(I ring up a customer’s items and tell him that the total is $7.78. The customer proceeds to swipe his debit card and enter the PIN. The card is declined.)
Me: “Your card was declined, sir.”
Customer: “Let me try again.” *swipes the same card and enters PIN*
Me: “It was declined, sir.”
Customer: “One more time. Third time’s a charm, right?”
(He once again swipes the card and enters the PIN… Surprise! Declined again.)
Me: “It has been declined.”
Customer: “I don’t know what the problem is. Did I enter the wrong PIN number?”
Me: “No, sir. It would tell me if the PIN was incorrect. You’ll have to take it up with your bank. I have a line now.”
(The customer leaves and one of my regulars comes up next.)
Regular: “Did he think it would suddenly not decline if he tried it enough?”
(I work at a custom teddy bear shop where you make your own stuffed animal. It can get pretty pricey, between all the extras and clothing items and whatnot. A young man in his 20s grabs one of our fully-outfitted displays and takes it up to the counter.)
Customer: “I’d like this for my girlfriend, please.”
Me: “Sure thing!” *quickly rings through the display dog with several items of clothing* “That’ll be $70, please.”
Customer: “Umm…”’
(He digs through his wallet slowly, comes up with a $10 bill, and hands it to me.)
Me: “Er… I still need $60.”
Customer: “Oh.” *again makes a show of looking through his wallet* “Uh, I left the rest of my cash in the car; just let me go get it.”
Me: “Sure, no problem.”
(I handed the $10 back. He left hastily and did not return.)
(This conversation happens way too often when I’m trying to check out people.)
Me: “Hi. How are you today?”
Customer: “Well, I’m not at work, so good.”
(I go shoe shopping with my mom and brother. Earlier in the summer, Mom had two surgeries: a lumbar fusion and a partial knee replacement. She is walking on a cane, but moving very slowly. We get inside and are immediately greeted by a guy that works there. He has my mom sit down on the bench while he runs around and gets her different shoes to try on. This takes a while, since Mom can only try on one shoe at a time, and she has special inserts she has to put in each shoe she tries on. As soon as he is done helping her, he leaves. We all grab our shoes and head for the checkout.)
Mom: “Oh, I hope I didn’t keep him too long after he was supposed to leave.”
Cashier: “Oh, he’s not a worker here.”
Mom: “He’s not?”
Cashier: “No. That was our district manager.”
(Over the summer, I worked at a clothing store for tween girls. Now, everything in the store is, always has been, and will likely always be 40%. The only time it isn’t is when there was a flash sale, where everything was 40% with an additional 20% off. We were quite proud of this sale, to the point of having large signs plastered everywhere loudly proclaiming: 40% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! And yet, every day…)
Customer: This 40% off sale, does it actually apply to everything?
