I work in a department store that sometimes has charity sales. You can donate an item of clothing and get so many coupons or donate $5 at the register and get the coupons, as well. These coupons are item coupons, which means they apply to individual items. To apply them, the associate has to select the item on the register and then scan the coupon for each item that the customer has a coupon for, so it’s usually faster to scan the item and then the coupon and then move on to the next item.

I have a customer come up with a cart full of stuff ten minutes before closing. She has a lot of stuff — to the point that we hit the register’s limit of the number of items it can have in a transaction. (That’s forty-four items, for the record.) The entire time I’m scanning her items, there is no sign of her having these coupons, and I’m expecting to explain the $5 donation and then apply the coupons to the highest-priced items. Instead, I tell her the total, she pulls out this massive pile of coupons, and I have to go back and manually select and apply the coupons to each item. By this point, it’s five minutes after closing and my manager is calling and asking why I haven’t closed up yet.

I manage to get the coupons applied and scanned, and then we get to payment. The customer wants to use two cards to pay. My system doesn’t allow me to do that (debit/credit are considered the same in the system) but there is a workaround where the customer can buy a gift card for the amount and then use that gift card as a payment option. The other option is to cancel the transaction, do the gift card transaction, and then re-ring everything. My manager has to come out and reopen a register so this customer can use her second card to pay.

The reason she was buying so much stuff? There was a story on the news about an asteroid coming near the Earth, and she thought it was going to hit and cause the apocalypse and was stocking up.

Related:
The Couponator 39: The Yarn Of Time
The Couponator 38: The Sandwich Of Frustration
The Couponator 37: The Year Of Reckoning
The Couponator 36: The Counter-Coupon Cashier
The Couponator 35: Dog Food Day Afternoon

I am a floor associate for a large retailer. A customer is looking for an item, but we do not carry it in the store. I pull out my phone (which is allowed as long as it is for work) and look it up on our website.

Me: “It looks like [Store ten miles away] has it in stock. I can call there, or you can order it online when you get home and have it delivered.”

Customer: “Can I see?”

She takes my phone from my hand before I can respond.

Me: “Um… that’s actually my personal phone. Please give it back.”

I hold out my hand, but she pulls away.

Customer: “I’m looking up other stores.”

I look at her husband, but he doesn’t seem to see the issue with his wife taking my personal phone and refusing to give it back. Eventually, she hands it back and leaves.

A few days later, I receive a text from a number I don’t know.

Text: “Hi, [My Name]. Thanks for the help finding [item]! We ordered it on Amazon for cheaper than [My Store]. It’s great!”

Me: “How did you get my number?”

Text: “I texted myself the link from your website.”

I looked through my messages but didn’t see anything to that number. My best guess is that she sent it and then deleted it so I wouldn’t see it. I was beyond shocked. I hope she never comes back to my store.

Related:
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 2
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets

My husband’s family doctor probably graduated medical school before the dinosaurs went extinct. He was the family practitioner for over thirty years, and [Husband] never went to anyone else until after this incident.

[Husband] was having some tingling and numbness in his right hand and arm, so he went to the doctor. It was so bad that he asked me to drive him to the appointment and sit in with him, so I got the news firsthand.

Upon seeing both of us in the exam room, the doctor rolled his eyes.

Doctor: “So, who am I seeing today?”

Husband: “Me. I’ve been having tingling and pain in my arm and down to these three fingers.”

The doctor didn’t even look at him.

Doctor: “It’s carpal tunnel. You spend too much time at the computer. Get outside every once in a while and you’ll feel better.”

Husband: “I don’t think so. I—”

Doctor: “It will go away.”

He turned to leave.

Husband: *Anxious* “But—”

Doctor: “It will. Go. Away.”

Me: “How can it be carpal tunnel? It’s only these three fingers, and it goes up his arm on the same path as the radial nerve.”

Doctor: *Glaring at me* “And where did you get your medical degree? Google University?”

Me: “I did Google it, and carpal tunnel doesn’t match the symptoms he just explained. However, nerve damage does. I’m asking why that isn’t a viable diagnosis.”

The doctor made a show of checking [Husband]’s arm.

Doctor: “Show me where it hurts.”

[Husband] traced the line up his arm.

Husband: “These three fingers — thumb, pointer, and middle — up along the underside of my arm and up to the base of my neck.”

Doctor: “Well. If you want to waste your money, we can order an X-ray. A simple wrist support would be much cheaper, but I’m just the doctor.”

Husband: “We’ll do the X-ray.”

The doctor stomped out of the room and sent the nurse back with an order to get an X-ray. We got it done the same day, and the results came back shortly thereafter. [Husband] had a disc compression at the base of his neck, where the pain was coming from. The doctor called my husband and STILL insisted that it was carpal tunnel and nothing to be worried about.

We took the results to a new doctor, and he agreed that it was nerve damage starting in the spine.

[Husband] no longer sees the old doctor.

I am in the middle of checking a woman out at the registers when the code for a missing child is called. People spring into action blocking doors, and on our walkies, we are given a description of the missing child. I can hear the mom panicking not that far away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a child matching the description. I apologize to my customer and tell her I am going to step away for a moment. I walk five feet away to ask the child for their name.

Thankfully, the mother who has been nearby hears me asking the kid and comes rushing over, sobbing over the child. The missing child alarm is canceled, and everything is right in the world.

I stepped away from the register for literally around twenty seconds.

Customer: “That was extremely unprofessional, you know.”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “I am your customer, and I am spending money. Your focus should be on me and not wandering away.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there was a missing child. A child being potentially kidnapped will always be more important than buying new clothes.”

I am a teenager trying to get my math homework done with the “help” of my six-year-old brother.

Brother: “What’s that, [My Name]? How do you do this? Why doesn’t this look like my homework?”

Me: *Frustrated* “Because this is letter math, like big kids do. You want to try it?”

Brother: “Yeah!”

I grab a piece of notebook paper and write down half a dozen basic algebra problems, along the lines of x + 4 = 7.

Me: “Here. Give it a try and let me know how far you get.”

I am thinking this will keep him quiet and out of my hair. Five minutes later:

Brother: “All done! That was fun! Can I have more, please?”

I take the paper and discover that he has solved every problem correctly. After writing down half a dozen more, I go find my mom.

Me: “I think we might need to get [Brother] enrichment in math.”