High-Stakes Negotiation At The Dollar Store

I work at a popular dollar store chain in small-town Texas. We have an old computer system that occasionally needs to be reset due to its glitching. We’ve had a problem with some coupons that wouldn’t ring up properly, which has caused a small bit of a line to pile up at my register, the only open register at the moment. Most of the customers have been super understanding and kind — they usually are — but this one particular person isn’t the most friendly. That’s okay. I can deal with grumpy or impatient; I’m almost always in a good mood and happy to help out. It may sound surprising, but I really love my job and my customers.

This grumpy lady sets down five of those candy packages with five pieces of brand chocolate inside a rectangular cardboard strip on the counter. We have a sale of five for $5.00 for candy of the same brand. This is where things immediately get rocky.

I begin scanning, and as I am telling the customer before her to have a nice day, this lady cuts me off.

Customer: “I need you to total those candies to see if you will actually apply this coupon.”

Me: *Smiling* “Of course. We can absolutely check that for you.”

I total the candies, and the discount doesn’t apply.

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. It didn’t apply.”

The lady gets huffy and rolls her eyes.

Customer: “Yeah, y’all did this to me last time! You’re shorting me of my discount.”

I check the packages to see if they should work with the discount, and I notice immediately that they aren’t all made by the same brand/company.

Customer: *Loudly* “They’re made by Hershey chocolate! I already checked!”

I don’t wish to argue with her, and I think that maybe our system made an error again.

Me: “All righty, ma’am. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll go check with my associate to see if we can figure out the issue.”

Customer: “Yeah, okay.”

I walk behind a shelf to find my coworker. Meanwhile, the grumpy lady crosses her arms and begins talking to the nice man behind her, who has a full cart and has been waiting patiently. I hear her loudly ranting to the man.

Customer: “This is why I don’t come here. They are slow, and they’re always on their phones!”

I don’t know what she means; we tend to keep off phones unless in the break room. I come back after telling my coworker, an absolute saint of a woman, that I need her assistance.

Me: “All righty! She’s on her way.”

I smile at the man and the grumpy lady.

Me: “We can go ahead and scan the rest of your items, ma’am, while we wait for her.”

I begin scanning the items. Before I get to one of the last bags of candy, the lady stops me.

Customer: “Don’t scan that one.”

Me: *Caught off-guard* “What?”

Customer: “Don’t scan that one. It’s a dollar difference, which is what you owe me for that candy. That way, you won’t be shorting me.”

Me: *Hesitating* “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I can’t legally do that.”

She scoffs, and I try to explain.

Me: “We can scan all these items, and at the end, when my coworker gets here, we can figure out if it’s the system and see if we can’t fix the discount for you—”

Customer: *Cutting me off* “Okay, do what you need to do.”

I force a smile and finish the item.

Customer: *To the nice man behind her* “This is too much trouble.”

The nice man responds with something with humor to lighten the situation.

Customer: “This is why I’ve stopped coming here! She is taking forever because she is back there playing on her phone!”

She is referring to my coworker who has been on break, inside our break room, eating and scrolling on her phone.

I speak before I can think.

Me: “She’s actually on her break.”

To my surprise, this makes the grumpy lady stop talking, and then my coworker arrives to save the day. Thank God!

She puts her key in the system and asks what the problem is.

Me: “The candy—”

Customer: *Cutting me off again* “This is five for five. And it’s not giving me my discount. Y’all owe me a dollar discount!”

Coworker: “Let’s see… We can do this.”

My coworker does some magic with the system and sets it right to get this lady her precious discount.

Me: “All righty! There we go!”

I total her items again.

Customer: “Finally!” *Pays* “Thanks.”

She storms off quickly with her items.

Me: “You’re welcome.” *To the next customer* “Sorry for the wait, sir.”

Nice Man: “Aw, it’s okay.”

He chuckled and cracked a few jokes, relieving me of my stress.

IT TURNS OUT that the lady was wrong about the discount, and I had been right to check the candy because it was, in fact, not applicable to the discount. We went to check because it was strange even for the system to mess up like that. My coworker just added a discount to defuse the situation from getting any worse than it already was.