Rain Check Yourself

I am shopping in a big box retailer on Black Friday. Most shoppers understand that a lot of things in the promotions are limited in quantity in the stores. It’s supposed to get you into the store, and when they run out of the promo items, you’re supposed to buy something else that’s similar but has a higher profit.

Customer: *Being particularly nasty* “I want ten of [particular item]!”

Worker: “Sorry, sir. As stated in the ad for that item, only two per customer.”

Customer: “I want ten!”

Worker: “We only have four left.”

The customer starts ranting and raving and screaming for the manager. He wants the items, then he wants a rain check so they can come back the next week and get the sale items at the sale price, then he wants similar items at the sale cost, and then…

The manager doesn’t give him rain checks (thankfully) but does give in and give him four of those items, and they go back to servicing other customers.

As I go about my shopping, I see that nasty customer wandering around, occasionally leaving his shopping cart alone for a couple of minutes at a time and taking items out of other peoples’ shopping carts for himself.

I closely watch the nasty customer and wait for him to wander away from his shopping cart. That’s when I sneak over, take the four items he was screaming about out of his cart, and hide them in my cart.

I time my exit so that I am leaving the register at the same time the nasty customer starts screaming about how someone stole the items out of his cart. I walk over to him at this point and make very extreme direct eye contact as I say:

Me: “Yeah, I noticed some customers walking up to unattended carts and just helping themselves to whatever other customers have already claimed. Disgusting, isn’t it?”

They were remarkably less “shouty” after that!