Retail Workers Should Be Eligible For Sainthood

I’m the silly/stupid customer in this one. I’ve gone into a local superstore to return some things for my mum, who is on holiday out of the country. She’s left me with a decent number of items and receipts, and though most of them are pre-sorted, this particular bag isn’t. Here’s where it comes to me being stupid: one receipt is taped to one item, so I assume the other items are all on the second receipt… without actually checking for myself.

I head to the service desk and try to make small talk with the only cashier there, who strikes me as one of those “I’ve worked in retail too long to give a s***” types — very no-nonsense. She scans the first receipt and the item it’s taped to, then scans the second receipt and starts in on the rest of the items. In a rare stroke of luck, I am the only person in line, save for an elderly lady who let me go ahead because she was organizing her items — like I should have. Of course, we come to realize that the items are mixed up, some on the first receipt, others on the second. Then, the machine the cashier is working on goes a bit haywire. I take a brief glance behind me and realize that we’ve gone from one person in line to about eleven.

I’m naturally an anxious person and quite apologetic, so when a young fellow five people back starts saying things like, “D***, I could’ve gone outside and had a smoke!” I begin to apologize quietly to my cashier, shifting from foot to foot, generally trying to shrink into an invisible turtle shell.

She waves it off the first couple times, but by the end of our transaction she looks up and in the most mellow, deadpan voice says, “Look, if they’re going to complain, they can just go to another [Store] and do their returns there. Don’t worry about it.”

The fellow behind me doesn’t say another word, and the lady and I have a laugh as another cashier comes to man the second return till. I’ve read plenty of stories here about customers easing the nerves of retail workers but rarely is it the other way around. I can’t thank her enough for putting up with my incompetence and making an anxious gal’s day a little better. Whoever you are, you have the patience of a saint, and may all your customers treat you with the respect you deserve!