(It is a slow night. I have no one in my line. My coworker behind me has two customers. One is taking very long to finish.)

Coworker: “Hey, [My Name], can you take her?” *points to the other customer*

Me: “Sure!”

(The lady and I start to put stuff on my line. I have my back turned to the register, and when I put some of the lady’s stuff down, I see that someone has just come on my line.)

Me: “Oh! Hello, I’m sorry but this lady is—”

Customer: *on my line* “WHAT THE H*** ARE YOU DOING?!”

Me: “I… I am taking this lady’s stuff on my line because she has been waiting. I’m sorry, but I did not see you. You can go to register five if you—”

Customer: “Where is your manager?”

(By this time, I am starting to check out the lady.)

Me: “I… I don’t know. I think he left.”

(I finish up with the lady and start to ring the other customer up.)

Customer: “I am going to talk to your manager. You should have not done this.”

(I finish and she goes to the front end. I am about to cry because I have only had this job for a few months and need money. My coworker behind me is trying to calm me down. One of the front end people comes to me and asks what happened. I tell her.)

Me: “I was just trying to help.”

Front End Coworker: “Okay, don’t worry about it.”

(She goes back, and I see the customer leave the store. My front-end coworker comes back and tells me that I am not in trouble.)

Me: “Thank you.”

(The company I work for changed its refund policy back in May. We have made a point of informing every customer that purchases sale items that they now only have fourteen days to return and sale items can only be exchanged for another item or store credit. A customer comes to my till and gives me three things to return, along with the receipt.)

Me: “As one of these items is on sale, I can only exchange it or give you refund vouchers.” *item is £4*

Customer: “Why? I have my receipt; I want my money back.”

Me: “It’s company policy, as stated on your receipt.”

Customer: “But I didn’t buy them for me. I bought them for a woman I care for, so I need the money back. I don’t need to buy anything today.”

Me: “I can get you a manager? They will tell you the same thing.”

Customer: “Yes, this is ridiculous.”

(My manager tells her exactly what I tell her and she gets huffier.)

Customer: “I don’t understand why you can’t do it for me. You should be able to change the policy for things like this?”

Manager: “There is no point in having a policy if we don’t stick to it.”

Customer: “Fine.”

(My manager leaves and the customer decides to start again.)

Customer: “I don’t understand why you can’t just do this for me.”

Me: “As my manager said, it is store policy and I have no control over that.”

Customer: “Fine, I’ll take the vouchers even though they are no use to me. I was going to do lots of shopping here today, but I will never shop here again; this will lose you customers.”

Me: *in head* “You have just contradicted yourself completely, saying you have no use for the vouchers today but in the same breath saying you were going to purchase items today, whereupon you could have used them.”

(I finished the transaction with her going on and on — I think she thought if she did this I would give in and just do it for her — and she went off without a goodbye, let alone a thank-you! This is just one of many in the past few months. It can be such a joy working in retail… not!)

(I’m a cashier at a store that is known for saving more money the more you shop. Just yesterday, I had a regular come in with her WIC checks. No big deal. I love doing WIC. It’s simple, and it makes a**holes behind them go to other registers. I’m on her final check before her EBT things, waiting for the printer to finish, when a coworker goes to the register behind mine for a roll of “paid for” stickers.)

Coworker: “Hey, how are you?”

Me: “Oh, same stuff, different day.”

(I laugh and turn back to my printer. I finally finish the transaction and hand my customer the receipt. She takes her three kids and goes to bag their things. As I’m ringing up my next customer, I hear:)

Customer: “When I was a cashier, I knew when to shut the f*** up and do my d*** job.” 

(I’m holding back tears as I serve customer after customer, my retail smile hiding how much that hurt. I take pride in my work, as low as it is, and as it is I had a mild fever and a funeral to go to the day after. As they leave, I hear:)

Customer: “I can’t wait to call the d*** manager.” 

(Yeah. She never called. Screw you. See if you even get my fake smile next time.)

(I work at a big-box electronics store and we’re not allowed to tell people that we’re closing or ask them to leave once we have already closed. This takes place twenty-five minutes after we’ve closed for the day. This woman has been here for almost an hour trying to return something without a receipt and exchanging it for something else.)

Manager: “Hey, [My Name], can you do this return and web order?”

(I have a bad feeling that it might take a while and I am off in five minutes, but I’ve been told off for talking back to managers before, so I have no choice.)

Me: “Okay.”

(I try to get the woman’s phone number to do the return, but she turns to my manager and starts whining about not getting a free gift along with the new thing she is buying. After five minutes of my manager saying that there is no gift but that he will take $15 off the already on-sale item, she finally lets me do the return. It’s now over half an hour after we’ve closed and there are no more cash tills in the store open.)

Me: “Okay, your total is $73.85.”

(The woman tries to give me cash.)

Me: “I’m sorry, but we can’t take cash anymore since we’ve been closed for too long.”

Customer: “I don’t know if I have enough in my bank account for it. Are you sure you can’t take the cash?”

Me: “No, ma’am. All of our tills have been put away. It would take another fifteen minutes to open them up again to take the cash.”

Customer: “Could you just give me a straight exchange, then? Just take more money off so that they’re the same price?” 

Me: *thinking to myself: “No f****** way!”* “I can’t say yes to that; I’ll have to grab my manager.”

(I head over to my manager and tell him what’s going on. He comes over.)

Manager: “I’ve already given you a discount on top of the sale. I can’t do anymore.”

Customer: “Aw, come on, [Manager].”

(She starts giving him puppy dog eyes and flipping her hair, trying to get him to say yes. Thankfully, this manager is better than that.)

Manager: “No, I can’t take anymore off. [My Name], you go clock out, since you were off fifteen minutes ago.”

(I did exactly that and the woman left pretty quickly since she wasn’t getting what she wanted.)

(I work as a cashier at a sporting goods store where we see a lot of people trying to better their health. Occasionally, we get the odd few who take it a step further. Today, I’m cashing out a couple; the girl is soaking up everything the guy says. They’re buying a pullup bar that attaches to doorways.)

Guy: “The pullup exercise is all you really need to do to be fit. It is a complete body workout in one. I do CrossFit combined with yoga because the balance of body stress and targeting chi to stressed areas boosts testosterone. I also don’t take receipts because they are so bad for the environment; just touching them releases progesterone into males’ bloodstreams. It’s actually proven to shrink testicles over time!”

(I hoped that I was mishearing. His absolute sincerity and confidence threw me off to the point that I didn’t realize what I was doing: handing him the receipt. His look of disgust and fear threw me yet again. It suddenly clicked for me, and I placed it in his bag. He left, content, still teaching his friend some very half-baked ideas.)