I am working in a hardware store in 2020. A woman comes into the store wearing a homemade T-shirt that says, “WEAR A MASK; THE LIFE YOU SAVE MIGHT BE YOUR OWN”. She is also sporting safety goggles, a face shield, at least three masks, and gloves. She starts going around yelling at and swatting people who have their masks on backward, below their noses, or not at all.

Then, she approaches my manager.

Woman: “You should enforce a mask policy!”

Manager: “Ma’am, my employees already wear masks while on duty. Three of my cashiers even wear gloves, even though no one really asks them to.”

Woman: “You should enforce a mask policy on customers!”

Manager: *Getting annoyed* “Ma’am, what do you want me to do if a customer is not wearing a mask?”

Woman: “Kick them in the [expletive] teeth!”

This took place around 1997 or 1998 when I was around seven or eight old in West Virginia. West Virginia is a conservative, Republican state. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) I was raised by very liberal parents. It probably helped that my dad was from Detroit and my mom lived outside West Virginia for a while before she came back. They had raised me to always look for the good in people and not to go by race, sex, religion, etc.

My dad’s best friend and coworker at the time was a lesbian and I was raised to call her and her partner my aunts, so I knew about gay people and was fine with it. However, I had never known about cross-dressing. We were in a home improvement store and I happened to see a very tall, pretty lady. She was wearing a short blue dress suit with high heels. That’s what made me notice her. Why would you be dressed like that walking in a home improvement store? Then, I noticed something else.

Me: “Mom! Daddy! See over there? That’s a man wearing a dress and high heels! He’s also got a blonde wig on! Why is he dressed like a lady?!”

My dad just looked at me, choking on his laughter.

Dad: “[Mom], you explain to her.”

Then, he walked off.

Mom: “That’s a man who sometimes likes to dress as a woman. There are men that do that; some women like to dress like men, too. Now, [My Name], I think you’ve embarrassed him. The whole store heard you yelling about he was dressed. Next time be quiet! There are people that don’t like people like that man.”

Of course, after she told me that, I felt terrible. I didn’t mean to embarrass him or make him feel like it wasn’t okay to dress that way. So, when I saw him again in another aisle, I did the only logical thing. 

Me: *Very loudly* “Look at how nice he looks! That’s a pretty dress and his hair is pretty! Look how pretty his legs are in those pantyhose!” 

To be fair, he did have pretty legs for a man.

Years later, I asked my parents about that incident. They told me he was a prominent lawyer in that city, was happily married with kids, and liked to do his home improvement shopping while dressed as a woman. To that man, I’m sorry little kid me possibly embarrassed you. But you did look very nice!

I am a new customer service rep at a popular hardware store chain. I’ve just been allowed to start processing returns on my own without supervision when this happens. It is a very hot summer day.

Me: “Welcome to [Hardware Store]! How may I help you today?”

Scammer: “I’d like to return some paint.” *Gestures to a flat cart with four five-gallon buckets of paint.*

Me: *Starting to feel a little overwhelmed.* “Um, I think I can do that for you as store credit, as long as that hasn’t been tinted. Let me see what I can do.”

I glance around, but as there is no manager nearby, I go ahead and start processing the return. It comes out to over $700 in store credit.

Manager: *Walks up after the customer has left.* “Who returned this?”

Me: “Um, I did.”

Manager: “He never bought it. He just grabbed some paint off the shelf and pretended to forget his receipt. Feel this.” *She lays her hand on the paint bucket.* “It’s cool. If he really bought it, it would be hot from bringing in from outside.”

Me: “Oh no…”

Manager: “Don’t worry, people like him try to scam the new cashiers all the time. Just be more careful when processing such a large return!”

I had been worried of losing my job, but thankfully my manager is a wonderful person!

I work in a hardware store with a pretty strict uniform policy. The store’s logo is plastered all over my clothes. There are four logos on my polo shirt, three on my jacket, three on my trousers, and two on my lanyard, and today, I even happen to be wearing branded socks that were a silly little company Christmas gift last year. Besides this, the uniform has a very recognizable colour scheme that surely no one would wear of their own free choice. Despite this, I get asked this question all the time, and today, I guess my brain-to-mouth filter failed.

Customer: “Excuse me. Do you work here?”

Me: “No, I’m just a huge fan.”

I walked away. The customer stood in confused silence while her husband dissolved into hysterical laughter.

For the record, I did, of course, go back to help them, and thankfully, they both had a good sense of humour about it.

I typically worked the closing shift at a hardware store. We had one guy who was notorious for coming in fifteen to thirty minutes before closing and continuing to shop, forcing us to stay there while he finished.

One night he came in, shopped our clearance items, and then checked out. Because he was there past closing hours, we couldn’t use that downtime to do our duties like clean up the registers, put stuff back, etc. We still had to do it, but his appearance meant we would be late getting out, so I came up with a plan. If he had no problems making us late, I wouldn’t have a problem giving him the same treatment.

I scanned a few items, then stopped, took a swig from my drink slowly, breathed out a refreshing “Ahhh,” and then went back and scanned another item. I stopped again, slowly took my vest off, then looked at the computer screen of the cash register to go over a few things. I scanned another item or two, stopped, then grabbed a rag and dusted off part of the register or things I needed to wipe down.

At one point, I just stopped and did nothing, looked at the screen, and then looked over toward the other cashiers as if I was waiting for a command. I repeated parts of this process a few times as he usually had a larger order. I got paid for time on the clock, so why not?

All that time, he and his entourage were waiting for me to finish. Nobody said a word. I figured if he had no reservations coming in late and holding me back, I had no problem taking my time and making him late, too, preventing him from leaving at a reasonable time. He knew he couldn’t leave without his precious clearance items as someone else might get them the next morning, so he had to wait.

Eventually, I finished the transaction, taking three or four times longer than I would have with a normal transaction. Looking back, I think that I should have turned the power off to the register and then turned it back on before taking cash or credit. That way, we’d have to start all over again.

From that point on, I noticed that he never came in close to closing time and always left well before we made closing announcements. Remember, retail workers… while corporate may believe the customer is always right, you can teach customers that they will be treated just the same as they treat you.