Fakenham supermarket worker thanks customer for surprise flower offer

A supermarket worker was offered a surprise gesture of appreciation by a customer in a Norfolk town this week.

Amie Franks, who has worked as a shift manager at Fakenham's Lidl store for over 10 years, was given a bunch of flowers at the till by a man.

She initially did not realise the flowers were for her, and she took to social media to try and thank the customer for their kind gesture.

Mrs Franks said: "It genuinely made me smile and shows we still have some really lovely people in our community. Passing on small acts of kindness and the appreciation for our work really made my day.

"The gentleman laughed and said ‘those are you for’ to which I thought he was joking and just laughed and carried on taking the payment and passing him the flowers. He then she said ‘just passing on a kind gesture for your work’ and walked off."

Mrs Franks was left speechless and ran outside in an attempt to thank the customer properly, but he had already left by the time she arrived.

After posting about the gesture on social media, many people have commented to say it was deserved.

Among those who commented were Sally Hammond who said: "Lovely gesture, you all deserve flowers as an amazing team. I’d say well done to everybody. You are always so lovely and friendly and helpful. Keep up the great work."

Wendy Darrell also posted to say: "I love the staff at Lidl. They are the best."

Mrs Franks has recently moved to part-time shifts after having a baby boy. She said many of her colleagues are working 50 hour weeks with face masks on, but the sense of team spirit and camaraderie has been maintained.

She said: "We are all very lucky to have such a close work relationship and many customers comment regularly on our friendly staff we have so we’ve just been supporting each other really and are taking all precautions to make sure we are all safe.

"The first lockdown was definitely by far the worst for our store with the demand for toilet paper and tinned goods going to the absolute extreme."

She believes panic buying has calmed down immensely now as customers now realise there is enough stock for everyone if they shop sensibly.