(I am shopping in a local craft shop when a woman walks up to me. I once worked in the company but now work for a competitor and often do answer questions out of habit. I had seen this woman standing near the counter while the staff was busy attending to a long line of customers.)

Customer: “Where’s the binding bias?”

Me: *pointing to a wall* “It’s over there.”

Customer: “Where?”

Me: *walks to the spot where the bias is* “It’s right here.”

Customer: “I want [size and colour].”

(She’s not even looked where I am pointing.)

Me: “Yes, it’s right there.” *starts walking off because I realise she just wants a personal shopper*

Customer: *whining* “Why won’t anyone help me?”

Me: “I have helped you.”

Customer: “I need help getting what I need; no one will help me.”

Me: “Well, then, go over and get a staff member to help you. I don’t work here.”

Customer: “They ignored me.”

Me: “They were serving customers; if you want help then get in the line and wait.”

Customer: “I don’t want to wait; you help me.”

Me: “I’ve already helped you and I’m trying to do my own shopping here. You need to do it yourself if you don’t want to wait.”

Customer: *whining* “Why won’t anyone help me?”

(I just walked off.)

(I’m the head supervisor, and I have literally just finished counting out my register at the end of my shift when a coworker brings a customer over to me with an issue. He speaks in a dull monotone the entire time.)

Customer: “I need a new gift card. The barcode on this one doesn’t work.” *holds up a card*

Me: “It doesn’t work? Give me just one moment.”

(I take the card and see that it’s actually a Refund Card, but scan it into the system to see if I can get a balance on it. It has a balance of $127 on it, which is pretty high for a Refund Card, but not unheard of. It also proves that the card works just fine.)

Me: “It seems to be working fine. You have a balance of $127 on here.”

Customer: “No. It doesn’t work in the kiosk.”

Me: *confused* “Kiosk?”

Customer: “Yeah. There’s a kiosk that gives you cash for gift cards, and this won’t scan.”

Me: “Well, this is a refund card, sir, not a gift card.”

Customer: “Oh. Can you transfer it to another card, anyway?”

Me: “Unfortunately not, sir. I don’t have any way to transfer this onto another card. It’s a system limitation.”

Customer: “Why not? Just transfer it onto another card.”

Me: “I can’t, sir. It’s not physically possible. Besides, it probably didn’t work because this is a refund card, not a gift card.”

Customer: “What’s the difference?”

Me: “The difference is that a gift card is purchased with money, and a refund card is received for returned merchandise and is store-credit only.”

Customer: “What does the gift card look like?”

Me: *grabbing a random gift card* “Like this, for example. You can see that the refund card says, ‘Refund Card,’ right on it.”

Customer: *takes the gift card and looks at it* “Can’t you just transfer it onto this, then?”

Me: “No, sir, I can’t. The system won’t let me. Gift cards can only be purchased with cash, credit, or debit.”

Customer: “How do you know?”

Me: *becoming exasperated and frustrated by this point* “Because I’ve run into something like that before, and it’s part of the register training!”

Customer: “Oh. Then, do you mind if I take this and try it, anyway?”

(He has already ripped the gift card off the packaging as he speaks.)

Me: “What?! No!”

(I realize that now we can’t sell that gift card. Thankfully, they’re generic.)

Customer: “Why not?”

Me: “For one, it’s not activated.”

Customer: “Oh. Right. That makes sense. Are you sure you can’t transfer the money?”

Me: *sighing* “I’m sure. If you want, I can call a manager up and you can talk to him, but I can tell you right now that he’s going to tell you the exact same thing I did.”

Customer: “So, you mean I have to spend it on f****** flowers or some s***?” *gestures to our artificial flowers*

Me: “Or something else in the store.”

Customer: *still in his dull monotone* “This is f****** bulls***, you know that?”

Me: “…”

Customer: “I’m a f****** millionaire.” *turns and starts to leave*

Me: “Are you sure you don’t want me to call a manager?”

Customer: “F*** this.”

(We told the store manager about the incident with this “millionaire,” and he actually recognized the total from the refund card as one that had been given out to a different person who came in right before closing last week, and we strong suspected had stolen the merchandise he returned. Seems he sold the “gift card” to this guy at a bargain price, probably knowing full well it wouldn’t work in the kiosk.)

It is closing time. We make the announcement and do our final customer checks. Fabric pages that they have a customer and her daughter at the counter. No problem. It only takes a few minutes to cut fabric.

Five minutes later, she sends the daughter to go find some item elsewhere in the store. It becomes clear that she may take a while. Store policy is that we cannot tell people to leave, so the floor staff politely hovers and tries to be extra helpful to get her out quicker. Fabric lady and daughter politely decline and resume shopping at a pace that makes sloths look like Olympians.

Another customer knocks at the front door. They know we are closed, but they need one thing for a school project, we are the only ones in town who sell it, and they know exactly where it is. I radio my manager and ask if I can let them in. We still have a register open, and fabric lady is deliberating between two shades of blue. I get the okay.

The customer comes in, gets the item they need, pays for it, and leaves before fabric lady even finishes choosing her material. They may have secretly been the Flash. Super grateful, smiles everywhere.

Fabric lady finally makes her way to the register over half an hour after closing and complains that she felt rushed.

(I am working away putting stock out when a customer pops up behind me.)

Customer: “Do you know if TK Maxx is open today?”

(TK Maxx sells completely different stuff to my shop and is on the other side of the city in a completely different place.)

Me: “Erm, no…”

Customer: “No, it’s not open, or no, you don’t know ?”

Me: “Well, I don’t work there so I wouldn’t know…”

(She turned and walked away with a huff. Maybe she thought all retail workers have some kind of hive mind?)

(I have five minutes left in my shift when a customer approaches me looking for some pens we have on sale. Luckily, I can scan to get directions right to them, so I figure I can show the customer and then finish cleaning up my stock after without risking going over my hours. Unfortunately, when we get there I see we’re sold out.)

Me: “I’m so sorry, but we must have sold the last ones today, and the system hasn’t caught up yet. We’ll get more in this week; do you need them now?”

Customer: “No, I just wanted to grab some fine-line pens for writing.”

Me: “Oh! Well, the sale ones were for drawing, so we actually have writing pens for that same price all the time. You can even test them there.”

(I show the customer the pens in the next aisle. I even walk him through each one, and answer some questions. I’m hitting the end of my shift, so I try to wrap it up.)

Me: “…and there’s pens up at the front that are roughly the same quality, but 50 cents cheaper. I need to head up there so I can show you.”

Customer: “Okay, it’s going to sound like I’m picking on you, but since you’ve been so helpful, I’m going to offer you some advice.”

Me: “Okay.”

Customer: “You know the verb ‘to be’ is dead; people don’t use it anymore. You said, ‘There’s,’ as a contraction, but since it’s a multiple, you should have said, ‘There are.’”

Me: “Oh. Okay?”

Customer: “You wouldn’t say, ‘There’s cars over there,’ right? It’s the same thing.”

(I realize he’s going to keep going, so I decide to just smile and nod.)

Customer: “You’ll notice it’s what they say on the news. It’s the more professional way to speak. My daughter says, ‘There are,’ and she works at the White House. It makes people judge you if they hear that. It’s like the n-word to educated people.”

(At that point my customer service smile becomes strained past believability, but I manage to keep quiet because I just want to go home. By the time he’s done, it’s five minutes after my shift should be over.)

Me: “Okay, thanks. I’ll remember that. Now, let me just show you those pens.”

(While we were walking he made a joke about being the worst customer. I didn’t laugh.)