I’m nearing the end of my tenure as a retail worker (cashier), so I find myself tone-matching customers more and more.

Customer: “I’m not paying that much for that. It’s overpriced.”

Me: “I don’t make the prices. I just operate the register. Why are you telling me this?”

The customer pauses a moment, obviously not expecting me to call out her stupid comment.

Customer: “Well, I… It’s better than shouting at a wall!”

Me: “Shouting at me is about as effective as shouting at a wall, ma’am. The only difference is the wall cares more.”

The customer complained to my manager, who truthfully promised the customer that she wouldn’t see me after next week.

I work in a large self-storage facility that takes individual personal clients, as well as large corporate ones. It’s my manager’s last day before retirement, and she’s just clocked out and said her farewells to everyone after working here for almost a decade.

She’s interrupted by a problematic regular customer (frequent complainer) who storms up to the counter.

Customer: “I just got an email from you that your prices are going up next year?!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, our prices go up some years by a percent or two to keep up with inflation.”

Customer: “That’s crazy! I’m one of your biggest customers, and this is how you treat me? You need to give me a discount!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, this is our first price increase in three years, and it’s a 2.5% increase, so it’s actually below inflation if you—”

Customer: “—I don’t care! You make a lot of money off of me, and if you want to continue to do so, you will keep my rate the same!”

Manager: “Ma’am, you have three months’ notice before the price increase, so you’re free to move all your stuff out and end your contract by then.”

Customer: “What did you say to me, b****?!”

Manager: “I do believe you heard me, b****.”

Customer: “What?! I’m one of your best customers, and this is—”

Manager: “—Actually, in the last two years you’ve been renting, we’ve made $2,500 from you. This morning, I took six weekly charges from one company, each being over $2,000. So no, you’re not even close. What you’ve spent in the last year, one company paid tenfold just today alone. So, you can f*** right off. If you disappeared today, our accounting team wouldn’t even notice the difference. Nobody here likes you or cares about your feelings. You either pay the posted price, or you get the f*** off the property.”

Customer: “I’m going to call your corporate number and have you fired! Today!”

Manager: “Sweet! Tell them it’s [Name]—” *Points to her name badge.* “—the manager who just retired today. Don’t forget to tell them your name, too. They know all about you and what a nice person you are.

Customer: “You b****!”

The angry regular storms out, and my now-ex-manager sighs.

Manager: “That felt good. Now, if Corporate calls and asks what happened, you tell them I engaged in some last-minute workplace clean-up before I retired.” 

Corporate did call, and that’s exactly what I told them. When I told them who the customer was, the person from corporate sighed, saying they knew her well as she called to complain every month. 

When told that the manager had clocked out for the last time five minutes before talking to the customer, Corporate had to treat it as another customer talking to a customer, and not an employee. The customer actually demanded we rehire her, and then fire her, just to make a point.

My getting fired was a joke of a concept at this store because we were going out of business, and they were understaffed. So, I could get away with a lot.

One day, as I was about to leave, a customer was harassing one of my fellow cashiers. The lady was trying to buy a Lego set for her son, an expensive one, I think it was originally priced at like $100, and was 80-85% off. However, the box it came in was pretty banged up, so she felt entitled to even more of a discount.

Going-out-of-business sales are “As-Is” sales. This means that all the items sold are discounted, and are being sold in the condition they are in for that discounted price, no exceptions.

This isn’t set in place by employees, or even the management staff; it is set by whoever/whatever is in charge of liquidating the company and its assets.

Customer: “I want another 20% more off of this!”

Cashier: *Calmly and professionally.* “Ma’am, I can’t add any more discounts.”

Customer: *Getting up in the cashier’s face.* “Get me someone who can then, as I doubt they’d give that much power to some Mexican at the checkout.”

This set me off. I want to preface before writing this next part that another coworker and I decided to dress overly nice for our last month, so we would get mistaken as management.

Me: “Ma’am, what seems to be the problem?”

Customer: “Your cashier is not cooperating with me.”

Me: “How so?”

Customer: “This item is $20, but it’s damaged, and I should get a discount for that.”

Me: “You are getting a discount, an 80-85% discount, actually.”

Customer: “I should get more, because it is damaged!”

Me: “This is an as-is sale, ma’am. Do you know what “as-is” sale means? It means the item being sold is sold as-is. Are you capable of understanding that?”

Customer: “But I’m getting this for my child! Pieces could be missing!”

Me: “If you feel like pieces could be missing, you are more than welcome to not buy the item, and buy it full-priced somewhere more reliable.”

Customer: “But I can’t afford that!”

Me: “Then I guess you can just not buy it.”

She throws the Lego set onto the ground and remarks:

Customer: “This is why your piece of s*** store is closing down!”

Me: “Actually, it’s because we didn’t make budget for giving out too many discounts to cheapskate racist customers who blame cashiers for how miserable their lives are.”

Customer: “How dare you!”

Me: “What’re you gonna do… get me fired? The store is gone in a week, and I am off duty. Stay here and moan, but all I’m gonna do is start using the c-word.”

Customer: *Storming out.* “I hope you all go homeless and f****** starve!”

A customer buys a laptop and, instead of heading straight out, walks over to the tech bench where I’m working.

Customer: “Can you just make sure it turns on?”

Me: “Sure thing.”

I power it up, show him the startup screen, and hand it back. He grabs the charger from the box, looks at the packaging, and makes a face.

Customer: “I don’t need all this crap.”

He starts to walk out with just the laptop and charger, and I mean literally just the laptop and charger. No box/packaging.

Me: “You don’t want the box or the sleeve? It’s useful for transport.”

Customer: “Nah, it’s just trash that takes up space.”

Me: “Sir, it’s raining pretty hard. You might want a bag or—”

He walks straight out the door, bare laptop in one hand, charger in the other, into the downpour. My coworker and I just stare at each other. The next afternoon, he storms back in, laptop in hand.

Customer: “This thing is broken!”

I look at the machine. It won’t power on.

Me: “What seems to be happening?”

Customer: “It just stopped working. I want a replacement.”

I glance at my coworker, who was here yesterday, too.

Me: “Sir, you left the store yesterday carrying it in the rain without the box or any protection.”

Customer: “So? It’s supposed to work!”

Me: “Electronics and heavy rain don’t mix. That would be considered accidental damage, which isn’t covered.”

Customer: “If you don’t replace this, I’m calling my sister at the BBB!”

Me: “You’re welcome to contact whoever you like, sir, but they’re going to hear the same thing: laptops aren’t waterproof, and we literally watched you take it out into a storm.”

Customer: “Well… well… you should have stopped me if you knew it was gonna brick my laptop!”

Me: “I tried to explain, sir, but you seemed quite sure of what you were doing.”

Customer: “Well then, maybe you should… You should…”

Coworker: “Sir, are you trying to find the words that say we made a mistake for assuming you knew what you were doing, without making you sound like an idiot?”

Customer: “I… I’m reporting this place!” *Storms out.*

I look at my coworker with a sense of awe.

Coworker: “What? I’m like, three months from retiring. F*** this place and f*** those customers.”

Working with him for the next three months is going to be so interesting…

Related:
Laptop Flop, Part 44
Laptop Flop, Part 43
Laptop Flop, Part 42
Laptop Flop, Part 41
Laptop Flop, Part 40

I had already put my two weeks in at the gas station when a woman came with a van and tried to pump gas with the vehicle running. I tell her over the intercom to shut the engine off. She started to argue with me over the intercom, and I just turned it off to deal with the small lineup inside.

She comes inside and starts arguing with me.

Me: *Calmly.* “Ma’am, the rules are for safety. If you want to fuel up while the engine is on, you can try another gas station.”

Customer: “You’re just a b**** who wants to ruin my day!”

I just snapped in front of everybody and yelled back:

Me: “OH REALLY!!? AM I IN YOUR PLACE OF BUSINESS HARASSING YOU FOR FOLLOWING THE RULES SO PEOPLE DONT F****** EXPLODE?!”

All the other customers in line are now laser-focused on our ‘conversation’.

Customer: “That never happens, you b****!”

Me: “Fine, go fill your tank.”

As soon as she was outside, I locked the doors. I told the customers they could leave if they wished by pushing the black handle. Nobody did until the irate customer sped off.