A woman collapsed at my register. Naturally, we rush to get a first aider and call an ambulance. Because she collapsed in front of the register in the middle of a transaction, I had to close the register down and watch her to make sure she didn’t hurt herself more or didn’t get stepped on or run over by other customers.

A customer came over, and in spite of there being plenty of other registers open, he decided he wanted to use my closed register.

Me: “Sir, this register is closed due to a medical emergency.”

Customer: “She’s just drunk. Leave her and come serve me!”

The more I told him to go to another register, the more he laid into the woman, calling her a drunk, a druggie, an attention seeker, etc. The woman really did not look well. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but the paramedics looked worried and rushed her into the ambulance.

The worst part of this is that even if she were a drug addict or drunk, this dude felt she should be left to die so he could buy beer and Doritos. I’m pretty used to some selfish and entitled behaviour, but this one was terrible even for entitled customers.

We are doing a special promotion on a certain brand of china. Customers can bring in old pieces of china, and for every piece, they will get 50p off a new item. All the old china brought in will go to charity. There have been fliers handed out for a week and large notices all over the shop explaining all this.

A couple comes in with a large box of china items, and we set about counting them, all the while praising the customers for their generosity. There are seventy-two items.

Me: “Wow, you’re certainly going to have a lovely new dinner set! What would you like?”

Customer: “The teapot, please.”

Me: “Good start! What else?”

Customer: “Just the teapot.”

Me: “Oh, how generous! You’ve given all this china to charity, and you’re just getting the teapot, with 50p off! Brilliant!”

I’m suspecting now where this is going.

Customer: “No, we brought in seventy-two items. Seventy-two times 50p is £36, the price of the teapot.”

Me: “I’m afraid it’s only one item against one item.”

Customer: *Swaggering, sneering, hands on hips* “And where, may I ask, does it say that?”

Me: *Pointing at the large print on the bottom of the flyer* “There…”

Customer: *Crumples* “Oh…”

In the end, they bought their teapot with 50p off and a couple of mugs and plates, sorted out what they didn’t want to give to charity after all, and left.

At least they didn’t flounce off.

A customer comes to my register to buy cigarettes.

Me: “Can I see your ID, please?”

Customer: “I’m old enough to be your daddy.”

He hands me his ID anyway, and I check it.

Me: “Actually, you’re really not, sir.”

Customer: “There are different kinds of daddies.”

This happens to my coworker in the shipping department in our store. She’s manning the department alone one day, taking care of three customers at once. One is having copies made, another is doing a fax, and another is shipping a package. A fourth customer walks up, and my coworker politely tells her that it’ll be just a moment.

Well, she is having none of that. She demands to speak to a manager who she then screams at about having to wait while these other people’s jobs are done.

Customer: “I am a business owner and I need immediate service! Everyone else can wait.”

Taking it out on my coworker and manager wasn’t enough. She then wrote to corporate and informed them that she would never be using the shipping department in our store again. Turns out this woman was under the impression that the shipping department was “for businesses only, not normal people.” It was an outrage that we would DARE to just serve ANYONE who comes in.

No, really. That was her complaint.

Corporate actually sent a scanned version of this insane letter to our manager, who framed it in the breakroom and shared this story for the laughs.

Fine with us if she doesn’t want to do business with us; we don’t want to see her, either!

I work in a very small shop that my husband and I run. A few weeks ago, we had a customer leave their credit card in my shop by accident. They phoned to check that it was there, but they had already left town by that point, so they asked us to send it to them.

We did, via registered post so we got confirmation of a signature, and we disguised it inside a parcel so that it wasn’t obvious what was being sent.

This morning, we got a parcel back. It contained a lovely handwritten thank-you note with a book from my favourite author, which had come up in conversation when they were in the shop.