Won’t Acknowledge Her Own Baggage

(While I’m dealing with customers as usual, a lady comes through my cash lane with a bunch of infant products that are on sale. She has several coupons, but the store only allows us to discount $10 before customer service is required for an override. Naturally, the time when customer service is NEEDED, we only have one rep available and she’s busy dealing with her own problems. I have two more people lined up at my lane, and I approach them personally and tell them the situation, giving them the option to go line up at another lane since we have several other lanes open with little to no lines. They opt to stay at my lane, so my current customer engages in conversation with the people directly behind her while I continue to page for customer service. Finally, the discounts are taken care of, and I go through my next customers. The issue I have is with the third customer, who is one of the ones I gave the option to check out through another lane. Apparently, irritated by the wait, which she could have avoided, she is there huffing and sighing and looking at her watch, tapping her foot on the floor.)

Me: “Hello, sorry about the wait.”

Customer: *sighs, ignores*

(I’m ringing through her stuff and shifting it to the other counter to bag it when she starts squeezing her ice cream tubs to see how melted they are.)

Customer: “I suppose these are so melted they’re not worth bothering with…” *sigh*

Me: “I’m sorry. Would you like me to page grocery to bring new ones?”

Customer: “And how many centuries will that take? I want to get out of here today.”

Me: “Well, I did tell you that you could have lined up elsewhere…”

Customer: “Never mind, just get on with it. I’ll take the ice cream as it is.”

(I go back to bagging her stuff and again she’s sighing and looking at her watch. By this point, I’m kind of getting irritated because she didn’t have to stay in my lane; she could have gone elsewhere.)

Me: “Look, miss, if you’re in a hurry and need to be someplace, you’re welcome to bag a few things yourself.”

Customer: “And why the h*** would I do that? I didn’t graduate high school to bag s*** like low-life losers like you.”

Me: “Excuse me? Um, not that it’s any of your business, but I have gone through three years of college. I didn’t plan on being a cashier here, either, but there’s currently no work in my field and I needed a job to pay my bills.”

Customer: *laughs* “You’re joking. I’m a high-school graduate, not a kindergartener. You must think I’m stupid to actually believe an uneducated brat like you went through college. What a liar.”

(By now, I’m mad. I’ve dealt with people like this once or twice before, but none of them had the nerve to say anything like that to my face before.)

Me: “Wow, okay. Listen up, you arrogant b****. I don’t need your approval or critique on how I live my life. If you don’t want to believe I have college certificates, then don’t; it’s not my problem. But don’t stand there like a high and mighty princess when all you can say is that you graduated high school. That’s not an accomplishment, since everyone here graduated high school. Furthermore, if you’re going to sigh and look at your watch like you’re in a godd*** hurry, get over here and help bag your s*** like everyone else. Otherwise, shut the h*** up, keep still, and let me bag your stuff like I’ve been doing. I’m going as fast as I can, but I just got back from a week of being sick and I am not in the mood for your s***. So lay off.”

Customer: *shocked*

(She stayed still until it was time to pay, did her debit transaction in dead silence, threw her bags into the cart, and left swiftly. The people that had lined up behind her at the start of her purchase didn’t like what she said, either, and they laughed when I told her off. But seriously, if she didn’t want to wait, she could have gone to another lane. She brought it on herself.)