Mail Order Disorder

(Close to Christmas, a customer approaches me with a long list and begins rattling off things that she needs. I begin to help her, not realizing that she had previously approached a different employee, and we are only supposed to have one employee working with a customer at a time. When it comes time to check out, I have to compile what she got from me with what she got from the other employee, and she also wants the order to be shipped to a third party by mail, which I have never handled before. My manager stands behind me, irritated and snappy.)

Manager: “This is why you’re only supposed to have one person working with a customer at a time! If somebody is already working with them, you don’t help them! Didn’t I show you how to do a shipping order?”

Customer: “Woah, you’re… being a little hard on her.”

Manager: “She’s been working here for a month. She should know this.”

(Later, the manager coldly informed me that I had done nothing wrong, and that that was just a difficult customer, but didn’t apologize in the slightest for throwing me under the bus.)