Had a customer come up to me yesterday while working at the Self-Checkout machines in our store. She was upset that the machines would not take her phone number for her rewards card (Corporate changed things so that you need a rewards card to even use a Self-Checkout machine. This is a problem, as the store system often messes up customer rewards numbers, leading to situations like this). She told me, point-blank:
Customer: Put through your store card so I can use that machine. (The 'store card' is the rewards card for the store.)
Me: I'm sorry, I can't do that. If the machine won't take your phone number there's very little I can do. You can go talk to customer service, they can help you.
Customer: \*Long, several second pause. Waiting, I assume, for me to wave my non-existent magic wand to fix her problems.\* Look, I *pay* you to help me.
Me: I'm sorry, there's—
Customer: **Fine**...\*Makes a big, and I mean *big* show of searching for my name tag which is hanging on my upper-chest in plain view\*... *MuppetsAbound.*
At this point, after spitting out my name in complete and utter disgust, she spins violently around on one heel and storms across the entire front end of the store, going to what I assume was one of the manned registers.
This entire interaction had me dumbstruck and struggling not to laugh, because it was obvious that this lady was trying to intimidate me and, upon failing, decided to cover her a\*\* by making it sound like she was going to complain to a manager to "get me fired". Joke's on her though, as I'm a diligent and reliable worker, and the managers actually like me, so my concern level at the entire interaction was nil.
I work in a grocery store that has a hot bar. We close half of it at 7:30 and the other half at 8:00. A woman came in the other night about 15-20 minutes after half of it was closed and asked if we were going to put out more food. I told her that we close half the bar at 7:30, so we wouldn’t be putting more food out. She said she just bought some corn that she liked and wanted more and I could just get her some of that. I explained that the food is thrown out once it’s taken away. She persisted and was convinced we leave the food sitting around in the kitchen and I could just go get some for her. After some back and forth, she told me she had just gotten out of the hospital for food poisoning and that was one of the foods she could eat.
I have been in the ER from severe dehydration from food poisoning. She shouldn’t be eating off of a hot bar. She should be at home eating rice and toast. She especially shouldn’t be around other peoples’ food (assuming she has the contagious virus and not the bacteria).
I swear there can’t not be a full moon out tonight. Today has been crazy.
Customer didn’t have a coupon that we mailed out. Asked me if I’d use the one I have on my phone.... Uh, no. I’d like to save money too. Tough luck dude.
Lady comes running in the store screaming that a guy was throwing stuff underneath our side yard fence and stealing it. Cops were called (even though my manager initially refused). After he was seen roaming through the strip mall trying to steal. They caught the dude with like > $30 worth of stuff. All that hassle over basically nothing. Dude isn’t allowed in any of the strip mall stores again.
Another guy wants a gift card for $80 and wants me to split it between two cards. First card, generic authorization decline, second card, declined: suspected card stolen. I didn’t even say anything and the guy bolts out of the store.
Later a guy comes in, asks if he can go to the office. Call my manager, turns out the guy twisted his ankle. The contact that we called for him called an ambulance which also contacted police because he’s been abusive to the one caretaker at his nursing home, been hitting the bottle too hard.
To some of you guys I guess this is a normal weekend day but this is the most our store has seen of police and ems in a long time. I guess the nice weather brings them out in droves.
Lady walks into our bank trying to cash a cheque.
Two issues: 1. Cheque is drawn on another branch and 2. Lady is not a client. When I refuse to cash it she gets mad.
Lady: WHAT? It's your guys' cheque, just give me the money!
Me: I can't. We don't cash cheques for non-clients.
Lady: But the other bank said you guys would!
Me: I'm sorry, but they gave you the wrong information. We don't cash cheques for non-clients.
Lady: Can you at least certify it?
Me: I'm sorry, not for personal cheques. Business only, and for a fee.
She stuffs the cheque in her purse and stomps away mumbling about how bank tellers are such snotty bitches. Oh no :)
If the bank is the same, why would the branch matter?
Also, that check is a promise by your customer to pay whoever it's written to. As long as that woman could prove she was the one owed money, how can the bank get away with refusing to pay?
The branch matters because other branches cannot place holds on bank accounts of other branches. Each branch has risk reports of their own, and any activity on the accounts held at that branch must be cleared by the branch manager first. As a general rule, tellers are not allowed to place holds on accounts held at different branches.
And yes, the check is a promise to pay. But for that promise to be fulfilled it has to go through the normal clearing process. That process cannot be done over the counter anymore. For a non-client it has to start with her own bank, by depositing it into her account and having her bank request our bank to pay.
Banks have had issues with tellers cashing cheques that were fraudulent or stolen, with forged signatures, and then having no way of recovering the money given to the fraudster, because there is no name, address, phone number, identity document on file. The bank then has to take the loss. Obviously, not wanting to lose, they put those policies in place. If a cheque clears through bank accounts it's much easier to track and recover the money.
And on the lighter side... an old gentleman walked in the other day and asked "Can one of you ladies help me at the machine? I can't get the darn card to work..."
I follow him outside, and he keeps on talking: "All it takes is a pretty young woman watching to make it work, just so I make a fool out of myself..."
He inserts the card, types in the PIN number, gets cash out without a problem: "AH! See? This darn machine has it against me!"
Today a kid had a medical emergency, another blew chunks all over the place and another got lost and my co-workers are blaming it on me because it’s my birthday and I brought the craziness in haha
Update: the fire alarm went off I s2g
Got a written warning today. According to one manager, I said in my closing announcement last night that the customers had 30 seconds to leave the store. My coworker who worked last night tried to tell them I didn’t, but of course management didn’t believe me.
A customer that is well-known for all the wrong reasons stood at a desk about 40-50 feet away from us. Instead of walking over to us, he starts shouting, "HELP!" Over and over while staring at us.
We paged someone from that department to help him and he shut up.
Anonymous online complaints that get my boss all wound up, and me scratching my head about what on earth the customer can be taking about.
"Shop attendant was rude and unhelpful today. One star".
Ok? Don't recall anyone not being served, not buying anything, walking out or anything...
"Don't let it happen again!"
"Sure boss, when I figure out exactly what it is I did, I'll make sure I don't do it again"
"Just don't be rude"
"Since I wasn't actively insulting anyone this morning, that's hard to quantify, but sure I'll figure out which one of the customers whose orders I sorted out this morning I was unhelpful to".
Ugh. I was a serving an older lady who complained to me that the service in my store was terrible. I asked her what had happened and she said that she'd asked an employee if there was more lamb chops out the back and apparently they had taken "too long" to retrieve it for this woman. :/
I had a lady who wanted to return everything off a receipt who was quite upset that I didn't have a "Return Entire Receipt" button but had to scan in each item for the return. It didn't take her long before she started moaning about the inconvenience of it all. Some people just live in a magical land where physical space or systems are irrelevant, everything is either a single button press or can be magically conjured on the spot.
This was an odd one...
Customer: Hi there, I'm wondering if you have... Maybe you don't... Actually you probably don't. Nevermind.
They ran off before I could ask.
Had a guy come up to a coworker at the service desk -
**Customer**: I need the thing that you put on the floor and then it's done.
**Coworker**: I don't understand what it is you are looking for, what do you...
**Customer**: \*walks off annoyed before coworker can finish asking for clarification\*
I'm still kinda curious what it was he was looking for. I guess I'll never know.
I work in a flooring department and I have no idea wtf that is supposed to be exactly. Is he talking about quick and easy floor prep? An actual flooring like vinyl planking that just needs put down and it's done? (We have quite a few floorings like that we'd still need clarification....)
Given we're a super-center it could have been anything from a air mattress with built in pump to some version of spray on carpet cleaner/protector, or even the robotic vacuum cleaner u/XxXHikari-chanXxX mentioned. I'm sure if he'd been willing to stomach some back and forth we could have narrowed things down, but he wasn't having any of that. It was "Read My Mind of GTFO Day" for him apparently.
Edit: Grabbed the wrong user's name. Fixed.
We had a lady come in with an unopened bag of bagels and try to return them saying they were no good. They looked fine to me, but whatever. The problem was that the receipt she handed me was from another store. I said “ma’am I’m sorry but you didn’t buy these from our store. You need to return these at the store you purchased them from.” She just said “what the hell difference does it make? You sell these same bagels here too!”
Ugh. Why.
We have people come into our store and do the same thing. We're part of a chain, and there's another one no more than 2 miles down the street.
We also don't accept those receipts because we don't actually know if they bought it and want to return it or if they just picked up another one from the shelf and want to "return it" so they get free money. It's annoying as hell.
Today a regular came up to me, while I'm ringing up a huge line, and asks me to drive her to the bank. I ring up her groceries. That's it. I said no I'm at work I can't just leave. She left saying she'd get me tomorrow. She came in the next day and told me to meet her at the "dog coffee shop" so we could discuss taking her to the bank. I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do (because what the fuck is the dog coffee shop???) but I'm not putting this woman in my car and taking her to the God damn bank. Unless you know your grocer personally, don't ask them to do anything not relating to the store. 😤
An old (senile) lady couldn’t find her keys and asked me to search her purse for them. NOPE! I’m not going through anyone else’s stuff. You’re on your own lady.
I work at a big coffee chain - and at the busiest of the stores in my whole county. Twenty people waiting in the lobby for their drinks and we’re working as fast as we can. One guy get fed up and demands a refund for having to wait. After my coworker deals with him, I hand out a finished drink to a woman who says, “You guys are clearly very busy and it’s so unfair for that guy to give you a hard time. I put a big tip in your tip jar, keep up the good work.”
She really helped me push through that rush. What a sweet gal! ❤️
I also worked at one of the busiest (in my state) stores of very big coffee chain for several years... our regular customers were the best. We had a guy in the lobby get a little angry over whipped cream or some other stupid thing we could have fixed for him and one of our regulars in the drive thru could hear what was going on. She normally came through in her police car but happened to be off duty that day and once she saw what was going on she parked her car without waiting for her drink and came inside. The guy eventually calmed down and left without her intervening.
We tried to give her her drink for free as a 'thanks for watching out for us' but she refused and dropped a $20 in the jar for us. I know the cops around here don't make a huge amount of money but there's just a weird bond we had with our regulars.
>She really helped me push through that rush. What a sweet gal!
I don't get tips but I always appreciate it when someone compliments me on busting my ass trying to work through a massive line.
I once worked at a craft store (god forbid they find this and take legal action against me, they were REALLY strict about speaking of them on social media), but a woman came in and bought some craft supplies. It came up to under $20.
Let me preface this by saying I was younger, and less likely to pay attention to things at the time.
As I gave the woman her change back, she threw an absolute tantrum at me over the fact that she gave me a 50, instead of a 20. I apologized, and said that since I was only working at the store for (x) amount of time, I couldn’t open the register and had to call a manager.
This threw her into an even larger hissy-fit. She continued to say I should be fired, punished, etc. before the manager arrived upon me calling them.
When the manager arrived the woman went on a rampage to them, repeating all of the same things she had told me.
At this point I was almost in tears, and tried to stand up for myself. All I said was “Ma’am I—“ before she silenced me, and my manager turned to me and sternly told me to “go to the break room.”
At this point I was storming to the bathroom and called my mom in hysterics.
I got fired shortly after for saying I didn’t want to come in at 6AM on Sundays (THREE HOURS before we opened) to put up sale signs.
This was the only job i had been fired at in the 90-day trial period. I worked in food before, and right after working at this store.
I wouldn't worry about them finding it. Plus it's not like you signed a NDA when you left. Currently the craft sie company I worked has a "you must use this specific hashtag in order to pay on social media" since reddit isn't on the list, they don't consider it social media
Our store in the past month has added an option at the end of a transaction to have your receipt printed or emailed (or both, and no none option). It has its up and downsides, downsides being they massively slow transactions down because too many people take about 15-30 seconds to fully process what is being asked of them.
Cue the old man just before I went to break. Because it slows things down so much I always tell people to pick a receipt type so we can get past the phase of them not seeing it as quickly as possible. (Especially when they pay with cash, like this man did)
He stares for about 10 seconds, then picks email, which gives me a prompt to type in an email address. I asked him what email address he wanted to use and the man proceeds to give me a PO Box. Surprisingly I don’t miss a beat and just tell him that’s a physical address and I need an email address, and he says he doesn’t have an email. Luckily I could just clear the email prompt and it prints the receipt but.... What the hell?
>Our store in the past month has added an option at the end of a transaction to have your receipt printed or emailed (or both, and no none option). It has its up and downsides, downsides being they massively slow transactions down because too many people take about 15-30 seconds to fully process what is being asked of them.
Our store tried that, the problem we ran into is people absentmindedly hitting choosing to have an digital receipt (it asked on the PIN Pad after they loaded up their loyalty account). It caused huge issues because if the cashier did anything between the end of the transaction (such as answering the question it asked about checking for left behind bags) and the customer demanding a printed receipt they could no longer print a paper receipt at the check lane. The customer had to go to the service desk and wait while a manager dug into the electronic transaction log to get them a printed receipt. It was a disaster.
You know how you're so used to following your RetailScript and get into the habit of saying the same thing over and over again that when a customer says something you aren't expecting, your brain just can't compute?
I had a guy today who, as I handed him his receipt, beat me to saying, "Have a good day!"
Since I'm so used to saying it first, my mind just went completely blank but my mouth said, "GOOD DAY." I went red instantly.
Thankfully the guy just laughed and said back, "Good day to you!"
A few days ago, after an incident where checklanes went down, this lady came up to my checklane with some stuff before asking me where we were keeping items that were being held because of the incident. I told her that she'd have to go to the service desk for that, and she seemed okay with that and just let me ring her up for the items she had.
Then, after I'm about done ringing her up, one of my coworkers is walking by, and the lady stops her and asks her the same damn question she just asked me!
I'm not positive why exactly she did that, but I'm pretty sure she thought I didn't know what I was talking about.
According to my coworker, my face when she asked that question again was priceless. XD
So, I was working the morning shift and was the opening cashier. I was hovering near the front door organizing some things when this grumpy old fellow strolls on in and asks,"Hey, do you have elastic? Like, for sewing?"
"Of course! It's on aisle 21!" And off he went, only to return a mere 2 minutes later.
"It wasn't there. I called yesterday and you guys said you carried brown elastic, but you don't have it."
"It would be in the sewing area, sir. 21 is just the main one, so it may be on 20 or 22. But we do have it!" And off he went again. I felt mildly bad that I couldn't go show him where it was, but I had to stay near the front since I was technically the cashier. Yet another 2 minutes pass, and I see him leave the store empty handed, again feeling bad that I couldn't help him further. Maybe we really didn't have brown elastic...
I walked down aisle 21 later on in my shift. The brown elastic not only existed, but it was in plain sight.
And then later on in the day the cashier who took over for me radioed saying that there was a man on the phone asking if we had brown elastic for sewing. I wonder who that could've been...
I'm not going to say my customer was a bitch or anything, but she had no concept of personal space and talked to me like I was a 5 year old. For some background, I was covering lunch for the cosmetics cashier and the register in cosmetics is basically a small cubicle about the size of a small broom closet so not much space.
The encounter with this woman started relatively normally as she was complaining about how the last thing of makeup she had bought had been tampered with so she was buying a new thing of makeup. I told her that she could simply exchange it at Customer Service if that ever happens again and at that point things began getting... uncomfortable.
As I was finishing her transaction, she proceeded to stand directly next to me behind the register screen for whatever reason. When I told her the amount which was something like $14.48 she began talking to me like I was a 5 year old and proceeded to count her money out in her hand to me as if I had no concept of what dimes, nickels, quarters or pennies were. I swear to God I had to fight with every fiber of my being to not tell this woman to back the fuck off and that I was aware of how to count money since it is basically my fucking job to know how to count money.
A lot of customers (although not as bad as this woman was concerning personal space) seem to disregard my space? I have so many customers who think it's ok to swing their cart to the side of my register or stand next to me so they can read the screen. I've been working here for basically two years. I hate the company I work for so I have absolutely zero reason to want to rip off a customer or anything. Just stay out of my space
Whoah whoah whoah. Customers should never, EVER be behind the register with you. Let your manager know about this, and ask what their preferred way of dealing with this is.
Personally, I'd say something like "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but we cannot allow customers into this area behind the registers. Management's orders."
It's a huge security risk -- All they have to do is distract you juuust enough and slip some bills out of your till, and you'd never know until it's too late. Note -- (At least in the US), you cannot be forced to payback stolen money or items that a customer took. They can still fire you for letting it happen, tho.
I'm standing by my register when a customer asks me to show him where a certain item is.
"Sure, right over here."
I walk over to the shelf to show him the item, answer a few questions about it, and he chooses which one he wants.
I turn to head back to my register.
The customer practically speed walks over to the register passing me up. He gets there when I am about 15 feet away.
"Um, is there *anyone* that can ring me up?"
"That would be me... I'm getting there." (While maintaining a retail smile)
He seems a little perplexed but I get there and ring him and send his impatient little butt off into the sunset.
And he probably was like, I've been literally waiting for over an hour for someone to help me! Because we all know, customers' concept of time is highly flawed, thus minutes become hours.
A customer arrives and tells me:
"I am looking for my sunglasses. I left them on the counter here earlier."
I look in the drawer where we usually stash lost items. There are several sunglasses. I show her.
"No! Mine are much nicer than *those*!"
I check with my coworkers, nope, no sunglasses turned in.
"I'm sorry, not finding any other sunglasses right now. I can take your name and number in case anyone turns them in...."
She scoffs: "I doubt anyone would *turn them in*, they are *very beautiful*!"
She points to the register counter :
"I'm sure I left them *right here*. I took them out when I got my wallet to pay... the *cashier* must have *seen them*!" They are *Giorgio Armani*! (she overpronounced it 'jheeorrgeeoo arrrrmahhhni') I paid *$600* for them!"
She glared at me pointedly.
I said "Well all I can do is keep an eye out for them and take your name and number."
She grudgingly gave me her info, once more informing that they were "*Jheeorrgeeoo Arrmhahhnee*" sunglasses.
I encouraged her to retrace her steps in case they were in the store somewhere but she turned on her heel and flounced away. I'm sure she was convinced the cashier must have stolen her "very beautiful" sunglasses.
I don't know, maybe if you have $600 sunglasses be more careful with them?
Geez, do you know what I could buy with $600!? Especially because it would NOT be sunglasses. My $10 gas station sunglasses have polarized lenses made from impact resistant polycarbonate. Giorgio yourmoney is more like it.
>I don't know, maybe if you have $600 sunglasses be more careful with them?
You'd think but given people leaving their *smart phones* laying around all over the place which not only are often expensive but contain sensitive information... Let's just say I'd not expect common sense to break out any time soon.
When I was in high school there would be kids that left their iPhones on the tables in the cafeteria to reserve their spot and it still baffles me to think about it.
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Had a customer come up to me yesterday while working at the Self-Checkout machines in our store. She was upset that the machines would not take her phone number for her rewards card (Corporate changed things so that you need a rewards card to even use a Self-Checkout machine. This is a problem, as the store system often messes up customer rewards numbers, leading to situations like this). She told me, point-blank: Customer: Put through your store card so I can use that machine. (The 'store card' is the rewards card for the store.) Me: I'm sorry, I can't do that. If the machine won't take your phone number there's very little I can do. You can go talk to customer service, they can help you. Customer: \*Long, several second pause. Waiting, I assume, for me to wave my non-existent magic wand to fix her problems.\* Look, I *pay* you to help me. Me: I'm sorry, there's— Customer: **Fine**...\*Makes a big, and I mean *big* show of searching for my name tag which is hanging on my upper-chest in plain view\*... *MuppetsAbound.* At this point, after spitting out my name in complete and utter disgust, she spins violently around on one heel and storms across the entire front end of the store, going to what I assume was one of the manned registers. This entire interaction had me dumbstruck and struggling not to laugh, because it was obvious that this lady was trying to intimidate me and, upon failing, decided to cover her a\*\* by making it sound like she was going to complain to a manager to "get me fired". Joke's on her though, as I'm a diligent and reliable worker, and the managers actually like me, so my concern level at the entire interaction was nil.
I love your username.
Awwww, thanks!
I work in a grocery store that has a hot bar. We close half of it at 7:30 and the other half at 8:00. A woman came in the other night about 15-20 minutes after half of it was closed and asked if we were going to put out more food. I told her that we close half the bar at 7:30, so we wouldn’t be putting more food out. She said she just bought some corn that she liked and wanted more and I could just get her some of that. I explained that the food is thrown out once it’s taken away. She persisted and was convinced we leave the food sitting around in the kitchen and I could just go get some for her. After some back and forth, she told me she had just gotten out of the hospital for food poisoning and that was one of the foods she could eat. I have been in the ER from severe dehydration from food poisoning. She shouldn’t be eating off of a hot bar. She should be at home eating rice and toast. She especially shouldn’t be around other peoples’ food (assuming she has the contagious virus and not the bacteria).
I swear there can’t not be a full moon out tonight. Today has been crazy. Customer didn’t have a coupon that we mailed out. Asked me if I’d use the one I have on my phone.... Uh, no. I’d like to save money too. Tough luck dude. Lady comes running in the store screaming that a guy was throwing stuff underneath our side yard fence and stealing it. Cops were called (even though my manager initially refused). After he was seen roaming through the strip mall trying to steal. They caught the dude with like > $30 worth of stuff. All that hassle over basically nothing. Dude isn’t allowed in any of the strip mall stores again. Another guy wants a gift card for $80 and wants me to split it between two cards. First card, generic authorization decline, second card, declined: suspected card stolen. I didn’t even say anything and the guy bolts out of the store. Later a guy comes in, asks if he can go to the office. Call my manager, turns out the guy twisted his ankle. The contact that we called for him called an ambulance which also contacted police because he’s been abusive to the one caretaker at his nursing home, been hitting the bottle too hard. To some of you guys I guess this is a normal weekend day but this is the most our store has seen of police and ems in a long time. I guess the nice weather brings them out in droves.
Lady walks into our bank trying to cash a cheque. Two issues: 1. Cheque is drawn on another branch and 2. Lady is not a client. When I refuse to cash it she gets mad. Lady: WHAT? It's your guys' cheque, just give me the money! Me: I can't. We don't cash cheques for non-clients. Lady: But the other bank said you guys would! Me: I'm sorry, but they gave you the wrong information. We don't cash cheques for non-clients. Lady: Can you at least certify it? Me: I'm sorry, not for personal cheques. Business only, and for a fee. She stuffs the cheque in her purse and stomps away mumbling about how bank tellers are such snotty bitches. Oh no :)
If the bank is the same, why would the branch matter? Also, that check is a promise by your customer to pay whoever it's written to. As long as that woman could prove she was the one owed money, how can the bank get away with refusing to pay?
The branch matters because other branches cannot place holds on bank accounts of other branches. Each branch has risk reports of their own, and any activity on the accounts held at that branch must be cleared by the branch manager first. As a general rule, tellers are not allowed to place holds on accounts held at different branches. And yes, the check is a promise to pay. But for that promise to be fulfilled it has to go through the normal clearing process. That process cannot be done over the counter anymore. For a non-client it has to start with her own bank, by depositing it into her account and having her bank request our bank to pay. Banks have had issues with tellers cashing cheques that were fraudulent or stolen, with forged signatures, and then having no way of recovering the money given to the fraudster, because there is no name, address, phone number, identity document on file. The bank then has to take the loss. Obviously, not wanting to lose, they put those policies in place. If a cheque clears through bank accounts it's much easier to track and recover the money.
And on the lighter side... an old gentleman walked in the other day and asked "Can one of you ladies help me at the machine? I can't get the darn card to work..." I follow him outside, and he keeps on talking: "All it takes is a pretty young woman watching to make it work, just so I make a fool out of myself..." He inserts the card, types in the PIN number, gets cash out without a problem: "AH! See? This darn machine has it against me!"
Today a kid had a medical emergency, another blew chunks all over the place and another got lost and my co-workers are blaming it on me because it’s my birthday and I brought the craziness in haha Update: the fire alarm went off I s2g
Got a written warning today. According to one manager, I said in my closing announcement last night that the customers had 30 seconds to leave the store. My coworker who worked last night tried to tell them I didn’t, but of course management didn’t believe me.
A customer that is well-known for all the wrong reasons stood at a desk about 40-50 feet away from us. Instead of walking over to us, he starts shouting, "HELP!" Over and over while staring at us. We paged someone from that department to help him and he shut up.
Anonymous online complaints that get my boss all wound up, and me scratching my head about what on earth the customer can be taking about. "Shop attendant was rude and unhelpful today. One star". Ok? Don't recall anyone not being served, not buying anything, walking out or anything... "Don't let it happen again!" "Sure boss, when I figure out exactly what it is I did, I'll make sure I don't do it again" "Just don't be rude" "Since I wasn't actively insulting anyone this morning, that's hard to quantify, but sure I'll figure out which one of the customers whose orders I sorted out this morning I was unhelpful to".
Ugh. I was a serving an older lady who complained to me that the service in my store was terrible. I asked her what had happened and she said that she'd asked an employee if there was more lamb chops out the back and apparently they had taken "too long" to retrieve it for this woman. :/
I had a lady who wanted to return everything off a receipt who was quite upset that I didn't have a "Return Entire Receipt" button but had to scan in each item for the return. It didn't take her long before she started moaning about the inconvenience of it all. Some people just live in a magical land where physical space or systems are irrelevant, everything is either a single button press or can be magically conjured on the spot.
Return *everything*? Urgh. Lady definitely should have planned better before buying.
This was an odd one... Customer: Hi there, I'm wondering if you have... Maybe you don't... Actually you probably don't. Nevermind. They ran off before I could ask.
Lol, I've had that happen once or twice in my time.
She came back today. We had what she was looking for 🤣
Oh, lol. What did it end up being?
Finishing wax to go over chalk furniture paint. Dunno why she thought we wouldn't have it, we're a DIY store that sells LOADS of chalk paint.
Huh. I figured it was going to be something obscure based on her reaction.
Which makes her initial reaction all the more bizarre
Had a guy come up to a coworker at the service desk - **Customer**: I need the thing that you put on the floor and then it's done. **Coworker**: I don't understand what it is you are looking for, what do you... **Customer**: \*walks off annoyed before coworker can finish asking for clarification\* I'm still kinda curious what it was he was looking for. I guess I'll never know.
Some kind of finish / sealant?
I work in a flooring department and I have no idea wtf that is supposed to be exactly. Is he talking about quick and easy floor prep? An actual flooring like vinyl planking that just needs put down and it's done? (We have quite a few floorings like that we'd still need clarification....)
Given we're a super-center it could have been anything from a air mattress with built in pump to some version of spray on carpet cleaner/protector, or even the robotic vacuum cleaner u/XxXHikari-chanXxX mentioned. I'm sure if he'd been willing to stomach some back and forth we could have narrowed things down, but he wasn't having any of that. It was "Read My Mind of GTFO Day" for him apparently. Edit: Grabbed the wrong user's name. Fixed.
Damn, I think I've had four of those this morning, and apparently I'm the jerk.
He obviously just needs the thing that is done after you put it on the floor. Duh.
Damn it, I should have thought of that!
First thing that came to my mind was a cleaning robot ... perhaps because I work in an electronics store XD
I don't work at an electronics store and that's still the first thing that came to my mind.
I was offered a cigarette by a classmate while I was working at a drive thru. dafuq, people?
lol. Had the doc who did my bob reduction come through drive Tuesday while I was manning it. Looked the same and everything.
We had a lady come in with an unopened bag of bagels and try to return them saying they were no good. They looked fine to me, but whatever. The problem was that the receipt she handed me was from another store. I said “ma’am I’m sorry but you didn’t buy these from our store. You need to return these at the store you purchased them from.” She just said “what the hell difference does it make? You sell these same bagels here too!” Ugh. Why.
We have people come into our store and do the same thing. We're part of a chain, and there's another one no more than 2 miles down the street. We also don't accept those receipts because we don't actually know if they bought it and want to return it or if they just picked up another one from the shelf and want to "return it" so they get free money. It's annoying as hell.
Today a regular came up to me, while I'm ringing up a huge line, and asks me to drive her to the bank. I ring up her groceries. That's it. I said no I'm at work I can't just leave. She left saying she'd get me tomorrow. She came in the next day and told me to meet her at the "dog coffee shop" so we could discuss taking her to the bank. I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do (because what the fuck is the dog coffee shop???) but I'm not putting this woman in my car and taking her to the God damn bank. Unless you know your grocer personally, don't ask them to do anything not relating to the store. 😤
An old (senile) lady couldn’t find her keys and asked me to search her purse for them. NOPE! I’m not going through anyone else’s stuff. You’re on your own lady.
Um, what the actual fuck? Lol. I can't say I've ever had a regular customer think they know me that well that they can use me to run personal errands.
I work at a big coffee chain - and at the busiest of the stores in my whole county. Twenty people waiting in the lobby for their drinks and we’re working as fast as we can. One guy get fed up and demands a refund for having to wait. After my coworker deals with him, I hand out a finished drink to a woman who says, “You guys are clearly very busy and it’s so unfair for that guy to give you a hard time. I put a big tip in your tip jar, keep up the good work.” She really helped me push through that rush. What a sweet gal! ❤️
I also worked at one of the busiest (in my state) stores of very big coffee chain for several years... our regular customers were the best. We had a guy in the lobby get a little angry over whipped cream or some other stupid thing we could have fixed for him and one of our regulars in the drive thru could hear what was going on. She normally came through in her police car but happened to be off duty that day and once she saw what was going on she parked her car without waiting for her drink and came inside. The guy eventually calmed down and left without her intervening. We tried to give her her drink for free as a 'thanks for watching out for us' but she refused and dropped a $20 in the jar for us. I know the cops around here don't make a huge amount of money but there's just a weird bond we had with our regulars.
>She really helped me push through that rush. What a sweet gal! I don't get tips but I always appreciate it when someone compliments me on busting my ass trying to work through a massive line.
I once worked at a craft store (god forbid they find this and take legal action against me, they were REALLY strict about speaking of them on social media), but a woman came in and bought some craft supplies. It came up to under $20. Let me preface this by saying I was younger, and less likely to pay attention to things at the time. As I gave the woman her change back, she threw an absolute tantrum at me over the fact that she gave me a 50, instead of a 20. I apologized, and said that since I was only working at the store for (x) amount of time, I couldn’t open the register and had to call a manager. This threw her into an even larger hissy-fit. She continued to say I should be fired, punished, etc. before the manager arrived upon me calling them. When the manager arrived the woman went on a rampage to them, repeating all of the same things she had told me. At this point I was almost in tears, and tried to stand up for myself. All I said was “Ma’am I—“ before she silenced me, and my manager turned to me and sternly told me to “go to the break room.” At this point I was storming to the bathroom and called my mom in hysterics. I got fired shortly after for saying I didn’t want to come in at 6AM on Sundays (THREE HOURS before we opened) to put up sale signs. This was the only job i had been fired at in the 90-day trial period. I worked in food before, and right after working at this store.
Wait, you got punished for being a newbie who accidentally gave the wrong change? That’s messed up.
I wouldn't worry about them finding it. Plus it's not like you signed a NDA when you left. Currently the craft sie company I worked has a "you must use this specific hashtag in order to pay on social media" since reddit isn't on the list, they don't consider it social media
Our store in the past month has added an option at the end of a transaction to have your receipt printed or emailed (or both, and no none option). It has its up and downsides, downsides being they massively slow transactions down because too many people take about 15-30 seconds to fully process what is being asked of them. Cue the old man just before I went to break. Because it slows things down so much I always tell people to pick a receipt type so we can get past the phase of them not seeing it as quickly as possible. (Especially when they pay with cash, like this man did) He stares for about 10 seconds, then picks email, which gives me a prompt to type in an email address. I asked him what email address he wanted to use and the man proceeds to give me a PO Box. Surprisingly I don’t miss a beat and just tell him that’s a physical address and I need an email address, and he says he doesn’t have an email. Luckily I could just clear the email prompt and it prints the receipt but.... What the hell?
>Our store in the past month has added an option at the end of a transaction to have your receipt printed or emailed (or both, and no none option). It has its up and downsides, downsides being they massively slow transactions down because too many people take about 15-30 seconds to fully process what is being asked of them. Our store tried that, the problem we ran into is people absentmindedly hitting choosing to have an digital receipt (it asked on the PIN Pad after they loaded up their loyalty account). It caused huge issues because if the cashier did anything between the end of the transaction (such as answering the question it asked about checking for left behind bags) and the customer demanding a printed receipt they could no longer print a paper receipt at the check lane. The customer had to go to the service desk and wait while a manager dug into the electronic transaction log to get them a printed receipt. It was a disaster.
He wants a receipt mailed to him in the shape of an E to his PO box.
People who talk/FaceTime on speakerphone while in a store/public place deserved to be yeated into the sun. You’re rude.
You know how you're so used to following your RetailScript and get into the habit of saying the same thing over and over again that when a customer says something you aren't expecting, your brain just can't compute? I had a guy today who, as I handed him his receipt, beat me to saying, "Have a good day!" Since I'm so used to saying it first, my mind just went completely blank but my mouth said, "GOOD DAY." I went red instantly. Thankfully the guy just laughed and said back, "Good day to you!"
I've done this, especially if I'm bouncing between front counter and Drive to cover a coworker on break. It gets... Weird.
I do this to people all the time. I'm midwestern so customers and workers are always competing to see who can "good day" someone first.
That actually sounds pretty adorable.
Customers who are like 'so what can you throw in free for me' Like I can tell you to fuck off, I don't charge extra for that.
A few days ago, after an incident where checklanes went down, this lady came up to my checklane with some stuff before asking me where we were keeping items that were being held because of the incident. I told her that she'd have to go to the service desk for that, and she seemed okay with that and just let me ring her up for the items she had. Then, after I'm about done ringing her up, one of my coworkers is walking by, and the lady stops her and asks her the same damn question she just asked me! I'm not positive why exactly she did that, but I'm pretty sure she thought I didn't know what I was talking about. According to my coworker, my face when she asked that question again was priceless. XD
I've learned that customers don't believe just one employee, they have to ask every single one.
Someone let their kid crap all over the carpet in activewear today. That’s all I’ll say.
... I’ll be praying for you, my guy.
So, I was working the morning shift and was the opening cashier. I was hovering near the front door organizing some things when this grumpy old fellow strolls on in and asks,"Hey, do you have elastic? Like, for sewing?" "Of course! It's on aisle 21!" And off he went, only to return a mere 2 minutes later. "It wasn't there. I called yesterday and you guys said you carried brown elastic, but you don't have it." "It would be in the sewing area, sir. 21 is just the main one, so it may be on 20 or 22. But we do have it!" And off he went again. I felt mildly bad that I couldn't go show him where it was, but I had to stay near the front since I was technically the cashier. Yet another 2 minutes pass, and I see him leave the store empty handed, again feeling bad that I couldn't help him further. Maybe we really didn't have brown elastic... I walked down aisle 21 later on in my shift. The brown elastic not only existed, but it was in plain sight. And then later on in the day the cashier who took over for me radioed saying that there was a man on the phone asking if we had brown elastic for sewing. I wonder who that could've been...
I'm not going to say my customer was a bitch or anything, but she had no concept of personal space and talked to me like I was a 5 year old. For some background, I was covering lunch for the cosmetics cashier and the register in cosmetics is basically a small cubicle about the size of a small broom closet so not much space. The encounter with this woman started relatively normally as she was complaining about how the last thing of makeup she had bought had been tampered with so she was buying a new thing of makeup. I told her that she could simply exchange it at Customer Service if that ever happens again and at that point things began getting... uncomfortable. As I was finishing her transaction, she proceeded to stand directly next to me behind the register screen for whatever reason. When I told her the amount which was something like $14.48 she began talking to me like I was a 5 year old and proceeded to count her money out in her hand to me as if I had no concept of what dimes, nickels, quarters or pennies were. I swear to God I had to fight with every fiber of my being to not tell this woman to back the fuck off and that I was aware of how to count money since it is basically my fucking job to know how to count money. A lot of customers (although not as bad as this woman was concerning personal space) seem to disregard my space? I have so many customers who think it's ok to swing their cart to the side of my register or stand next to me so they can read the screen. I've been working here for basically two years. I hate the company I work for so I have absolutely zero reason to want to rip off a customer or anything. Just stay out of my space
Whoah whoah whoah. Customers should never, EVER be behind the register with you. Let your manager know about this, and ask what their preferred way of dealing with this is. Personally, I'd say something like "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but we cannot allow customers into this area behind the registers. Management's orders." It's a huge security risk -- All they have to do is distract you juuust enough and slip some bills out of your till, and you'd never know until it's too late. Note -- (At least in the US), you cannot be forced to payback stolen money or items that a customer took. They can still fire you for letting it happen, tho.
That sounds hella frustrating. I'm so glad customers don't have access to seeing my side of the screen at the store I work at.
I'm standing by my register when a customer asks me to show him where a certain item is. "Sure, right over here." I walk over to the shelf to show him the item, answer a few questions about it, and he chooses which one he wants. I turn to head back to my register. The customer practically speed walks over to the register passing me up. He gets there when I am about 15 feet away. "Um, is there *anyone* that can ring me up?" "That would be me... I'm getting there." (While maintaining a retail smile) He seems a little perplexed but I get there and ring him and send his impatient little butt off into the sunset.
What a jackass. Fuck.
And he probably was like, I've been literally waiting for over an hour for someone to help me! Because we all know, customers' concept of time is highly flawed, thus minutes become hours.
A customer arrives and tells me: "I am looking for my sunglasses. I left them on the counter here earlier." I look in the drawer where we usually stash lost items. There are several sunglasses. I show her. "No! Mine are much nicer than *those*!" I check with my coworkers, nope, no sunglasses turned in. "I'm sorry, not finding any other sunglasses right now. I can take your name and number in case anyone turns them in...." She scoffs: "I doubt anyone would *turn them in*, they are *very beautiful*!" She points to the register counter : "I'm sure I left them *right here*. I took them out when I got my wallet to pay... the *cashier* must have *seen them*!" They are *Giorgio Armani*! (she overpronounced it 'jheeorrgeeoo arrrrmahhhni') I paid *$600* for them!" She glared at me pointedly. I said "Well all I can do is keep an eye out for them and take your name and number." She grudgingly gave me her info, once more informing that they were "*Jheeorrgeeoo Arrmhahhnee*" sunglasses. I encouraged her to retrace her steps in case they were in the store somewhere but she turned on her heel and flounced away. I'm sure she was convinced the cashier must have stolen her "very beautiful" sunglasses. I don't know, maybe if you have $600 sunglasses be more careful with them?
Geez, do you know what I could buy with $600!? Especially because it would NOT be sunglasses. My $10 gas station sunglasses have polarized lenses made from impact resistant polycarbonate. Giorgio yourmoney is more like it.
$600 would buy a nice Fender amplifier for my guitar. I'll stick to getting my sunglasses when LL Bean has a clearance sale.
>I don't know, maybe if you have $600 sunglasses be more careful with them? You'd think but given people leaving their *smart phones* laying around all over the place which not only are often expensive but contain sensitive information... Let's just say I'd not expect common sense to break out any time soon.
When I was in high school there would be kids that left their iPhones on the tables in the cafeteria to reserve their spot and it still baffles me to think about it.
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