[Employee], a man in his sixties, is a cashier for a retail drug store chain, and I’m one of his supervisors.

On a Tuesday, [Employee] approaches a supervisor.

Employee: “I’m having elective surgery next week on Wednesday and will need the next two weeks off. But I’m scheduled to work. Why am I scheduled when I can’t work?”

Supervisor: “Have you informed the manager?”

Employee: “I’m supposed to tell the manager? How? Do I need to bring a doctor’s note?”

[Supervisor] picks her jaw up off the ground.

Supervisor: “How else is the manager supposed to know? How long ago did you schedule this surgery?”

Employee: “Two months ago.”

[Supervisor] picks her jaw up off the floor again.

Supervisor: “Why didn’t you let the manager know sooner?”

Employee: “I didn’t know I had to inform him. Isn’t that a HIPAA violation?”

Due to the store having a pharmacy, we all have to go through basic HIPAA training every year. It’s pretty much just a reminder of what HIPAA is.

Supervisor: “Let the manager know ASAP, and bring a doctor’s note.”

[Supervisor] calls me into the office to explain the procedure for going on disability. (I was on disability earlier this year from having a baby.) I give [Employee] the number he needs to call, along with the website he needs to fill out a few forms.

Employee: “Don’t I just use PTO?” *Paid Time Off*

Me: “Why use PTO when you don’t have to? You’re entitled to disability.”

Employee: “I’ll just use PTO.”

Because [Employee] gave us such short notice, we are now scrambling to find coverage for the next two weeks.

I went to a large drug store chain for a few items. I wasn’t in a great mood — I was five months pregnant and with a rambunctious toddler at home — so the thought of a few quiet minutes without interacting with another human sounded blissful.

Given that I wanted to not talk to people at the moment, I went to the self-checkout.

There was an older couple at the other self-checkout register, and one of the store associates was assisting them. The associate looked over at me as I started scanning my items.

Associate: “Someone will be right with you.”

I thought maybe someone else had indicated they needed help as the couple he was assisting had. 

I was about halfway done scanning my items when another store associate came over and literally took the items out of my hands to scan them herself. She stood on the opposite side of the area where you bag scanned items, so she’d lean into me to scan and further over me to put each item down.

She narrated the whole process as if teaching me how to use the scan — never mind that I had been doing it without issue when she arrived.

Once the items were scanned, she “walked me through” paying for my bags and selecting my payment method, leaning over me to push the buttons on the screen. By that point, I had stepped back so we wouldn’t be completely on top of each other.

She did let me insert my own credit card but gave me a thorough commentary on how to do it. 

I tried not to be too irked by her “help” — maybe it was a new policy — but it completely defeated the purpose of “self-checkout”. 

I went to a different store in the same chain a few weeks later, and they let me use the self-checkout like a big girl, so I’m still not sure what was going on.

This just happened today, and I’m having a nice laugh over it. I’m a shift supervisor for a retail drugstore chain. We have a drive-thru, but it is for the pharmacy; people pick up their prescriptions through it.

I’m working when we get a call. The voice on the line sounded pretty old — like a seventy- or eighty-year-old woman.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Drug Store]. [My Name] speaking; how may I help you?

Woman: “I just went through your drive-thru. I ordered two hot dogs, but one of them was a hamburger—”

Me: *Politely interrupting* “This is [Drug Store]; we don’t sell fast food. You’ve dialed the wrong number.”

Woman: “No, I didn’t. You got my order wrong.”

Me: “This is [Drug Store]. We don’t sell fast food. You have the wrong number.”

This goes back and forth for a minute.

Woman: “I’m calling corporate.”

She hung up.

My store is part of a national chain in the USA. None of our stores sell fast food, nor do any of our competitors. (We get confused with our two major competitors a lot.)

I’m also well aware that this could have been a prank. When you call the store, a machine answers asking you to say or press a number for a certain department.

It’s a year or two after the 2008 recession started in a retail drug store chain, one open twenty-four hours a day. Despite being a big business, we’re still feeling the effects of the recession. Everyone still has a job, but hours are being cut.

I’m a shift supervisor working the closing shift, 2:00 to 11:00 pm. The overnight supervisor and cashier have arrived. I’m in the office talking to the overnight supervisor when I get a call for a manager needed up front. I leave the office to handle the situation. For context, I’m female, and so is the overnight supervisor. Both cashiers are male.

Both cashiers are ringing customers up, and they tell me the complaining customer has left. I notice that there’s a line and decide to help. As I’m ringing up a customer, a middle-aged man walks in and angrily tells me he needs to talk to me.

Me: “No problem. Let me finish with my customer.”

The man starts anyway.

Man: “Your employee said she’s going to call the police on me because I have a disability placard but I don’t look disabled.”

Me: “Which one?” *Pointing to my two cashiers*

Man: “A woman. She said it’s her job to manage disabled parking.”

My current customer begins to giggle.

Me: “Whoever she was, she doesn’t work for us.”

Man: “She said she works for you.”

Me: “Sir, there are only two females on duty at this moment, one of them being me. The other I was talking to in the office when you asked for a manager. If you’d like, I can call her out to the front and you can see if it was her. The shopping center does have security guards; however, last I checked, they are all male.”

Man: “I want to file a complaint about her and get her fired.”

My customer decides to chime in.

Customer: “Sir, we’re in the middle of a recession. People are losing jobs and getting their hours cut. You really think this store has a lot of money lying around for that meaningless position?”

The gears in the man’s head finally start to turn.

Man: “She doesn’t work for you?”

Me: “No, she doesn’t.”

Man: “Can I kick her a**?”

Me: “I have no say in it.”

Man: “I’m going to go kick her a**.”

Me: *Waving goodbye* “Enjoy!”

I finish ringing up my customer, who’s still trying to hold back giggles.

Customer: “For a moment, I thought, ‘Wow, you guys must be making a boatload of money to hire someone for that small job.’”

About fifteen minutes later, I clock out and head to my car. The man is driving by, and he rolls his window down.

Man: “She’s still driving around here. I’ll kick her a**.”

I waved goodbye. I don’t know if he ever got the chance to kick her a** that night.

I work in a drug store chain as a cashier. I come back from my break, and there are maybe five items on the counter kind of pushed off to one side. The next customer puts some items down.

Me: “Are these yours?”

Customer: “No, that it was already there.”

Two customers later, a woman cuts the line.

Woman: *To the other customers* “I’m not cutting the line; I’m just going to lay this here with my other stuff until I’m ready.”

Me: “Ma’am, there are carts and baskets right there.”

Woman: “Oh, I don’t like using them.”

I quickly pile all of her items on top of the cooler to clear my counter. When she comes back to check out, she sees my frustration.

Woman: “Next time, I’ll use a cart.”

Me: “I would appreciate that. The counters are very small, and customers need to be able to place the items on the counter to check out.”

Woman: “Yes, I know how it works; you don’t have to explain it to me.”

Apparently, I do?