A line at my register is starting to form. Customer after customer, I greet them, scan their items, bag them, and help them check out. A middle-aged woman cuts in front of everyone.

Customer: “Where’s your self-checkout?!”

Me: “We don’t have one, ma’am.”

That apparently isn’t a good enough answer because she insists:

Customer: “No, you do! When did you get rid of it?!”

Me: “We’ve never had a self-checkout.”

She sneers at me and throws her stuff down, storming out.

Customer: “Don’t lie to me! I’m not stupid!”

Relate:
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 5
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 4
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 3
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself, Part 2
Self-Check Yourself Before You Self-Wreck Yourself

I was in line at the checkout and the line was moving fast. The retail worker there went through the line with quite a speed.

Worker: “Twenty-one Euro and thirty-eight cents!”

Next:

Worker: “Forty-two Euro forty-eight!”

Next:

Worker: “Seventeen, eighteen!”

I had a cart full of odds and ends to refill in my household, but when it came to my sum:

Worker: “Total of four— I mean, forty… and… no… zero cents?”

He looked at me in confusion for a second and we both started laughing.

We have “Buy One, Get One Free” tags throughout the store, with the word “Free” in a larger, bolder font. The other words are still easily readable.

A customer walks up with his items, including a BOGO product, and I ring him up. He gets angry when he sees the cost.

Customer: “The sign says it’s free!”

Me: “If you ignore all the other words, then yes, it is.”

I have to walk him back to the product and explain it to him.

Customer: “This is deceptive advertising! I’m going to shop elsewhere!”

I am taking a payment for a customer using their credit card. They have a noticeable British accent. They try to tap their card.

Me: “Sorry, sir, the machine is asking for the card to be inserted. This sometimes happens when the card is from overseas.”

Customer: “Ugh. In England, I can just tap and go.”

Me: “Sorry, sir.”

The customer inserts the card.

Me: “Sir, it’s now asking for your PIN.”

Customer: “This is taking too long!”

Me: “Sir, it’s to protect you from fraud.”

Customer: “I don’t want you to protect me from fraud! I just want you to process my payment quickly and not ask stupid questions!”

Me: “…which is exactly what someone trying to commit fraud would say.”

Customer: “Yeah, well, they’re probably in a hurry, too!”

A lady walked into my store and asked if we had ice. I told her we did, and she walked away.

A minute later, she brought up four wired baskets with huge spaced-out holes up to the counter and instantly started tearing off the tags.

Me: “Ma’am, you need to pay for those first.”

But she ignored me. It didn’t feel like that big of a deal, so I just went ahead and rang them up. She walked away from me to pick up a bag of ice.

I rang up the ice, and before I even told her the total, she opened the bag and poured the ice into the wired baskets and all over the counter. She threw the plastic at me and then grabbed another bag and repeated the process, all the while ignoring anything I said.

She then threw a ten-dollar bill at me and picked up her baskets. Of course, due to the LARGE HOLES in the baskets, more ice fell everywhere as she walked out.

I was completely dumbfounded (and still kind of am), as were the long line of people who witnessed it and had to wait while I cleaned ice off my counter.