Papa’s Potentially Pruning A Petty Princess

A few years ago, I was working at this big national department chain store where I was hired for Black Friday but stayed for the holidays. The company was trying to boost online sales, so every day, they would do some new type of discount if the customer bought online to pick up in-store, but the sales were always very confusing, and we (employees) spent more time explaining how the offers worked than actually selling stuff.

This man came in with a daughter around my age and a stuffed shopping cart. I beeped every product and told him the final price once I was done. Now, picture a man twice my height getting red with rage to see that the price was not what he predicted.

He elevated his voice, asking me about the offers and why it didn’t work. I tried explaining how it worked, but he stopped me immediately.

Man: “If I ever hear another word from you, I swear…”

I didn’t get that at all. It was absolutely not my fault or anyone’s at the store, as everyone there was following the company’s orders.

The man demanded that I cancel every product except for the cheapest thing off the list, which was a three-dollar chocolate bar. I did, but it was over fifty products, and I had to beep the supervisor’s card, type the password, and beep the product for every single thing. This process took me twenty minutes, at least.

The man then handed me a hundred-dollar bill to pay for the chocolate bar, which I obviously didn’t have change for. Okay, then…

I could’ve buzzed a bell that resonates to the whole store and called my manager, but I decided to forget that it existed. I buzzed a little siren below the cashier’s table, which only buzzes to the other cashiers, but there were none since the man was the only customer and everyone had other chores to do, so no one heard it besides me, the man, and his daughter. I even saw one of my colleagues a few feet away restocking some shelves, but he couldn’t tell we were having an issue, so he didn’t offer to help.

I kept buzzing that little siren, looking at the man, and shrugging, as if I were doing everything I could. It went on for ten more minutes, I kid you not, and he finally got impatient.

Man: “I don’t have all day.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. You’re trying to pay for a three-dollar chocolate bar with a hundred-dollar bill, and I don’t have ninety-seven dollars in change. If you have smaller bills, we can do this quicker.”

Man: “I have fives, twos, twenties, tens, everything you need, but I’m not helping you in any way.”

Me: “I’m sorry, then, but you’ll have to wait for the manager.”

Eventually, said manager came downstairs to check everything, and I asked him to get change for me. As he was trying to get smaller bills from that 100, he whispered, “A**hole…”, to which I replied, “You have no idea.”

Once that customer was gone, I told the manager what happened and started crying. He said I could have called him and he would have handled the situation for me, but he laughed and was very proud of the way I handled that situation myself.