Retail Hell

As far as I can tell this is not a change in corporate policy but a desperate manager trying to improve sales metrics. But either way it's underhanded and dishonest

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This is one thing I never understood, especially when people try to use them for small purchases. At my workplace, the store owner has disallowed us from accepting $50 and $100 bills in order to avoid having to check for counterfeits. People get very upset at this policy.

One time, a customer came up to the counter with the items they had picked out. I scanned them all up and then provided her with the total. She then tossed a $50 bill on the counter. I politely explained that due to store policy, I would be unable to accept it, so she'd have to either break the bill elsewhere, or she'd have to provide a different payment method.

In response, she snatched the bill off the counter and angrily said, "Well, I'm never shopping here again." She said this loudly enough that it took aback multiple nearby customers, who began to look on.

After digging in her purse, she tossed two smaller bills onto the counter, which turned out to not be enough to pay for the total (after the cash she still owed $7-8). I explained this to her, and then she snatched the cash off the counter and left. The next customer I interacted with, who had witnessed everything, told me that she'd "go easy on me". Haha.

I understand it can be frustrating to not be able to pay with the money you have on you in the moment, but I wish customers would understand that the store owner sets the policies, not the people working for the owner. Retail workers don't really have any power in that regard, we just work here. Also, I wish they'd understand we are not a bank; even if we did take larger bills, we don't have a million dollars in the register to give you. Usually, we have just enough to get through the week. It's just a nuisance.

This happens to me almost daily.

A customer brings up a 1x1 inches, easy-to-hold item to purchase. Surely they don't need a bag, right? After all, the smallest bag size we have would still be way too large for this single item.

With this in mind, once the transaction is complete, I attempt to hand the receipt and item to the customer, only to be responded to with, "uh, can I have a bag??" as if I'm the idiot.

It's like people desire to contribute to landfills.

What's funnier is when it's someone who has a purse on them. You can't put it in your purse?!

This one was a little over a decade ago, when plasma TVs were still manufactured and sold, and LCD TVs were still catching in terms of awesomeness.

I was a young, bright-eyed electronics associate working for the big "blue and yellow save money" company. This particular day was a steady but peaceful day, and I was working the counter, cashing people out and directing them to various areas in the department where they could find things.

I had just finished ringing a customer out for a PS3 game when a fella walks up to the counter and the following exchange took place:

Strange Customer: "Hey man... do you sell TVs?"

Me: caught off guard by the question, I slowly turned to the TV wall that sat in full view roughly 30ft away, filled with 30+ different TV models, then slowly turned back to him "Sir, I don't think I can help you."

SC: "Oh alright man, no problem."

And then he just left. It remains, to this day, the most bizarre customer interaction I have ever had, and I would not be surprised if it was a part of a YouTube prank video. I've been at the store I work at for over 13 years now, and nothing has topped this one for weirdness.

This was the first thing I ever posted on Reddit. Now that I'm here, I thought I'd throw this up somewhere.

So, I don't work in retail anymore, but I did it for 10 and a half years up until the start of ~~last year ~~ 2014 and this event still stands out at me though some details are a little fuzzy.

It was probably maybe five years ago, I was working checkout, the photo counter, and who knows what else random task they had thrown at me, pretty much typical. Big huge sales floor in a Drug store and it would usually just be one clerk and one supervisor working the whole front end.

Our doors were the kind that slide sideways apart from each other. They were old and crappy, always either letting casper come and go, clapping to show how happy they were or just sitting there all like "What now? you wanted to go somewhere?" and no number of calls to the door company ever changed this.

Anyway, there I was in my tacky vest minding my own damn business getting it done and smiling at all the people pretending I like my job when I get this one customer who just comes up to me and starts chewing me out about how we never have something, or some other such complaint. Whatever it was I just remember it being really unbelievably uncomfortable and know I tried to ask if she would like to speak to a manager or something but she was just at the point of rage and anger and I don't want help I want to punish you.

Then she huffs off and says she's never going to come into the store again and marches to the door. This is where the door decides that it is its duty to make sure this customer does not leave because clearly, I wanted this situation to go on longer. The door doesn't register the customers existence on this plane. It has closed its electronic eye in some sort of vile game of peek-a-boo as if for this moment it wanted to make me have to approach this raging anger fest of person so I could get burned again.

I was desperate for this to end. She turned to me and yelled about how her exit was being thwarted by our poltergeist infested doors.

My instant reaction was to put my hands together as if I were readying to separate invisible automatic doors manually and made the motion of moving my hands apart and then I said it. "just push them open.." push... not slide... push. WHY did I even do this... I should have just rushed over and opened them like I would have on any other day.

This is where I explain something else about the doors: Sliding Automatic doors are typically also hinged. You see, the panels of glass that they slide behind are also actually hinged doors. When the doors are off, you can slide them open a couple inches, flip out the outer glass panels as hinged doors, and then push the sliding doors all the way open and then swing them open for a super mega huge opening through which you can run a car through or any other object which doesn't typically move through the doors under normal operations. It's also handy for cleaning glass doors while continuing to let people enter and exit.

So she pushed. She put her palms up flatly against the doors and pushed outward. The doors popped outward, not only did they pop out but they of course, caused the side panels to pop open. To the customer this was a most alarming event. She stepped back utterly aghast at what had just happened, as if somehow she thought she just broke the whole door frame. It did make quite a grinding noise as the bottom of the door scraped on the pavement outside.

So what did I do now? I bust up in a nervous hysterical laughter. I didn't know what to do so my brain just said "Hey! let's laugh our asses off at this angry customer's embarrassed expression! This simply genius action will go over ever so swell!" "HAHAHAHAH AHAHA AHHA!!!!!! Oh @#$!" I was now staring at her thinking "What the f*?" I suddenly got this utterly huge pit in my stomach like I had just committed one of the most deadly sins possible.

So the customer just turns around, and runs, not walks, but runs out the store to her car and jets out of the area.

I peered around and noted that other than the angry customer, no one at all was anywhere near the front to witness this happen. So, I walked up to the doors, slammed them back into their tracks and then... they opened.

The card terminals that my workplace uses requires that the customer presses 'confirm' to make sure that their total is correct prior to charging their card. Pretty simple, right? The card terminal clearly indicates that the customer needs to confirm. Unfortunately, this isn't how it plays out in practice.

In practice, it goes something like this:

\terminal says to confirm the total is $10.53

Customer: It says I need to confirm the total

Me: Uh huh.

Customer: So what do I press?

Me: Umm, is there a problem with your total?

Customer: No

Me: Then push confirm 🤡

Why can't people follow simple directions? It's written in plain English on the screen.