I work in the floral department of a grocery chain. One night, I am closing and a woman comes to the counter carrying a handful of single, long-stemmed roses of different colors from our front cooler.

Customer: “How much are these?”

Me: “They’re $5 each.”

I don’t even get the chance to tell her the cheaper options before she goes off.

Customer: “Are they on special or anything? They’re not even that great looking. They weren’t even in water.”

I just went through and groomed them and gave them fresh cuts, and the large buckets they were in were half-full of fresh water. They are all separated by color.

Customer: *As she’s going to put them back* “They aren’t even good colors. They’re like, for Valentine’s Day!”

It was almost Christmas, but those colors of roses were the most common colors, and people usually only buy them for everyday romantic occasions anyway.

Before closing, I went to the front cooler where I could see drops of water forming a small puddle on the floor in front of the roses, and all the different colors she had picked out were put back with purple roses.

A mother is checking out with her young child, who is having a tantrum about not being able to buy candy. I shoot the mother a look of sympathy as I know it can be trying in moments like this.

Mother: *To her child* “I’m sorry, sweetie, I’d love to buy you some candy but…” *shoots me a quick look* “…but the mean old lady in the checkout doesn’t want you to have any!”

Me: “What?!”

Child: *Looking at me through watering eyes* “But whyyyyyyyy?!”

Mother: “Yeah, it’s such a shame that the mean old lady isn’t letting me; otherwise, I’d buy you so much candy!”

I don’t know if what I did was appropriate, but I didn’t think much about it until after.

Me: “Well, since the only barrier to getting candy is my permission, I grant you permission to get candy, little guy!”

Mother: “No, wait…”

The child stops crying and just stares at me, sniffing. We have a deal for four candy bars for $1.99, so I know I can swing that with my staff discount.

Me: “I’ll let you have four of these candy bars! Pick any four you want! And since your mommy is giving me the power to grant permission, you can have all four of them to eat right now, and you don’t have to have dinner tonight or eat any nasty vegetables!”

Mother: “Now, wait just a minute!”

Me: “Ma’am, I know it’s tough being a mother, but we could have just gone through this transaction in silence, and you would have had my respect. But you made me the bad guy instead of dealing with your child, so now I’m going to be the bad guy.”

Child: *Hugging four candy bars* “I’d like these ones!”

Me: “You got it, little man!”

The mother protests silently (not wanting her child to hear), but I run the candy through using my staff discount and I top up my checkout with my own cash: $1.69. The boy skips toward the exit with his candy bars.

Mother: “This is going to be so much worse because of you! I’m going to have to take those away from him.”

Me: “That’s what you get for bringing me into your parenting.”

Lucky for me, she didn’t complain!

Did the checkout clerk go too far? Let us know what you think in the comments! For some perspective, here are another 23 Stories Of Truly Terrible Parent Customers!

This story is part of our Highest-Voted-Stories-Of-2023-(so far!) roundup!

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I am manning the ten-items-or-less lane, and it is just before the lunch rush, so I know I am about to get slammed.

A customer comes up to me with a cart easily containing over a hundred items. She is about to start unloading.

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, this is the express lane. I can only do individual transactions of ten items or less.”

She looks at me, looks at the sign that’s repeating what I just said, and then begins unloading her items anyway. If she were anyone else, I might give her the benefit of the doubt and think maybe she couldn’t speak English, but I have seen her in the store before and I know that is not the case.

So, I shrug and take ten items. And then I stop.

Me: “That’s $17.85, please.”

Customer: “Wait, I still have more items.”

Me: “And I am the ten-items-or-less lane, ma’am.”

Customer: “But I have more items!”

Me: “Ten items or less… ma’am.”

Customer: “Call over your manager!”

I do so, and she comes over quickly.

Customer: *To the manager* “Your employee is refusing me service!”

Manager: *Looking at the trove of items in her cart* “This is the ten-items-or-less lane, ma’am.”

Customer: “Jesus Christ! That’s what your employee keeps saying!”

Manager: “Because they are correct, ma’am. Ten items or less, or please check out using our regular aisles.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! You should just let me check out!”

Manager: “Not here, and this has been explained to you multiple times. Either you can’t read, you can’t hear, or you can’t count… or you’re just being an obnoxious entitled brat. Which one is it?”

Customer: “I’m calling your corporate office about this!”

She storms off without any of her shopping.

Manager: “I’m going to have to put all this back now, but worth it.”

Me: “Totally worth it.”

Related:
Express-Lane Their Opinion, Part 2
Express-Lane Their Opinion

My local supermarket has moved to “self-scan” where you scan your groceries yourself, either at a self-service register or using a handheld scanner. They still have a few regular registers. This is new for a lot of people, so employees are present for questions. Because of good, clear signs, the employees often just “stand around”, giving them a little extra break.

While I’m checking out one day, an older lady suddenly starts looking around and waving her receipt.

Lady: “I paid! I paid! But how do I open this door?!”

You need to scan the receipt at the sensor to open the “door”. In the spot where you need to scan the receipt, there is a huge arrow, a big light, and words like, “Receipt here!”

An employee comes closer.

Employee: “You need to scan the receipt, ma’am.” 

The lady waves the receipt around, holding it at the arrow, at the light, at the words…

Employee: “At the scanner, ma’am. Here, let me help you.”

However, the lady blocks the scanner and won’t move, despite the employee asking thrice. So, instead, the employee leans over the cart and successfully scans the receipt.

Lady: “This is too complicated! How will I remember this next time?”

Employee: “Well, we’ll be here for you to help you.”

Lady: “And what if you are not here?”

Employee: “It’s also written on your receipt and on these signs.”

Lady: “Oh, sweetie, no one ever reads those things. Tell your boss he made a huge mistake by replacing humans with machines. You need a rocket science degree to understand this!” *Walks away, muttering* “No one ever reads what’s on their receipt…”

It’s a Saturday. I’m in a fairly busy grocery store. I’m waiting in line to check out behind a guy with a relatively small amount of items, so I am hoping it will be quick.

Cashier: “Oh, wow. Looks like someone is planning a special evening!”

At that, I look down and take notice of what the guy in front of me is actually purchasing. It’s a nice bottle of wine, candles, and fresh flowers, as well rack of lamb and all the fixings for what looks to be a very nice and expensive night in.

Man: “Yeah, hoping to surprise my wife tonight with a nice date night.”

Cashier: “Surprise her? This looks like an anniversary- or birthday-level dinner. She probably knows something’s coming.”

Man: “Oh, no, nothing like that. She just had to work on a Saturday, and I was off, so I figured I would just do something out of the blue.”

Cashier: “Oh, so you cheated.”

This is totally out of nowhere, and the whole tone shifts. It goes from light conversation as she scans items to an accusatory tone, and she has slowed down to a near crawl.

Man: “Excuse me?”

Cashier: “You must have cheated or at least done something f***ed up. No man does something like this just because. Give me a break. Men do stuff like this when they feel guilty for cheating. She’ll know — you know that, right? She’ll know some big ‘out of the blue’ gesture is just you feeling bad for something you won’t fess up to yet. Do you know what your wife would actually want instead of your ‘I feel guilty’ dinner? You to actually fess up to what you did so she can move on with her life without your sorry a**!”

The cashier’s volume is escalating through the course of her rant, and the man is just kind of in shock as to how quickly everything has shifted, as is everyone else in line. But the raised voices bring over another employee I presume to be the manager.

Manager: “Hey, guys. Everything going okay over here?”

Man: “Well, not exactly. I’m just trying to check out, and instead of scanning my items so I can pay, we’ve come to halt so I can be yelled at and accused of some pretty serious things.”

Cashier: “Look. I was just telling it how I see it. If he doesn’t want to get called a piece of s***, he shouldn’t act like a piece of s*** cheater.”

Manager: “Okay, that’s about enough. [Cashier], you are on break effective immediately. Go to the back and take your break, and as soon as I am done with this customer, I will be coming to have a long discussion with you.”

The cashier said, “Okay,” and casually walked to the back with this weird attitude as if it was a completely normal interaction and she hadn’t just gone off on a customer. The manager finished up the transaction, apologizing the whole time. I think he gave the man a small discount, and the rest of the transaction went off without a hitch.

I never saw that particular cashier again, though I only go there about twice a month, so that might not mean anything. That was just the most sudden tone shift I had ever seen in a checkout line.