If You Want Premium Service, You Gotta Pay!

I work at a mid-size convenience store, and let me be clear: we do not offer personal shoppers. I was working at the till and noticed my manager running around fetching items for a mid-age gentleman with a trolley. In between customers, I quietly joked to my manager:

Me: “You should get paid to be a personal shopper.”

Manager: “It’s not as if I have work to do.”

I was not looking forward to serving the guy, and I was quietly hoping he would go to the self-service machines. Nope.

He started putting the items on the counter one item at a time. He was sorting the items and putting some of them far away from me and some of them closer to me.

Customer: “Where’re the scones?”

Me: *Politely* “They’re by the bakery aisle.”

I thought he would go get it himself, but he yelled at my manager to grab the scones for him. My manager politely obliged.

There was a long queue, and I started to scan items as he put them on the counter. I had finished with the closer items and started to scan the items he had placed farther from me. However, he was not pleased with this.

Customer: “Stop! Scan the frozen items first.”

Me: “Okay.”

This caused a lot of delays as I had to wait for him to put the frozen items and had to stop scanning while he pushed around his trolley to get the frozen items.

All the time, he was complaining about “being a slave to the misses” and how this was his first time shopping. He also said I wouldn’t understand since I’m not married.

Me: *Politely* “Sir, maybe you could use our online ‘click and collect’ service if you want someone to do the shopping for you. Or, [Competitor] has delivery service.”

At that point, I didn’t care if we lost him as a customer; it was a small price to pay if it meant my colleagues didn’t have to deal with him.

He couldn’t hear me over the noise of the store. The mask muffled my voice a little. He asked me to speak up and speak slower.

I just nodded and pretended to listen to his moans. It was a noisy store, and I could only hear half of his complaints. He paid and said:

Customer: “I will make sure you have not double-charged me.”

He spent the next three minutes blocking that cash register and checking the looong receipt! While he was doing that, I said:

Me: “While you’re checking, let me serve the next customer.”

I gladly left him to his own devices and went to a different register to serve the other customers.

He was finally happy and said:

Customer: “You did all right.”

And he finally left.