Minimum Wage, Minimum Effort, Part 8

Canada, Department Store, Jerk, Snapped, YMMV | Right | December 5, 2025

I’ve worked at my department store for five years. I’m passing by the front on my way back to my department when this older guy comes through the front doors and asks me a question about a product unrelated to my department.

Me: “I don’t know the answer to that, sir, but I’ll set you up with someone from that department.”

Customer: “So you’re just gonna fob me off to someone else? So typical of your lazy generation.”

Me: “Sir, that’s uncalled for. As I said, I don’t know the answer to your enquiry—”

Customer: “—so you don’t know about your products? Laziness, or ineptitude? Which is it?”

Nope! Maybe he’d have gotten away with it when I was seventeen, when I started there, but I’m twenty-three now. Not this time, mother-effer.

Me: “Sir, just stop. This store is divided by departments, because there is too much in this building for one person to be bothered to learn all of it for $14 an hour.”

Customer: “But you should be an expert if you work here!”

Me: “Sir. If I had any expert knowledge, I wouldn’t be working in this dump or with you. In an industry that pays between $11 and $14, you will find NO experts because they’re off getting paid for their knowledge.”

Customer: “I want your manager’s name.”

I gave him my manager’s name and mine.

Customer: “You’re gonna regret talking to me like that.”

Me: “Managers here make $18 an hour. That’s also not enough to care. Have a good day.”

I continued on to my department and never heard back about this conversation ever again.