This guy works at a grocery store as a self-checkout attendant, a job that he thought would be easy, but he quickly learned that customers could turn into feral animals at the slightest inconvenience.
A Self-Checkout Attendant
Yesterday Samuel arrived at work and was immediately hit with chaos. There were only five of the 14 self-checkout registers operational – you could tell which were out of order as the staff flipped the screens up so you could see the machine’s insides. To make matters worse, there wasn’t enough staff coverage, leaving just Samuel and one other coworker to handle the madness.
Corporate and marketing were visiting that day, and everyone was on edge. Samuel and his coworker were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to keep up with the demand. Customers were flooding in, and they all wanted to use the self-checkout machines.
A Difficult Day
Samuel spent the first few hours of his day telling customers that the lifted-up registers were not working. Some would just walk up, see the vast nothing, and just start scanning. They would then look all amazed that they couldn’t see the screen or hear the beeps or anything. But several customers stuck out in Samuel’s mind.
The first nightmare customer showed up while Samuel was helping a mother and her daughter. She was livid that some registers were down, even though there were manned registers available with lines. The other self-checkout was fully operational but further down, and she was unhappy about that. She looked towards the nearest lady and started complaining loudly.
Nightmare Customer #1
“I don’t know why they just don’t fix these things! I don’t know why I should wait. Or why the deli department can’t check me out?! (the deli department doesn’t even have a register?) They should have more people on registers, and honestly, they need to start trusting me instead of forcing me to show my receipt. Bla bla bla.”
Samuel walked away as she continued her rant, loud enough for his coworker to hear her. Well, funny enough, she needed help – she sat there bashing them for minutes and suddenly turned all sweet when she needed them to okay her alcohol! The second Samuel’s coworker okayed it. She was back to being mean like they couldn’t hear her. She finally stomped out after his coworker informed her that they could only check gift card balances on the manned registers.
Nightmare Customer #2
Then there was nightmare customer number two. This one got everyone upset, including the salon workers, bank workers, and even other customers who were being patient. Samuel was busy processing a suspended order while his coworker was trying to key in an item for another customer.
Little did they know that she needed help. But she didn’t ask. She just stood there at her screen, waiting for one of them to look at her and call them over. Unfortunately, when Samuel finished with the order, he turned to help his coworker, which is when Karen screamed:
“DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY WORK HERE?! I NEED HELP!”
Everyone looked at her, which made her embarrassed – she was causing a scene, after all. Samuel walked over to her, and she said, “I need help to slide my card because the chip is broken.” So Samuel picked up her card, slid it through, and it worked. He set it down and walked away while her husband gave a very quiet, embarrassed “Thank you.”
Nightmare Customer #3
As if that wasn’t enough, nightmare customer number three came along! A guy walked up to a green register with the screen flipped up. His coworker informed him that it wasn’t working, and that’s when this awful customer kicked off:
“But the damn lights are green.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t control the lights,” Samuel’s coworker replied.
“THEN BRING SOMEONE WHO [] DOES!” He screamed at the top of her voice
Samuel’s coworker remained calm and told him that “nobody here does that. We’re a retail store; we don’t have a mechanic on-site, we don’t have tools, and none of us are trained electricians.”
Customer Aren’t Always Happy
He did not like his reply. He kicked off more curses at Samuel’s coworker before storming out! It was just another reminder of how customers can turn into animals at the slightest inconvenience!
After all that, Samuel was about ready to throw in the towel. He couldn’t believe how rude some customers could be over something that was out of his control. He only stayed to finish his shift because his manager would have been dead on the floor if he had left!
After sleeping on it, Samuel realized that this was a part of retail and finished his post with a message to all those animalistic customers out there.
“Guys, please, remember that we are also human. We have no control over the registers, how many are staffed, how to fix them, or anything. We are just trying to survive through the day.”
What do you think about his story? Have you ever screamed at a retail worker?
The post Working In Retail Means Dealing With a Barrage of Nightmare Customers Everyday! Why Did He Think Things Would Be Different? first appeared on Wealthy Living
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Cast Of Thousands. The people shown in the images are for illustrative purposes only, not the actual people featured in the story.
Source: Reddit