I'd pay more to get service with a smile

I smile and attempt small talk with the assistants and am always polite, because I understand what it is like to be in a customer-facing role. But for some ridiculous reason, some (not all) shopkeepers think they are doing us a favour by taking the time out of their busy day to cease talking to a colleague or to stop texting for a minuscule moment to serve the customer and interact with us plebs with more than a grunt.

God help you if you want advice. That is simply too exhausting for the poor lambs and it obviously interferes with their social life. And what about the cost of these products?

I have to come clean and say that Christmas comes to me beautifully packaged up in a big, brown, cardboard box, delivered to my door in super quick time for half the cost of anything I can purchase locally.

Don't spin me the 'local is best because of the after-service' tack either. Sorry to say that once you have paid over your cash, that's it.

I went to a very local shop on Saturday and checked out the price of something I wanted to buy. I had already checked out the competition (no names) online and found the cost of this item to be £8.50 delivered to my door.

The shop assistant (who literally could only just be bothered to come around to my side of the counter to check out the price) told me '£20'. Twenty pounds?

What sort of madness is that, I asked him? I told the man that a certain online store could do it for £8.50 and he shouted that 'it would obviously be second-hand then' – no mate, it won't be.

I know local businesses cannot compete with the big boys, but I would be more inclined to purchase locally, even if it was more expensive, if the service was up to scratch.

(For anyone remotely interested, my husband works as a shop assistant and has to put up with a multitude of really stupid customers, so I totally understand that service and attitude is not just one-sided.)

Just as an aside, why can I buy Guernsey Monopoly online cheaper than locally?

Then there is the Emperors' New Clothes approach by some purveyors of delightfully expensive stuff that looks as if it has come off a reclamation yard, but somehow manages a three-digit price tag.

We are not living in London, folks - this is little old Guernsey, home of the jumper, the toms and the cow. Let's not get too big for our boots. If we forget where we came from, frankly our days are numbered.

Of course there are two sides to every grumble – the lovely lady who insists in helping you pack your bag, who will go out to the back of the shop to get what you want; the man in the well-known mobile store who gave away his pen to me because I had lost mine; the gentleman shop assistant who opens a door for a lady to walk through...

Service with a smile, frankly, that's all we really want at the end of the day.

Name and address withheld.