I used to be a supervisor at a grocery store. Most of our cashiers were young, late high school – early college-aged. I’ve worked retail long enough to be incredibly protective of younger employees.

One day, an older man comes up to my service desk. I vaguely recognize him as coming in often, but otherwise, nothing. He asks if one of the girls, let’s call her Jen, is working that day.

Me: “No, she’s not. Was there something I could help you with instead?”

Man: “No, no. It’s a personal thing. Do you know when she’s in next?”

Jen was just-into-college aged, and a man well over twice her age asking for her for ‘personal reasons’ is so incredibly suspicious to me.

Me: “I’m sorry, I can’t give that info out. I can maybe give her a message if you’d like?”

Man: “No, that’s okay. It’s really personal. I’ll just try later.”

Me: “You’re welcome to do that, sir…”

He leaves amicably, and I immediately tell my supervisor that some weird dude was trying to get her schedule so to be alert.

Maybe an hour or so later, I answered a call from the same old man.

Man: “Hi, I was wondering if Jen works tonight?”

Me: “No, sir. And I can’t give you any information about when she does. Is there anything I can help you with or do you want me to leave her a message?”

Man: “No, I can’t. It’s a personal thing. Could you give her my phone number at least so she can call me?”

No, sir, I cannot and will not give my teenage cashier your phone number for ‘personal reasons’ you have yet to explain.

Me: “If you’d like to leave your name instead, I can pass something along to her?”

Man: “Fine, I guess. Just tell her it’s John, and I would really like to talk to her.”

This is not the real name, but it was an equally common one with no last name given.

Me: “Okay then…”

At this point, I go straight to messaging my cashier and warning her that some strange dude keeps asking for her. She is, understandably, a little unnerved. She eventually settles on allowing him to talk to her, if I or another supervisor is nearby, just in case.

He does call at least once more after I’ve left, but the supervisor tells him the same thing. He ends up coming back when Jen IS actually working on her register the next day. I give her a heads up and hover nearby just in case.

Turns out, he works at some medical office and wondered if Jen, who is going into medicine and makes no secret of it, would be interested in doing an internship thing with him. He has business cards, and she recognized the company, I guess, so it was legit, and she actually decided to go with it because it sounded cool.

But honestly, I understand you might not want to share everything with the random manager, but literally just handing me the business card the first time and saying, ‘please give this to her’ would have been infinitely easier and less suspicious than asking after her for ‘personal reasons’.

I work in an independent grocery store that’s effectively an oversized convenience store. As a result, we don’t have a corporate office, and management is more flexible with how we treat problem customers.

This also means we can have humorous retail-related signs up about the store. Most of them are of the humorous “unaccompanied kids will be given a Red Bull and a puppy” vibe, but some are actually useful.

Customer: “So that sign above you…”

Me: “Yes, sir?”

Customer: “It real?”

Me: “You mean the one that says ‘Customers who are rude to staff will be forced to take their place until someone is rude to them.’?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “Only one way to find out.”

Customer: “…I’m good.”

We finish the transaction in silence. His wife is also with him, and she ends up paying while he silently bags at the end of the checkout.

Customer’s Wife: “That’s crazy. The car drive over here he wouldn’t stop talking about how he was going to complain about the price of eggs, and he was gonna ruin someone’s day. I told him it ain’t your fault, but he was dead set on it. But he saw your sign and he backed down.”

Me: “You know the sign is just a joke, right? No one is going to force him to work here.”

Customer’s Wife: “Oh, I know, but one time he believed he was cursed by not forwarding one of those chain letters on Facebook, so now he kinda respects the process.”

Me: “I see! Well, if he knew how often we had to deal with rude customers, it wouldn’t have ended up being much of a deterrent. He’d be working here an hour max before being replaced by the next rude customer.”

Customer’s Wife: “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry for you.”

Me: “Do both! We all do during our breaks!”

We both smiled weakly at each other and went on with our days.

This is one where I’m fairly sure the employees think I was at fault, and I think they were at fault. The nearby grocery store has new card readers. My items are rung up and I insert my debit card to pay.

Card Reader: “Do you want cash back? Press 0 for yes, X for no.”

It is important to note that there is nothing unusual about the 0 or X. No box around them, no underlining, no change of font or color. Just plain text.

I press the red X button on the number pad, the one beside the green 0.

Cashier: “You need to press the X or the 0.”

Me: “I pressed the X.”

I press the X button again, in case I didn’t press it firmly enough the first time.

Cashier: “You need to press the X if you don’t want cash back.”

Me: “I did press it.”

The cashier walks around, looks at the card reader, and touches the X on the screen. The one that is plain text with no indication that it should be touched. The screen goes on to the PIN entry as she walks back around.

Cashier: “I even put up a sign!”

I glance around, don’t see a sign, and pull my card out. There, taped under the reader and hard to see with no card inserted, and impossible to see with the card in, is a tiny, taped bit of paper. The sign reads “Press the X or 0”.

Back when I was seventeen, I used to work at a grocery chain that’s pretty big in my area. It wasn’t at all too uncommon to have people who spoke different languages come through the store, like Spanish, French, and Chinese. Most people don’t bat an eye since I live on the East Coast of the United States, where multiple languages are commonly used to talk with families from foreign countries.

A woman in her mid-30s comes up to my register and starts s***-talking about the couple behind her, who seemed to be a little bit older than her (probably in their 50s), about the language they were speaking.

Customer: “That should be a forbidden language, based on their country’s history!”

Now, mind you, I obviously have never met this lady before, and I, being from that area, was appalled by her statement. I looked at the couple and listened to them, and they were speaking German.

I turned to this lady and said to her:

Me: “You should keep that opinion to yourself, or you could end up offending someone who is a part of that culture.”

Customer: *Scoffs.”

I finish ringing up her order, and she starts bagging her items. I greet the couple and start speaking to them in FLUENT GERMAN. The couple’s eyes light up with joy as I could tell they don’t speak English very well. The look of utter embarrassment on that lady’s face as she finished up packing and went to the desk was priceless.

Later in the conversation with the couple, I learned that they, in fact, were German natives and were there on a trip to see family in America. They didn’t understand a good portion of what that lady was saying, but they knew it wasn’t nice by her gestures and facial expressions.

I love my grandmother to death for teaching me multiple languages at a young age.

I am working at the checkout. I am a woman. My name tag uses a shortened version of my middle name, let’s say ‘Sam.’

Customer: “That’s a guy’s name!”

Me: “Pardon me?”

Customer: “You have a guy’s name!”

Me: “What guy?”

Customer: “Huh?”

Me: “What guy’s name do I have?”

Customer: “Uh, I mean… your name belongs to a dude.”

Me: “Okay, which dude? Who took my name? I need to get it back.”

Customer: “I… uh… never mind.”

Me: “Well… okay, but if you see that dude, you let me know so I can go get my name back.”

The rest of the transaction continued in blissful, confused silence. 

Related:
Failed The Name Game, Part 11
Failed The Name Game, Part 10
Failed The Name Game, Part 9
Failed The Name Game, Part 8
Failed The Name Game, Part 7