Dealing with entitled customers takes a certain kind of person. I know I couldn't keep my cool in any of these situations, but these Reddit retail workers totally rocked it. Content has been edited for clarity.
Not again. Content has been edited for clarity.
Impatient AND Entitled
“It was quite busy in my store tonight at dinnertime, and I had several customers waiting in my line. When I was about halfway through my current customer’s cart, the next person in line stood next to me holding his store card, almost like he was holding it out for me to scan. This isn’t necessarily unusual, sometimes people just stand there if I’m almost done and wait for me to finish so I can scan their card. I smiled at him and said a quick hello, and continued checking out my current customer, just like I usually do when people stand and wait.
After a few seconds, he asked me ‘Are you going to scan my card or not?’ He had an attitude so I was taken aback, I replied ‘Um yeah, when it’s your turn to check out, I’m still working on my current customer’s stuff.’ I did my best to be nice but I suppose I could have chosen a more polite sentence to reply with. He didn’t say anything but took a step back, and just kind of stood off to the side until I was done.
Once I was checking him out he only thing he ever said to me was ‘Fine’ (again, with attitude) when I asked how he was doing. It’s not like he was an older man who just didn’t understand how the checking out process worked, it was a younger to middle-aged man who definitely should have the mental capacity to understand that you can’t scan your shopper’s card until you are actually checking out. He was just impatient I suppose.”
Big Yikes
“A woman comes up to the registers with a massive, beautiful area rug that we just got in. It’s been priced at $100-ish, which is high for our usual thrift store prices, but is still well below retail. She doesn’t have the ‘I want to speak to your manager’ haircut that I can tell, mostly because it’s been tied up in a bun. But this is the conversation that ensued:
The first words out of her mouth to my coworker were, ‘Excuse me, is there any wiggle room on this rug?’
Coworker: ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
Entitled Lady: ‘Well the price is just too high, considering there’s some damage to it.’
C: ‘The department head would have researched the value and made adjustments. I’m afraid I can’t do anything against that.’
EL: ‘Well I need a rug to cover some damage my kids did to our carpets, and I need it by Tuesday for a house showing. Can I speak to your manager?’
C: ‘Our store manager has gone home for the day, and our store is closed for Labor Day. I’m afraid if you want to talk about a price adjustment, you’ll have to wait until Tuesday morning at 10am.’
EL: ‘No, I’m afraid I cannot wait that long. Do you give military discounts?’
C: ‘Unfortunately not. Just a senior discount and that’s only 10% off.’
EL: ‘10% isn’t nearly low enough. I can pay you $50.’
Me: ‘Ma’am, we don’t haggle.’
EL: ‘Well the price is too high! Can I just buy it now and return it?’
C: ‘No. We don’t do refunds. You can donate it back, but you won’t get any money for it.’
EL: ‘This is ridiculous!’
C: ‘I’m afraid your only option is to leave a message for the store manager and come back at 10 am Tuesday to see if she’ll lower the price for you.’
(We already know that she won’t.)
EL: ‘No! I need it for Tuesday morning! That’s not and early enough time!’ *huffs and moves to the side to fiddle with her phone for about 10 minutes before coming back.
EL: ‘All right, I’ll pay your ridiculous price, and I’ll need a pen and paper. I’m going to leave a message for your store manager to get a partial refund on this rug!’
Coworker, smirking, ‘Sure thing.’
The woman scribbles down her name, number and a complaining message about how the rug was too expensive and how she wants to get a partial refund on this rug to reduce the cost down to $50, as well as a military discount on top of the price reduction. Then she pays for the rug and stomps out.
We posted the message on the store manager’s office door, along with a note saying that I and my coworker told her multiple times that we don’t haggle, OR give refunds.
Store Manager came back to work to read the note. She proceeds to laugh and shake her head in disbelief at the audacity of this Entitled Lady before opening her office and starting up the daily stuff. She also checks the security feed for the day in question.
10am on the dot, when the store opens, the phone rings. Apparently, EL was not satisfied to simply leave a note and/or wait to be called back with an answer. Nope! She’s on the phone with her spiel prepped and everything.
Store Manager politely listens to the whole song and dance. Amazingly the story remained consistent, with no added details, or claims that her son’s cancer ridden puppy needs the money back for life saving miracle cures. Nope! She is literally admitting, again, that she has used the rug to hide damage to the house she showed early this morning and just wants her money back, or at least some of it.
EL, winding down her story: ‘…So that’s why I’m hoping you can work with me on this.’
Store Manager: ‘Hmm. Well, actually, no, I can’t.’
Beat of stunned silence.
EL: ‘I’m sorry, what do you mean you can’t?’
Store Manager: ‘I can’t. We don’t do refunds at this store.’
EL: ‘But the rug was too expensive!’
Store Manager: ‘And yet, you purchased the rug anyway, after being told that you would NOT be getting ANY money back.’
EL: ‘But nobody said that! Nobody told me that I couldn’t return it, or get a price adjustment!’
Store Manager: ‘Ma’am, you WERE told that, multiple times.’
EL, 0 – 100 instantly: ‘ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?!’
Store manager, calmly, ‘Ma’am, we have video AND audio of the 20 minute long argument you had with both of my employees. They both very clearly inform you multiple times that we don’t haggle and we don’t refund.’
Crickets.
Store Manager: ‘Now, as I see it, you have a choice: either keep the rug, or donate it somewhere. Either way, we appreciate the money you have generously donated to all the homeless kitties and puppies at our local animal shelter. Have a nice day.’
Click.
I was honestly kind of speechless at the epic beauty of this complete shutdown of an EL.”
Is This Doctor A Toddler?
“A doctor came in to get some ice cream, as he checks out, he says ‘darn I left my wallet in the car’, I’m assuming he’s just going to go get it, but nope.
Doctor – ‘Cccan I just get the ice crea’m?
Me – ‘Yeah, total is $7.’
Doc – ‘I left my wallet in the car.’
Me – ‘I can grab you a new ice cream when you get your wallet.’
Doc – ‘I’m not going back to my car, coming back, and going back. I’m a DOCTOR, I’m TIRED, I WANT ice cream.’
He was pretty loud and clearly frustrated, but I don’t care, you’re a doctor, you probably make more money than me, you can afford ice cream, and you can walk 2 minutes.
Me – ‘When you pay for it.’
Doc – ‘I WORK HARD I’M TIRED I DON’T WANT TO WALK!’
M – ‘THEN YOU DON’T GET THE ICE CREAM!’
He goes to the service desk to try again and get free ice cream, doesn’t get it, and is visually red and angered. This whole scenario was 10 minutes, plenty of time to go get your wallet. I’m not saying doctors are not hard workers or they don’t get tired, but you pay like everyone else, you’re not special.”
C’mon Lady, It’s Christmas
“Back then (couple years ago) before I changed departments and went to gas station I was a cashier at a local grocery chain. I had the misfortune of working Christmas Eve. Luckily I worked in the morning and was out by 12:00 noon.
I’m working the till and that Christmas Eve morning it was actually raining and cold. (No snow. It doesn’t snow where I live)
I was near the exit so would constantly get a breeze of cold wet air. I had been working the past 4 days so I could get the following week off and be able to hang out New Year’s Eve.
Things were going smooth when I had my first difficult customer of the day. Snobby Lady we will call her.
Me: hello find everything alright?
Snobby lady: yes. Yes I did. It’s nice and cold outside but I’m not liking the rain.
Me: yes it is. And me either. Hopefully it doesn’t rain tomorrow on Christmas Day.
Snobby lady: I know. I’m going to come early to get some more things for lunch and dinner for my family tomorrow.
(Now just a note. We are closed Christmas Day. We always have been. We have signs on every single cash register stating we are closed and will open the next day)
Me: oh well you should get those items right now or later today. We are going to be closed tomorrow. It’s Christmas Day.
Snobby lady: oh no I’ll just come tomorrow
Me: ma’am. We are closed tomorrow
Snobby lady: what do you mean your closed tomorrow. It’s Christmas Day! I have things I need to buy!
Me: and I have a family I’d like to be at home with and spend my day with. If you have things you need to buy do so now.
Snobby lady: I need to speak to your manager now!
(At this point I was like ‘great. I shouldn’t have said that’). My manager shows up to speak to her.
Manager: yes ma’am. How can I help you?
Snobby lady: your employee said you are closed tomorrow. I demand this store be open. I have things to buy and I am the customer.
Manager: I’m sorry ma’am but we have signs posted all over the store stating we are closed and the signs have been up for over 2 weeks now. I suggest you buy what you need now.
(She was quite taken back at this response)
Snobby lady: I know (insert main store managers name here) and I will make sure you both will get fired for turning away a customer!
Manager: if you would like to speak to him he is actually right there (point in direction)
Snobby lady: I will! Enjoy being jobless on Christmas!
She left and went immediately to speak to him. He paid little to no attention to her and asked her to leave his store if she was going to continue to harass him and his employees.
That main manager has probably never stood up for his employees. He usually does what the customers want even though it’s against corporate policy.”
Who Knew Salad Tubs Could Cause An Issue
“Background: I work in a supermarket. I’ve been there nearly seven years and I’ve run out of any cares I previously had when I began. Today was slightly different. Prepare for a long, wild ride.
I’m hanging out packing bags for a coworker (anything to get out of doing real work), when the customer points at the screen and abruptly says: ‘that’s wrong.’
Me: ‘Oh, sorry, what’s wrong?’
Her: ‘The salad tubs. They should be 2 for $7.’
I go and check out the deli sign, realize she’s got one ‘classic’ tub ($4) and one ‘gourmet’ ($5). The special is only for the classic tubs, the sign very clearly states that under the CLASSIC heading. There is no mention of any special under the gourmet heading. I grab the sign and head back over to the register.
Me: ‘Sorry, look, you’ve grabbed one of each, it’s only the classic tubs that are on sale, would you like me to get you another classic tub?’
Her: ‘That’s WRONG. THAT’S FALSE ADVERTISING. IF IT’S WRITTEN ON THE SIGN IT MEANS ALL OF THEM!’
Me: ‘Ah, well, sorry, that isn’t how it works…’
Her: ‘YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT TO ME FOR $7. YOUR ATTITUDE IS APPALLING.’
Coworker: ‘I can’t mark stuff down without asking the night manager.’
Her: ‘CALL HIM DOWN HERE NOW!’
So I call him, he’s busy, he asks what the go is, I explain, aaand:
‘Give it to her for $7.’
WHAT. NO. GET WRECKED. NO. I can’t (yet totally can) believe this is happening to me.
I take a deep breath, turn around, and smile.
Me: ‘I’ve spoken to him and he says today we will reduce the price for you.’
Her: ‘It isn’t REDUCING THE PRICE. It is GIVING ME WHAT I AM ENTITLED TO!’
Coworker changes the prices, she slams her card into the machine, transaction doesn’t process because she’s put in the wrong PIN.
Coworker: ‘Sorry, you’ve put the wrong PIN in, can you please try again?’
Her: ‘STOP SABOTAGING MY FINANCES! What’s your name? Mark? Mark, you will be HEARING FROM ME.’
Holy moley on a bike. She finally leaves, I’m shaking because I really do not deal well with people shouting at me, but the next customer is lovely and we all relax and it’s going to be alright.
JUST KIDDING.
Half an hour later, the night manager calls from upstairs.
Him: ‘What did you and Mark DO? I’ve NEVER had a customer yell so loudly about how bad the staff are.’
Me: explains situation
Him: ‘No. You know better. Customer is always right. If they’re going to be like that, give them what they want and move on. Their happiness is greater than yours.’
I hang up the phone, look at Mark, and burst into tears. I haven’t cried for years at this job. I am so ashamed. People are looking at me so I just mumble ‘back in a minute’, walk outside, and just let rip for about five minutes. I eventually feel bad for leaving Mark on register alone, fix my makeup, and go back inside. The rest of the shift passes, a man steals $100 of meat, kids are caught stuffing chocolate down their pants, Mark makes me laugh. Just before I leave, the night manager pulls me aside and repeats exactly what he said earlier. I smile, nod, leave, call my boyfriend, rant forever, come home, and now I’m writing this.
I really wish the end to this massive post was ‘and that’s the story of why I quit my job’ but today is not that day. Instead, I’m just going to eat some pizza pockets, play Mario Kart, and fantasize about the day I do quit.”
They Could’ve Fought Them
“So I work in a store which sells bath bombs along with a lot of other things. We often demonstrate the bath bombs in our sinks, especially for kids and they always love it. The rule is that it’s 1 bath bomb demo per customer/group of customers. We only have two sinks and on this particular day we’d just done a demonstration in one of them, there were a bunch of little kids crowded around and watching it fizz and change colors (light and dark pink).
A little boy of about 6/7 and his mum enter the store. Immediately this kid rushes over to look at the bath bomb and announces very loudly that he hates pink and that the bath bomb is bad. I try to be nice and pull out our little basket with wasted-off bath bombs (usually we use chipped or damaged ones that we couldn’t sell anyway). I tell him to choose a color that he’d like better but then the mum criticizes me for trying to sell her son ‘damaged goods’. I explain that this is just for a demo and a chip out of the bath bomb isn’t going to affect the way it looks in the water but the mum isn’t having any of it. It’s not worth fighting over, we have a budget for it in case people want to see a specific bath bomb that hasn’t been wasted off, so I tell him to choose a pristine one from the shelf. I also tell him to pick carefully because he only gets one.
He chooses a bath bomb which smells nice but just turns a soft white in the water so I suggest that maybe he chooses a more colorful and fun one and explain that this one isn’t very impressive. He glares at me and shrieks ‘NO!’ very loudly. I’m kind of flustered (the other kids near the sink were all staring and a lot of the adults in the store had turned around) so I just let him put it in the free sink without trying to persuade him out of it. As expected the water just goes white and the kid is NOT happy. He starts yelling that it’s boring and his mother demands he be allowed to put another one in. I explain that we only have two sinks and now they’re both full, also I tell her that each kid is only allowed one so that the most people possible gets a chance to see them.
She ignores me and tells her son to go get another one off the shelf. I tell her again that I’m sorry but he won’t be allowed to put another one in. She tells me that I’m ‘being stingy’ and at this point the boy is running up and down the rows of bath bombs trying to choose one. One of my supervisors comes over and repeats exactly what I’ve told her, and the mum says that it’s my fault for not telling her son that the white one wouldn’t be suitable (despite me telling him exactly that a minute earlier). At this point the kid comes running back with a blue bath bomb and my supervisor tells him sternly that he can’t put it in the sink.
The now clearly demonic mother accuses my supervisor of ‘taking a tone with my son’ and demands that she sees the manager. Normally we have pretty reasonable people in our store and a request (and behavior) like this is very rare so my supervisor just awkwardly walks away to get our manager from the office. The mum gives me the most poisonous look I’ve ever gotten from a customer, turns to her son and tells him to put it in the sink.
I instantly tell him that he’s not allowed but this kid just YEETS the bath bomb into the already used sink before I can stop him. Bath bombs are meant to be placed in the bath gently, so when he hurls it water goes absolutely everywhere including OVER THE OTHER CHILDREN STANDING AT THE SINK NEXT TO IT. Understandably they all start screaming for their parents and so I begin grabbing paper towel to help them get the water off their faces and clothes. I’m furious with the mother but I can’t pay attention to her as I (along with their shocked parents) are trying to console the other kids and as we’re drying them off I hear the absolute demon lady say:
‘Oh well that’s not very impressive either is it?’
I’ve never wanted to physically fight a customer before but wow I got close then.
The entire debacle ended up with my manager getting into an argument with the mother over making her pay for the second bath bomb. My manager eventually won by telling her that if she didn’t pay, the shopping center security would have to be called. The parents of the kids who were splashed were very understanding and non-demonic.”
Thankful For The Regulars
“So I currently work at a gas station, our usual customers being from the neighborhood down the street. I also live in the same community, so most of our customers are neighbors, recognize me from around the area, have mutual friends, etc. Quite an ideal retail job for me. As a result, I am happier, way more personable, and I love love love 97% of the people I see everyday. First name basis, the whole 9 yards.
Anyhow, two days ago, I get this.. creature.. who is just a nightmare. I should have seen the signs, since the only rude people I get are not from around here, or unfortunately stereotypically, rich old entitled white women. This lady spewed vileness from her veins, I swear. I felt the disturbance in the force. And I had good reason.
She decided to purchase two twelve-pack cases of soda, from two separate exceptionally popular companies. If you purchase two from the same company, you receive a discount of what totals to a few dollars. It’s stated as such on the signage for both displays.
She grabs these two cases, as well as a bottle of cheap drink, and is unresponsive to the whole transaction. After she pays, she notices that the computer didn’t take the money off for the discounted price.
‘Oh, great, you didn’t discount me, the sign states blah blah blah…’
‘Oh, it had to be two cases from the same company, if you want to change I can-‘
‘ARE WE DONE HERE?’
‘Sorry, wha-‘
‘ARE WE DONE HERE? ARE WE DONE HERE? ARE WE DONE HERE?’
‘Uh. Sure?’
She starts to turn, but quite a line has amassed by this point. Most are regulars. Next in line is my hero regular customer who is kinda tall, lots of tattoos, fairly intimidating to some I’m sure, but always friendly to me. I just wanted this witch gone, but what was next made my day. I don’t remember exactly how he put it but it made my day.
‘You shouldn’t be so rude to people when they’re explaining why you’re wrong.’
‘It’s none of your business-‘
‘Well if you read the SIGNS rather than being RUDE it’d be your business!’
‘It’s none of your-‘
‘ARE WE DONE HERE? ARE WE DONE HERE? ARE WE DONE HERE!?’
I love my regulars.”
Shout Out To The Every Day Heroes!
“I work at a trendy store in one of the wealthiest zip codes in America. Many of the people I serve could probably buy my whole store with their pocket change, so naturally I see quite a few rude, entitled, generally bratty customers. Worse still than those bratty customers are their brattier children.
As a result, it isn’t uncommon at all for me to deal with some incredibly impolite behavior from kids, whose parents do absolutely nothing or even encourage it.
Today, I was on cash register. During the slow time a little girl rushes up to me (no more than 7 years old), waving around a balloon animal on a stick in my face, throwing some product down, and screaming ‘Make it snappy, I have places to be! Chop, chop!’
Being in retail, you develop a thick skin for these kinds of people so I just smiled at the kid and began ringing her out.
Then her mother appeared, as if by magic, behind her. She crouched down beside her child and explains calmly that such behavior is unacceptable, you should be polite to workers like you would be with friends or other important people, and if she did not behave better in the future her mother would take her home without buying anything at all. She then made her daughter apologize to me and also apologized profusely herself for her daughter’s behavior.
I’ve gotten so used to children being disrespectful with no intervention from parents, that this woman made my day. I really appreciated the empathy she clearly demonstrated, and the simple actions she took to appropriately correct her child. Every day heroes do exist!”
Just Following The Rules
“I’m a cake decorator, so dealing with not so nice customers is what I do. One day I was ready for them but a woman today really made me mad. She wanted to order a cake out of our cake book, great, fine, sure. I ask her which one, she says Mickey Mouse, great! That’s super easy to order because it’s licensed, meaning we can’t change anything on it besides adding a name on it. I flip to that page in the book and her face goes sour.
Her: ‘I don’t like the grass, can I change that?’
Me: ‘Unfortunately Mickey Mouse is a licensed design so I can’t change anything on it.’
Her: ‘What do you mean you can’t change anything, they’ve done it for me for 20 years’
Me: ‘I’m sorry ma’am but I’m here now and if I change anything I will get a $10,000 fine, see look,’ and I proceeded to point to the message in the book that says we can’t change designs that are licensed.
Her: ‘I don’t care about what it says, can I order from someone else? You’re not being helpful.’
Me: ‘Well I’m the only one here today and it won’t matter if you order from someone else, they’ll tell you the same thing.’
Her: ‘No they won’t, because they’ve done it for me before.’
Me: ‘Who did? You must know them personally if they’re gonna risk getting a fine that big.’
Her: ‘You just lost a customer, I’ll go somewhere else and they’ll do it for me.’
Me: ‘Okay, I hope you have a better day.’
And that was that, she didn’t get her way and she tried to lie but it’s okay, I still had a great Sunday!
He Had The Receipts To Prove It
“When I worked at a dry cleaners, I had a guy (a ‘Kyle’) call in and say that he’s missing some clothes. That’s a bad thing to happen, but it happens often and we have ways to fix it. So I got his phone number and looked into his account and see that everything was picked up. I let him know this and tell him, I’ll look at the camera. I get that info and go to the camera. Yay, I helped him before. I look in the camera and I definitely scanned and handed him everything. He didn’t leave anything behind. Weird. I print out the details of each bag (Five per bag and he had like seven bags). I looked at when he originally dropped of his clothes, and see that the details are correct and he definitely picked up everything he brought in. So now, I’m confused.
I get the phone, and I ask him what the garment was and he says it and I looked at the camera and see no such thing. It was like a blue hoodie and I think a brand shirt or something, but very different from everything else.
So I tell him, ‘I don’t see anything you dropped off that matches your description.’
He was suddenly mad and yelling at me. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’
And that he knows very well that he dropped it off. I told him that I was looking through the camera and I don’t see anything.
Then, he angrily says, “’’ll be there in five minutes with all the clothes I picked up yesterday.’
Sure enough he arrives with all of his clothes and sure enough, I had to help him. (My manager liked to hide during crisis and left me to fend for myself. I wasn’t even a manager). I got to the computer. He was fuming. He smacked the table like ‘count my darn pieces.’ Sure enough it matched the receipts on my computer and I turned the computer to show him and printed each one to match the numbers. Then, I offered to show him the camera. He agreed.
So I write down the times again, and headed to the office with him behind me. I pulled up the drop off and show him. I even put the printed receipts in the order that are counted on the screen. No missing clothes. Everything was counted correctly. Now, there is no denying that I was telling the truth. This is when my manager decides to make his appearance. My manager just steps to the side seeing I had taken care of this customer.
So he says ‘Get that smug smile of your face before I smack you!’
I’m sorry sir for having a permanent smile on my face apparently because I wasn’t even smiling. I just looked at my manager with a confused glance and he mirrored it. The guy left and I explained everything to him. Then, he laughed about how I was threatened for no reason. All my coworkers know that my face is basically a resting smiley face.
Never saw the customer again. Became a joke to my manager. He would always tell me to ‘Get that smile off your face or I’ll smack you.'”
Bit Of An Overreaction
“I run an independent specialty boutique, in a major U.S. city, and we can get absolutely slammed on the weekends. This story took place a little over a week ago.
My coworker, ‘Bee,’ and I are working the whole day/shift together and I have her working on a repair that a customer dropped off over the weekend. Of course the repair was not taken in properly, was undercharged, needed extra materials etc. So I was a little annoyed, Bee calls the customer and informs him that it would be an additional $5 for the extra materials (technically it should have been $10 cause he was undercharged, but I let it slide).
Thankfully, it was a pretty simple job and Bee was finished shortly. Due to the nature of our work, we often do not put the finishing touches on until the customers pick up their items. This saves us having to completely re-do the work and the customer usually has to wait an extra 5-10 minutes while we finish up. Something we always inform them of before coming to pick up their repairs. Anyways onward to the show!
Super slow/quiet day, man enters the shop (we’re going to call him ‘Terry’).
Terry: ‘I’m here to pick up my repair.’
Me: ‘Oh yes, we had to replace (insert item name here) and it will be an additional $5.’
Terry: ‘Why couldn’t you re-use (original item)?’
Bee: ‘Because (original item) had some glue stuck in it from (original work) and made it unable to re-use.’
Terry seems to accept this, Bee spends a few moments with him making sure the repair will fit. She sits down and continues the finishing touches.
Terry: ‘I also had a custom order made when I was here this past weekend and I need to pick it up.’
Me: ‘Oh sure. ‘(finds order hands it Terry)
Terry: ‘It was so busy in here on Sunday, and I don’t understand all these charges (Terry slaps receipt, on counter). Can you explain them to me?’
Me: ‘Of course.’ (plasters on customer service smile, while inwardly eye-rolling so hard)
Terry was overcharged something like $2-$3 on his custom, but since he was undercharged on the repair he still owed us a couple bucks. During this interaction another woman enters the shop (we’re going to call her ‘Gina’). Gina walks straight up to the counter while I’m dealing with Terry. I give what I thought was meaningful eye contact and a we’ll be right with you look. Anyone with ears can tell that Terry is a handful.
Gina wanders around, after few minutes she must’ve noticed Bee in the corner working diligently away in finishing Terry’s repair.
Gina: ‘I just have a quick question.’
Cue Terry losing his mind.
Terry: ‘Does no one in this store have any patience! It was exactly like this last weekend!’
Gina: ‘Excuse me! There’s two of them here!’
Terry: ‘Yeah! And they’re both helping me! You can wait!’
Bee stops what she’s doing, gets up and starts helping Gina, but she still has Terry’s repair in her hand! While Bee’s calming Gina down, I have to run around from behind the counter, grab the repair from her, finish it up and hustle Terry the heck out of shop. The whole time their still swiping barbs at one another!
At this point, I can’t even remember what was being said between the two, but Gina kept baiting Terry and provoking him! Like Gina, girl, give it rest you got what you wanted. My staff dropped everything to help you.
I finally have Terry sorted, and he even says to me ‘You just want me out of your store.’
With my customer service smile, tell him don’t worry about the few extra dollars and send him on his way.
He starts walking towards the door stops, turns around and in the most nastiest voice ever says, ‘Everyone have a great day, thanks so much for helping ME!’ And then proceeds to exit the shop.
This of course, completely sets Gina off again. Bee and I have to reassure her that Terry was obviously crazy etc, soothe that ego. When Gina finally left, I don’t even remember her purchasing anything. The whole spectacle lasted maybe 15 minutes.
Cue Bee and I looking at each other, in a now empty shop, like what just happened?”
Good Thing She Forgot It
“Last year, while taking a year off between my undergrad and my master’s, I decided to work to save some money and to have some pocket money. I was hired to work at one of the most ‘gourmet’ supermarkets in my city. This one is located as part of a very important ‘mall’ in Spain and, because it’s in the center, most of the customers are the rich type. Now, as well as our- very ugly- uniform, we also have to wear a nametag.
I was working at the ’10 or less items’ till and that particular day there weren’t many people shopping, so I was kind of bored. The way the till is placed, though, makes it kind of hard to control the number of items the customer has if I’m not paying attention, which I wasn’t. So sometimes, I have to send people off to other tills, when they have already started to put their things on the lane. That has granted me quite a lot of insults and offensive remarks all throughout my experience as a cashier. I kind of get, but also, there’s a huge sign next to the till, hard to miss. I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe learn how to read?
So I’m not paying attention, because there’s nothing going on and this woman, very kind, with her daughter, starts placing her items. And when I turn to look, I see that she has clearly more than 10 items. However, being the nice lady that I am and taking into account that there’s not many people and most of my workmates are free, I let her continue. I’m finishing ringing her stuff when an old guy comes my way and immediately starts muttering and huffing. I pay no mind because at this point, I’ve been working for months and I have already decided I do not care for these people. But, he’s clearly annoyed by the situation, we being at a ’10 or less items’ and the woman before him having more than 10 things. But he’s come when she’s already paying so It’s not like he’s had to wait a ton.
Nonetheless, he starts going at me, explaining how my work is supposed to be done, repeating several times how he’s a loyal customer, calling me incompetent.
At the end, he asks for my name, and I’m already fed up, so I just say ‘It’s in my nametag,’ all while taking my hair back so he can see better.
I don’t care anymore, he can talk to my manager, it’s not like it’s the job of my life. He looks confused, I don’t understand why at that moment, but he shuts up and leaves.
I continue with my shift. It’s now close to the end of the day, there’s maybe 30 minutes left and I’m at the self-service lanes, bored out of my mind. At some point, I don’t know why, I decide to look down at my nametag, maybe because I’m thinking about the situation with the old guy. I look down and it’s not there. I’m thinking, maybe I’ve lost it at some point during my shift? but I’m thinking and thinking, and I don’t actually remember putting it on when I was changing, so surely it has to be at my locker still and I have worked the whole shift without it. Even when talking with the old guy, who, now that I’m realising, does not have my name. So it’s very improbable he has gone to talk to my manager to tell her about my incompetence.
Long story short, I didn’t get fired, because I forgot to put on my nametag.”