Rage Against The Machine, Part 5

(I’m working the self-scans. I had just noticed a pattern of, while I wasn’t looking, someone scanning the same items — two salads — onto a couple different machines and then being gone by the time I looked. Whenever I see a machine with a couple things on the order but neither the customer or their items anywhere, I cancel it to free up the machine. Finally, I spot the customer with the salads fighting with the machine.)

Customer: *shoves coins into the coin acceptor, which spits them back out every time*

Me: *approaches customer* “Ma’am, right now the machine wants to know if you want to purchase any bags.”

Customer: “No.” *frantically slams her finger against the screen in multiple places before she finally hits the NO BAGS option*

Me: “Now you just have to hit the CASH button, and then it’ll read your coins.”

Customer: *slams the cash button violently and starts shoving their coins in*

(I go to help someone else for a bit, but eventually notice the customer is having trouble getting the machine to accept one of her coins. She’s getting more and more violent and slammy as it goes on. I walk over to offer to take her coin at the till.)

Me: “Can I—”

Customer: *she interrupts, yelling right into my face* “NO!”

Me: *takes a careful step back and allows her to continue*

(It took her about five minutes to pay because of this, despite the fact it would have taken only a second had she allowed me to help her. This was the first time I’ve actually been legitimately frightened of a customer. She’s lucky she chose one of the working machines to fight with, though, because there’s one in particular that tends to eat any coins that are dropped into the coin acceptor before it’s told to expect cash. I really don’t want to think about how she might have reacted to that!)