Unfiltered Story #241129

It’s Saturday afternoon and the store is quite busy. A scowling man in his 20’s, accompanied by a little boy, puts a small open cardboard box, which contains six bottles of beer, on my conveyor belt.
I check the box for a barcode and am mildly surprised to find that it originally contained hand soap. Initially I think that the customer has just found an empty box to carry his beers in but I check the bottles and none of them have barcodes either. I realise that the beers are part of a pack and not meant to be sold separately. Sometimes customers take individual bottles out of the packaging because they only want one so presumably the original box had been lost or damaged. Obviously a shelf filler has re-shelved them in a conveniently sized box but has forgotten to print out a barcode for them.

Me : These bottles don’t have barcodes…
Customer : They were on the shelf like that, mate, so you have to f****** sell them to me.

I’m a bit nonplussed by his belligerence but I decide to ignore it and ask another member of staff to get me a barcode I can use, ideally by bringing me some bottles in their original packaging. There is some delay when she can’t find any (which doesn’t improve the customer’s mood) but eventually she speaks to a manager, who prints off a slip with a UPC on it and hands it to me. I notice from the slip of paper I’ve been given that the price was discounted as the original box contained 8 bottles. I type in the code and take the customer’s money. After he pays he looks at me expectantly.

Customer : Are you going to give me a f****** box for these?
Me : They are in a box.
Customer : No! The box they’re supposed to come in.
Me : There isn’t one. It’s been lost or destroyed. That’s why the beers are cheaper.
Customer : I can’t carry them around like this, can I?
Me : We don’t have any boxes that are better than that one. I can sell you a carrier bag.
Customer : Give me a f****** carrier bag then.
Me : They’re 10p…
Customer : You put these on the shelf like this and you want to charge me 10p for a f***** bag?

I’m a bit fed up with this guy at this point. I have a queue building, it’s a hot day and I feel sorry for the wide-eyed little boy that’s standing there listening to this. I decide to just give him one of our carrier bags so I can get rid of him.

Me : OK, if you want the bag…
Customer : You know what? You can keep the f****** bag! And you can keep this f****** box too!

So saying, he empties the bottles out of the box and throws it down, before loading his arms up with the beer and storming out, with the little boy in tow. It baffles me that he thought this was a better option than simply carrying them in the box they were already in.