I used to work in a craft store infamous for being understaffed. This problem was made worse with the global health crisis, as bored people were flocking to us for crafts and we weren’t hiring anyone to keep up with the workload.

On top of that, corporate added curbside to our duties, bragging on our website that we could have an order ready in two hours. We were never able to get an order ready that fast, leading to a barrage of complaints.

One weekend, I was ringing up a huge line of customers when a man came in.

Customer: “I’m [Customer]? I’m here for my order?”

Me: “Did you receive an email telling you it was ready?”

Customer: “Well, no.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but your order isn’t ready yet. Once it’s complete, you will receive an email.”

Customer: “But your website said it would be ready in two hours!”

Coworker: “We’re sorry. We do work to get orders as fast as we can, but we have a very short staff and a lot of people, so you’ll have to wait just a bit longer.”

Customer: *Outraged* “I still have to wait for my order?!”

Me: *Fed up with him* “So does everyone else!”

Customer: “I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE!”

At this, the crowd of customers all turned to glare at him. He became sheepish and sulked off.

Customer #2: *To me* “Boy, the people you put up with…”

In the end, our manager finished his order next and he received it, and apparently, he apologized for losing his temper.

Sometimes you have to appreciate the power of an angry mob.

I work at an American craft store chain. A customer comes up to my register with two store gift cards.

Customer: “Will these work online?”

Me: “Yes, they’ll definitely work on our website.”

The customer puts $200 on each gift card, telling me they’re for her two children. She pays with four $100 bills, and I remember wishing she were my mother.

Hours later, when I’m at my other job, I get a text from the manager closing the craft store:

Manager: “Do you remember selling two gift cards to a woman that were $200 each this morning? They were [Store] gift cards.”

Me: “Yeah, was something wrong with the bills? I checked them all for the reflective and embedded strips. They looked good.”

Manager: “No, she was claiming that you said she could use them on Amazon; she just tried to return them.”

Me: “She never asked about Amazon; she only asked if they could be used online. I even said they could be used on our website. If she’d specified Amazon, I’d have told her no.”

My manager did not return the gift cards for obvious reasons. She also told me the woman was “not happy, to say the least”. Funnily enough, we also sell Visa gift cards, which CAN be used on Amazon. I no longer wish she were my mother.

Related:
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 23
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 22
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 21
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 20

I’m at the craft store, browsing an aisle. I hear a ruckus by the entrance. Apparently, someone’s child was running around and bumped into a young woman who happened to be checking her phone. The mother of the child saw it happen and is now yelling at the young woman at the top of her lungs.

Mother: “You ignorant b**** with your head in your phone! You hit my child!”

Young Woman: “Excuse me. Your child — who was running around the store like a wild monkey — bumped into me. Watch your children if you don’t want them bumping into strangers.”

Mother: “You were too busy with your g**d*** phone, so it’s your fault, you cancerous whore!”

Young Woman: “Great example for your child you are, calling me names and all that.”

Mother: “I’M PROTECTING MY BABY FROM SCUM LIKE YOU! You just wait! You just meet me outside and I’ll beat your stupid b****-a** up!”

Young Woman: “Again, great example. I feel sorry for your child. I truly do.”

Mother: “Don’t tell me how to raise my kid! I’m protecting my child! F****** cancerous b****!”

She stomps away with the child in tow. The child seems completely unbothered by all this somehow.

I decided to lay low during this whole exchange, but once the crazy lady clears the scene, I bring my stuff up to the counter where the young woman is still lingering, seemingly a bit afraid to leave the store.

Me: “Well, at least you can’t say it’s been a dull day. Are you all right?”

Young Woman: “Yeah, I’m shaking a bit, though. I feel so sorry for her kid, having a mom like that.”

The young woman’s husband showed up — apparently, he had been at the store next door — and escorted her safely back out. The man looked like he hit the gym frequently. If the crazy mother was indeed waiting for them outside, she would have been in for a laugh.

I’m working at an arts and crafts store as a cashier. I am checking out a customer. All of a sudden, I hear, “Where the f*** is my purse?!” coming from the middle of the store. A customer in her fifties storms up to my register and screams:

Customer: “Someone stole my purse! You need to lock down the store and search everyone until you find it!”

Me: “I am sorry that your purse was stolen. I will call the police to come right now!”

I start dialing 911.

Customer: “You need to lock the doors so no one can escape with my purse!”

Me: *While waiting for a dispatcher to pick up* “Ma’am, I am sorry, but we cannot lock our doors, and we cannot keep customers here against their will. The police will be here shortly and we can check the security footage.”

While I am talking to the 911 dispatcher about the incident, [Customer] proceeds to go to the front door and lock it just as another customer is about to leave. I don’t quite hear what transpires, but it ends with [Customer] flipping over the other customer’s cart and slapping them across the face while accusing them of stealing her purse.

Me: “The customer just attacked another customer.”

911 Dispatcher: “I’m sorry?”

Me: “The customer is attacking other guests; I need to hang up.”

I turn to the customer.

Me: “Ma’am, you cannot assault other guests and you cannot lock the door. Please leave our location until the police arrive.”

Customer: “F*** you! You f****** b****! Someone has my purse and is going to get away with it!”

She walked back into the store and started raging out through the aisles, throwing goods, stomping on glass, and tipping over anyone else’s cart she could. My coworkers followed her, trying to get her to stop, while I asked the other customers in the store to leave.

After [Customer] had been on her rampage for a few minutes, the police arrived and pulled her out of the store to get a sense of the situation. The police sent her to her car to look for any form of ID. We watched her from the front of the store as she turned around holding in her hands… her stolen purse.

She had left it in the car all along.

The customer who got slapped and the manager asked to press charges. [Customer] was arrested and is now permanently banned from any other store location in the region. We closed the store and spent the rest of the day cleaning and trying to figure out how much she had done in damages.

I work in a store that’s located inside another store, but I’m not employed by the big container store. Our location means that oftentimes we have customers in our store who did not know that our product exists and also don’t know they’re in another store.

We sell computer-controlled embroidery machines. While digitizing and arranging an embroidery design is undeniably an art, the actual process of stitching a premade design out is pretty easy: you press start on the machine, and then it sews on its own and you can go do something else. We keep at least one running because it gets people to come look at our store.

Because we go long periods of time without customers in our store, we are allowed to work on other things during our shifts, as long as customers come first.

A customer comes in with a shopping partner and sighs loudly. I immediately set down the skirt that I’m hemming by hand and stand up to help her.

Customer: “It’s all done by computers these days.”

She walks up to the machine that’s currently running and sighs again.

Customer: “No one cares for the old things like doing it by hand these days.”

She looks at one of our most expensive machines — to be fair, it’s VERY expensive, about the price of a car — and sighs a third time.

Customer: “People will spend so much money to not have to appreciate art these days.”

Me: “Hi, did you want help with anything?”

Customer: “No, not you. I want to talk to someone who appreciates real handcrafted art.”

My coworker holds up the poster-sized hand embroidery project she’s working on.

Coworker: “I can try to help you.”

The customer turns her back on us and turns back to her shopping partner.

Customer: “No one appreciates handmade things these days.”

Customer’s Partner: “Then get out of this store.” *To us* “I’m sorry about her, ladies. You have a good night.”