A customer comes in, clearly flustered, and places two separate orders on my belt. She explains that she is shopping for two different “clients” and that she is unfamiliar with how to do it. During the explanation, she becomes somewhat frustrated before I have rung everything. I allow her to explain how she would like them rung, though it is fairly obvious, and begin to ring as we talk. The first order goes through. She is getting ready to pay.
Customer: “Okay, so the first one has food stamps; I don’t think they’re enough, but let’s see…” *swipes card*
Me: “It got declined, but there’s enough for most of this order if you want to pay the rest cash, or we can put something back…”
Customer: “No, no, we’ll just put those hot dogs on the other order and make him pay for them; that’ll fix it.”
Me: “We could have her pay what she can, take the balance off of her card, and then let him pay for his with his food stamps and the little that she has leftover, as well.”
Customer: “Huh? I just want to move the hot dogs so that she can afford the food.”
Me: “I can run this through as one order, take the right amount off of each card, have her pay more, and have him pay less, and it’ll be really easy. Trust me.”
Customer: “No. Just move the hot dogs to the other order. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Still not grasping how stupid this woman is…
Me: “If they were both standing in front of me, she had six dollars’ worth of stuff and was one dollar short, I could ring everything up, take her five dollars, and then take his money so that she has none left, and he didn’t have to pay any more than he should have to. Make sense? I can do that with cards, too.”
Customer: “I still don’t get it. Just move the hot dogs to the other order, so she can pay for her order.”
Me: *Resigned* “Okay.”
The customer leaves, and I take a deep breath and let it out before I say hello to the next customer. I’m clearly frustrated.
Me: “Sorry about that. How is your day going?”
Customer #2: “Much better than yours, apparently. Wow, was she stupid! Do you see that kind of thing every day?”
Me: “No, not every day. Some days are special.”
Customer #2: “Thank God, because if you did, they should put out tip jars and let you guys get paid a little more for the service. Nobody should have to put up with that every day, no matter who they are.”
Normally, the exchange with the first customer would put me in a bad mood for most of the shift, but because the next customer understood, I was able to shake it off in five minutes flat. Thank you!
