Your Policy Knowledge Cannot Be Discounted

(I work at a discount retail store. We often don’t have enough space to separate nested boxes individually on the shelves, so we will leave them within each other, but they do have the prices on each box. A customer comes up to my register and I begin to state that the nested boxes are individually priced.)

Me: “Just to let you know these boxes inside are individually priced.”

Customer: “No, they are not! They were inside each other and are sold as a set!”

Me: “I can assure you that they are not sold as a set; we just do not have enough shelf space to take out each individual box.”

Customer: “Then show me the price tags on each!”

(I slowly lift the second box out of the first box — without even looking at the bottom because I certainly know they are priced separately — and show the customer.)

Customer: “This is a disgrace! I will be contacting the Better Business Bureau on you and your store!”

Me: “Well, miss, if you have shopped here for a while, you know we never sell sets.”

Customer: “No! You just haven’t worked here long enough to know the policy for these items! I should get a four-box for, say, $6.99.”

Me: *starting to get aggravated* “Well, I’ve only worked here for six years and am the front-end supervisor.”

Customer: “That’s not enough time to know how your policy works!”

(She ended up storming off without purchasing anything.)