Too Chicken To Admit Their Own Mistake

(I’m a personal shopper at a local grocery store. Every once in a while, mistakes will happen, the most common being when an item accidentally gets left out after being rung up. When this happens, 98% of the time the customer will call back and complain that they didn’t get their item. We’ve also had customers call and say they didn’t get an item that they didn’t even order, but we’ve had to give it to them for free. A new manager allows us to now tell a customer if they didn’t order something correctly, to try and not give so much stuff away for free. One day, I’m working on my third or fourth order of the day when I get called into the office. A coworker is on the phone with one of my customers.)

Customer: “[My Name] messed up my order! I didn’t get my chicken!”

Coworker: “I’m sorry to hear that.” *pulls up the order to verify that chicken was actually ordered*

Customer: “I can’t believe this! I ordered three packs of chicken and I didn’t get them! It’s all [My Name]’s fault!”

Coworker: “Uh, ma’am? I’m looking at your order, and says you ordered the chicken breast from behind the meat counter.”

Customer: “No, I didn’t! I ordered the packs! They were on sale for $1.99 a pound. But I didn’t get my chicken!”

Coworker: “No, the $1.99 chicken is behind the counter. The packs are $4.99 a pound. You actually ordered three chicken breasts from behind the counter, and they’re wrapped in paper.”

Customer: “There’s no chicken! And on the receipt, it only shows one thing of chicken that was rung up!”

Me: *whispers* “I gave her the chicken. I’ve only had one customer order chicken so far today. She definitely ordered from behind the counter.”

Coworker: “Ma’am, the chicken you ordered is from behind the counter. You ordered three breasts which were wrapped up together in paper. They were only rung up once because that’s the price of all three of them together.”

Customer: “I didn’t order from behind the counter! I ordered three packs for $1.99! [My Name] messed up my order!”

(This goes back and forth a little bit more, until my coworker gives up trying to explain that the customer ordered the wrong thing.)

Coworker: “Tell you what. I’ll personally grab you three packages of chicken and put them in the cooler myself, and I’ll just give them to you. Okay? But when you’re online ordering, you’ll know if the chicken is from behind the counter because it will ask you for the number of breasts you want.”

Customer: “Fine.”

Coworker: *hangs up* “A**hole.”

Me: “Is that all she wanted? I gave her exactly what she ordered.”

Coworker: “I know. It’s not your fault she ordered the wrong thing and you can’t read her mind.”

Me: “I hate customers who try to get me in trouble.”