Rude Customers

[MzDiz]

I was so happy when I was promoted to dairy clerk. When the store would get crazy busy at the checkouts, I would get a milk crate and sit in my cooler where I couldn't hear them page me for help!! Whoops! Sorry, didn't hear the page. I must've been in the cooler.

That's so funny! I had a place to hide everywhere I worked that made me look busy, when in reality I was losing my mind. At Pier 1 it was the loft in the stock room. At the Olive Garden it was the cooler. At the country club it was the liquor room. You want some rude people? Try country clubs. Those were some of the rudest, most uncivilized, nasty people I've ever had the displeasure of working with. I'd rather work with the fine clientel of Wal-Mart than ever dealing with the rich again.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

I was so happy when I was promoted to dairy clerk. When the store would get crazy busy at the checkouts, I would get a milk crate and sit in my cooler where I couldn't hear them page me for help!! Whoops! Sorry, didn't hear the page. I must've been in the cooler.

I can completely understand. While I was never "promoted" I did change positions within my old job. I was changed from cashier to inventory. I would work from 4am-12pm and the store opened at 10am. I never changed out of my sweat pants and tshirts. It was great. I usually stayed in the back room and pretended I couldn't hear the pages or customers yelling at the "messy" store.

Okay, I'll add one- If you write CHECK ID in the signature spot on the back of your credit card don't get mad at me when I ask to see your ID!

Or how about when they don't write ANYTHING on the back of the credit card! I was given at least a dozen of these a shift. I would hand the card back to them with a pen and ask them to sign the card and to also give me their ID. It was store policy. Some people would be livid with me. Sorry, but your stupidity wasn't worth me losing my job.

How about another story. (After 5 years there I have hours of stories.) When it was time to close we would lock our doors and leave an employee there to unlock the door to let leaving customers out. An elderly couple pulled up to the door and asked to come in to get some shampoo. The girl told them we were closed but the item they wanted was for sale at the grocery store just across the parking lot. The couple yelled at the girl and called her some nasty words. Then they pull away and the elderly lady gave the girl the finger! Oh boy, everyone in the store was dumbfounded, but we spent the rest of the night laughing. Thank you elderly couple for making our night!

 

[slo]

Very well said!!!

I manage a retail store, and I feel your pain. I have many many many wonderful customers that unfortunately have to suffer with strick store policies that bad customers forced us to make.

I'm sure you can agree with me when I say this:

Working with the public has made me a very understanding, patient, and good customer.

I think all people should work with the public for one month to see how you should or shouldn't act when you go into a store.

 

[canwegosoon]

FYI...this doesn't just happen in retail.

I am actually a 9-1-1 operator and dispatcher.

Calls I have gotten....

"No I don't have the number for Pizza Hut..."

"No I can't tell you how to get to Virginia Beach (this is the metro Atlanta area)"

"No I don't know the price of that item at Walmart"

"No I am not faxing that paperwork for you"

"Ma'am I just gave you a map with detailed instructions....I am not going to read the map to you"

"No you may not shoot off fireworks in the city owned park (can you say liability?)"

"That area is not our jurisdiction....no...we can't make an exception"

"I realize it has been 30 minutes since your phone call....had you given me a valid phone number or answered your cell phone I could have told you the officers would be delayed due to an motor vehicle accident with a fatality...which takes precedence over your barking dog call..."

Yes...every day...we see and hear stupid people....help us all please....

I was a 911 operator too..
"No, I don't know when the Fireworks are on Dune Road",
"No, can not speak to a OP they are out in the field now-I can take a message if you call on the non-emergency line"
"Is this an emergency?"

My sister was also a cashier..her favorite one was..."Don't wear a trench coat or winter coat in the Hamptons in the Summer and think I am not going to know that you are trying to steal meat"

 

[BuckNaked]

Having worked for Publix for 8 years, I agree with everything you said. However, having been out of retail for nearly 20 years now, and having seen customer service deteriorate horribly, I'd like to add a couple of vents from the customer perspective (not in any way aimed at the OP).

1) If you don't have any customers, don't roll your eyes at me when I come into your line. Unless I'm mistaken, you're being paid to work, and while there isn't much you can do when you have no customers, don't act the customer is somehow inconveniencing you when she enters your line.

2) If you don't mind too much, please stop yakking with the bag boy long enough to pay attention to what it is you are ringing up. Shoving a can at full speed to the end of the counter so that it can smush the kiwi shouldn't be the preferred method.

3) Try to keep the look of panic off your face when the customer hands you $20.03 for a bill of $14.78. Don't worry, you don't have to figure out what the pennies are for, the computer will flash the numbers up for you.

4) When you hand me my receipt, I always say thank you - a thank you in return would be nice, at least every now and then.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Having worked retail many years in the past, I feel your pain. And as a compassionate shopper/customer, I never take out my frustrations or stupidity on a cashier, bagger, manager, etc. That's just rude. HOWEVER, I will say that requiring a phone number on a check doesn't pass the common sense test. If I wanted to cheat someone with a bad check, I'm not giving out my real number, anyway. Now, when asked I do provide my true cell phone number just to not stir the pot. But, it's just not ever made sense to require a phone number. The first thing the company is going to do is NOT call my home number, anyway; they're going to contact the bank who will send a nasty gram. . .phone number or not. Still, I want to offer my sincerest thanks for putting up with the occasional dud like myself.

I've never fully understood the concept of having the phone numbers on them either. My point of my OP was that we're required to have them on there, and can't accept checks without them. When a check is processed / endorsed at our store, on the back is the customers number, and the cashier's id number. If they, (people who go through the checks,) notice that the number isn't written on the front, then we'll get reprimended. I've missed a phone number once, (in 4+ years,) wasn't a big deal, but if I missed numbers a few times, I'd get into trouble.

I didn't really care what the guys number was, I just had to have it. Him threatning to shop at another store isn't going to change that, or that other cashier's have accepted checks without a number going to make me back down.

Actually, I feel exactly the opposite, the man in question was rude enough that one of the managers came over to help. So if he wants to shop at another store, that's fine by me, that's one less person I have to deal with.

Also, I thought of something else that happened a few weeks back.

I was working a late shift one night, until 2:00 AM. There's a Coin Star machine in our store, which has a sign in front, and on it, that clearly states that you can only redeem the vouchers between 6:00 AM and midnight, at the cutomer service desk.

Well a girl came in around 1:00, and then got mad at me for not being able to give her cash. She made me get the night manager but he wasn't able to get her money either, since I was the only register open, and there were no other tills.

 

[katerkat]

3) Try to keep the look of panic off your face when the customer hands you $20.03 for a bill of $14.78. Don't worry, you don't have to figure out what the pennies are for, the computer will flash the numbers up for you.

To be fair, most customers handed me additional change AFTER I had entered it into the computer - like, as I'm already getting the change, "wait, I have a quarter!" At that point, please don't mock the cashier; it takes me a moment to refocus on the new task and figure out how much new change I owe you. Math was never my strong point.

 

[BuckNaked]

To be fair, most customers handed me additional change AFTER I had entered it into the computer - like, as I'm already getting the change, "wait, I have a quarter!" At that point, please don't mock the cashier; it takes me a moment to refocus on the new task and figure out how much new change I owe you. Math was never my strong point.

Oh, I would never mock the cashier, but I'm just amazed sometimes at the "OMG, what do I do now look????" from cashiers when they are handed change.

 

[disneymom3]

Fortunatly, I have never had a customer get upset for needing a phone number on the check.

I have had my share of rude ones though, most memorable was the guy who swore at me since I could not open my drawer and give him change, his kids were with him too.

Another lady got mad and called me a liar and a racist since I told her a certain video game was not avaiable on the platform she wanted it on.

Now, most of my complainers are the ones who get angry that I need to see an ID with their credit card.

Yeah, the ones who are ticked you want their ID just kill me. Hello??? If your card were stolen, wouldn't you be glad I found out it wasn't you trying to charge this $500 gift card?? (Real story. Guy would not give us his ID and said he would "come back" with cash. He didn't."

We also had one of those check machines that take an actual debit out of your account just like a check card. Oh yeah, that ticked people off. Well, if the money is not there right now, you should not be spending it RIGHT NOW!

My fav was this one guy who came shopping for his nephew and two nieces. I worked in a highend toy store. We had some stuff that other toy stores lke Toys R Us or whoever have but they would be priced a bit higher and we had a lot of stuff that we knew no one else in town carried. So this guy comes in. I ask if I can help him find something--we asked every customer who walked in the door but he looked particularly lost. He tells me who he is shopping for. I spent, no lie, an hour with this guy taking him around and giving him ideas for these three kids. He chose what he was going to give them, went on and on about how great it was that I was helping him, how he would have been so lost on his own not had a clue what to get etc etc. I told him that I would also be happy to wrap his purchases and he would be done for the holiday. As we are walking back to the registers he tells me that it seems like our prices are a bit high. Our policy was never to deny this on items that were priced higher. So I said, "well a few are but it comes with the service you just received, and we do gift wrap for free. And many of the items you chose today you won't be able to buy anywhere else and they are priced as they are throughuot all of our stores in the country." Well, he is not sure he wants to pay that much. I am all understanding and ask if maybe he wants to put back a few of the items. (All the kids were getting like three things.) Nope, he thinks he will go to Target and see if he can get them cheaper. My manager overhears this conversation and says, "You know, as Julie mentioned, they don't sell that at Target." Guy is leaving anyway. Mgr says "Welll good luck finding someone like Julie who is knowledgeable and can help you with your toy purchase there." Guy says, "She already helped me, so I won't need someone at Target." Very nice. Do you understand why customer service is nonexistent in so many stores?

 

[katerkat]

Oh, I would never mock the cashier, but I'm just amazed sometimes at the "OMG, what do I do now look????" from cashiers when they are handed change.

I know you wouldn't, but I got it now and then. And nasty, "can't you add?" comments. No, m'am, I have a college degree - in journalism. I write because I can't add. At least not under pressure - if people are nice and give me a minute, they will have the correct change. (And, for the record, I had the most accurate till average in the store - better than every manager.)

 

[disneyfav4ever]

1) If you don't have any customers, don't roll your eyes at me when I come into your line. Unless I'm mistaken, you're being paid to work, and while there isn't much you can do when you have no customers, don't act the customer is somehow inconveniencing you when she enters your line.

This reminds me of something else. Once the store I work at was pretty dead. There were three registers open, I was in express, cleaning.

The line behind me was open, and empty, so that cashier had gone down a few registers to bag for the only cashier who had an order at the time.

A man came up to my line, and started putting his order up. He had a full cart, and was way over 15 items. (I'm in express mind you.) I said, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I'm express, the line right next to me is open, and can take your order."

He said something along the lines of "You're here, he's not."

He continued to put his stuff up. At that point it was just easier to ring him up, and luckily the other cashier came over to bag.

If he had had anywhere close to 15 items, like no more then 25, I wouldn't have had a problem taking him, but he was just rude.

And it's not like I had been just standing there, I had been cleaning.

I've also gotten the whole "I'm just a cashier, so what do I know attitude." I have a college degree, and am just doing this as a second job for extra money. I have student loans and other expenses to pay off. So I just love it when customers are rude to me becuase "I don't know how to do my job."

Once someone was in my line, and she told me her credit card didn't read. Not a problem, since we can just put the card number in the computer, we just need the manager's key for it. She argued with me that I didn't need the manager's key, and said I was being disrespectful when I called up for it, then went to the customer service desk to complain about me.

 

[Todd&Copper]

6) If a store is busy, don't try to get into a closed line.

I can't tell you the number of times I have been in the grocery store and the cashier simply forgot to turn on her light to signify that her check-out was open. I think they should tie cash register function to the light so that cashiers won't be able to forget.

 

[Paging Tom Morrow]

I have to vent. I work as a cashier at a store in my town, and I have to vent about certain customers.

1) If we need your phone number on a check, don't rufude, if it's "unlisted." We still need it, and your just wasting time. It's our stores policy to refuse checks if there's no phone number.

You do know that is illegal in some areas to require as much? I used to live in such an area and store people still used to say it was their "policy" and would refuse to accept a check without it, blatantly illegal.

It was amazing how fast the policy was waived once I asked store personnel to write the policy down and sign and date it so I could forward it to the Better Business Bureau.

 

[Karnak]

Once upon a time at a Radio Shack store I left a rather large order on the counter and walked out because the clerk insisted that he had to have my phone number in order to check me out.

What was especially galling to me was the fact that I was paying in cash!

As far as I'm concerned, it was the clerk who was "rude."

Now I will not shop anywhere where they want my phone number.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

I can't tell you the number of times I have been in the grocery store and the cashier simply forgot to turn on her light to signify that her check-out was open. I think they should tie cash register function to the light so that cashiers won't be able to forget.

It wouldn't work. When we shut off our lights it means we can't take anyone else in line, but we still check-out the people that are already in line. There for, with your idea, with would work with turning the lights on when we first go in, but when we closed, and shut our lights off, we'd be unable to check-out the people all ready in line. Does that make any sense?

Reminds me of another story.

I was on the floor once, doing inventory or something, when they called me up fornt to check, because one of the cashiers had forgotten to turn her light off. The store was busy, and there was a long line, that had been waiting several minutes. Now, I know this wasn't the customers fault, and it was just a simple mistake the previous cashier had made. The first customer was fine, but the second customer was yelling at me for having to wait too long. It wasn't his fault, but, it wasn't my fault either, and yelling wasn't making anything better.

Another story, and this was just two days ago. My computer was having a problem with something with a raincheck. Something was usually $3, and the raincheck was for $1. Every time I rang one up, it would add $1, and then take $1.19 off, so that would mean she was getting them for free, and then getting .19 off her order. She had 20 of the item, so it was taking awhile to fix.

I shut my light off knowing that it was going to be awhile, since it was decided between me and the desk person in charge that it would be easier to void off the entire order instead of trying to figure out what the heck the computer was doing.

Luckily when we restarted the order, it was ringing up the item at $1 each. The computer doesn't let us do items by quantity, unless there's 24 or more, and since there was 20 I had to ring up each one individually, and also, since the price difference was high, (over $2 difference,) needed the manager's key for each one.

This was also 10 minutes before the end of my shift, so my light was staying off.

Well, there was a lady, not the lady with the raincheck, but one who entered my line after my light was off, and then got mad at me for taking so long - even though I was technically closed, and I had told her as much, and it really wasn't my fault.

The lady with the raincheck on the other hand, who was held up for probably 15 minutes, wasn't rude at all. She knew it was a computer problem, and it was obvious that there was no way anyone could fix it since me, and two desk people weren't able to get the computer straight.

So by the time I'm done that order, and done my shift, the rude lady's still there, giving me a hard time.

Then there was another time the store was busy, and a customer complained to me that there were no express lines open, (there were two express lines open,) or the time when I was working a non-express line, and we were slow, so I had a lot of small orders, and someone complained that I had let a big order into my line, even though I was a regular line. It says on the express register at three different points that it's 15 or less.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

1) If we need your phone number on a check, don't rufuse, if it's "unlisted." We still need it, and your just wasting time. It's our stores policy to refuse checks if there's no phone number.

I think several of you missed my point with this one. I know a lot of people don't like giving out there phone numbers, but there's just no point to customers being rude to me about it. I need to have it on the checks, otherwise I'll get in trouble. I'm not the one who made that rule, I'm just following them, for the sake of my job.

Most customers just put the phone numbers on with no problem, but there are some customers who will just yell, and be down right rude when there's nothing I can do about it. Yelling won't make the fact that I need a phone number go away. There are times when the computer wants a number, and it will decline the check if I don't put one in. It's just store policy that I have to follow.

 

[simba928]

I love the people that think they know how to do my job better than I do. Yes, I am new (I started about 2 months ago), but I still have been doing this job longer than they have. I had 3 guys order 3 large milkshakes, all of them were different and all of them were made of ice cream that we had just flipped, so they were very hard to scoop. One of the guys said to the guy I was working with "Whats taking so darn long" (thats a slightly edited version). Umm, your 3 large milkshakes would be my guess. I also had a guy order chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, which we had just ran out of and it was the middle of a rush, so we didn't have to flip it until the rush was over. The guy said "well, what else do you have thats chocolate" I said "Chocolate therapy, which is chocolate ice cream with.." He interupted me and said "Chocolate therapy, whats that?" Well, thats what I am trying to tell you. I told him "Chocolate ice cream with.." He interupted me again and said "chocolate ice cream, good, thats what I wanted, just plain chocolate ice cream." I looked at him and was like fine, you wanna keep interupting me, I wont tell you whats all in it and you can be surprised. LOL. I also always have rushes when the other person I'm working with goes on break. I always apologize for the wait, even though its not my fault that its taking so long. Some people are just like "Yeah, whatever". Those people are ALWAYS the ones that order the large milkshakes from the rock hard flavor of ice cream or a smoothie, which takes a couple minutes to make. Then I have people (usually older couples, groups of women, or families with kids) who are extremely nice and they usually acknowledge how hard I'm working and tip me a dollar plus whatever change I give them back in coins.

One other thing that bothers me is that we have a HUGE sign that says ice cream and lists all of our flavors, etc. If you can't read, we also have pictures of ice cream cones. We share a store with a soup and salad bar (theres a big wall seperating us, though. People always come up to us and ask us what kind of soup we have. I am very tempted to say "umm, I would hope we don't have soup. That would mean our freezers would be broken and that wouldn't be very good." People also ask me where they can smoke. Umm, do you not hear the announcements that are constantly playing saying "All smoking materials must be distinguished. Smoking is permitted in eating and drinking areas where posted." That means you can smoke in the BARS!!!!

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Real story. Guy would not give us his ID and said he would "come back" with cash. He didn't."

I'm missing why this is an interesting story. I don't carry a lot of stuff to work. I work walking distance from my house and in a building where I don't have a secure place to leave a purse or anything, so I only bring what I can carry in my pocket. It's not uncommon for me to have my debit card and no ID. In that case I might try to use it (most places don't ask for ID) but if I wasn't successful I'd either put the item back, or go to a nearby ATM.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

ughh i had a lady call me racist b/c her credit card was declined and i called the number for her 2times nad tried to run it through twice?!?!

ummm yeah i'm the racist cause you're debit card has no money on it

people...

 

[Meezers]

I admit I am now reading this thread for the ice cream descriptions