(I am an assistant manager for a grocery chain in one of the most relaxed areas in the state. I’m the only manager on duty when our customer service desk pages over the intercom for a manager to pick up line one. I pick up and say the usual:)

Me: “Thank you for calling your friendly [Street] [Store]. My name is Yezi; how can I help you today?”

(I refer to myself as Yezi in the retail world, easier than explaining that my actual name is Yezirah, which nobody really gets. I have been told I don’t have a Hispanic accent even though I was born and raised in a third-world Hispanic country.)

Customer: “Oh, thank heavens, Angie. I was just in your store and the cashier was speaking Mexican to the customer in front of me at checkout… Mexican!“

(They could be talking about me, for all I know.)

Me: “Ma’am, do you mean that the cashier was speaking in Spanish to a Spanish-speaking customer?”

Customer: “No, they were just jabbering in Mexican to each other and I am very upset about that, so upset I don’t want to shop in your store until everyone learns to speak American like the rest of us. We’re in America; everyone should speak American!”

Me: “I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am. Next time you’re in our store, please feel free to ask for anyone on our management team to help you feel more comfortable and we will make sure you are spoken to in English, as everyone we employ speaks English.”

(Then, in my full Hispanic accent, I say to her:)

Me: “My name is Yezi Osorio, the store manager is [First Name] Arevalo, and our other assistant manager is [First Name] Galvan. Any one of us will be more than happy to help you in any of your shopping needs.”

Customer: *huffs and just hangs up*

(The language is Spanish, not Mexican, and there are 21 other countries that speak it other than Mexico; be careful who you complain to!)

Related:
Totally Estupido, Part 7
Totally Estupido, Part 6
Totally Estupido, Part 5

(It’s about 7:40 pm. The deli stops serving hot foods at seven, and deli clerks are to clock out by nine. We are behind as it is. My coworker and I are cleaning the deep fryers, washing dishes, and the like.)

Customer: *approaches hastily* “Are you guys closed?”

Coworker: *stops washing dishes* “Yeah, we are. Sorry.”

Customer: *annoyed* “Well, that’s just great! When do you normally close?!”

Coworker: “We close every night at seven, ma’am.”

(The customer lady checks her phone to see the time and just grunts annoyingly.)

Customer: “So, you’re telling me I can’t get four chicken tenders?!”

(There is a pan of old, kind of burnt chicken tenders in the now turned-off display case. It’s not been heated for way over the ten-minute rule and was dried out even before we turned off the heat. I stop in the middle of cleaning the deep fryer and turn to her.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. But we stop serving food from that side of the deli at seven. I can get you something from our salad bar—”

Customer: *interrupting me* “You’re telling me you can’t give me four chicken strips?!”

Me: “No, ma’am…”

Customer: “Then what’re you gonna do with them?!”

Me: “Normally at seven, if the tenders are still fresh, we put them in the fridge to be packaged up tomorrow and sold as cold food. But those have been sitting for a while even before we closed, so—”

Customer: *interrupting again* “You can’t give me four d*** chicken tenders?!”

Me: “I just said—”

Coworker: “Sorry, we can’t. It’s the rules.”

Me: “Yeah, it’d be against code for me to serve them to you.”

Customer: “Fine! Whatever!” *leaves*

(My coworker and I exchange looks and then get back to what we were doing. The customer comes back not two minutes later.)

Customer: “So, you’re telling me I can’t get four d*** chicken tenders?!”

Me: *internally screaming* “No, ma’am. You cannot. If you really want some, we do have some cold packaged tenders over at the cold display case.”

Customer: “But isn’t that stale, too?”

Coworker: “No, it’s not, ma’am. It was cooled and packaged before it was stale, keeping it mostly fresh for you—”

Customer: “So, you’re telling me that the packaged tenders are stale?”

Coworker: “No… It’s not. It’s more like…” *starts trying to explain to her how bacteria in food and temperature works like on our food handlers test*

Customer: “So, the packaged ones are filled with bacteria.”

Coworker: “No. It’s…” *starts repeating himself*

Me: “It’s not how it works, ma’am. And it’s just too late. The hot food is closed down for the night. We’re just following the rules.”

Customer: “I just want four chicken tenders!”

Coworker: *starts explaining again*

Me: “We’re not supposed to, ma’am. We don’t make the rules.”

Customer: “So, you’re telling me the packaged tenders have bacteria in them?!”

Coworker: *getting really tired of repeating himself*

Me: “Look, I’m sorry, ma’am. But we just don’t want to give you bad food and get in trouble. All right?”

(That seems to have done it, because she then leaves again and doesn’t come back.)

Coworker: *after a few minutes* “I miss her.”

Me: “Me, too… If she comes back, I wanna make sure to throw those tenders into the compost right in front of her.”

My store offers a service where you can order groceries online and pick them up at the curb at a scheduled time. Normally, we upload the orders from our handhelds onto the computer which is linked to one of the registers. From there, we print out a receipt which gives us the total. When customers pick up outside, if they did not pay online, we input the total into an app on an iPod and take credit card payment that way. We have one customer who uses our online grocery service and pays for her groceries with an EBT card. Debate about whether or not she should even be allowed to use a luxury service like this aside, our system is not at all set up for EBT, but we can’t refuse her service because of policy and discrimination and such. Instead, we have to take extra steps with her orders and she has to come into the store to pay at our register. This means we cannot run her order through the register until she comes. It’s annoying, but since she is the only customer we have who pays with EBT and she only shops every couple of weeks, it’s not that big of a deal. 

Our pickup times run from 10:00 am to 7:30 pm, and customers are allowed to come as late as 8:00 pm, which is when our department closes. If they come after 8:00, they must come inside and customer service has to get payment. 

One day, our EBT customer places a large order that is scheduled for a pickup at noon. I shop the order and give her a call telling her it’s ready and she can come pick it up. She does not show up at noon, and at one I have to leave. I ask my manager if I could put the order into the register, then suspend it so when she comes my coworkers just have to hit the total button, but I am told no. A coworker says that she will take care of it when the customer shows up. I return that evening around 6:45 to grab something really fast for dinner, and I see that this customer still has not shown up. I figure that she will probably come the next day and leave. 

The next day, I come in for work and see that the customer has picked up her groceries. An hour later, the same manager comes to us, panicking and demanding to know what happened with this order. I tell her that the customer did not come before I left, and I text the closer, who says she still hadn’t come before he left at 8:00. A little investigation turns up this glorious moment of stupidity.

Turns out, the customer had come in at 8:20 to pick up her groceries. The customer service clerk on duty at the time was new and had absolutely no idea what to do with the order. Fair enough. Rather than telling the customer that she couldn’t process her order and that she had to come back the next day when someone was here to help her, the clerk decided to just give her her $300 grocery order for free!

The manager tells us that since it is our order, it is our problem, and we are responsible for getting payment from her. We are told to call this customer every hour to tell her to come back and pay. We do, but we still have not made contact before my shift ends, and I leave with a $300 headache. She does come in after I leave, but can’t pay then for some reason, and comes back the day after that to pay.

Now, if we have EBT orders, we have to run them through the register and suspend the transaction until the customer comes. What really tickedc me off, though, was when my manager said that the closer should have stayed late, because the customer showed up twenty minutes after he left. If a customer still has not picked up their order by 8:00, odds are they will pick up the next day. We will occasionally stay past close to get a head start on the next day, but that is usually only around the holidays when we know we will be swamped. Otherwise, 8:00 means we punch out and leave for the night.

(I am picking up a few items at the grocery store on the day of the final game of a championship series featuring a local sports team. The checker is trying to make small talk while ringing me up.)

Checker: “You watching the game tonight?”

Me: “Nope.”

(Surprised, the checker goes down the line asking whether other people are planning on watching it.)

Customer #1: “Nope.”

Customer #2: *shakes head*

Customer #1: “I don’t even have cable, so I can’t!”

Checker: *shocked* “What?!”

Customer #1: “I made her squeak. I think I win!”

Me: “Yeah, I cut the cord about four years ago, myself.”

Checker: “How do you even live like that?”

Customer #1 & Me: *simultaneously* “Amazon!”

(The grocery store I frequent has never accepted checks as valid payment. I’m in line when this happens.)

Customer: *hands the cashier a check*

Cashier: “Sorry, sir, but the store doesn’t accept checks. Do you have another form of payment?”

Customer: “WHAT?! I’ve been a loyal customer for ten years! I’ve always paid with a check, you lazy teenage b****! You just don’t want to go through the trouble of processing it! F****** [Asian slur].”

Cashier: “Okay, politeness is out. This store has never accepted checks. If you don’t have another form of payment and stop swearing, I have to ask you to leave. Also, I’m in my late 20s.”

Customer: *swears under his breath and leaves*

Cashier: “Well, I guess these go into the return bin.”

Me: “You handled that well.”

Cashier: “I’m the oldest of five; it takes more than a temper tantrum to annoy me.”