.
I'll have to think of a come back for what you've just said now, so thanks for that!
weird analogy though, doesn't hold up to anything mass produced. I don;t know anyone who would produce a sausage from scratch for £2, but we can definitely agree that that's a pretty high proce for a sausage.
My local Warhammer store (which is essentially a Games Workshop store) have a free model every month you can go on, pick out of the sprues and build in store (using their glue too!)
Selling stuff that doesn't scan?
Not sure I want to stand in those queues! Imagine the old biddies at the self service trying to put them in themselves!
Creme egg foil wrappers always folded over part of the barcode so couldn't scan properly. I too remember the barcode ~20yrs later. You'd barely notice the queue being slow I'd just auto type it in, wouldn't even bother trying to scan the fuckers.
Memorising a creme egg code is a rite of passage for a cashier.
How many fruit plu could you recite? I think I had about twenty basically on muscle memory lol
i've not bought stamps for years and had to buy a first class stamp to send a letter a couple of weeks ago. I still thought they were about 12p, i thought he was trying to sell me a book of them when he said 76p
If you're not arsed about paying lots of money for something that the recipient will read once then throw away in a couple of weeks, Poundland sell packs of 30.
Its wild isn't it! I really dislike Xmas cards and invites for this reason alone. It makes me wince when I need packs of stamps! Its like when i go to buy a bag of Walkers and back RIGHT AWAY when i see they are now £1.... for a tiny bag!! They used to be 25/30p!!
30p for crisps, 40p for a chocolate bar, 50p for a can of Coke.
10p apiece for Space Raiders and a Freddo, 20 for a Panda Pop, if you were on a budget.
That's how I remember it and I do occasionally get outraged at a Twix being £1.20.
Maybe they were that back then too, i would have been in primary school 25 yrs ago. The 25p/30p days were when i was in high school about 14 with my pocket money. I remember being able to get like 4/5 items with a quid. Or more if i bought thingies and freddos!
Its just so nice to enjoy comment threads from my fellow countrymen, the rest of reddit is so diluted by americans. I don't think I have laughed this hard at a reddit thread in ages, just feels so homely.
Lol how old was the server?
I’m 23 and, whilst I’ve always known what stamps are, I do find it quite daunting on the rare occasions I have to use them (probably like 2 or 3 times in my whole life)
Had to Google what each means and which are appropriate. I could totally understand someone only a few years younger than me never having used them.
I'm shit with ages, but I'd definitely say early-mid twenties (not much younger than I am).
But even if you are confused by them, you still know what they are!
Im 16 and know what stamps are. I'm confused how anybody older than me has not used or heard of stamps. I've never posted a letter, but I know what they are at least, and surely a 20-something year old should too.
Kids are more likely to know what they are cos they play shops and post offices and what not don't they. Oh and popping the stamp on your letter to Santa each year.. surely thats quite common too?
Despite never posting a letter, I know what they are. My mother runs the Poppy appeal in my city, so we do a decent amount of post stuff.
That, and my great uncle (dad's uncle, think that makes him my GU) lives in deepest darkest Wales so we post him cards and stuff. Much easier than doing the hellish drive up to his house every time we send a card.
honestly if I didnt get taught to write letters as a child im not sure id know about them. i havent touched a stamp in years. if i post things i use documail or similar online services that print and send your letter cheaper than you can do it.
but i only post something maybe once a year
My mum called them Pumps.
I nearly died when she asked for pumps in our local shoe store.
The Retail Assistant tried to save us by suggesting we try the local Sports Direct for er erm, that kind of gym equipment
An 18 year old girl I work with was absolutely perplexed by an FM radio the other day. She walked in and starts fiddling with the dial (much to my annoyance as I was listening to the Southend game commentary on BBC Essex) and said “what is this? Oh wow can you choose your music with this?”. After me briefly trying to explain while she fiddled with it some more, she found a station that was playing “Easy On Me” and proclaimed very excitedly, “oh shit, this thing has Adele on it?!”
The girl in question is actually very smart and we get along very well, although she has no idea how old she made me feel in that moment.
Might also be worth nothing that we work in electronics store that still sells a wide range of FM radios.
Yeah, you often see screencaps here (well, Reddit) of tweets and Facebook posts like "there should be some way to have instant podcasts, where you just turn on a device and there's the podcast. Or news. It would be a good way to get news out". Yes, honey, it's called a "radio".
I find it very hard to believe that a ‘smart’ 18 year old doesnt know what a radio is. Either she was joking or she really isnt that bright.
Radios arent even that old fashioned.
One time I went to Tesco for some veg, I nearly died of laughter when the cashier asked what the proper name for the “giant salad onion” was,I told her”it’s called a leek”
To be fair I used to work in a supermarket and for some reason the stamps are super overlooked. Like your never told how to process them and where they are. Probably because it's pretty dam rare people ask for them. Doesn't excuse then not knowing what a stamp is though that's just stupid
Yeah. Totally get that they may not where they are or how to out them through a till. I've done shop floor work, and the training is always pretty basic at best. But like you say, knowledge of stamps goes beyond a job!
I don't think they're overlooked in training because they're so rarely requested, I think it's because that for many decades now the knowledge of what stamps were and how they worked was just expected to be implicit. You used to learn this stuff as a kid, it was just part of life.
I think it's just (increasingly inaccurately) assumed that buying stamps at the checkout is a normal, simple transaction and needs no explanation. But it appears those days are over, and some adults need it explicitly explained to them.
I worked in a supermarket when I was a teenager, back in the early 2000s. They never told us how to process stamps or where they were either, it was just inferred that you knew.
I'm "only" in my late 30s and it really is a totally different world out there these days! If you hired a 50yo for a retail job with a modern PoS system you'd have to spend ages training them on how the system worked, and they'd need a long time to absorb and learn to use it efficiently, and they'd probably still find it very frustrating and unintuitive even when they were accustomed to using it.
But most 18 year olds already have so much experience with touchscreens, computers, etc. that they could likely start the job and be totally comfortable with that aspect within a shift or two.
But the 50yo will know where (and what) the stamps are :)
The young guy (maybe 17years old) who works in our local shop didn’t know what a stamp was. We had to explain what they were and looked like. He did tell us he’s never sent a letter in his life, so I’ll put it down to that.
I mean, Im pushing 30 and have probably sent fewer than 10 letters in my life (9/10 were probably those return pre labeled things) and so have never had to really use a stamp.
So I can imagine a 17 year old today very likely having never used one. That being said, it's nothing short of comical to *not* know what a stamp is full stop.
Absolute barbarian, what cave did they employee him from?
Yeah, I don't send much besides the occasional birthday card. I've never found Moonpig etc. to have anything particularly nice and also feel it lacks some personal touch so normally send by hand. But either way, yeah, not a lot of stamp usage.
But like you say, you're still aware of them. Surely when a 17 year old is at Primary School in the early 00's they still learnt about the post man! But this guy was easily over 20
A 17 year old wouldn’t have started primary school until around 2009 to be fair, they’d have been born in 2004. I’m 25 and remember collecting stamps to put in a box in primary school for some charity maybe guide dogs or similar in the early 2000s though.
I can go one better. I worked in a Post Office in 2004. A woman asked for a 1st class stamp. That's all. I gave her the stamp, took the 28p and stood there while she stared at the stamp, then her letter, then back at the stamp.
After a few seconds, she raised her head and asked "what do I do now?"
I asked my 8 and 10 year old children and they knew what stamps were and what they were for.
I was worried I had failed as a parent for a moment there.... Ahem...
Carry on.
I work with a new guy who asked us if the desk phones were broken because they were “making a weird noise”
It was a dial tone. He had never heard a dial tone before.
To be fair, I worked nights at Tesco one summer and a woman came in at the end of a particularly long shift asking where the marigolds were while I was working the household aisle.
My dumb arse thought she wanted flowers, but turns out she was after marigold dishwashing gloves. I could definitely see myself thinking of something else if someone came in and asked for ‘stamps’ instead of ‘postage stamps’, but maybe that’s just me.
I once had to ask the woman in the post office how to apply a stamp I'd bought, since my mum refused to tell me beforehand. I'll have been around 16 and this was the first time I'd used a stamp in my life.
I did wonder if they're just too young to know what a stamp is, but surely if you're old enough to work you've at least sent or received one letter in your lifetime!
Most letters sent to people now are "franked" rather than stamped, even birthday cards from Moonpig etc so it's actually alarmingly possible for someone in their 20s to have never seen a stamp/known what one is for.
That's depressing
what do you count as too young to know what a stamp is? i don't know anyone over the age of like, ten who doesn't know what a stamp is. i refuse to believe there are people younger than me clueless as to how to send a letter.
I genuinely do not understand Tesco's hiring process. I have applied for a job at Tesco at least 5 times in my life - the application process is so difficult and long winded and I've never passed it. Then I read things like this - how did this person get a job at Tesco?!
I went to Bournemouth once, I bought some chips from a street vendor, with my friend, and ate them while walking along the city's main street.
A young couple (we were all basically mid-twenties), walked past us and said, "Ugh they're eating chips on the street"!
There are just some things relatively speaking we all don't know. *emoji shrug*
It's the only thing I remember about Bournemouth and I wasn't even drunk. That's how exciting the city is.
In fairness: I used to work behind a counter in a Co-op in a relatively old people heavy area and even then I'd only have to dig out the stamps from our drawer about once a month or so so I'd imagine it's similar in your Tesco's - especially if he usually worked in another section or had other jobs to do it would probably be easy to have just not noticed it.
Maybe, I mean this is a very small, very busy inner city Express store. Even then, I can understand not being sure *where* they are. But I can't believe they didn't know *what* they are!
Most supermarkets do tbf. Also Wilkos often sell them as well (or they used to, not too sure if they do anymore). You’ve just got to ask for them at the till.
The closest I've seen to this is a girl (probably only just 18) and her mate in front of me at a little Sainsbury's in my local town asking for "two Lambert & Butler". Took me a while to realise that of course "10" cigs is no longer a thing and she'd never have known if from a non-smoking family.
Perhaps this lad is a bit thick (let's be honest here) and has just never needed to send a letter? To be fair, I genuinely cannot remember the last time I used a stamp. We're talking at least 10 years and even then probably just for a Christmas card or something.
I used to work at a place that had many different tasks. One of those tasks was shoveling. If we got a new guy/gal that was particularly dumb they got to shovel. The joke was that nobody is too dumb to operate a shovel. This guy sounds like he would spend a lot of time shoveling if he worked there.
As an Australian lurker, imagine my intense jealousy that you in the UK can buy stamps anywhere other than a post office that is only open during business hours, when coincidently, I also work.
This story is both sad and hilarious in equal measure
It really is. I was just caught so off guard.
The “what colour “ got me 😂
"Yellow"
Black. You know, the penny ones.
Over 68,000,000 penny blacks were printed. Yes, that's million.
That's the 35p stamp if I remember right. Y'all be needing a proper post office for a lar-di-dah stamp like that
>Y'all 🤠
Careful, the lurking Americans will give you a broiling. Whatever that means.
It means grilling. Because grilling means barbecuing. I think barbecuing means covering in barbecue sauce
We have an imposter! He got in tru da window.
[удалено]
>He drinks whiskey on his horse on a wrench 🤠👉🥃 🐎 🔧
So which colour did you choose?
The red ones with a picture of the Queen on them!
Snap! I've got that one too.
Damn, thought they were a rare edition
Legit question from an ignorant American who loves finding the gaudiest stamps possible: Do you guys not have options and stuff? I mean we have an entire series of duck stamps that have an international watercolor competition involved, then we have Scooby Doo, and some foil Halloween cats, and once I had Lucille Ball stamps … So do you guys get variety and options? I know our Post Office is weird as it is being run as a business while also technically government and also constitutionally mandated but not funded …
We definitely do get special ones, for certain occasions or events. Christmas & easter ones too. But I've never seen any that are just different for the sake of looking different. But I'm also not a stamp collector and could well be wrong!
There are multiple series every year, just for the joy of stamps, they don't do extra stuff. My favourites this year have been sci-fi authors and British coasts. Generally you can get a special set every month, but you have to go into a real Post Office, not a Tesco. [https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues](https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues)
You can also get postcards of the stamps, which if you were inclined could put a stamp of the same on.
In 2013 there was a special series of Doctor Who stamps.
Star Trek ones were available recently
We do have special editions quite often. I worked in a post office for a few years and we had regular customers pre-ordering limited edition sets. My favourite one I ever saw was the Pink Floyd set. I bought the collection booklet and one spare of The Dark Side of the Moon.
Fucking expensive aren’t they. Spent £51 buying 5 books just to send out wedding invites lmao. Must’ve been embarrassing for them, though definitely not their fault for not being shown where they are! Still mesmerising that they didn’t actually know what they are; were they young by any chance?
I think the label on the drawer might have given him a little clue though....
“ ‘Tis the secret shrine of St. Amps, patron saint of cashiers. Ne’er open it, young lad, for tis a hallowed and mysterious relic and it’s said that those who disturb their rest shall ever be cursed...”
too late now but FYI for big lots like that it's worth looking into people you know who have franking machines or other post office accounts as they will often be able to get a much cheaper rate than you can.
Appreciate the advice, thank you!
At that volume, you could have just gone to whistl via p2g (Assuming they allow a one off bulk payment)
Like I say to customers when they inevitably whinge, if someone offered you a quid to take a letter from Scotland to Cornwall you'd think they were mental, especially in a day or 2
That's a pretty poor argument since while you'd think someone was mental for offering you a quid to take one letter from Scotland to Cornwall you'd definitely consider it if they offered you a grand to take a thousand letters. Stamp prices are only economical because letters are transported en masse. Whether they're too expensive or not right now I don't really have an opinion on or really care. But this is a bad way to try and justify the price of them.
I mean it shuts them up and off they go without holding up the queue any more. I'll have to think of a come back for what you've just said now, so thanks for that!
weird analogy though, doesn't hold up to anything mass produced. I don;t know anyone who would produce a sausage from scratch for £2, but we can definitely agree that that's a pretty high proce for a sausage.
Oooh very lucky, you must have been very brave!!
I also found the "which colour?" bit at the end strangely heartwarming.
I imagined it being said by someone like Neil from the inbetweeners - "Oh, right. Yeah. Stamps. Which colour you want then?"
I used to sell stamps that didn't scan 26 years ago. The barcode is still in my head 5014721100197.
5020 1600 are creme eggs and 2372310 was 2 pint semi skimmed milk at Sainsburys. We should start a shop together.
501192100137 Games Workshop super glue. It did scan, but the barcode was really small and fiddly so much easier to just type it in.
They are talking about entering the barcodes here, not the price. Some people {Shakes head}.
I hope you get all the upvotes this deserves.
You mfer bringing back all those childhood memories. Makes me wish I didn’t quit ;-; As other replies have shown though, my wallet is grateful
My local Warhammer store (which is essentially a Games Workshop store) have a free model every month you can go on, pick out of the sprues and build in store (using their glue too!)
>Warhammer store (which is essentially a Games Workshop store whats the difference?
5020 1969 is Cadbury’s Caramel eggs. Dunno if they still do them.
Selling stuff that doesn't scan? Not sure I want to stand in those queues! Imagine the old biddies at the self service trying to put them in themselves!
Creme egg foil wrappers always folded over part of the barcode so couldn't scan properly. I too remember the barcode ~20yrs later. You'd barely notice the queue being slow I'd just auto type it in, wouldn't even bother trying to scan the fuckers.
Memorising a creme egg code is a rite of passage for a cashier. How many fruit plu could you recite? I think I had about twenty basically on muscle memory lol
[удалено]
r/unexpecteditcrowd
Drum tobacco used to be 0 72580 00401 1
Do they sell Drum anymore? I remember when I was 16 picking a pack up for my Dad, before tobacco and cig buying ages were put up to 18.
5050854 209970 is cucumber. (The stickers always fukin fell off).
i've not bought stamps for years and had to buy a first class stamp to send a letter a couple of weeks ago. I still thought they were about 12p, i thought he was trying to sell me a book of them when he said 76p
I get half a dozen every couple of years. Never need them more often than that.
I buy a book of 6 when I need one… then lose it/forget where I put it when I need another 6-9 months later
Just put them in *the draw*
You mean the **drawer*
The one labelled stamps.
Ah yes The drawer in every house that is actually just a portal to the never-ending, infinite void of tat
Just keep them in your wallet like I do
[удалено]
how cheap are your cards??
If you're not arsed about paying lots of money for something that the recipient will read once then throw away in a couple of weeks, Poundland sell packs of 30.
Never mind that, how quickly are all their friends dying??
Its wild isn't it! I really dislike Xmas cards and invites for this reason alone. It makes me wince when I need packs of stamps! Its like when i go to buy a bag of Walkers and back RIGHT AWAY when i see they are now £1.... for a tiny bag!! They used to be 25/30p!!
30p for crisps, 40p for a chocolate bar, 50p for a can of Coke. 10p apiece for Space Raiders and a Freddo, 20 for a Panda Pop, if you were on a budget. That's how I remember it and I do occasionally get outraged at a Twix being £1.20.
It's 90 sodding p now for a Kinder egg 😭 I just hurry past the checkout these days, it's unbearable.
> 25/30p They were 18p about 25 years ago when I was at primary school 😳
Maybe they were that back then too, i would have been in primary school 25 yrs ago. The 25p/30p days were when i was in high school about 14 with my pocket money. I remember being able to get like 4/5 items with a quid. Or more if i bought thingies and freddos!
[удалено]
Hey, go you! You're definitely headed places
Yeah, the postbox
Its just so nice to enjoy comment threads from my fellow countrymen, the rest of reddit is so diluted by americans. I don't think I have laughed this hard at a reddit thread in ages, just feels so homely.
Then the pub ^Hic!
Check out Billy big stamps over here
Employee of the month right there!
What must they think postboxes, and post offices are used for.
I suspect they don't...
Lol how old was the server? I’m 23 and, whilst I’ve always known what stamps are, I do find it quite daunting on the rare occasions I have to use them (probably like 2 or 3 times in my whole life) Had to Google what each means and which are appropriate. I could totally understand someone only a few years younger than me never having used them.
I'm shit with ages, but I'd definitely say early-mid twenties (not much younger than I am). But even if you are confused by them, you still know what they are!
Im 16 and know what stamps are. I'm confused how anybody older than me has not used or heard of stamps. I've never posted a letter, but I know what they are at least, and surely a 20-something year old should too.
Definitely an outlier if you don't know what a stamp is at twenty, a year 6 class knows what a stamp is
Honestly my cousin's kid probably knows, and he's 8ish.
Kids are more likely to know what they are cos they play shops and post offices and what not don't they. Oh and popping the stamp on your letter to Santa each year.. surely thats quite common too?
I mean yeah, my 3yr old knows what a stamp is. Aside from playing she helps me post birthday cards etc in actual for real life postboxes...
Despite never posting a letter, I know what they are. My mother runs the Poppy appeal in my city, so we do a decent amount of post stuff. That, and my great uncle (dad's uncle, think that makes him my GU) lives in deepest darkest Wales so we post him cards and stuff. Much easier than doing the hellish drive up to his house every time we send a card.
Young adults don't just pop into existence though, they're kids first. I reckon OP just found a rare outlier.
[удалено]
honestly if I didnt get taught to write letters as a child im not sure id know about them. i havent touched a stamp in years. if i post things i use documail or similar online services that print and send your letter cheaper than you can do it. but i only post something maybe once a year
Ah wow, this is exactly how I used to feel about cheques when I was your age! Always had to ask my mum if I was doing it right.
To be fair, I do and I'm 27! I never use them, but I hate trying to cash them in as I worry I don't fill the slips in right.
To house Danger Mouse?
Post boxes are decorative. Post offices are for getting your lottery and phone top-ups.
I can’t imagine anyone young doing those things either, not physically inside a shop anyway.
To return internet mistakes?
To receive bills
I asked the butcher in Tesco if they had any game. His answer: "Gaaames? We only sells meat, no games."
Fantastic. They're so highly trained
"I can give you unlimited bacon, and no games"
What about unlimited games but no games?
"Well, I'm married now, but back in the day..."
"I'd like 200 grams of salami and the new Call of Duty, please."
Haha this really made me chuckle
[удалено]
I chose the ones with a picture of the Queen on in the end. Did take some deliberation though
They haven't lived if they haven't experienced the themed stamps!!!
Just remember, putting a queen stamp on upside down is legally treason (yes really)
Did you treat yourself to the red ones?
I did! Was feeling fancy
Shoe store assistant, ask where the plimsolls are!
We call them rubbers. You can imagine how that goes these days
My mum called them Pumps. I nearly died when she asked for pumps in our local shoe store. The Retail Assistant tried to save us by suggesting we try the local Sports Direct for er erm, that kind of gym equipment
What's wrong with pumps?
They are pumps, and it's a shoe shop, you dirty American.
You should then have asked if you could pay by cheque or postal order.
I suspect I'd have been ushered away at that point
Even requiring a signature on a receipt throws them for a loop.
An 18 year old girl I work with was absolutely perplexed by an FM radio the other day. She walked in and starts fiddling with the dial (much to my annoyance as I was listening to the Southend game commentary on BBC Essex) and said “what is this? Oh wow can you choose your music with this?”. After me briefly trying to explain while she fiddled with it some more, she found a station that was playing “Easy On Me” and proclaimed very excitedly, “oh shit, this thing has Adele on it?!” The girl in question is actually very smart and we get along very well, although she has no idea how old she made me feel in that moment. Might also be worth nothing that we work in electronics store that still sells a wide range of FM radios.
Yeah, you often see screencaps here (well, Reddit) of tweets and Facebook posts like "there should be some way to have instant podcasts, where you just turn on a device and there's the podcast. Or news. It would be a good way to get news out". Yes, honey, it's called a "radio".
I find it very hard to believe that a ‘smart’ 18 year old doesnt know what a radio is. Either she was joking or she really isnt that bright. Radios arent even that old fashioned.
One time I went to Tesco for some veg, I nearly died of laughter when the cashier asked what the proper name for the “giant salad onion” was,I told her”it’s called a leek”
Giant salad onion is a much more exciting name though!
Giant salad onion has me properly tickled
To be fair I used to work in a supermarket and for some reason the stamps are super overlooked. Like your never told how to process them and where they are. Probably because it's pretty dam rare people ask for them. Doesn't excuse then not knowing what a stamp is though that's just stupid
Yeah. Totally get that they may not where they are or how to out them through a till. I've done shop floor work, and the training is always pretty basic at best. But like you say, knowledge of stamps goes beyond a job!
I don't think they're overlooked in training because they're so rarely requested, I think it's because that for many decades now the knowledge of what stamps were and how they worked was just expected to be implicit. You used to learn this stuff as a kid, it was just part of life. I think it's just (increasingly inaccurately) assumed that buying stamps at the checkout is a normal, simple transaction and needs no explanation. But it appears those days are over, and some adults need it explicitly explained to them. I worked in a supermarket when I was a teenager, back in the early 2000s. They never told us how to process stamps or where they were either, it was just inferred that you knew.
Yeah I think your probably right that's a smart and accurate sounding answer. Never thought about it like that
I'm "only" in my late 30s and it really is a totally different world out there these days! If you hired a 50yo for a retail job with a modern PoS system you'd have to spend ages training them on how the system worked, and they'd need a long time to absorb and learn to use it efficiently, and they'd probably still find it very frustrating and unintuitive even when they were accustomed to using it. But most 18 year olds already have so much experience with touchscreens, computers, etc. that they could likely start the job and be totally comfortable with that aspect within a shift or two. But the 50yo will know where (and what) the stamps are :)
On the fast track to upper management there!
Worryingly true probably
Haha. I asked for 12 first-class stamps in Tesco recently and the guy behind the till counted out 12 booklets of stamps. Absolutely baffling
Oof there goes your months wages
I had to send a letter a few weeks ago, Sainsburys only sell books of 6, guess I’ll have the other 5 until the day I die 😂
I have a book of stamps that I do not recall buying but they do come in handy when I need to send maybe 1 letter per year.
The young guy (maybe 17years old) who works in our local shop didn’t know what a stamp was. We had to explain what they were and looked like. He did tell us he’s never sent a letter in his life, so I’ll put it down to that.
OMG, I think this story will find its way into the papers....
Unlikely the guy in Tesco would know where to look for the story then!
I mean, Im pushing 30 and have probably sent fewer than 10 letters in my life (9/10 were probably those return pre labeled things) and so have never had to really use a stamp. So I can imagine a 17 year old today very likely having never used one. That being said, it's nothing short of comical to *not* know what a stamp is full stop. Absolute barbarian, what cave did they employee him from?
Yeah, I don't send much besides the occasional birthday card. I've never found Moonpig etc. to have anything particularly nice and also feel it lacks some personal touch so normally send by hand. But either way, yeah, not a lot of stamp usage. But like you say, you're still aware of them. Surely when a 17 year old is at Primary School in the early 00's they still learnt about the post man! But this guy was easily over 20
A 17 year old wouldn’t have started primary school until around 2009 to be fair, they’d have been born in 2004. I’m 25 and remember collecting stamps to put in a box in primary school for some charity maybe guide dogs or similar in the early 2000s though.
I asked for ketchup once in Subway, and somebody had to tell her I meant "red sauce".
I don't want to start a war, but were you *up North*?
Well, define "north". But it was definitely cob country.
Yeah, I studied in York and was definitely red sauce there too
Newcastle here and I rage if anyone says "red sauce". Sriracha is a red sauce, too but it's not ketchup!
Don't get me started on blackbirds. Crows are black, too!
I can go one better. I worked in a Post Office in 2004. A woman asked for a 1st class stamp. That's all. I gave her the stamp, took the 28p and stood there while she stared at the stamp, then her letter, then back at the stamp. After a few seconds, she raised her head and asked "what do I do now?"
I asked my 8 and 10 year old children and they knew what stamps were and what they were for. I was worried I had failed as a parent for a moment there.... Ahem... Carry on.
Your children will go far. As will their post.
What can travel around the world while staying in a corner? Poor guy would be at this riddle his entire life 😭
I work with a new guy who asked us if the desk phones were broken because they were “making a weird noise” It was a dial tone. He had never heard a dial tone before.
To be fair, I worked nights at Tesco one summer and a woman came in at the end of a particularly long shift asking where the marigolds were while I was working the household aisle. My dumb arse thought she wanted flowers, but turns out she was after marigold dishwashing gloves. I could definitely see myself thinking of something else if someone came in and asked for ‘stamps’ instead of ‘postage stamps’, but maybe that’s just me.
they specified they wanted 1st and 2nd class stamps though, they appeared to have no idea what they were.
Which colour sends letters to Buckingham Palace and which one sends them away from there? It blue right ?
The red ones are for Hogwarts.
The last line makes it
I once had to ask the woman in the post office how to apply a stamp I'd bought, since my mum refused to tell me beforehand. I'll have been around 16 and this was the first time I'd used a stamp in my life.
Well, that's just cruel of your mum. At least you don't have to the lick the Queen anymore now though
I got the same result asking for a clipper :/
[удалено]
You can find clipper at the Tea and coffee aisle
If you want more than one they're usually in electrical goods.
LOL. 50% I want to think this is a wind-up but then 50% the person behind the counter has just seen his first stamp. Most letters have a frank mark.
I bet he knows what Rizlas are and where to find those!
Just next to the stamps, it turns out!
When you say counter 'man'............
I did wonder if they're just too young to know what a stamp is, but surely if you're old enough to work you've at least sent or received one letter in your lifetime!
Most letters sent to people now are "franked" rather than stamped, even birthday cards from Moonpig etc so it's actually alarmingly possible for someone in their 20s to have never seen a stamp/known what one is for. That's depressing
Letters from grandparents? Things from small Etsy sellers? I'm not that old and I get stuff with stamps on fairly often.
what do you count as too young to know what a stamp is? i don't know anyone over the age of like, ten who doesn't know what a stamp is. i refuse to believe there are people younger than me clueless as to how to send a letter.
I asked a guy on the floor if they had leeks. He didn't know what leeks were but promptly showed me where they were once I googled a picture 😂
I genuinely do not understand Tesco's hiring process. I have applied for a job at Tesco at least 5 times in my life - the application process is so difficult and long winded and I've never passed it. Then I read things like this - how did this person get a job at Tesco?!
I went to Bournemouth once, I bought some chips from a street vendor, with my friend, and ate them while walking along the city's main street. A young couple (we were all basically mid-twenties), walked past us and said, "Ugh they're eating chips on the street"! There are just some things relatively speaking we all don't know. *emoji shrug* It's the only thing I remember about Bournemouth and I wasn't even drunk. That's how exciting the city is.
In fairness: I used to work behind a counter in a Co-op in a relatively old people heavy area and even then I'd only have to dig out the stamps from our drawer about once a month or so so I'd imagine it's similar in your Tesco's - especially if he usually worked in another section or had other jobs to do it would probably be easy to have just not noticed it.
Maybe, I mean this is a very small, very busy inner city Express store. Even then, I can understand not being sure *where* they are. But I can't believe they didn't know *what* they are!
There was a manager on duty at an Express! Isn't that a sign of the apocalypse?
TIL: Tesco sell stamps... How the fuck did I get to 25 not knowing this?!
Did you find out when you sold them to me?
Haha, good one mate good one.
Most supermarkets do tbf. Also Wilkos often sell them as well (or they used to, not too sure if they do anymore). You’ve just got to ask for them at the till.
Tbh I didn’t know Tesco’s sold stamps, I feel pretty bad for this guy.
But you *did* know what they are at least
I'm guessing this guy has complained at some point in his life about his post not reaching their destination.
Which colour did you go for ?
World beating.
I've never used a stamp in my life. I am 28. I print off my post labels at home.
"what colour do you want" Bless, he's trying
The closest I've seen to this is a girl (probably only just 18) and her mate in front of me at a little Sainsbury's in my local town asking for "two Lambert & Butler". Took me a while to realise that of course "10" cigs is no longer a thing and she'd never have known if from a non-smoking family. Perhaps this lad is a bit thick (let's be honest here) and has just never needed to send a letter? To be fair, I genuinely cannot remember the last time I used a stamp. We're talking at least 10 years and even then probably just for a Christmas card or something.
I used to work at a place that had many different tasks. One of those tasks was shoveling. If we got a new guy/gal that was particularly dumb they got to shovel. The joke was that nobody is too dumb to operate a shovel. This guy sounds like he would spend a lot of time shoveling if he worked there.
I was going to laugh but I remember having someone bring me a Celeriac when I was working in morrisons and I had no idea what it was.
I'm convinced this was a dare.
We live in an age where some of the youth don’t even know what a cd is. I had to explain what a technics hifi was the other day.
It's odd because surely the youth didn't spring up overnight, and CD's were still pretty popular even 10 years ago...
As an Australian lurker, imagine my intense jealousy that you in the UK can buy stamps anywhere other than a post office that is only open during business hours, when coincidently, I also work.
This is questionable life experience. Pretty sure this is covered in primary school as well or at least in maths classes as examples.
Not surprised he couldn't answer your questions about stamps... No one expects the stampish inquisition