Another Lovely Reminder That Employees Aren’t People

A woman and her daughter came into the shoe store I work at, five minutes before closing, looking for shoes for the daughter.

Me: “Can I help you two?”

Woman: “No, we just want to browse.”

Fine, there wasn’t much I could do about it since they still had five minutes. After about ten minutes, they finally picked a handful of styles they wanted to try. I went and got the sizes from the stock room.

The daughter only tried on two of the pairs and just kept switching between them. The entire time, they didn’t really speak to me at all. They also both wore their see-through, mesh masks under their noses the whole time, so I kept a bit of distance between us.

Eventually, the daughter made her choice, and we brought the shoes up to the counter. In the meantime, my coworker had turned off our “open” sign and closed the door, and they were waiting to let them out. While the mother was paying by card, her daughter was leaning on the counter and staring straight at me with a slight smirk on her face. She pulled her mask off and then proceeded to use the back of her hand to wipe her nose, then go back to touching the counter, the entire time looking at me with that, “What are you gonna do about it?” smirk.

Me: *Politely* “You need to keep your mask on over your nose while in the store.”

Woman: *Angrily* “You don’t get to tell my daughter what to do! If I think she needs to be told something, I will tell her. I am her mother! You don’t tell her anything! You are not her mother!”

I was biting my tongue so hard to keep from yelling back at her to do her job, then, but I didn’t say another word to her. I put her receipt on the counter so she could take it while I stayed six feet back (to avoid strangling her), and my coworker let them out and locked up behind them.

Then, I blew up. I still get mad every time I think of this. Now, every time I have to remind a customer to keep their mask on, I facetiously wonder if I should call their parent to have them come to the store and tell their grownup child to wear their mask.