Some Bags Are Just Always Broken

(We sell more expensive products, so our customers are often given what they want simply to appease them, and they know it. Many of them are also highly wealthy. I am working a late shift. A woman and her daughter come through my register. She isn’t exactly friendly, but it starts off civil enough. Her daughter is at the end of the register counter, where some bags are located for anyone bagging — employee or customer. I have a limited supply of my own bags across the counter by my hips, quite a reach for a customer, but they still do it. This lady suddenly does that, and it freaks me out a little. Calmly, I suggest that the bags at the end will be easier for her to access, because they are. She can only grab two from my side, anyway. Big mistake.)

Me: “Ma’am, if you’d like, the bags at the end of the register would be easier to access, instead of leaning over the counter.”

Customer: “No one else has ever told me not to use those bags before! Why do you think you’re so special?”

Me: “Ma’am, I just said the bags there are…”

Customer: “I know there are bags there! How am I to reach them? I can’t get to them!”

(Sure, her daughter and cart are over there, but the carts have wheels for a reason. I don’t say that, of course. She turns to her daughter, who has stopped bagging.)

Customer: “Stop! Make her do it!”

(Meaning me. I will have to bag her order. Alone. Because of a suggestion. I finish in silence, and she says:)

Customer: “Since you think you’re so smart and have taught me a lesson, let me teach you something: you don’t know everything! Huh? You don’t! So don’t go around acting like you know things like that, because it’s not your place! Think!”

(She jerked the receipt from my hand, which left a paper cut. She later filed a complaint, from which my manager took her side. Funny enough, the woman after her called her an asshole, but I shrugged it off to avoid making it worse. That same lady has come through my line twice since then, and both times she’s said absolutely nothing to me despite my attempts to be nice. Rather childish, in my opinion. Also, funnily enough, after she came through the second time, another woman right after her said, “What a b****! And you’re such a nice young lady!”)