Your Attitude Can’t Be Scanned At The Checkout

(It’s Friday evening before Easter and I’m checking out my groceries at a busy local supermarket. I’m a bit in a rush, but the cashier is very young and it looks like she’s in her first days of work. Some guy in his forties behind me taps his feet nervously and stares at her slow scanning. Of course, this doesn’t improve the scanning speed at all. After about five minutes or so:)

Impatient Customer: “GOD! Can you hurry up? It must be painful to be so stupid you can only be hired as a cashier.”

Me: “I agree she’s slow, but why do you think she’s stupid?”

Impatient Customer: “All she has to do is scan some labels; how smart do you think she has to be?”

(Visibly offended, the stressed cashier scans one of my products twice by mistake. She calls a supervisor to cancel the double-scan.)

Impatient Customer: *superior* “See? What did I tell you?”

Me: “You were right. I bet you can do it faster than she does.”

Impatient Customer: “You bet I can!”

(The supervisor arrives to cancel the double-scanned product. I approach him:)

Me: “Hello. Can you please get me a manager?”

Supervisor: “Good evening. I’m the shift supervisor; what seems to be the problem?”

Me: “Your employee here scans the products very slowly and the gentleman behind me is in a rush. He’s a lot smarter than your employee and much faster at scanning products. Since the line behind us is quite big, I was wondering if you can let him check out his own groceries to speed up the line.”

Cashier: “…”

Supervisor: “Excuse me?”

Impatient Customer: *turning red* “I didn’t…”

(Silence. I showed a massive grin to the smiling cashier, paid, and waved the smarta** good-bye. All I heard was a faint, “I’m sorry,” while pushing my cart to the parking lot.)