The customer has to check out himself after there is no worker in the store

It can be frustrating when you go shopping and can’t find anyone to take your money. You’ve got all your items stacked in your shopping cart or clutching them to your chest – because you didn’t have the foresight to grab a basket – and there’s no employee in sight processing your transaction.

While many retailers have managed to fix this by providing customers with self-checkout options, some stores require people to wire the payment to a human.

But when there’s no employee in sight watching you swipe your card and accept a transaction through the company’s point-of-sale system, it can be tempting to just step behind the counter and call the items yourself.

That’s exactly what a TikToker driven by Pilot (@privateprofit) did while shopping, and he ended up in a sitcom-like situation.

@privateprofit #fyp #trending #funny #viral #uk #meme #pov ♬ original sound – Pilot🛩

At the beginning of the video, the pilot stands in front of an allegedly unoccupied cash register.

“There’s no one here to take my payment, so…I just have to do it myself,” he says in the clip.

The TikToker then takes the product they are holding and goes behind the counter to checkout. As he is about to ring the bell, a customer comes up to the front and asks if he can have a SIM card. Without skipping a beat, Pilot looks around and grabs an “unlimited” SIM card that’s still in the box and hands it over to the gentleman before the clip ends.

Viewers were amused that the TikToker immediately decided to take on the role of an employee just seconds after stepping behind the counter.

“You even stepped in to help,” wrote one user. Someone else joked, “Bro had to work a full 8 hour shift.”

Other users on the platform identified the store as UK-based retailer Superdrug. One commented that the Superdrug shopping experience was far from outstanding, writing, “I’m telling you, Superdrug sucks,” while another noted that they “swear all Superdrug stores are understaffed.”

Another TikToker pointed out that Superdrug employees earn a commission for every single SIM card they sell. So whoever missed out on that sale would probably have been upset.

“Nah, because the staff would FULFILL they missed a SIM card,” they wrote. Another shared: “They also get a commission on SIM cards, whoever would have enforced that would have been so happy.”

Another user joked: “I hope you got that extra £1 for selling this SIM card.”

Someone who said they used to work for Superdrug responded that the store policies appeared to be very different from what Pilot experienced at the location where he shopped.

“I worked at Superdrug, we weren’t allowed to leave the register without being around,” they said.

So what should Pilot have done in this situation since he is not an official store employee? One TikToker said he couldn’t have called his item because people had to sign up. “You have to sign in at checkout, you should have just hit the bell,” the user wrote.

The Daily Dot reached out to Superdrug via email and Pilot via TikTok comment.

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