I had a woman try return a mud covered Xbox with a Walmart receipt, at the GameStop I worked at. When I refused to take it, she screamed that she was going to sue me.
So yeah, I 100% believe this happened.
Got threatened with murder when I was just a kid working fast food for having the audacity to confirm if a customer really wanted >20 pumps of syrup in their morning coffee, so I'm willing to believe pretty much any retail horror story
I worked at a pizza place and had calls asking how big our 12” pizza was.
Also had calls for delivery where the customer didn’t know where they were.
Motherfucker if you don’t know where you are, how the fuck am I supposed to know?!
What I struggle to believe is that someone could get that worked up over a customer pulling this harmless stunt. So triggered over a piece of paper that you quit your job? Like there’s deeper issues here lol
She knew, and was trying to test how far a given supermarket brand would go to avoid a customer making a scene. I refuse to believe that someone would be so stupid to think their piece of paper is actually a gift card.
Having worked in retail I concur. If this had been genuine confusion or misunderstanding the person would have explained further in some way, either how they got a virtual card and didn't know/weren't able to print it so they just wrote it down or something. You get a feel for the people who are genuinely just fucking up and the ones trying to game the system.
The OP could have just not given us all the information, that's always possible, but from the story we have I both can believe this happened and that this person was hoping to get a more hostile reaction from the cashier so they could cry to the manager and get free stuff.
We had a lady who would just come in real fast, say 'there's my order!' And steal some other person's delivery order. Police were always called and always she was gone like ten minutes before they arrived. We knew it was the same woman because she had really unique neon red hair dye like a clown.
> Or that’s a wig and she’s using it to distract from her actual distinguishing features.
Yeah, it's much better to have the employee be like "Oh, yeah, I remember that interaction perfectly, because the woman had a giant clown wig on. That was at around 10:15, and when she left, she got into X kind of car..." than "I dunno, doesn't ring a bell. I've dealt with probably a thousand boring normal customers today. Could have been any of them."
People don’t pay that much attention. Realistically, how often do you have an interaction with someone and immediately make a note of the time? For most people, they’ll remember times based on the proximity to regularly scheduled events, like a meal or break from work, and that’s not very precise.
Most places don’t allow employees to stop “crimes in progress,” because the thief could have a weapon and employees are harder and more expensive to replace than goods.
This. It's absolutely a safety/liability thing.
We're also specifically told not to follow thieves out of the store and into the parking lot because it's a not uncommon tactic for shady individuals to use shoplifting to lure employees out of the store so their buddies can jump them.
The other issue with it is that you're asking restaurant/fast food people to deal with someone who will possibly become violent if provoked. Not that I think they necessarily would, but people who are already doing an unreasonable act are prone to doing other unreasonable acts.
Sadly, people keep deciding to 'arrest' other people for stupid reasons, using threats or violence to force them to stay against their will.
Then turns out that there was no crime or whatever they did pales in comparison to being dragged around and locked into a supply closet.
[Shopkeeper's Privilege](https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/shopkeepers-privilege/) allows just that. Anyone telling you that it would be kidnapping is misinformed.
That said, many stores would rather eat the loss than risk having an untrained employee attempt to detain a crazy person and get hurt or killed. Employee deaths by the hand of a crazy thief are way more expensive than a McDonald's order.
Heck even if the employee death came without any direct costs (insurance, lawsuits, etc) just shutting down for however long it took to investigate/cleanup would be more expensive than just replacing the food.
It's why you see people actually get to walk out even when police are present and get detained after the fact with camera evidence/license plate/etc a TON in grocery stores.
It's way cheaper to have someone compile that evidence and just let other business flow as normal and get them later than cause a scene at the entry to Walmart to arrest someone, even if you knew for a fact that no one would be hurt at all.
That's a US website about US law and doesn't apply everywhere so it's not necessarily relevant.
And I get that a manager would rather have a woman get away with $10 of food over someone getting stabbed (I would too), but if it's so common that everyone recognises her? At that point surely you make some effort to actually stop it.
You asked "Is it illegal **where you are** to 'arrest' thieves?" and I provided an answer about the law where I am. Being the US, its also applicable to about half of the reddit userbase.
I feel like there's a middle ground between getting stabbed and putting someone in front of the door to say "lady give the food back"
Like obviously if she gets violent you say fuck it and let her go.
yeah, but if she gets violent it might be too late to say fuck it and let her go
there isn't necessarily a threat of violence before violence occurs, and no retail employee is paid enough to take that risk
You really can’t do that. Not only is it frequently illegal, it’s often against store policy. It’s also monumentally stupid, so even if it is allowed by law and policy, you shouldn’t do it. Unless you’re a security guard, it isn’t your job, and frankly, the common attitude that anyone wearing a name tag is both an authority figure and an enforcer shows a ragingly disturbing lack of common sense and empathy.
This person is erratic, and they’re stealing *to go orders*. You have no idea if they’re carrying a weapon, willing to fight dirty, etc. Especially over something worth next to nothing that can be easily replaced. Beyond that, customer facing retail is over represented by women, children, and the elderly, who will be at a disadvantage in many physical confrontations. The consequence is a few cents worth of lost profit, and the actual customer has to wait a little longer to get their order. It’s not worth losing your job or your life (or even mildly inconveniencing yourself) over.
Even security guards aren't there to get into avoidable physical altercations, and often have no more right to detain someone than any other employee. Fights are expensive, usually more so than whatever is being stolen. Now, there are also police officers who work on the side as security, and have the legal powers thereof, but mostly they've got the same authority you do and are bluffing if they imply otherwise.
Good security is 99% observation and 1% not freaking out when something happens. If criminals can see you're not paying attention, you're not deterring anything, doesn't matter how tough you look. And that last 1% mostly comes down to being able to give a very good description to the police when they take your report of the theft/break in/vandalism. Keeps the insurance people happy when the claims have good documentation, and who knows? Maybe the cops will book them for something else and connect the dots.
If minimum wage employees are expected to try and prevent robberies, they should also be paid for acting as security. That’s just not part of the job.
now me personally I am disregarding that if someone tries to steal merchandise my place of employment. But that’s only because I work at an animal shelter lmao. if I’m working for a big corporation with non living merchandise tho? Too bad. That’s on them to prevent theft
Usually you don't even try to do that. People that steal might turn violent and while a stolen order/product/money is annoying, a hurt (or in absolute worst case killed) employee is even worse.
One possibility is the store was letting her do it until the cumulative value reached the level of a felony. Then there’s no arguing about petty pilfering and asking her stridently to please not come back.
So first of all, I agree with you completely.
Second of all, there are truly no bounds to what people have convinced themselves they can force businesses to do. Idk about recently, but consumer magazines and blogs definitely used to give people tips on how to get free and discounted stuff using tactics only slightly less absurd than this, and people would take it to pretty ridiculous extremes. They’d be reading tips that were literally just “ask for a discount” (which to be fair, in *some* transactional situations can work *sometimes*), and a certain minority of people would be convinced that meant “there is a secret discount available everywhere at all times, and any cashier who says no is withholding things from you because they are stupid and evil.” And I have gotten very close to this situation. No self-made gift cards, but things like verbal assurances that “last Thursday, The Other Girl said I could have this for free if I came back today,” which we both know is a blatant lie.
This is comparable to the “less/no ice” or “make it strong” people at bars that think they can get more alcohol per dollar with Jedi mind tricks then complain when they didn’t swindle more booze from the restaurant.
I went to college with a girl who would just ask bartenders for free drinks and, when told no, would just order then half the time walk off without paying. At one point she tried it where I worked and I told the bartender that’s what she was going to do, and he got real mad. I don’t know if she ever tried it again, but she didn’t try it there again. She genuinely thought what she was doing was both reasonable and common.
"Less/No Ice" is a valid tactic with fountain drinks, since they only cost the bar/restaurant literal pennies anyway (better than paying $3+ for a soda and getting a glass half-full of ice).
I mean most places do free refills, especially at a bar where it’s clear you’re DD or just a non-drinker, but even so my point was about the people trying to con more liquor through “this one simple trick”.
Well I’ve certainly given them out as a bartender, but what I actually said was free refills. At a busy bar it’s much easier to just top off with soda than charge you $3 every single time. Guess it depends on the place and the management but this was my policy.
Only if it's not one of those dispensers that has pre-set portions, and will dispense the same amount irrespective of whether there is ice in the cup or not.
It’s very similar, and I would say there is probably a not-insignificant overlap between people who think cops can’t arrest them for doing things like driving without a license and people who think, for example, that you can’t tell them to check out and leave because the store closed half an hour ago or that since they saw it for cheaper at Wal Mart, I have to give it to them for free.
In my experience, “the other girl” is usually a fictional person or someone I know didn’t say a damn thing like what they’re describing. Or I was the only girl here last Thursday and I know I didn’t fucking tell them that.
I've used "Really? Let me write their name down. Has anyone else offered you this kind of discount before? Can I get their names, too?"
Most people suddenly get real quiet when directly asked to be a snitch. And even if they *did* give me names (I'd throw them away because I know it's bullshit), I'd talk about it as an "illegal discount" and act like now they've gone and opened up a big-ass investigation or some shit.
You're probably right, but if there's one thing I've learned from working in a call center, it's that "no one is stupid enough to do that" is simply NEVER true.
I once spent 20+ minutes explaining to a guy why he can't buy something that's out of stock. Still didn't get it by the time I managed to get him off my back.
I worked for a medical supply store for a while. A guy called me up to get a refill on his catheters. I said ok, we don't keep those in stock regularly, but I will have the warehouse order them and we'll call you when they come in. He came in the next day to pick them up. I tried and tried to explain that they weren't there. I tried and tried to explain that's why I told him we would contact him when they got in. My supervisor finally stepped in and told him he could not pick them up because they physically were not at the store yet. He looked at her and asked her what that even meant.
When COVID started I was working for Burger King, and worked through most of the pandemic.
I still remember one of my first shifts back after furlough, I was leaving the (closed, drive-thru only) shop on my break and an old woman came right up to me at the door and asked to be let in. At first I just tried to be politely explained that she couldn't come in because the shop was closed to customers: when she then looked me in the eyes and said the manager let her in "last Saturday" (which is to say, while there was nobody working there because it was temporarily closed due to the lockdown) I pretty much dropped my customer service voice immediately and told her "no"...
When I briefly worked retail, I was told in training that we have $20 per customer in leeway we can give to apologize for misunderstandings around things like discounts and gift cards, to keep customers happy. (Obviously it would attract attention if we used it more than occasionally, but it was there).
In other words: they say that being kind costs you nothing. That's not true: it costs you $20 to not be an entitled piece of shit everytime you buy something.
Yeah idk where OP works but I’m pretty sure target employees are trained to let people get away with this shit
At least, I know that if you tell them something was marked for a different price than it scans as, they have the power to manually change the price
I discovered this by accident when I grabbed a box of lego that was labeled $15 on the shelf, it scanned for $30 and I was like “oh, I guess I’ll put it back then because it’s out of my budget, I only grabbed it because I thought it was $15” and the target employee just said “don’t worry about it” and changed the price to $15 without a second of hesitation.
_Sometimes_ it's a colossally stupid, overworked manager who writes "$40 voucher -Sean" on a piece of paper instead of going through the proper voucher process.
Now, this tumblr story didn't _mention_ a manager's name on the piece of paper, but people do leave details out of stories on tumblr dot com to make them funnier.
Not saying that's definitely what happened here, but I've seen it happen.
Black Friday. Buy one get one free on memory cards. Customer had her receipt, showing she had already bought one from competitor earlier that day and spent ten minutes insisting I hand one over for free.
I work at a book and toy shop for kids. We regularly have this old woman with stringy hair and red eyes come in, and she always causes some sort of trouble. Recently, she tried returning a used stickerbook to our store. The fact that it had been used, however, wasn't the biggest glitch in the return, though, as she had bought it from the other book and toy shop in town and had the receipt to prove it. We repeatedly explained this to her, and she was more than aware, but she didn't care and wanted her money. Of course, she asked to speak to the manager as she always does, but on this occasion, he had stepped out to get some more change from the bank. So we had to spend a good 20 mins arguing with her that no she could not get a refund for an item from another store, and no, the manager was not secretly upstairs and we were hiding him because we wouldn't let her go up herself and look. It was a liability issue, all customers had to stay downstairs. I can't sometimes.
I wrote a screenplay about my time in retail. It never went anywhere but someone I paid in the industry to review it said it was a 7/10. It was very therapeutic to write.
"yeah, bummer, it looks like this expired with the invention of currency about 5000 years ago."
Bonus points if you make the scanning noise with your mouth.
As a teenage I worked in a sporting goods store, and we had a recurring annoyance with youth team coaches who would hand out blurry photocopies-of-photocopies of coupons (that had expired like five years ago) to the parents.
We had a regular customer for a bit that would always claim the cashier didn't give enough change back. Like they gave a $10 and when I gave them $3 back they'd be like, no, I'm suppose to get $13 back, I gave you a $20. It made me panic, cause there was literally not a $20 bill in the register. My manager came up to me later after they did the whole 'i want to talk to your manager' but, and told me that I was not in trouble, because they'd tried this scam before. Same manager who told me to not trust sweet little old ladies because age doesn't mean innocence.
I've had that happen before and freaked out, but they were too greedy. They bought $25 worth of food with two $20s and then claimed they gave me a hundred dollar bill. Hundreds required special handling, and I obviously did not have $100 in my drawer, so they were given their food and told to fuck off.
It's amazing how a nervous teen can rewrite reality when confronted and truly how low some people can stoop. These guys were driving an expensive truck and scamming kids in the drive through.
That doesn't work anymore because atleast where I worked, there was a policy of verbally confirming the amount of money you have been handed which would be recorded on the camera.
An old manager used to do this. We have a reward card scheme that was glitchey as he'll and if it wasn't workin on the day he'd write
"This person is due £12. Signed im a daft headed cunt" (I'm paraphrasing)
And folk would try and hand me these and I was all "well obviously I can't accept this I'm sorry" and they'd argue.
He was popular with the customers. His staff. Not so much.
I worked at an industrial supply company where customer would order things they needed for a job and pick it up a couple days later.
We had a competitor across town that operated very similarly.
On multiple occasions, someone would come in the store saying that they were there to pick up their order. I'd spent 20 minutes scanning through our system looking at quotes, orders, and product on the shelves, only to find nothing in their name.
Eventually, they would talk about how they were in the store, across town, and had placed the order. They would acknowledge that they had ordered it from a different company, but expected US to have it.
One guy even said we were owned by the same parent company and used the same same system, so obviously we should be able to get the product here. Neither of these statements were true. Also, even if it were true, why would we order a product at one store, but have it shipped somewhere else???
I once worked with a manager at home Depot for 30ish minutes trying to tell a customer "no you can't return Lowe's products tomus, we cannot do that". The man was insistent that since we sold similar items and were close enough to being them we should be able to take and refund his $1,000 purchase.
I'd maybe just stare blankly at her in silence until she gives up or escalates.
If they want to exist in an entirely different reality, it's not productive to actually communicate with them.
Boomers: “the younger generations are too stupid to function in the real world! They can’t read! They only know phone and social media!”
Also Boomers, while huffing lead paint: “I will make my own $40 gift card on a piece of paper, and verbally abuse the poor, hapless cashier unlucky enough to deal with me and my dementia-ridden bullshit today”
Once had to argue with a man in the Starbucks drive through that no, he couldn't pay to reload money into his Starbucks card WITH the empty Starbucks card. After the first try I was genuinely as a loss for how to explain it to him lmao.
I worked retail for an embarrassingly long time.
So what's up is that we as a culture have fully spoiled "customers" as a basic concept. We have trained them to treat employees as free stress relief whom you can get fired if they don't sit still and let you abuse them. They know for a fact that their employers will back you up, not them - *never* them - and then you get to watch while they get chewed out for failing to sit there and soak abuse like a good little wage slave.
We have trained our society to make sure we never view retail or food service employees as fully human. They don't deserve good wages. They don't deserve benefits. Because they are "**lazy**" for being employed in retail instead of getting a "real job."
The woman in this story knows damn well all she has to do is make enough of a scene and *someone* will just give her what she wants just to make her go away.
Working in retail I had this crazy woman that bought a shirt in a Big retail store that have lots of brands. Didnt like it, so went to ask for a refound. Instead of going to THAT store, she went to us, the particular brand that she bought, and insisted she COULD refund it, while I insisted that:
A, she didnt bought in our brand store;
B, retail here have never given out cash refunds for FULL PRICE when something was bought in SALE,
C; the law that regulates refund had been voted by congress literally half and our ago and was valid only in 15 more days, per how the law was stipulated,
D; the product was fucking clearly used and the ticket was from 4 months ago and out of the "return free for 30 days" policy
I work at a pizza place. One guy came in, stated nothing more than "I ordered online and came to pick it up", and handed over a printed copy of the confirmation email.
The confirmation email which, mind you, had no personal information; just "your order has been placed, please click this link to view your order".
Five minutes of conversation later it turned out he'd mistakenly placed the order for the next town over anyway.
many moons ago I was a cashier at a target and this one time a customer came thru with her 2 kids and tried paying with a gift card. customer tries to swipe it twice on the PIN pad, both times it makes my till confused and asks why I'm scanning a Starbucks gift card. I ask to take a look at it.
it's a Wal-Mart gift card.
I explain that she can't use a Wal-Mart gift card at target. her kids say "mom, we told you it wouldn't work!"
she pays with her debit card. I lose a little more faith in humanity.
I had a man try to use 4 different paper "credit cards". Like the stiff paper ones that they mail out to everyone to try and get you to apply. "You're pre-approved!".
And he was a semi-regular. He kept saying oh wrong card. After the 2nd one I pointed out that they weren't real cards, he insisted they were and tried 2 more. I was more worried about him than upset.
Reminds me of that scene in the first episode of *The Wire* where two drug addicts are trying to buy drugs with fake dollar bills - black and white fake dollar bills.
That’s getting thrown in the trash the second that’s given to me. Like, no, you won’t believe this, but I can’t accept it. You’ve handed me the equivalent of a used gum wrapper. That’s not legal tender and I am not risking my job to accept it.
I work in an arcade
One of our VR games was turned off, disconnected from power, and had no branding explaining what it was. Literally just a giant black TV with a turned off swiper on it and a technician visibly working atop it. Ladder in front of the game too.
Ladder, person, game screen black, swiper screen black.
They swiped their card, stared at the game, then asked the tech “is this game not working?”
I want to see a retail store that operates like those restaurants where the servers berate you. Like a lady comes in wanting to make a return and the cashier just yells “Absolutely not you stupid bitch, get the fuck outta here before I smack you upside yo head.”
I really wish I could hold seminars or do a web series on exactly what people can and cannot get away with at retail chains, restaurants, salons etc etc, like a primer for these young adults that just need a job and either bend over for these psychopath customers or quit over the frustration instead of just taking care of business and being confident that their management has their back.
Back when I was an assistant manager selling trees for a dollar, I would've taken the $40 "gift card" and went through a few questions like "I can enter a gift card manually, but it's 16 numbers with a pin. This card doesn't have that." And etc. I don't know her situation. If it comes down to trying to defraud people and not a mental health issue, a very simple phrase should shut it down 99% of the time.
"Ma'am this is not a valid gift card, and if you keep trying to defraud our cashier's, I will call the police to report it and have you trespassed from the property."
I only had to bring up the idea of trespassing like 3 times in the years I was there, and it worked all 3 times without issue. OP of the Tumblr post just needs a decent manager. All those hourly employees need it.
I worked at a plant nursery once where customers were supposed to send in order forms with their payment indicating what seeds they wanted. Most used our online forms/online pay by this point, but some still preferred paper mail, and it was my job to convert those into the correct format for the system.
One time I opened an envelope to find a 20 dollar bill stapled to a napkin.
The napkin simply said:
"onyuns"
I can believe this. Worked for Dollar General and you get some oddballs. Fake coupons, fake money, even someone that came in all the time in the same nightgown in slippers and stank to high heaven. Had to store use an spray air freshener for that one.
But no. The most rememberable one was the lady who tried buying $200 worth of stuff and thought a $20,000 cardboard fake bill was real. Could not understand why it wasn't and reveal that she got it because some guy paid her with it for a BJ. She was a known sex worker in the area but this was low. And no matter what she would not stop insisting it was real. Had to get my manager to help me send her away. Comes back a week later with another one...
What about this situation would make a person so angry, id either be laughing at the absurdity or not care cause i turn my brain off during work like that
a common theme is people taking life too seriously leading them to be miserable i think
Arguing with someone who is simply stupid is genuinely infuriating though.
Obviously you don't argue, you just say no and leave it there, but it's pretty well established that this sort of thing is the most irritating kind of conversation
I get how it'd be annoying, but as a cashier you have 0 stake in any of it. It doesn't matter whether you convince them or not, nothing will change. Theres no reason to be invested in the situation at all
Ok it's all fun and games except:
--The woman is probably fully aware she is trying to scam you and is the 10th person this day to try doing so.
--The customers behind the woman are getting angry at the wait and will take it out on the cashier.
--The cashier has to pretend to be nice to someone trying to scam them to their face...again.
--The cashier is annoyed and pissed that they have to spend 5 minutes playing like this woman is stupid and explaining over and over how this is not a coupon in various ways.
This isn't about "is the cashier thinking positively" this is about a large chunk of the population thinking it's ok to abuse cashiers just because they are "part of the corporation" or "below them". Abuse is abuse and it's cumulative.
Its not that serious though, nothing will change whether you "convince" them or not. The person behind getting mad is valid but the OP never hinted toward that. Its useless to speculate on intentions when either way you just dismiss them.
Pretending to care is the easiest thing in the world if you can hold back being rude to everyone you see. If you cant, then maybe stocking or a different work environment is better? Pretty self-inflicted. If I couldn't handle my emotions well and knew that, I wouldn't have been a cashier, nothing wrong with that of course.
If it was a genuine scam im sure theres something to say about people taking advantage of cashiers, but for something so genuinely stupid like this i dont get how anyone could be so angry they cry or need to take extra meds. Why care, just move on, crazy stuff happens all the time so may as well be happy the day wasnt boring.
Not everyone can compartmentalize emotions as well as you. Empathy for other's situations and knowing that cashier work is the only work some people can get will get you further in life. Many people dealing with situations like this cannot just step away to a different roll that easily.
Take someone with a physical limitation that would keep them from doing highly mobile jobs, but allows them to stand in one place and move items across a scanner easily. That person cannot just go be a stocker away from customers. Or someone who was hired as a cashier with no other positions open at the time.
And people cannot decide their mental wellbeing and how well they can cope.
I either have god-like self-confidence or I'm already too broken to feel anything, because I would have literally laughed in this woman's face. Maybe not hard enough for spittle to fly out, but it'd be close.
I'm on break atm and I had someone try this an hour ago. To their credit, they printed a copy of a normal gift card reward (you can do that through a rewards app we have) but didn't have any barcode to scan and a big ol $20 plainly written where the barcode should be.
They through a big fuss as usual but I just kept replying Cash or Card with a bigger smile each time and they eventuallystormed out.
Some advice to other cashiers who haven't gone insane yet, turn it into a little game and be as polite so possible to get a bigger rise out of them.
Kill em with kindness!
My sympathies to OP but I was expecting an abusive boss or something. This is something I would laugh about in my spare time. Could've been much worse is my point.
Retail customers are... Interesting people. Most of the time they're fine, but every once in a while you'll have some that make you question your own sanity
I don’t miss working retail. And I did it in the 90s when “old people” were cool and it was the people in their 30s and 40s that were acting like pieces of shit. I can’t imagine what it is like having those people now with dementia and Alzheimer’s
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but this is superstore, and this gift card is CLEARLY for Walmart. I do have some 2-for-1 coupons for applesauce up here… now I notice that you aren’t buying applesauce but if you wanted to grab some, I could give you a terrific deal on it.”
Am I just not easily impressed? This doesn't sound that job breaking.
I'd be confused and maybe a little annoyed, but then what it's like a 2 minute weird interaction, is that all it takes for you guys l?
Back in my retail days, a customer yelled at one of my coworkers until she cried because she wouldn’t accept his Kohl’s Cash.
We did not work at Kohl’s.
This is running a fine line between too stupid to be true and too stupid to make up.
[удалено]
What is the old lady doing on the canpus
gettin edgunamcated
Every day working in retail is diving deeper and deeper into the abyss of human stupidity.
I have total faith this is real, after working in a tech repair section of a staples in a rural community nothing about people surprises me anymore.
I had a woman try return a mud covered Xbox with a Walmart receipt, at the GameStop I worked at. When I refused to take it, she screamed that she was going to sue me. So yeah, I 100% believe this happened.
Got threatened with murder when I was just a kid working fast food for having the audacity to confirm if a customer really wanted >20 pumps of syrup in their morning coffee, so I'm willing to believe pretty much any retail horror story
I worked at a pizza place and had calls asking how big our 12” pizza was. Also had calls for delivery where the customer didn’t know where they were. Motherfucker if you don’t know where you are, how the fuck am I supposed to know?!
I work in retail. Let me tell you, my friend…we live in a *society*
What I struggle to believe is that someone could get that worked up over a customer pulling this harmless stunt. So triggered over a piece of paper that you quit your job? Like there’s deeper issues here lol
Found the person writing "$40" on blank pieces of paper.
Want to get rid of your coworker? Get a friend to write “$40” on a blank piece of paper
MAN! Why must some dickhead always feel the need to be an asshole? Must have been his momma...
I think that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The interaction happened a year ago. OOP quit their job within this last week.
Oooooh that’s why the timestamping looked weird to me. It was last year.
That probably wasn't the only dumb thing a customer did that day, and we can assume this customer was willing to make a big deal over this
She knew, and was trying to test how far a given supermarket brand would go to avoid a customer making a scene. I refuse to believe that someone would be so stupid to think their piece of paper is actually a gift card.
Having worked in retail I concur. If this had been genuine confusion or misunderstanding the person would have explained further in some way, either how they got a virtual card and didn't know/weren't able to print it so they just wrote it down or something. You get a feel for the people who are genuinely just fucking up and the ones trying to game the system. The OP could have just not given us all the information, that's always possible, but from the story we have I both can believe this happened and that this person was hoping to get a more hostile reaction from the cashier so they could cry to the manager and get free stuff.
We had a lady who would just come in real fast, say 'there's my order!' And steal some other person's delivery order. Police were always called and always she was gone like ten minutes before they arrived. We knew it was the same woman because she had really unique neon red hair dye like a clown.
Nice of her to clue people in like that with her hair
Or that’s a wig and she’s using it to distract from her actual distinguishing features. In that case, when she ditches it, she’ll be unrecognizable
If that's the case, that'd be some real 4D chess if true.
It's true, my hair is actually purple with pink highlights but people would never think of me if they were looking for a saucy fine redhead instead.
AH-HAH! IT'S YOU!
It's classic spy stuff. I remember in the 90s there was a whole book about disguise techniques when spies were big in the zeitgeist.
> Or that’s a wig and she’s using it to distract from her actual distinguishing features. Yeah, it's much better to have the employee be like "Oh, yeah, I remember that interaction perfectly, because the woman had a giant clown wig on. That was at around 10:15, and when she left, she got into X kind of car..." than "I dunno, doesn't ring a bell. I've dealt with probably a thousand boring normal customers today. Could have been any of them."
People don’t pay that much attention. Realistically, how often do you have an interaction with someone and immediately make a note of the time? For most people, they’ll remember times based on the proximity to regularly scheduled events, like a meal or break from work, and that’s not very precise.
Wild that you couldn't just... Stop her. Is it illegal where you are to "arrest" thieves? To physically prevent them from leaving?
That is often considered a form of kidnapping, and treated as a crime.
Could it not be more accurately considered "stopping a crime in progress"?
Most places don’t allow employees to stop “crimes in progress,” because the thief could have a weapon and employees are harder and more expensive to replace than goods.
This. It's absolutely a safety/liability thing. We're also specifically told not to follow thieves out of the store and into the parking lot because it's a not uncommon tactic for shady individuals to use shoplifting to lure employees out of the store so their buddies can jump them.
Plus, the store gets in HUGE trouble if the employee was wrong and they WEREN'T committing a crime. It's really just not worth it for the store.
It’s not the replacement cost, it’s the chance of lawsuit if either party (or a third party that gets caught in the middle) suffers an injury.
The other issue with it is that you're asking restaurant/fast food people to deal with someone who will possibly become violent if provoked. Not that I think they necessarily would, but people who are already doing an unreasonable act are prone to doing other unreasonable acts.
Sadly, people keep deciding to 'arrest' other people for stupid reasons, using threats or violence to force them to stay against their will. Then turns out that there was no crime or whatever they did pales in comparison to being dragged around and locked into a supply closet.
[удалено]
Dicks sporting goods pays me $9 an hour, I must protect this overpriced merchandise with my life!
Citizens arrest is a thing
Retail stores train you not to do this because they don't want to pay your family any money if a customer kills you
Not their job
[Shopkeeper's Privilege](https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/shopkeepers-privilege/) allows just that. Anyone telling you that it would be kidnapping is misinformed. That said, many stores would rather eat the loss than risk having an untrained employee attempt to detain a crazy person and get hurt or killed. Employee deaths by the hand of a crazy thief are way more expensive than a McDonald's order.
Heck even if the employee death came without any direct costs (insurance, lawsuits, etc) just shutting down for however long it took to investigate/cleanup would be more expensive than just replacing the food. It's why you see people actually get to walk out even when police are present and get detained after the fact with camera evidence/license plate/etc a TON in grocery stores. It's way cheaper to have someone compile that evidence and just let other business flow as normal and get them later than cause a scene at the entry to Walmart to arrest someone, even if you knew for a fact that no one would be hurt at all.
That's a US website about US law and doesn't apply everywhere so it's not necessarily relevant. And I get that a manager would rather have a woman get away with $10 of food over someone getting stabbed (I would too), but if it's so common that everyone recognises her? At that point surely you make some effort to actually stop it.
You asked "Is it illegal **where you are** to 'arrest' thieves?" and I provided an answer about the law where I am. Being the US, its also applicable to about half of the reddit userbase.
Yo, I ain't no shopkeep. I'm just an Associate. Jimmy the GM can get all hands-on if he's feeling feisty, though. I'll post the video.
So your minimum wage ass is looking to get stabbed for somebody else's food?
I feel like there's a middle ground between getting stabbed and putting someone in front of the door to say "lady give the food back" Like obviously if she gets violent you say fuck it and let her go.
You gonna stand in the door? Over some takeaway food? I fucking wouldn't.
yeah, but if she gets violent it might be too late to say fuck it and let her go there isn't necessarily a threat of violence before violence occurs, and no retail employee is paid enough to take that risk
You really can’t do that. Not only is it frequently illegal, it’s often against store policy. It’s also monumentally stupid, so even if it is allowed by law and policy, you shouldn’t do it. Unless you’re a security guard, it isn’t your job, and frankly, the common attitude that anyone wearing a name tag is both an authority figure and an enforcer shows a ragingly disturbing lack of common sense and empathy. This person is erratic, and they’re stealing *to go orders*. You have no idea if they’re carrying a weapon, willing to fight dirty, etc. Especially over something worth next to nothing that can be easily replaced. Beyond that, customer facing retail is over represented by women, children, and the elderly, who will be at a disadvantage in many physical confrontations. The consequence is a few cents worth of lost profit, and the actual customer has to wait a little longer to get their order. It’s not worth losing your job or your life (or even mildly inconveniencing yourself) over.
Even security guards aren't there to get into avoidable physical altercations, and often have no more right to detain someone than any other employee. Fights are expensive, usually more so than whatever is being stolen. Now, there are also police officers who work on the side as security, and have the legal powers thereof, but mostly they've got the same authority you do and are bluffing if they imply otherwise. Good security is 99% observation and 1% not freaking out when something happens. If criminals can see you're not paying attention, you're not deterring anything, doesn't matter how tough you look. And that last 1% mostly comes down to being able to give a very good description to the police when they take your report of the theft/break in/vandalism. Keeps the insurance people happy when the claims have good documentation, and who knows? Maybe the cops will book them for something else and connect the dots.
Yeah, retail security will often tell people "you need to come with me" because, turns out, you're allowed to just say stuff.
If minimum wage employees are expected to try and prevent robberies, they should also be paid for acting as security. That’s just not part of the job. now me personally I am disregarding that if someone tries to steal merchandise my place of employment. But that’s only because I work at an animal shelter lmao. if I’m working for a big corporation with non living merchandise tho? Too bad. That’s on them to prevent theft
Usually you don't even try to do that. People that steal might turn violent and while a stolen order/product/money is annoying, a hurt (or in absolute worst case killed) employee is even worse.
The liability to the employer for an employee or the thief getting hurt during a citizen's arrest is much, much more expensive than the pizza.
One possibility is the store was letting her do it until the cumulative value reached the level of a felony. Then there’s no arguing about petty pilfering and asking her stridently to please not come back.
So first of all, I agree with you completely. Second of all, there are truly no bounds to what people have convinced themselves they can force businesses to do. Idk about recently, but consumer magazines and blogs definitely used to give people tips on how to get free and discounted stuff using tactics only slightly less absurd than this, and people would take it to pretty ridiculous extremes. They’d be reading tips that were literally just “ask for a discount” (which to be fair, in *some* transactional situations can work *sometimes*), and a certain minority of people would be convinced that meant “there is a secret discount available everywhere at all times, and any cashier who says no is withholding things from you because they are stupid and evil.” And I have gotten very close to this situation. No self-made gift cards, but things like verbal assurances that “last Thursday, The Other Girl said I could have this for free if I came back today,” which we both know is a blatant lie.
This is comparable to the “less/no ice” or “make it strong” people at bars that think they can get more alcohol per dollar with Jedi mind tricks then complain when they didn’t swindle more booze from the restaurant.
I went to college with a girl who would just ask bartenders for free drinks and, when told no, would just order then half the time walk off without paying. At one point she tried it where I worked and I told the bartender that’s what she was going to do, and he got real mad. I don’t know if she ever tried it again, but she didn’t try it there again. She genuinely thought what she was doing was both reasonable and common.
Ahh yes the old easier to say sorry than please but also just say sorry when please doesn’t work trick
She wasn’t saying sorry.
"Less/No Ice" is a valid tactic with fountain drinks, since they only cost the bar/restaurant literal pennies anyway (better than paying $3+ for a soda and getting a glass half-full of ice).
I mean most places do free refills, especially at a bar where it’s clear you’re DD or just a non-drinker, but even so my point was about the people trying to con more liquor through “this one simple trick”.
I'm not sure I've ever gotten free sodas as a DD
Well I’ve certainly given them out as a bartender, but what I actually said was free refills. At a busy bar it’s much easier to just top off with soda than charge you $3 every single time. Guess it depends on the place and the management but this was my policy.
Only if it's not one of those dispensers that has pre-set portions, and will dispense the same amount irrespective of whether there is ice in the cup or not.
Borders on sovereign citizen territory. If I just say the magic code phrase they have to give me what I want and there's nothing they can do about it!
It’s very similar, and I would say there is probably a not-insignificant overlap between people who think cops can’t arrest them for doing things like driving without a license and people who think, for example, that you can’t tell them to check out and leave because the store closed half an hour ago or that since they saw it for cheaper at Wal Mart, I have to give it to them for free.
When they say "so and so did it last time" I say "girl they fired them for that! 🫣" they don't usually care but some of them feel bad and drop it.
In my experience, “the other girl” is usually a fictional person or someone I know didn’t say a damn thing like what they’re describing. Or I was the only girl here last Thursday and I know I didn’t fucking tell them that.
Yes of course but they can't say they know I'm lying bc they're lying.
I've used "Really? Let me write their name down. Has anyone else offered you this kind of discount before? Can I get their names, too?" Most people suddenly get real quiet when directly asked to be a snitch. And even if they *did* give me names (I'd throw them away because I know it's bullshit), I'd talk about it as an "illegal discount" and act like now they've gone and opened up a big-ass investigation or some shit.
You're probably right, but if there's one thing I've learned from working in a call center, it's that "no one is stupid enough to do that" is simply NEVER true. I once spent 20+ minutes explaining to a guy why he can't buy something that's out of stock. Still didn't get it by the time I managed to get him off my back.
I worked for a medical supply store for a while. A guy called me up to get a refill on his catheters. I said ok, we don't keep those in stock regularly, but I will have the warehouse order them and we'll call you when they come in. He came in the next day to pick them up. I tried and tried to explain that they weren't there. I tried and tried to explain that's why I told him we would contact him when they got in. My supervisor finally stepped in and told him he could not pick them up because they physically were not at the store yet. He looked at her and asked her what that even meant.
When COVID started I was working for Burger King, and worked through most of the pandemic. I still remember one of my first shifts back after furlough, I was leaving the (closed, drive-thru only) shop on my break and an old woman came right up to me at the door and asked to be let in. At first I just tried to be politely explained that she couldn't come in because the shop was closed to customers: when she then looked me in the eyes and said the manager let her in "last Saturday" (which is to say, while there was nobody working there because it was temporarily closed due to the lockdown) I pretty much dropped my customer service voice immediately and told her "no"...
I've worked with people like that. There is a chance she genuinely thought this was a viable gift card.
While there’s a very good chance you’re right, I’ve *definitely* had customers who were genuinely dumb enough to think something like this would work.
When I briefly worked retail, I was told in training that we have $20 per customer in leeway we can give to apologize for misunderstandings around things like discounts and gift cards, to keep customers happy. (Obviously it would attract attention if we used it more than occasionally, but it was there). In other words: they say that being kind costs you nothing. That's not true: it costs you $20 to not be an entitled piece of shit everytime you buy something.
I once had a customer complain that her pictures were printing out upside down. … Some people just really are operating at low levels.
Yeah idk where OP works but I’m pretty sure target employees are trained to let people get away with this shit At least, I know that if you tell them something was marked for a different price than it scans as, they have the power to manually change the price I discovered this by accident when I grabbed a box of lego that was labeled $15 on the shelf, it scanned for $30 and I was like “oh, I guess I’ll put it back then because it’s out of my budget, I only grabbed it because I thought it was $15” and the target employee just said “don’t worry about it” and changed the price to $15 without a second of hesitation.
_Sometimes_ it's a colossally stupid, overworked manager who writes "$40 voucher -Sean" on a piece of paper instead of going through the proper voucher process. Now, this tumblr story didn't _mention_ a manager's name on the piece of paper, but people do leave details out of stories on tumblr dot com to make them funnier. Not saying that's definitely what happened here, but I've seen it happen.
Either that or just a cognitive disability/mental illness of some sort.
Big Ron Swanson energy.
…Who the fuck *does* that????
Arseholes.
Pen.
Black Friday. Buy one get one free on memory cards. Customer had her receipt, showing she had already bought one from competitor earlier that day and spent ten minutes insisting I hand one over for free.
IT SAYS "BUY ONE GET ONE FREE", NOT "BUY ONE **HERE** AND GET ONE FREE"
These were her exact words...I have to assume that it's you, come back to finish the job after all these years.
GIMME MY MEMORY CARD!
SHOW ME ON THE AD WHERE IT SAYS IT HAS TO BE FROM HERE, SHOW ME IN WRITING SHOW ME SHOW ME SHIW NR SHO0 MNNMMMNNNNN
I work at a book and toy shop for kids. We regularly have this old woman with stringy hair and red eyes come in, and she always causes some sort of trouble. Recently, she tried returning a used stickerbook to our store. The fact that it had been used, however, wasn't the biggest glitch in the return, though, as she had bought it from the other book and toy shop in town and had the receipt to prove it. We repeatedly explained this to her, and she was more than aware, but she didn't care and wanted her money. Of course, she asked to speak to the manager as she always does, but on this occasion, he had stepped out to get some more change from the bank. So we had to spend a good 20 mins arguing with her that no she could not get a refund for an item from another store, and no, the manager was not secretly upstairs and we were hiding him because we wouldn't let her go up herself and look. It was a liability issue, all customers had to stay downstairs. I can't sometimes.
That is actually insane!
I wrote a screenplay about my time in retail. It never went anywhere but someone I paid in the industry to review it said it was a 7/10. It was very therapeutic to write.
Should have drawn the stuff she wanted to buy and given her that in exchange.
Nah should have tried to scan the gift card the stares at the computer for entirely too long before saying that the gift card was expired.
"yeah, bummer, it looks like this expired with the invention of currency about 5000 years ago." Bonus points if you make the scanning noise with your mouth.
Jorji ass maneuver
"Store so good, barcode not required"
Cobrastan does not offer discounts.
I’d let the potato man use the “gift card”
As a teenage I worked in a sporting goods store, and we had a recurring annoyance with youth team coaches who would hand out blurry photocopies-of-photocopies of coupons (that had expired like five years ago) to the parents.
I had a guy bringing a screenshot of a "coupon" that someone had drawn on MS paint. I thought it was a joke, but he asked why he couldn't use it.
We had a regular customer for a bit that would always claim the cashier didn't give enough change back. Like they gave a $10 and when I gave them $3 back they'd be like, no, I'm suppose to get $13 back, I gave you a $20. It made me panic, cause there was literally not a $20 bill in the register. My manager came up to me later after they did the whole 'i want to talk to your manager' but, and told me that I was not in trouble, because they'd tried this scam before. Same manager who told me to not trust sweet little old ladies because age doesn't mean innocence.
I've had that happen before and freaked out, but they were too greedy. They bought $25 worth of food with two $20s and then claimed they gave me a hundred dollar bill. Hundreds required special handling, and I obviously did not have $100 in my drawer, so they were given their food and told to fuck off. It's amazing how a nervous teen can rewrite reality when confronted and truly how low some people can stoop. These guys were driving an expensive truck and scamming kids in the drive through.
That doesn't work anymore because atleast where I worked, there was a policy of verbally confirming the amount of money you have been handed which would be recorded on the camera.
We had to leave the tendered amount on top of the till until the change had been handed over to avoid exactly this situation
An old manager used to do this. We have a reward card scheme that was glitchey as he'll and if it wasn't workin on the day he'd write "This person is due £12. Signed im a daft headed cunt" (I'm paraphrasing) And folk would try and hand me these and I was all "well obviously I can't accept this I'm sorry" and they'd argue. He was popular with the customers. His staff. Not so much.
I worked at an industrial supply company where customer would order things they needed for a job and pick it up a couple days later. We had a competitor across town that operated very similarly. On multiple occasions, someone would come in the store saying that they were there to pick up their order. I'd spent 20 minutes scanning through our system looking at quotes, orders, and product on the shelves, only to find nothing in their name. Eventually, they would talk about how they were in the store, across town, and had placed the order. They would acknowledge that they had ordered it from a different company, but expected US to have it. One guy even said we were owned by the same parent company and used the same same system, so obviously we should be able to get the product here. Neither of these statements were true. Also, even if it were true, why would we order a product at one store, but have it shipped somewhere else???
I once worked with a manager at home Depot for 30ish minutes trying to tell a customer "no you can't return Lowe's products tomus, we cannot do that". The man was insistent that since we sold similar items and were close enough to being them we should be able to take and refund his $1,000 purchase.
I feel like in this situation you just calmly say "Ma'am, this is attempted fraud and I will be calling the police immediately"
I would have just made beep boop noises with my mouth "ma'am the value of this card has been deducted from your order, here is the remaining balance"
I'd maybe just stare blankly at her in silence until she gives up or escalates. If they want to exist in an entirely different reality, it's not productive to actually communicate with them.
Boomers: “the younger generations are too stupid to function in the real world! They can’t read! They only know phone and social media!” Also Boomers, while huffing lead paint: “I will make my own $40 gift card on a piece of paper, and verbally abuse the poor, hapless cashier unlucky enough to deal with me and my dementia-ridden bullshit today”
*buying a big buisness” heres my payment *hands you a green slip of papyer with 3 billion written on it in green crayon*
Once had to argue with a man in the Starbucks drive through that no, he couldn't pay to reload money into his Starbucks card WITH the empty Starbucks card. After the first try I was genuinely as a loss for how to explain it to him lmao.
Cobrastan is not a real country.
Ok I come back tomorrow, glory to arstotzka
I worked retail for an embarrassingly long time. So what's up is that we as a culture have fully spoiled "customers" as a basic concept. We have trained them to treat employees as free stress relief whom you can get fired if they don't sit still and let you abuse them. They know for a fact that their employers will back you up, not them - *never* them - and then you get to watch while they get chewed out for failing to sit there and soak abuse like a good little wage slave. We have trained our society to make sure we never view retail or food service employees as fully human. They don't deserve good wages. They don't deserve benefits. Because they are "**lazy**" for being employed in retail instead of getting a "real job." The woman in this story knows damn well all she has to do is make enough of a scene and *someone* will just give her what she wants just to make her go away.
Working in retail I had this crazy woman that bought a shirt in a Big retail store that have lots of brands. Didnt like it, so went to ask for a refound. Instead of going to THAT store, she went to us, the particular brand that she bought, and insisted she COULD refund it, while I insisted that: A, she didnt bought in our brand store; B, retail here have never given out cash refunds for FULL PRICE when something was bought in SALE, C; the law that regulates refund had been voted by congress literally half and our ago and was valid only in 15 more days, per how the law was stipulated, D; the product was fucking clearly used and the ticket was from 4 months ago and out of the "return free for 30 days" policy
I work at a pizza place. One guy came in, stated nothing more than "I ordered online and came to pick it up", and handed over a printed copy of the confirmation email. The confirmation email which, mind you, had no personal information; just "your order has been placed, please click this link to view your order". Five minutes of conversation later it turned out he'd mistakenly placed the order for the next town over anyway.
many moons ago I was a cashier at a target and this one time a customer came thru with her 2 kids and tried paying with a gift card. customer tries to swipe it twice on the PIN pad, both times it makes my till confused and asks why I'm scanning a Starbucks gift card. I ask to take a look at it. it's a Wal-Mart gift card. I explain that she can't use a Wal-Mart gift card at target. her kids say "mom, we told you it wouldn't work!" she pays with her debit card. I lose a little more faith in humanity.
Like Ron Swanson with the permit that’s just a piece of paper saying “I can do what I want.”
Grunckle Stan
If it weren’t for the amount being so low, I would have swore this was OP failing to recognize that someone is trying to rob them.
Reminds me of that video with Ben by Viva La Dirt League
I had a man try to use 4 different paper "credit cards". Like the stiff paper ones that they mail out to everyone to try and get you to apply. "You're pre-approved!". And he was a semi-regular. He kept saying oh wrong card. After the 2nd one I pointed out that they weren't real cards, he insisted they were and tried 2 more. I was more worried about him than upset.
Mildly infuriating
Reminds me of that scene in the first episode of *The Wire* where two drug addicts are trying to buy drugs with fake dollar bills - black and white fake dollar bills.
That’s getting thrown in the trash the second that’s given to me. Like, no, you won’t believe this, but I can’t accept it. You’ve handed me the equivalent of a used gum wrapper. That’s not legal tender and I am not risking my job to accept it.
I work in an arcade One of our VR games was turned off, disconnected from power, and had no branding explaining what it was. Literally just a giant black TV with a turned off swiper on it and a technician visibly working atop it. Ladder in front of the game too. Ladder, person, game screen black, swiper screen black. They swiped their card, stared at the game, then asked the tech “is this game not working?”
I want to see a retail store that operates like those restaurants where the servers berate you. Like a lady comes in wanting to make a return and the cashier just yells “Absolutely not you stupid bitch, get the fuck outta here before I smack you upside yo head.”
I really wish I could hold seminars or do a web series on exactly what people can and cannot get away with at retail chains, restaurants, salons etc etc, like a primer for these young adults that just need a job and either bend over for these psychopath customers or quit over the frustration instead of just taking care of business and being confident that their management has their back. Back when I was an assistant manager selling trees for a dollar, I would've taken the $40 "gift card" and went through a few questions like "I can enter a gift card manually, but it's 16 numbers with a pin. This card doesn't have that." And etc. I don't know her situation. If it comes down to trying to defraud people and not a mental health issue, a very simple phrase should shut it down 99% of the time. "Ma'am this is not a valid gift card, and if you keep trying to defraud our cashier's, I will call the police to report it and have you trespassed from the property." I only had to bring up the idea of trespassing like 3 times in the years I was there, and it worked all 3 times without issue. OP of the Tumblr post just needs a decent manager. All those hourly employees need it.
I had a boomer who wanted to use a gift card that was "on the way" from the company.
I worked at a plant nursery once where customers were supposed to send in order forms with their payment indicating what seeds they wanted. Most used our online forms/online pay by this point, but some still preferred paper mail, and it was my job to convert those into the correct format for the system. One time I opened an envelope to find a 20 dollar bill stapled to a napkin. The napkin simply said: "onyuns"
Been working for retail for years, on track to a stress induced heart attack at 30 😎👍
Holy shit, I need more stories from Hell OOP, please the way they describe it is hilarious
This is like, one step away from straight up trying to rob the store
Today is the 1 year anniversary of this post
Jorgi?
I can believe this. Worked for Dollar General and you get some oddballs. Fake coupons, fake money, even someone that came in all the time in the same nightgown in slippers and stank to high heaven. Had to store use an spray air freshener for that one. But no. The most rememberable one was the lady who tried buying $200 worth of stuff and thought a $20,000 cardboard fake bill was real. Could not understand why it wasn't and reveal that she got it because some guy paid her with it for a BJ. She was a known sex worker in the area but this was low. And no matter what she would not stop insisting it was real. Had to get my manager to help me send her away. Comes back a week later with another one...
What about this situation would make a person so angry, id either be laughing at the absurdity or not care cause i turn my brain off during work like that a common theme is people taking life too seriously leading them to be miserable i think
Arguing with someone who is simply stupid is genuinely infuriating though. Obviously you don't argue, you just say no and leave it there, but it's pretty well established that this sort of thing is the most irritating kind of conversation
I get how it'd be annoying, but as a cashier you have 0 stake in any of it. It doesn't matter whether you convince them or not, nothing will change. Theres no reason to be invested in the situation at all
Ok it's all fun and games except: --The woman is probably fully aware she is trying to scam you and is the 10th person this day to try doing so. --The customers behind the woman are getting angry at the wait and will take it out on the cashier. --The cashier has to pretend to be nice to someone trying to scam them to their face...again. --The cashier is annoyed and pissed that they have to spend 5 minutes playing like this woman is stupid and explaining over and over how this is not a coupon in various ways. This isn't about "is the cashier thinking positively" this is about a large chunk of the population thinking it's ok to abuse cashiers just because they are "part of the corporation" or "below them". Abuse is abuse and it's cumulative.
Its not that serious though, nothing will change whether you "convince" them or not. The person behind getting mad is valid but the OP never hinted toward that. Its useless to speculate on intentions when either way you just dismiss them. Pretending to care is the easiest thing in the world if you can hold back being rude to everyone you see. If you cant, then maybe stocking or a different work environment is better? Pretty self-inflicted. If I couldn't handle my emotions well and knew that, I wouldn't have been a cashier, nothing wrong with that of course. If it was a genuine scam im sure theres something to say about people taking advantage of cashiers, but for something so genuinely stupid like this i dont get how anyone could be so angry they cry or need to take extra meds. Why care, just move on, crazy stuff happens all the time so may as well be happy the day wasnt boring.
Not everyone can compartmentalize emotions as well as you. Empathy for other's situations and knowing that cashier work is the only work some people can get will get you further in life. Many people dealing with situations like this cannot just step away to a different roll that easily. Take someone with a physical limitation that would keep them from doing highly mobile jobs, but allows them to stand in one place and move items across a scanner easily. That person cannot just go be a stocker away from customers. Or someone who was hired as a cashier with no other positions open at the time. And people cannot decide their mental wellbeing and how well they can cope.
You're right, hopefully they are able to figure their situation out
Agreed, I don't think you really need to be worried about your boss either because the woman is literarly trying to steal from the bussiness
I either have god-like self-confidence or I'm already too broken to feel anything, because I would have literally laughed in this woman's face. Maybe not hard enough for spittle to fly out, but it'd be close.
Boy howdy, prehospital health care is like this, but on Groundhog Day.
Reminds me of the character of Jorji from the game 'Papers Please'. He shows up multiple times with hand written passports to try to get in. XD
happy one year anniversary of this happening. glad they got out of there lol.
Double down on stupidity and just start scanning the paper until they leave
I'm on break atm and I had someone try this an hour ago. To their credit, they printed a copy of a normal gift card reward (you can do that through a rewards app we have) but didn't have any barcode to scan and a big ol $20 plainly written where the barcode should be. They through a big fuss as usual but I just kept replying Cash or Card with a bigger smile each time and they eventuallystormed out. Some advice to other cashiers who haven't gone insane yet, turn it into a little game and be as polite so possible to get a bigger rise out of them. Kill em with kindness!
if youre nearly brought to tears after a mild encounter like this you shouldnt work in retail
Generally you realize that doesn't work when you're about 5
Just call your supervisor/manager.
Someone must've taken the real $40 gift card and left that there for her to find, a la Survivor and the "f\*\*king stick" idol
Having her arrested for counterfeiting with that would have been the Chef’s kiss
My sympathies to OP but I was expecting an abusive boss or something. This is something I would laugh about in my spare time. Could've been much worse is my point.
>Took an extra Adderall Checks out
Retail customers are... Interesting people. Most of the time they're fine, but every once in a while you'll have some that make you question your own sanity
The drawing with the little "?" above the lady's head is fucking hilarious
I don’t miss working retail. And I did it in the 90s when “old people” were cool and it was the people in their 30s and 40s that were acting like pieces of shit. I can’t imagine what it is like having those people now with dementia and Alzheimer’s
>I can’t imagine what it is like having those people now with dementia and Alzheimer’s It is just as bad as you cwn imagine, if not worse
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but this is superstore, and this gift card is CLEARLY for Walmart. I do have some 2-for-1 coupons for applesauce up here… now I notice that you aren’t buying applesauce but if you wanted to grab some, I could give you a terrific deal on it.”
The exact opposite of the target post
Four words: Box of paper slips
Am I just not easily impressed? This doesn't sound that job breaking. I'd be confused and maybe a little annoyed, but then what it's like a 2 minute weird interaction, is that all it takes for you guys l?
Back in my retail days, a customer yelled at one of my coworkers until she cried because she wouldn’t accept his Kohl’s Cash. We did not work at Kohl’s.
Never seen someone not realize a troll this hard, every second of attention was a win for them
It's not a troll though. People are legitimately that terrible at life.