I work customer service, where I process returns and do lottery. We open the customer service desk at 8:00 am. 

It’s 8:30 and I’m just finishing up my usual morning routine when a customer comes through with a single bag of potato chips.

We do a cash pickup at 8:00 pm every night and usually don’t get cash drops before 9:30 am.

Customer: “Can I get cashback, please?”

Me: “Sure, how much do you need?”

Customer: “Oh, $300.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can only process a maximum of $200, and I don’t have that much change.”

Customer: “What do you mean?”

Me: “I mean that I only have two $20 notes in my till. If you want $200, there is an ATM.” *Gestures*

Customer: “But I just want cashback. Can I get cashback?”

Me: *Getting frustrated.* “Okay, I can do $200, but it’ll all be in $5 notes, because I have to keep these twenties in case of a lottery win.”

Customer: “See, I really need $50 and $100 notes. Will self-checkout do that?”

Me: *Extremely annoyed now* “No, the self-checkout will only give you $20 notes. There’s an ATM over there.” *Gestures again*

Customer: “OH! I see that register five is open. Can you see if they have the change?”

I call number five; the cashier has one $50 and the rest is $10 notes. I relay this information.

Customer: “I suppose that’ll work.”

She wanders to the register while I internally scream and turn to do lottery work. After she pays and gets her cash back, I turn around from my lottery till and see that she’s waiting in my line again.

Me: “Can I get you some lottery?”

Customer: “Oh, no. I was wondering if you could swap these tens for some twenties and fifties?”

Related:
Cash Back Attack, Part 12
Cash Back Attack, Part 11
Cash Back Attack, Part 10
Cash Back Attack, Part 9
Cash Back Attack, Part 8

A customer comes to my register to pay for her groceries.

Customer: “Wait, wait. Those lemons are supposed to be $0.67 a pound. Why are they ringing up as $1.27?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. We don’t sell lemons per pound; they are always sold individually.”

Customer: “No, they’re not! I saw the price on the flyer as $0.67. I want them for that price!”

Me: “Ma’am, I have been working here for two years. I can assure you that lemons have never been sold by the pound.”

I don’t bother calling the produce department as I know that the system and I aren’t wrong.

Customer: “No, you’re wrong! You just want me to pay more money!”

Me: “Ma’am, all produce items have a PLU code that gets punched into my register and is pre-priced whether it is by weight or individual, and lemons have always been sold individually.”

At this point, all the customers in the line are getting impatient and the customer notices the glares being sent her way.

Customer: “Fine, I don’t want them, then. This is so stupid. It says so in the flyer that they’re sold by the pound.”

Me: “All right, ma’am, if you would like, I can grab a flyer and see what you are talking about.”

She refuses and says that she doesn’t want to spend any more time in this store where we are “falsely advertising” our food. I finish her order and proceed with my work once she leaves, only to jump a foot in the air, startled. The customer comes up behind me, smacks the flyer down on the belt, and points at a picture in the flyer.

Customer: “See, I told you! I told you the lemons were on for $0.67 a pound!”

Me: *Pause* “Ma’am, those are oranges.”

She looked at the flyer again and then ran out of the store.

I work for a large retail and grocery company. And like most grocery stores, we have a deli section.

I am working the returns desk, which I am still fairly new at, and a customer rolls up with a cart that has two cardboard boxes full of half-eaten fried chicken. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much fried chicken before.

Me: “Hello, how can I help you?”

Customer: “I would like to return this fried chicken.”

Me: “What’s wrong with it?”

Customer: “I ordered this for a family reunion this past weekend. I took it home to my family and when we got to eating it, it was all burnt and nasty. We weren’t satisfied, and I’d like my money back.”

I’d like to note that she’s still wearing her family reunion shirt.

She’s quoting our fresh food policy, which is 100% money-back guarantee. So, I decide to follow through with the return, although in my head I’m trying to figure out why anyone would buy fried chicken from us, ever. Of course, it is going to be bad; our deli food is known for being nasty.

The customer hands me her receipt and it says she bought two orders of seventy-five pieces of chicken, totaling about $100. I do the return and give her her money back, and I come around to grab the cart of chicken.

It doesn’t end there.

Later, I’m taking returns and claims back to their respective sections: bakery to bakery, frozen to frozen, etc. I roll the chicken cart over to deli, and the workers greet me, confused.

Deli: “What’s this?”

Me: “Claims. A lady came and returned these. Said they were burnt and nasty.”

Deli: “And you took it back?”

Me: *Shrugs* “Yeah, it’s policy. 100% money-back guarantee.”

At this point, they’re now visibly angry. I have a mini-freak-out and start to doubt myself. Is that the policy? Did I do it wrong? I am still new at returns, so it’s possible.

Me: “Was I wrong?”

They tell me no and sigh. They ask what the customer looked like and I described her to them. They get angrier.

Deli: “She came in last weekend to pick up that big order of hers. It took us all day to make it. She came in and didn’t have enough money! She told us she didn’t know it would be that much. She told us about her family reunion and how much it meant to her. She started crying. She only had about $80 on her, so we — the deli and bakery workers who were in that day — decided to chip in and help her pay for the rest.”

All three of us look down at the cart and cardboard boxes filled with half-eaten nasty chicken.

This is why I have trust issues.

I’m a personal shopper. People place grocery orders online for delivery or click-and-collect, and I go around our store following a handset’s orders to put each customer’s shopping in a tray. I’m in the yoghurt aisle when a well-to-do lady approaches me with a question.

Customer: “Where do you have [Obscure Yoghurt Brand]?”

I panic. I know I’ve seen it, but there are only three flavours, so they take up very little space. I try to help her look for it, but I can’t spot it, and she’s clearly had enough of waiting.

Customer: “Obviously, this is why you work here, though I’m surprised, given that you’re clearly too stupid to find this yoghurt.”

Me: “Well, my Masters is in linguistics, not yoghurt…”

Her face fell and then scrunched up, and she stormed out the aisle. I spotted the yoghurt brand about ten seconds later.

In the UK, “high-caffeine energy drinks” cannot be sold to under 16s. I use the automated checkout with my age-restricted drink, though there is always a member of staff by the eight or so automated checkouts to deal with issues and glitches. Taking this drink through them has never been an issue before, and I don’t really want to queue for a manned checkout for a few items.

I scan my shopping and wait as the light is flashing red and the screen is telling me that age verification is needed.

A minute or so goes by, and the person usually there is nowhere to be seen. I look over to the closest manned checkout, which now has no queue.

Cashier #1: “Sorry, can’t help you, love. Have to stay here.”

Another minute later, I wave at the cashier.

Cashier #1: “Look, just wait. It’s only been a few minutes.”

Cashier #2: *Walking past* “Oh, sorry. Not sure who is supposed to be here. I’ll see if I can find someone. What’s the issue? [Drink]? Yeah, I’ll get someone to come over.”

Me: “Can’t you verify it? I have ID if you need to see that.”

That’s normally not needed; they take one look at me and swipe an employee code of some kind, and the machine knows I’m old enough. I’m twenty-five.

Cashier #2: “Nah, sorry, gotta find who it’s supposed to be.”

She ambles off slowly.

I wait another minute or so and then give up. I would have given up sooner, but it is pouring with rain so I don’t mind waiting inside in the hope that the rain will ease off a bit. But now, it’s taken two people over five minutes to do nothing, one of whom hasn’t served anyone else in that time.

As I leave, abandoning my four or five items at the checkout, I hear [Cashier #1].

Cashier #1: “Bloody cheek. Leaving it for someone else to deal with now she doesn’t want it, I suppose.”

Me: “I do want it, but I can’t pay because of the [Drink], and I can’t cancel the drink because that requires a member of staff, too, and there isn’t anybody there.”

Cashier #1: “So that’s my fault, is it? That you’re too lazy to stand still and wait?”

I just walked out.

As I looked back, I saw [Cashier #1] get up and cancel my items with the employee swipe code, so she could have done that the whole time. I’ve not been back since.