Customer: “What makes these ‘impossible burgers’ impossible?”

Me: “They’re meant to look and taste like meat but are actually vegetarian or vegan depending on the brand.”

Customer: “Oh…”

He puts the item back, looking disappointed.

Me: “What did you think it meant?”

Customer: “I thought it was like… put it in the microwave and a whole burger comes out. Like with the cheese and the bun.”

Me: “Why would you think that?”

Customer: “It’s on the packaging!”

Me: “There’s also a woman eating the burger on the packaging. She also does not come with the product.”

Customer: “Well, obviously! I’m not stupid!”

Me: “Obviously, sir.”

I’m doing my weekly grocery shop at a big-name supermarket. There’s one woman who keeps telling people she’s in a rush and pushing past them to get what she needs, with none of the usual “Sorry, can I just squeeze by you?” or “Excuse me…” pleasantries we like to exchange in this country.

I finish up and am standing in line at the checkout. The rude woman is behind me, making irritated noises and sighing a lot. I’m next in line when another register opens, so I wheel my trolley over, making sure I block the rude woman’s path so she can’t go first. I start unloading my items onto the conveyor belt. 

Woman: “You really ought to let me go first, you know. I only have a few things, and I’m in a rush.”

Me: “Well, seeing as you’ve been so nice to everyone you’ve come in contact with in the shop today… no. You can wait.”

Woman: “But I’m in a hurry! This is my lunch break! I have to get back to work!”

Me: “Sounds like a ‘you’ problem to me. You can wait your turn, and don’t tell me what I ought to do. Even my mother doesn’t get to do that.”

Woman: “How rude of you!”

Me: “Oh, so we’re gonna go there, are we? You’ve consistently been rude to multiple people in this store, pushing and shoving and generally being annoying. You almost knocked one old man off his feet, and I haven’t heard a single ‘sorry’ or ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ come out of your mouth. So, now, you can wait. And I’m done talking.”

Woman: “I’ll get a manager! He’ll make you let me go ahead of you, and he’ll ban you from the store!”

At this point, the man behind the register pipes up.

Manager: “Actually, madam, I’m the manager on duty today. There’s no way I’d have made this lady let you check out first, and I wouldn’t have banned her for no reason. I’ve witnessed your behaviour today, too, and it was shockingly rude. Like the lady just told you, you can wait your turn.”

He turns to me and winks, also slowing the pace at which he’s scanning my things drastically.  

Manager: “How would you like to pay today, madam? Cash? Card? Multiple cards? A bit of both?”

I planned on just using my debit card from my primary bank account, but I get the gist of what he is saying and play along.

Me: “Can I split it between three cards and then pay cash for the remainder?”

Manager: *Grinning* “Of course, you can. It’ll take a little longer, but I always like to accommodate valued customers like you.”

As my Ma says, it doesn’t cost anything to say, “Please,” and, “Thank you,” and, “Excuse me,” and those words get you a long way sometimes.

CONTENT WARNING: Drug Use 

I’m a cashier at a grocery store in a pretty bad neighborhood — bulletproof glass walls between you and the customers. A customer comes in and asks:

Customer: “Do you sell ziplock bags?”

Me: *Pointing to the sandwich-size zip locks.* “Yes, sir.” 

Customer: “No, I need something smaller, like this…” 

He pulls out a drug baggie filled with a brownish powder. Without us even asking him what it is, he says:

Customer: “You know this s***, man?”

Me: “Uh… cocaine?”

Customer: “Nah, man, that’s heroin. Gotta hustle, man, make a dolla like y’all.”

I couldn’t believe this guy was dumb enough to (1) show us the bag, (2) tell us what it was, and (3) admit to selling it. Even at 4:00 am.

We saw him the next day walking around our store’s block for hours, approaching potential customers. The fact that he was selling this stuff was a deal breaker for us because we’re a few blocks away from a high school. We didn’t want to enable him selling heroin to kids, so we told our manager, who called the cops and left an anonymous tip. I don’t know what happened next exactly, but we heard that the guy got arrested a few days later. We never saw him again.

I work in the seasonal department of a large superstore. We currently have solar-powered lanterns for your lawn on one of the shelves. A customer with her five-year-old son finds one that’s broken and gives it to him.

Customer: *To her son* “Return this at customer service and ask for a refund.”

She doesn’t realize I am standing a foot away, and I am shocked that a mother would use her son to steal like this, so I just say:

Me: “Oh, that’s broken. Let me get that for you.”

I just took the item and started to walk away, staring pointedly at this morally depraved woman.

I work in a grocery store. We have a woman come in with her little toddler in the trolley. One of the items she puts in the trolley is a glass jar of organic peanut butter — the kind that has a big layer of oil on top until you mix it up.

Toddler: “NO! NO PEANUT BUTTER!”

Toddler’s Mum: “It’s not for you, [Toddler]. It’s for Mummy.”

The yelling of “NO PEANUT BUTTER” and “I NO LIKE PEANUT BUTTER” continues as she goes up the aisle. I hear a smashing sound. I walk up the aisle and find the woman at the end of it, staring at a mess of glass, oil, and peanut butter.

Me: “Oh, whoops! I’ll get this cleaned up. Don’t worry about it; it happens.”

The mum gratefully smiles at me and goes back down the aisle. While I’m cleaning up the mess with my coworker, I hear the kid start yelling again.

Toddler: “NO! MUMMY, NO PEANUT BUTTER! I NO LIKE IT!” 

Coworker #1: “She didn’t, did she?”

There’s another huge smashing sound.

I sigh and go off to find the new mess, calling for [Coworker #2] to go grab the other mop and bucket. The mum is once again looking at the mess in dismay. She sees me coming with the wet floor sign and instantly leaves and goes down a different aisle. You’re welcome, I guess? I clean up the new peanut butter mess and am putting the stuff away when I hear ANOTHER smash. When I go out on the floor, my [Coworker #1] is now cleaning up a third jar of peanut butter that’s been smashed all over the floor and looks murderous.

I go find the mum. She is — you guessed it! — IN THE PEANUT BUTTER AISLE GRABBING ANOTHER JAR. Before she can put it in her trolley with her toddler already screaming that he doesn’t like peanut butter, I take it out of her hands.

Me: *Cheerfully* “This will be waiting for you up at the service desk when you’ve finished your other shopping.”

I turn on my heel and walk away before she can do anything but stare dumbly at me again.

We finally get her checked out — putting the peanut butter FAR AWAY from her kid in the bottom of a bag while my coworker distracts him with a sticker — and my manager gives her her total. She blinks in surprise.

Toddler’s Mum: “Why is it so much?! I didn’t think I had that many items…”

She starts looking at the screen.

Toddler’s Mum: “You’ve charged me for four jars of peanut butter but I only have one.”

Manager: “Well, yes, but you let your son smash three more jars around the store. We would have let one slide as an accident, but not three.”

Toddler’s Mum: *Staring at us in shock* “But… he’s just a baby…”

[Coworker #1], his pants covered in peanut oil, cuts in.

Coworker #1: “Yeah, but you aren’t!”

She paid for the peanut butter and huffed off. We haven’t seen her since, but it is a common inside joke amongst us that when someone asks us to do something we don’t want to do, we whine, “But I no LIKE [task]!”