It’s a busy season building up to a national holiday, so we’re slammed. Every customer in my checkout lane has full carts, all spending hundreds of dollars each easily.

A customer comes through with a rare basket instead of a cart, but still a lot of items in it.

Customer: “Now, I want everything in one bag, but I don’t want the bag to be heavy.”

Me: “Uh…”

Customer: “Ha! Just f****** with ya. You look sooooo stressed. Thought I’d cheer you up! 

Yeah, because customers making requests that literally defy the laws of physics, even as a prank, is soooo helpful. Totally not triggering at all…

My store has a Final Sale table where discontinued items are constantly discounted. I take notice of a lovely rainbow blanket, but I decide to wait and see if it goes even more on sale. The next day, the table is discounted even further, and the blanket is almost sold out. I decide to get the blanket before it’s completely gone.

Coworker: “Oh, what a pretty blanket!”

Me: “It’s on the discount table, and it’s even more on sale today, so I decided to grab it.”

Coworker: *Ringing me up.* “It’ll probably be even more on sale tomorrow. You could wait and save a little bit of money.”

Me: “Yeah, but it might also be gone. There were seven of these yesterday, and after I buy this one, there are only two left. Didn’t want to risk missing it entirely.”

Coworker: “You could hide it somewhere, then buy it tomorrow when it’s discounted further.”

Me: “I’d rather not risk it, actually. Someone was written up for doing that just last week, remember?”

Coworker: “But you’d save money. I’d hide it.”

Me: “Nah, I’m just going to go ahead and get it now. Four dollars for a blanket this size and quality is a steal already.”

Coworker: “Okay. I was just trying to save you some money.”

The day after that, I get to work and see the discount table is basically empty, and no wonder: the sale for the table that day is 75% off. It’s bare bones, barely anything left on the table, and all of the blankets are gone.

Me: “Ha, glad I got that blanket yesterday. They’re all gone, now.”

Coworker: “Oh, and now you can return it.”

Me: “What? Why would I do that? I love that blanket already.”

Coworker: “Return it and then immediately re-buy it at the sale price. It’s what I would do.”

Me: “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. The table is all Final Sale, remember? No returns or refunds.”

Coworker: “Why wouldn’t you want to? You’d get money back.”

Me: “Yeah, a little more than a dollar. Not really worth it, honestly.”

Coworker: *Angrily.* “Not WORTH it? Money isn’t WORTH IT to you?”

Me: *Startled at her anger.* “It… it’s just a dollar… and I’m happy with the blanket.”

Coworker: “Well, it must be NICE to not have to WORRY about something so small as MONEY all the time!”

Me: “I do worry about money. The blanket was already on sale and heavily discounted when I bought it. That’s why I bought it.”

Coworker: *Almost yelling.* “Why wouldn’t you return it for more money? Everyone does it! EVERYONE does it! It’s MONEY! Everyone NEEDS money.”

Me: “…are you, uh… okay? Do you need the dollar?”

She stormed off, fuming.

I later caught her b****ing to coworkers about how I must be swimming in money to waive off a dollar. I had people coming up to me for days afterwards, asking if I seriously didn’t even try to return the blanket for a refund, then re-buy it at the lower price.

I explained it all, and only two were on my side. The rest were all baffled, astounded, and/or angry that I wouldn’t even try to get the dollar back. Some of them even tried to then ask me for a loan “since I could afford it” and got aggressive when I refused. 

The manager confirmed it wouldn’t have been allowed, but even she said I was crazy to not even try and did nothing about my coworkers harassing me.

I quit not long after that. It’s been ten years and I still can’t believe I was bullied by a whole store over a dollar. I do still have the blanket though. It’s one of my favorites.

I used to work at a really popular clothing store here in Australia, most famous for its underwear and socks, but also sold clothing good for casual wear. We had a sale that was 30% off all women’s outerwear (read: clothing).

Customer: “Why is that ringing up as full price? You have a sale on!”

Me: “The sale is only on outerwear, madam.”

Customer: “Bras are outerwear, so are included in the sale.”

Me: “No, madam, our company classifies bras as underwear, not outerwear, or outer clothing. Our sale applies to the outerwear only, like tracksuit pants, jumpers, the shirts and shorts, etc.”

This woman then removes her top. She is now only wearing a bra above the waist.

Customer: “There! Now it’s outerwear!”

I call my manager over, who stalls a little when walking over and sees what the customer is (or isn’t) wearing. He decides that if she’s that desperate for a discount, he’ll give it to her.

After she leaves:

Me: “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Manager: “I know. I just wanted to get rid of her.”

Me: “I mean it. She’ll be back, and next time she’ll be trying to buy panties…”

A big department store in town is closing down, so we went to check out the sale. There are HUGE signs everywhere about the closing, how much is off (30% off of everything), and that you cannot return the items.

We go to the counter, and I hand an item to the lady working there with a ripped-off price tag.

Me: “How much is this?”

Lady: *Looking VERY tired, sounding a tad snappy.* “It’s 30% off whatever the price says.”

I point out that the price tag was ripped and there IS no listed price.

Lady: *Calmer.* “Oh… sorry.” *She types something into her machine.* “$90 with the discount.”

Me: “Oh, that’s too expensive still, but thank you!”

We do end up buying something else, and she tiredly reminds us:

Lady: “There are no returns. This is final sale.”

My wife and I feign shock and say:

Us: “But how are we supposed to know that? Are you all closing or something?”

To not be total jerks, we say this while pointing at the literally dozens of signs all around us.

Lady: “I’m too tired, but I know you’re joking. You’re the first customers today that haven’t been morons.”

Me: “Yeah, you look like you’re having a rough day. We just didn’t want to be those kinds of customers.”

Lady: “Appreciate it. In fact, you know what?”

She grabs the $90 item that was still on the pile behind her and scans it twice with her magic laser scanner. The price drops to $63, and then to $44.10.

Lady: “Want it now?”

We took it! Nice lady. Hope she found another job.

Our store is having a sale, and there is a small group of specific items that most of the customers are coming in for. As soon as one item sells out, one of us puts a sign out front stating that item is sold out.

Coworker: “Hey, didn’t you put up a sign saying [item] was sold out?”

Me: “Yeah, I did.”

Coworker: “I just had a customer give me h*** for selling out, and when I went outside with him to check, the sign was gone.”

Manager: *Walking past.* “That was me.”

Me: “What was you?”

Manager: “I took the sign down. I took them all down. Who gave you permission to put those up in the first place?”

Me: “No one, but it makes sense to let the customers know before they walk in. They’re all shouting at us otherwise.”

Manager: “No, if they see the sign, then they won’t come in.”

Me: “…yeah, that’s kinda the point. It saves them time and saves us from being shouted at.”

Manager: “But if they come in, they might find something else they want to buy! Think about the sales numbers, always!”

Me: “But we’re getting shouted at by so many customers, and that’s taking us away from serving customers who are actually buying something.”

Manager: *Walking away already, ignoring me.* “Think of the sales numbers! The numbers!”

So, we endured customers shouting at us the entire time, saying, “You should have a sign up or something!” Every time we got a customer saying that we offered to page the manager for them. He was not happy having to deal with all the ‘consequence customers’.