A Dairy Bad Idea

For about five years, I worked at a local convenience store. I was a key holder and considered “senior staff,” just not a manager.

Over the five years, there was a gradual move to a very “us vs. them” attitude among the managers. They were constantly setting rules about what only managers could do. Fair enough in theory, but some of the rules were worded in a hostile way.

Slowly, managers stopped working weekends, and I became almost the de facto weekend manager. I was on call to stop by (it was less than five minutes from my house, so it was no bother) if things went sideways. I often locked up on the weekend, and I was the one whom other staff raised issues with, to pass on to the managers.

One of the managers’ jobs was to check dates on food, which they frequently missed. Anything I found over the weekend, I’d remove from sale, write it off, leave the write-off receipt on the desk for the managers, and bin the items.

One of the managers decided that this was bad (for reasons) and made it a rule that only managers could write anything off or handle refunds. 

First weekend of this new rule, I refused to issue a refund for some out-of-date cream someone had bought.

Me: “You’ll have to come in on Monday, 8–3, to speak to a manager. I’m not allowed to issue refunds.”

After a long argument where I stuck to the new rules, the customer left angrily and said he was going to:

Customer: “…Raise h*** with the managers!”

I then removed all the cream from sale and left it on the manager’s desk. This was on Saturday, in the summer, and some of the packaging was damaged.

By Monday morning, the office stank, and the lactose-intolerant manager nearly threw up as he walked in. To make matters worse, instead of spending an hour airing out his office, he had to spend an hour with a very angry customer. And instead of the 80p refund they were due, he had to offer a bottle of wine as compensation.

The new rule was quickly removed.