Smug Is The New Black

(I am a cashier at my store. I come in for my shift to relieve my coworker who is helping a customer trying to find the right ink cartridge and exchange it with the one on the counter. I am there for most of their conversation.)

Customer: “I need another black. This one doesn’t fit.”

Coworker: “I see. It’s a 564 and that kind of ink can belong to printers with five cartridges or four. If this black doesn’t fit you probably need the photo—”

Customer: “No, no! I need black! Not that one.”

Coworker: “This is a black. It’s the fifth cartridge in the printer. Photo black; it’s different than the one you brought in.”

Customer: “I’m not going to sit here and argue with you when you’re wrong.”

(With that she storms out of the store only for her husband to return about twenty minutes later after my coworker has left for the day.)

Customer’s Husband: *placing the same cartridge the woman had brought on the counter* “My wife said someone told her this was the right cartridge, and it’s not. We need this one.”

(He placed an empty photo black cartridge on the counter, the same kind of cartridge my coworker had been trying to help the woman find earlier.)

Me: *biting my tongue from telling him the truth* “All right, let’s get that exchanged out for you.”

Customer’s Husband: “You should really know your products better.”

Me: “We do our best. It is a very big store, sir.”

Customer’s Husband: “Clearly not hard enough.”

(And with that he left. I sure hope he felt like he’d won, because his wife certainly didn’t get to feel that way.)