In the store where I work, for returns, you either have to have your receipt or the item you’re returning with the price tag still on it and your driver’s license.

One day, a man comes in with a shirt to return. The man appears to be homeless; his clothes are unkempt and disheveled and he just looks very scruffy and gruff. The shirt he hands me still has the tag on it, but it is wet… and it doesn’t feel like water.

I can tell he’s in a rough spot, and even though the company would not normally accept an item that’s not resellable, I decide to go ahead and return it to try to show some compassion and kindness.

Me: “Since you don’t have a receipt, can I see your driver’s license?”

Man: *Snapping* “I don’t have a driver’s license! You can just return it anyway.”

Me: *Politely* “I can’t return it without a receipt or driver’s license. I physically cannot do the return process without either.”

Man: “Just return it for store credit!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but without a driver’s license, there’s nothing I can do.”

I still feel bad for him, though, and want to offer a solution.

Me: “Look, just have a friend come in and return it for you with their driver’s license. They can give you the store credit for it. I just can’t return it without a license.”

He promptly turns to the customer next to him and orders:

Man: “Give me your driver’s license!”

Naturally, the customer is baffled. The man starts yelling at her to give him her license and, obviously, she says no. Then, he turns to me and starts calling me names. Eventually, seeing that he’s getting nowhere, he leaves.

I tried so hard to be polite, and I am very shaken by his demands of not only me but the customer at the register next to him, but there are more customers in line, so I don’t even have time to process what the heck just happened.

Fortunately, my next customer witnessed everything and says something along the lines of:

Next Customer: “You handled that like a saint!”

I grew up in Malaysia, so I’m able to understand Malay, English, and Japanese. I also know basic Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindustani, and Korean, but I’m unable to converse with others; it’s a one-sided understanding as I’m able to understand the language spoken but unable to construct proper sentences and grammar, so it sounds broken.

I work in customer service and converse mostly in English. One of our customers was complaining in Mandarin to her friends that I was too slow and looked stupid when the fact was that she kept on changing her order specification every single MINUTE! Did she think we had magic or what to process and redo it every time? Trying to maintain a straight face when they are literally bad-talking right in front of you is the real task there.

After I finished the order, upon payment, I said, “Xie Xie,” instead of, “Thank you.”

The look of utter horror on both of their faces was totally satisfying.

Me: “Yes, miss. I can understand you. Just because we don’t look smart, it doesn’t mean we can’t understand you.”

Related:
If You Wouldn’t Say It To Their Face, Don’t Say It Near Their Ears

I am a personal shopper. Customers who have an issue with their orders call a customer support center to get help. The support center is supposed to be all-powerful. They are able to access all the details from the customer’s order, and they have the authority to issue refunds, offer credits, and resolve all issues without involving us.

The only time they should ever call our department is if a customer has lodged a major complaint against a staff member and the support center needs to hear both sides of the story in order to resolve the issue correctly. This rarely happens.

This time, I’ve gotten a call from the support center that doesn’t make sense to me as the representative should have been able to see the issue on her end.

Representative: “Hello, am I speaking to Online, Pickup, and Delivery at [Store Location]?”

Me: “Yes. This is [My Name] speaking.”

Representative: “I have a customer, [Customer], on the line and she has an issue with her order. She picked up an order from your store an hour ago and is missing an item. I need to know if you’ll replace it for her.”

Me: “Let me look up her order. What is the item she’s missing?”

Representative: “It’s a [Brand] non-stick skillet for $19.95. Since you left it out of her order, I will remove the charge, but I need you to replace it. As soon as you confirm that she did, in fact, order one, I’ll tell her to drive back to pick it up.”

Me: “Yes, I see the skillet listed on the order. Look, her entire order is listed as pick-up except for the skillet, which is listed as three-to-five-day shipping, so no, she wouldn’t have gotten her skillet from us today.”

Representative: “What does that mean?”

The representative should be able to see that the item was listed as shipped on her end and should be able to see an expected arrival date. The whole point of the support center is that they have more access to customer information than we do so they can better help with major issues.

Me: “That means she ordered it along with the other items, but our store doesn’t have it in stock so it’s being shipped from a different store. A delivery driver will be bringing it to her house.”

Representative: “No, she only ordered pick-up, not delivery. Just go get one off the sales floor and I’ll send her to pick it up, free of charge, since your department messed up and inconvenienced her.”

I do not recognize the brand name, so I click on it. It takes me to a webpage for a different store location entirely. I send a coworker to check our kitchen appliance section to verify that we don’t actually have it, and they return saying there is nothing of that brand at all.

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t go get one. We do not carry that brand here.”

Representative: *Taking on a snarky tone* “You work at a [Store]. [Store] carries those skillets.”

Me: “Ma’am, we are a neighborhood market location, not a supercenter. We almost exclusively carry groceries. Our kitchen section is only four feet long and only contains the store brand, no name brands.”

Representative: “Oh. So, what store is her skillet coming from?”

Me: “I can’t be 100% sure, as there are four supercenters in this county, but the website is showing that [Store twenty miles away] has it in stock currently, so my guess would be from there.”

Representative: “What is that store number?”

I had to Google that, but the representative should have been able to look it up on her end. I don’t know why she didn’t, and I don’t know why she decided to be rude. I can’t help that I work at a market, which she should have been able to see on her end. I gave her the store number and she hung up on me without saying another word.

The customer called us directly the next day to let us know that a very nice delivery driver had brought her skillet from the store twenty miles away and that she was sorry for complaining about us. She just hadn’t realized she had chosen a skillet we didn’t carry.

Customer: “Do you know what time the 12:30 shuttle comes?”

Me: “Uh… 12:30.”

Customer: “I can do without the smart-a** attitude.”

Me: “I can do without dumb-a** customers.”

Luckily, I already had another job lined up!

I work in customer service for a large superstore.

Customer: “How do I return my stroller now that my kids no longer need it?”

Me: “Do you have the receipt, and how long ago did you purchase it?”

Customer: “Hmm, let’s see. My kids are four and eight, so I guess I’ve had the stroller for almost nine years?”

We did not accept the return.