His Manager Clearly Had Some Kind Of Gender Complex
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“I once had a woman try to convince me to take her into the storeroom so her friend could give me a bj, and her friend grabbed my crotch while I was stood there trying to take in what was happening. I politely refused and told her friend never to touch me again, then told my manager.
The friend came in several days later and grabbed my butt while I was sorting out the bottom shelves. I asked my manager to refuse service to the woman and she laughed in my face and told me to ‘man up.’
When I refused to serve the girl at the checkout, my manager tried to discipline me. I wasn’t having it and told her that if she wanted to go down that road, I’d quite happily go the legal route with her and the company for allowing staff to be harassed by customers and then punishing them for fighting back.
She tried calling my bluff and continued on chastising me. I told her to stop and got my partner’s solicitor on the phone to explain the situation. He backed me up and spoke to my manager directly on the phone, and while the conversation was unfolding (I don’t know what was said), I watched the color drain from her face as she very quickly put the forms in the shredder and the customer and her friend were banned.”
Her Entitled Rudeness Was Off The Charts
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“I was working the register with a line out the door in a run-of-the-mill chain cafe. There were about seven customers in line when the she-devil walked in: a tall, middle-aged, ugly looking thing with way too much eye shadow on. She walked right up to the front of the line, pushing past everyone, dumped $2 on the counter, and demanded a soy chai latte. She didn’t even wait for my response as she walked on to the area where she’d receive the coffee.
I got someone else to take over the register and walked up to the woman waiting for her soy chai latte. ‘Excuse me…’ I said, trying to get her attention. She turned around and I politely informed her that she’d underpaid by about $1.50. Not much, but in a cafe where our transactions are all around that much, it’s considerable. She rummaged in her purse for about five seconds and then threw the money on the counter, where it bounced and knocked over our display. I looked at her expectantly, raising an eyebrow at her childish behavior.
My boss finished making her coffee and I handed it out to her. She took a sip, looked at me, and said, ‘How do you expect me to drink this? It’s cold…’ Keeping in line with her change toss, she then threw the drink down on the counter and it spilled, pouring all down my shirt. She then clucked at me and said, ‘Make another one.’
I was getting really frustrated at that point. Like I was seething and barely keeping my rage in check. I looked at my boss and asked him if he was going to do anything. He glared at me and said, ‘Don’t be so rude!’ I took a deep breath and tried my absolute hardest not to shout. I remade her drink ‘extra-hot’ in line with what she wanted. It was at that point that she started to refute the charge of the drink when I’d told her all along that it cost $3.50.
She started complaining about how in Italy (she had an Australian accent, which is where we were) she wouldn’t have to pay at all because drinks like that would be free for her. My boss glared at me and told me to give her ‘proper change.’ I had no idea what that was and the she-devil was still complaining quite loudly. I went over to the register and got her full $3.50 back out, shutting the til as loud as I ever had. Then I slammed the money on the counter and proceeded to stare that woman out of the shop. The boss turned to me to say something, saw me staring at him with as much rage as I could muster, and then swapped with someone instead so he could retreat to the other end of the cafe.
I couldn’t keep going after that, having him ridicule me in front of a witch of a customer when I was clearly in the right and hadn’t done anything wrong. I went out the back and bawled out of frustration, then told him I was leaving for the day. Luckily he apologized the next day.”
The Three Hicks Were Acting Like Total Children
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“Decades ago, I managed a Toys R Us. I was in my mid-20s. That Christmas Eve, I decided to close around 6 pm or so, as we had been running 100 hour weeks since Halloween.
Around 5:30 pm, I got a call to come to the front customer service desk. There I was ‘greeted’ by three adults, all obviously wasted and sharing eight or nine teeth between them. The oldest in the group, ‘Granny,’ proceeded to spit-splain that they were upset that the season’s three hottest toys were not available and wanted me to find them for her. ‘And we ain’t leavin’ ’til you do!’
20 minutes later, after raised voices, various threats, and several displays knocked over/merchandise broken as these three tried to make their point, I was asked by the police officer on duty if I wanted to press charges and have them arrested. He was really eager!
I opted to give them a Christmas present of my own as I told them, ‘You have two options: #1 is to leave the store now, and yes that means you have to explain to the kids why waiting until the last minute does not result in getting the hottest toys, or #2 you can end up in jail and explain THAT to the kids.”
After a few seconds of shocked silence and sullen recognition, the three elected to leave on their own, of course, cursing me all the way out of the store.”
She Started Out Kind And Gracious, But Then Things Went Downhill
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“I’ve worked in retail for almost two and half years as a cashier/customer service associate (as I was recently moved up), and one event that I will surely never forget happened two years ago, just two days before Thanksgiving. I was working the self-checkout area when this middle-aged woman came up to me with her son and just started rambling on about random stuff while I nodded and smiled.
For some reason, she kept mentioning to me that she had five mixed children. ‘Okay, I honestly don’t care about your lifestyle,’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s cool, you do you, lady.’ It was information I really didn’t need or care about. She seemed like she was insecure about it. While scanning her items, she realized there was a hole ripped in the side of her frozen turkey. No problem, I asked another employee to grab her a new one. She was extremely kind and gracious when the new one was brought to her.
Then the woman received a phone call, during which she seemed flustered and stressed. She tried to pay but the machine wouldn’t allow her to continue as she’d told her son to start removing their groceries from the scale to place in their cart. I calmly walked over while the woman was still on the phone and explained politely to the sweet kid that he had to put the groceries back on the scale so his mother could continue checking out. He smiled and nodded, but I told him it was really no problem and that I’d lift all the bags for him at the end.
Out of nowhere, the woman whipped the phone away from her ear and barked at me, ‘What are you doing?!’
‘Oh, I was just telling him that in order for you to finish, you have to keep the groceries on the bagging area.’
‘You think my son is stealing or something?!’
‘No, of course not, that’s an insane accusation. I’m just following the policy.’
Then the woman went back to her phone call and I walked away. Once she finished paying, she asked me to speak to a manager. Since it was busy in the store, one of my managers was only a few feet away. I pointed at her and said, ‘Yeah, she’s right there.’ The lady, who was now furious, said, ‘never mind’ and stormed out with her son.
About 10 minutes later I got called into the manager’s office. The lady called management from the parking lot and told them I’m a quote ‘racist shrew’ who accused her son of stealing because he was black. Umm, what? I have no idea what I did wrong but apparently, I’m a racist? I explained the entire situation and luckily my manager said she sounded crazy on the phone and believed my side completely. However, the whole situation ruined my day and was definitely the worst retail experience I’ve had to deal with.”
He’d Never Been So Disgusted And Appalled With A Customer
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“I used to work in a retail store for a major wireless company and one day a guy walked in and handed me his phone, saying he was having problems with his e-mail. We sat down at a table with him across from me and I began trying to figure out the problem.
I swiped down from the top of his phone to get to the notification window and access settings. I saw an e-mail notification and went to click on it but accidentally hit something else which displayed a Facebook message chat containing explicit content with very young looking boys. Since he was seated across from me, the guy didn’t know what I was looking at and just assumed that I was working on his e-mail.
I scrolled up through the chat and was absolutely shocked at what I saw. There were several pictures of the same nature as the first throughout this chat between him and some other guy exchanging these disgusting images and commenting on how they liked them.
I’d never received any training about what to do in such a situation but I knew what I wanted to do. The photos were definitely illegal child material, so I thought about just beating the living crap out of him right then and there but the store was busy and there were families with kids there. Then I thought about walking his phone to the back, locking it in the safe, and then calling the police while he was there.
Ultimately, I chose to collect as much information about this guy as I could and contact the police after he left. I had his phone number and therefore all of the information on his account. I took a photo of him without him knowing (luckily I remembered to turn on silent so that the shutter sound wasn’t audible), fixed his e-mail issue, and sent him on his way. He was later arrested and plead guilty to several charges including possession, manufacture, and distribution of illegal child material.”
The Grocery Store Turns Everyone Into Animals
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“A while back, I worked as a cashier at a grocery store. One Sunday afternoon we were absolutely slammed; everyone was coming up with huge orders and the lines were really long. I was ringing up this one lady, working as fast and efficiently as I could, when she said, ‘Oh, I forgot something,’ and walked away. I was almost done scanning everything and by the time I had all her items packed she hadn’t come back.
I sat there like a doofus with her incomplete order and then the old guy who was next up started to absolutely lose his mind. I understood his frustration, but I was just a 16-year-old kid in the middle of it all and he was getting really aggressive.
To shut him up, I suspended the lady’s order and started working on his. In wonderful timing, the lady came back and was ticked at me for pushing her order off to the side, so I was in the middle of a bunch of turmoil with everybody against me.
The only respite I got was that things calmed down just in time for me to see that lady and old guy screaming at each other in the parking lot. I wish they would have thrown punches. I haven’t seen this happen again in a really long time, but for chrissake, please, if you forgot something and no one is with you to complete the transaction, just finish up your order, pack your stuff, and go back in afterward.”
The Man Couldn’t Follow Rules, And His Outburst Was Absurd
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“I used to be a cashier at a members-only big box electronics store back when that was still a thing. The membership was free and before entering the store, a membership card had to be presented or signed up for. I repeat: I could not ring up any purchase without the membership card.
One day, an older man came to my register to check out. When I asked him for his membership card, he immediately got angry and defensive because he didn’t have one. I informed him that they are free and store policy is that he needs one to enter the store and/or buy anything.
He started yelling that he didn’t want one, he just wanted to buy something. Again, I explained that they are free and store policy. He got red in the face, yelling profanities and saying he didn’t have or want one.
This is where I messed up: I asked this man how he got in the store without a membership card. Wrong question. His retaliation for this slight against him was to throw his key ring, with 10+ keys on it, at my face! I was too shocked and hurt to react. He snatched his keys up and stomped out of the store. Eff that guy forever”
He Pleaded Ignorance But Clearly Knew What He Was Doing
“My worst in my experience in retail was when I worked at GameStop. As anyone who has worked there will tell you, there are regular customers who come in weekly and sometimes even daily. Some of them are socially awkward and like to talk to people that have the same hobby, which is no problem. I get it and it’s healthy for them to be interacting out in the public, right?
We had one regular that I believed to either be homeless or came from a rough family, we’ll call him Nick. Nick was about 20 and had some sort of advanced autism but was always nice and well behaved in our store. He rode a bike, always wore army camo from the surplus store, and always had his backpack with his Nintendo DS. I’m not a Nintendo fan, but my supervisor was and he was the one often engaging in conversation with this guy.
My terrible experience began after I had been there for about three years and was working a shift just after Black Friday. Right when I arrived, Nick was at the counter with my supervisor trying to return a game that we had simply not sold him. He had no receipt, no case for the DS game, and claimed to have bought it with cash. My supervisor was busy with him and the line was wrapped around the store so I just worked through the line as fast as I could. After 45 minutes, Nick finally left and was visibly upset that my supervisor would not return the game for him.
I was working a 10-hour shift and my supervisor left since he had been there since 4 am. A few hours later, I saw Nick was in the huge line and thought it was strange to see him back already. It was just me and another holiday employee there, so we were just trying to keep the line from going out the door. I finished with a customer and the next person in line was Nick. He still wanted to return his game. I told him my supervisor already told him no, so I wasn’t going to return it. He got angry and started to yell at me, calling me names. I tried to calm him down but he was just livid. He told me he wouldn’t leave without getting something for the game. I did the most GameStop thing possible and told him I’d take it in trade, but he’d only get about 10% of its value.
I had the game in my hand when he snagged it, put it in his backpack, smiled at me, and fell straight back. He fell right into the gift card rack, the kind that has three sides and about 1,000 different types of gift cards. That fell over and almost hit a customer, striking the wall and taking out half of the used Xbox 360 section, spilling hundreds of cases onto the ground.
The store went totally quiet and then some people rushed in to help Nick. He claimed to be overheated (it was the middle of winter) and asked for a soda. I just continued to help customers and eventually, someone offered to take him home, threw his bike in their car, and he was gone. Every customer that witnessed the exchange either made a joke about it or made comments that I could have been nicer to the guy (!).
I ended up spending three hours putting everything back in order that night. The next day, my supervisor called me into the back and we watched the security footage, laughing. You can see him smile at me before falling back, clear as day. Nick never came back to the store for the remainder of my time there, but I did see him riding his bike in the city once and chuckled to myself. I worked retail from high school all the way through college, and I’ve had people yell and scream at me left and right. But I’ll never forget Nick, as he was the worst customer experience I’ve ever had.”
She Was Clearly Unfamiliar With How Ice Cream Worked
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“I used to work in a store which served ice cream. One day a lady came up to me and asked to purchase a family sized tub, which cost around $5 and had nine scoops of ice cream in it. She paid and I went over to the ice cream counter. The lady hemmed and hawed as she looked at the selection of nine or so flavors. Then she said, ‘I don’t like any of these, is it possible that you have anything fruity?’
I said that I wasn’t sure, but I’d have a look in the back freezer and see if there was something that she might like. So off I went, leaving my coworker to continue serving the other customers. It wasn’t too busy, so he was fine by himself.
I returned with two flavors, strawberry and raspberry ruffle. I showed the lady and she said that she’d have a little bit of both if it was ok. I said it was and gave her a small warning that since the ice cream was just out of the freezer, it’d be rock hard and extremely difficult to get through so she would have to wait a little bit as I scooped it out. She said that was fine, so I began the most strenuous exercise my right arm had ever done, and being a 16-year-old boy, that’s saying a lot.
Eventually, a queue started to form and my workmate asked for a hand. I excused myself from the lady, informing her that there was a line and it would give the ice cream time to soften. She said that was fine and off I went.
After five minutes of putting customers through, this lady STORMED over with a face as red as a beetroot. ‘I HAVE BEEN WAITING TWENTY MINUTES FOR MY ICE CREAM! WHY THE HECK SHOULD I HAVE TO WAIT SO LONG?!’
I was quite taken aback, as was the customer I was serving. I replied, ‘I apologize, however, as I said previously, the ice cream was the freezer and it’s rock solid, so…’
She cut me off, uttering a phrase so stupid that my reaction could’ve gotten me fired or slapped by her, ‘WELL WHY IS IT IN THE FREEZER THEN?!’ I looked at her, then at the other customer (who was a friendly regular). The customer I was serving scrunched up her face, trying not to laugh. I couldn’t hold it. I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. She stormed out and that was the last I saw of her. I still giggle when I think about it.”
Foot, Meet Mouth
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“I used to manage a pet store franchise, and one day this older ‘Southern’ couple came in and started looking at the fancy goldfish tank, trying to pick out which one they wanted. It was a tank full of bubble eye and fantail goldfish of various colors: gold, black, and orange.
I was standing off to the side merchandising a shelf when one of my employees, who is black, approached them from behind with a net and bucket, ready to help them. They didn’t notice her approaching and we all heard the man say to his wife, ‘Which one do you want, the gold one or the (n-word) one?’
My jaw hit the floor and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. My employee loudly slammed the bucket and net on the counter next to her and loudly said, ‘I guess you don’t want an (n-word) catching it for you, then!’ and stormed off.
The wife slapped her husband’s arm and said, ‘I can’t believe you said that!’ His face turned three shades whiter and his mouth went wide. You could see he was rightfully mortified.
He looked over at me like I was going to help him. ‘Look, if she forgives you we’ll help you. But if not, I’m going to ask you to leave. It’s completely up to her,’ I said.
The man sheepishly walked up to the front counter where my employee was standing and started talking to her. You could see he was pleading his case and I felt that he was genuinely sorry. A few minutes went by and the next thing I knew, the two of them were walking back to the fish section next to each other, laughing. She helped them pick out their fish, bagged them, and rang them up.
I never asked what he said, I simply said, ‘I told them I was going to ask them to leave if you didn’t want them here. Are you good? Do you need a break?’
She said, ‘Nope, I’m good,’ and we never talked about it again.
She was a real sweetheart. I don’t know exactly what happened to turn a bad situation into a good one, but I suspect it was just her personality. It was potentially one of the most challenging situations of my old career. Well, that and the time one of my cashiers kicked another employee in the chest, but that’s for another time.”
She Couldn’t Grasp That It Was Just Store Policy
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“I used to work customer service at Kroger and one time I had a customer who was receiving money through Western Union. According to the law, I was required to check her ID and write down her ID info. As I was doing that, she peeked over the counter to watch exactly what I was doing. When she saw me writing numbers, she yelled, took the paper from me, and ripped off the piece where I wrote her information. Then she refused to let me have her ID back and proceeded to scream at me.
I called the store manager, took a deep breath, and backed a few steps away from the counter as I ignored her. My manager ran up and immediately took the force of her rage. She was making a scene for the entire store to hear while swearing in his face. At one point, she randomly stopped to look over at the front office where there was an employee watching and yelled, ‘What do you want?! Do you want to come fight or what?!’ Then the argument proceeded into the parking lot as he tried to get her to leave.
Five minutes later, he returned with her, asking me to process the transaction and give her the money. One of my biggest regrets of my college years is not telling them to buzz off and refusing process her order. I carried out her $50 transaction with all the contempt I could muster.”