Something, Something, Sour Grapes…

At around 2:00 pm, an elderly lady, the last customer of my shift, comes through my line to buy a bag of grapes, I go through my typical spiel with my greeting, checking whether she has a loyalty card, and asking how her day is going. Then, I ask whether she found everything she was looking for.

Customer: “No, I was planning on getting more, but no one got me an electric cart when I asked.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry about that. It could be that they are all in use; it is a little busy.”

Customer: “No, they’re probably outside. I saw the cart person doing nothing.”

Me: “Once again, I do apologize, but if there’s none in our vestibule, then they’re usually in use.”

We have four carts.

I ring up her bag of grapes, which weighs about 2.64 pounds.

Me: “That’s gonna be $5.26.”

Customer: “$5.26?! FOR JUST THOSE?!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “No, that can’t be right. They’re supposed to be $1.99 a pound.”

I pull out my registered flyer to double-check the price. We just started a new sale week, so I want to make sure that someone didn’t forget to take a previous week’s sign down. I also page a supervisor so we can adjust the price if that is the case.

I find the page, and it shows that the grapes are indeed $1.99 a pound with our store card, which she has, so I show her the page.

Me: “The grapes are $1.99 a pound with our store card. And that’s how they rang up..”

Customer: “Why’d the sign over there say $2.99 a pound?”

Me: “Oh, that’s just showing the price without the card. We have that one up, and next to it should’ve shown $1.99 per pound with the card.”

Customer: “So, what’d it come to?”

Me: “…$5.26?”

Customer: “And that’s right?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, it—”

Customer: “You put that in right?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. When we put it in, it automatically takes off the card savings.”

My supervisor comes over. I explain the situation, and they pretty much re-explain what I did again to the lady, almost word for word.

Customer: “Well, that’s false advertising! Where’s the office? I want to talk to someone else.”

We voided her order and directed her to our guest service desk… so they could again confirm the math of 2.64 pounds of grapes times $1.99 totaling $5.26.

I’m so glad I have tomorrow off