Our Cannon Is Ready To Go!

This is a story from many years ago when I worked at the service desk of a big chain store. A customer brought in a VCR with no box or receipt. Okay, okay, less like “years” and more like “decades.”

As per policy, we sent them to electronics to get an okay for the return. The electronics associate returned with the customer and explained that the model number proved that the VCR was at least three years old, well past the ninety-day return limit, and they wouldn’t take the merchandise.

I agreed and thanked the associate, and then turned to the customer and reaffirmed that we could not return the item. 

Lo and behold, the Magic Words were spoken.

Customer: “I want to talk to a manager.”

Of course, the manager that came up was a manager who hated me and was well known by associates for sabotage and backstabbing. She gave me a sickly sweet smile and told me to just push the customer return through without a valid UPC, promising that she would just okay it.

I smiled sweetly back.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable with this transaction, so I refuse to have my numbers associated with it.”

I logged out of the register with two keystrokes and backed about four steps away.

The manager turned a funny color and glared at me, trying to intimidate me. But she knew darn well it was against policy and that if she wrote me up for it, she would have a fight on her hands. 

She stormed around to our side of the service desk and signed in, doing the return as an unknown UPC.

Wonder of wonders, that manager was “no longer with the company” a week later. I like to imagine that the plethora of complaints against her, plus the newest blatant breaking of policy got her fired… out of a cannon.

This story is part of our Best Of February 2021 roundup!

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Read the Best Of February 2021 roundup!