Unfiltered Story #299092

I work in a fancy supermarket that sells alcohol. Everyone who’s ever sold alcohol knows what that means… ID time! With the legal age being 18 in NZ, the general rule of thumb is to ask if you think they look under 25.
Since I didn’t get glasses until adulthood, I’d never known how bad I was at reading age on faces, so I tend to be a lot more cautious than many of my colleagues.
It is a spectacularly busy day and I’m on the checkout right by the alcohol, so I’m getting more sales than others. I get to a gentleman who starts his transaction, and has his face completely turned away from me! Worse, he has his cap pulled down obscuring his face further.
To try and see if I can get a look at his face before I assume the worst, I try asking this guy a few questions. how does he want his bags packed? does he want the heavy items separate. Would he like a box from the pile behind me? I leave the alcohol to the end to make it easier to put back.
Every single question gets me a vague or evasive answer addressed to the walls or the floor away from me. More like his mind is elsewhere than deliberately trying to avoid looking at me. But still, the longer it goes on, the more suspicious I am.
Finally there’s nothing else left to scan. I put my hands on the alcohol and ask in my brightest, best customer service voice.
“Might I please see your ID for the alcohol?”
“Beg pardon?”
The man finally looks at me, in utter shock. He has to be at least 30! His accent is thick and non-English! Of course his answers were vague, he had been politely shy about not understanding what I’d been asking! To compound matters a strict supervisor has to walk past at this EXACT moment, to see me ask someone who is “clearly” older for their ID.
I processed the alcohol without a fuss, thanked them, and sent them on their way, and got to enjoy a lecture about asking older folk for their ID. No amount of explaining the behaviour before that would cut it with that supervisor.
For those fearing I let this put me off my slightly more strict ID’ing, I did not. It just made me more annoyed than anything when someone would start ranting that they were “clearly” over the age.
Don’t yell at people asking for age verification. There are laws we have to follow, and we get fined as individuals if we fail them. I’d rather you didn’t get your precious alcohol than have $10,000 avoidable dollars gouged from my hide.