It’s senior day, which means, of course, we’re slammed.

Customer: “What’s the senior discount on?”

Me: “Ten percent on corporate brand food items, and on home and apparel items.”

After I’ve finished her order and handed her the receipt:

Customer: “Can you show me where I got my discount?”

I’ve already started the next order, so I have to stop.

Me: “Okay, so it shows it here on your receipt. Only corporate brand items get the discount.”

I think that’s the end of it, but no, she sticks around until I’m done, staring at her receipt.

Customer: *Huffily* “Can you wait before starting the next order so you can explain it to me?”

Me: “…”

Fortunately, there was a manager nearby I was able to flag down to help her. Sure, just let me hold up the whole line because you didn’t listen to me the first time. That’ll end well.

I used to work at a supermarket, and at 9:00 am on a Saturday, the following went down.

Me: “Good morning! Would you like a bag?”

Customer: *Sarcastically* “No, I’m going to carry all of these by themselves.”

It may have been the underpay, the rude tone, or the fact that I was just so tired of customers being nasty, but I decided to go along with it.

Me: *Beaming* “Okay, sir, no problem!”

I then proceeded to scan all of his shopping and charge him. The man paid and stood there, blankly staring at his groceries for a moment, before looking at me.

Customer: “Where are my bags?”

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir! I thought you said you were going to carry them?”

Customer: *Angrily* “Well, OBVIOUSLY, I can’t carry all of this without a bag!”

Me: “Oh, okay. Well, in that case…”

I then proceeded to go through the usual “single-use or reusable bag” spiel, and then, wouldn’t you know it? We were out of the bags he wanted, so I had to call a manager over to bring some more bags to me, which always took ages in this supermarket.

The customer then had to dig out his wallet and card to pay a tiny amount for some bags. Then, I handed them to him with a smile and receipt and watched while he bagged his own groceries, scowling the whole time.

Normally, I would scan and bag, but as he didn’t want bags to start with, I didn’t offer and he didn’t ask.

All in all, a five-minute transaction took a good fifteen minutes, and he never pulled that with me again. I have no idea what he thought would happen while he watched me scan everything and pile it up in a very obviously non-bagged heap, but hey, he said no bags!

I work in a craft store. We don’t have a lot of fabric types, so we don’t have a lot of sections that are a specific price. We do have a few areas with signs that say “X fabric — $Y,” but most of our shelves are assorted, and about 70% of the fabrics have the price on the tag.

An old woman brings a fabric to the cutting counter.

Customer: “What’s the price? I got it in the $5.99 section.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but I just scan it.

Me: “That’s actually $18 and not on sale.”

Customer: “That’s false advertising!”

She moans a bit more and leaves with nothing. Later, when I am returning fabric to the shelves, I realise she had looked at the rack in front of the table that said “X fabric $5.99” and thought it was for the whole table. So, she can’t read.

The next day, she brings a fabric to the cutting counter.

Customer: “This was in the $5 section.”

This time, I am really tired, so I can’t stop the confused expression on my face.

Customer: *Scoffs* “You should know what’s in the store!”

Me: “I do, and we don’t have a $5 section. Could you please show me?”

She leads me to one of our assorted sections and pointed at some tags that say, “$5.” I then point at other tags that have other prices like $8 and $12 and so on.

Me: “This is an assorted section, and while the fabric that you found was in the wrong place, it doesn’t change the fact that there is no $5 section.”

She goes off again about how it’s “false advertising” and “confusing to customers.”

If she wasn’t so rude, I would try to find some fabric in her budget for her to use, but she is so rude. She keeps going on about how she has been a customer since the beginning — but doesn’t know how the store works? — and how she is never coming back if “we do it again.” And I am thinking, “Is that a promise?”

Then, she asks if we have a specific thing that we don’t have, and I list off some other stores nearby that might, including a Japanese dollar store.

Customer: *Immediately* “Oh, no, I don’t go there; they’re Japanese.”

So, not only can she not read, and she’s rude, but she’s racist, too. And no, she’s not senile or having trouble with English; she’s just rude.

When I was little, the cashier in the small-town grocery store was a friend of my mom’s. They were concerned because I lost a lot of weight. Mom didn’t have a scale at home that would weigh me, so she and her friend thought the new digital scale on the register seemed like a good option.

It was accurate, but the register required a product code to get the weight, and they were so excited that it worked that the friend forgot to clear that “item”. My mom paid for a baby-sized cabbage! She got home before she realized it!

I have just started a transaction for a customer with two full shopping carts. The customer’s kid tells her several times that he has to go to the bathroom.

Me: “Ma’am, you can take him to the bathroom now if you want. It will be a few minutes before I get even halfway through your items.”

Customer: “Oh, no, he is okay. He can hold it.”

Kid: “Mommy, I need to go right now! I have to go so bad, Mommy! I need to go!”

The mother ignores the kid, so he hangs off the side of the cart and starts removing his pants and underwear. I immediately stop scanning the groceries.

Me: “I will not ring any more items until you take your son to the bathroom. Otherwise, I’ll be calling a manager who can handle this, because my courtesy clerk and I will not be cleaning anything up.”