Not The Most Gifted At Listening

(This takes place at the customer service desk in a large chain store the day after Christmas.)

Me: “Hi, I have this gift card—”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, but you can’t return gift cards.”

Me: “I don’t want to. I just—”

Cashier: “We can’t accept gift cards back, even with a receipt.”

Me: “Look, just listen to me for a second and I’ll explain—”

Cashier: “I don’t care what your story is, but we can’t do returns on a gift card!”

(At this point a manager walks up.)

Manager: “What seems to be the problem?”

Me: “Oh, hello, I have this gift card here that I—”

Manager: “Sorry, we don’t do returns on gift cards.”

Cashier: “I told her the same thing, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

Manager: “You’ll have to either use the gift card or give it to someone else. Store policy. Sorry.”

(I wait a few seconds there, long enough for both the cashier and the manager to both stop talking and actually pay attention to me.)

Me: “I got this card as a gift—”

Manager: *irritated* “We don’t do returns—”

Me: “…and it wasn’t activated when my mom purchased it.”

Manager: “…Oh.”

Me: “So if you could activate it for me, that would be lovely.”

(Everything went a lot more quickly after that!)