We're Still Human (Confessions of a Grocery Store Clerk)

1: "Fucking Retard"

Abusive customers. There’s a lot of those. And since they leave some of the worst imprints embedded in our memories, I’ll could tell you all about plenty of them. Of course, the worst customer I’ve ever encountered was a middle-aged woman who changed her mind frequently throughout the transaction, the day before Easter.

Okay, I can deal with customers changing their minds. That’s as simple as hitting ‘void’ and re-scanning whatever item they no longer want.

Well, this woman changed her mind back and forth, and acted like she never said that she no longer wanted the items I was attempting to void off for her. First, it was the toothpaste. Because we have store coupons for a name brand toothpaste and she wanted to get the sale on it. Okay, first off, let me say, if you have a coupon, manufacturer’s or store, READ. THE. COUPON.

Honestly, read every stupid detail to be absolutely certain you have the correct product. I can’t tell you what a pain in the ass it is to explain to a customer they have the wrong item. Especially if that customer is having a bad day and decides, ‘Hey, look, a human punching bag!’ Um, no, bitch. Just no. Don’t do it. Do you have any idea the crap pay we get to put up with that?

Anyway, this woman got a 5.8 oz. toothpaste. The coupon was for 4.6 oz. So, while it may have been the right brand, it was most certainly not the right size. And you know what happens then?

Scan the coupon and get the ‘coupon must match previous sale’ message. Well then. And I calmly explained this to the customer, and to which I swear she replied, very dismissively, “Well then, just take it off.”

Okaayy . . . I void the toothpaste. Her next question: “Wasn’t it on sale for $2.29?” While she’s staring directly at the screen that clearly reads $3.69. Technically -$3.69 because I had to void it. I explained to her that it was ringing up without any sales after double checking that it wasn’t a post-total sale. Annddd then she decides she wants the toothpaste. All right. Dealing with it calmly. Put the toothpaste back on and in her bag.

Next issue? Her coupons. Again.

In our store, we have a thing called a Catalina Printer. It’s this wonderful little machine that, based on your purchases, prints out coupons to suggest other items for you to buy. Thing is, these coupons are from the manufacturer’s themselves, not the store. While they are to be used in the store, they are not, in fact a ‘store coupon’. For those of you who don’t know, this is important because you can stack store and manufacturer coupons to get things super-cheap.

Thing is, if a coupon says ‘manufacturer’ at the top, it cannot be combined with another manufacturer coupon unless the sum of the items matches the sum of the specified items on the coupons.

So, in this case, the woman had a Catalina (manufacturer coupon, as they all are) for $1.50 off three packages of these wipes she’d purchased. She also had three other manufacturer coupons for one package each of the wipes. She only had three packages. So, if you can see where this is going, I applaud you. She could not use all the coupons.

Fortunately, the coupons for the single packages doubled because, well, we have ‘Double Daze’ (yes, that’s how it’s spelled), so she got a dollar off each. But, of course, when I told her both the Catalina coupon and the other coupons wouldn’t work together unless she had SIX packages of the wipes, she told me, “Well then, I don’t want them.”

Um. Okay. So, I start voiding the coupons, because the computer won’t void an item that has a coupon until the coupons are voided. As I finish the coupons and I’m about to start voiding the wipes, she decides to go, “What are you doing? I still want them! You’re misinterpreting everything I say!”

So, I pause, take a deep breath, and calmly say, “Ma’am, you just told me you didn’t want them.”

She, in turn, took a minute to huff, ignore me, and then say, “Well, I want them.” She didn’t deny saying she didn’t want them, she was, in my belief, trying to bully me into giving her the sales when she knew very well that wasn’t how it worked. Right after this, she muttered, quite loudly, and I quote, “Fucking RETARD.”

Excuse me you raging bitch? Of course, I can’t say that. I put her coupons back on, calmly re-bagged her stupid wipes, told her total and carried through with the payment. At the end of each transaction, we are obligated to give the customer the coupons that print from the Catalina Printer.

So, I hand her the new coupons as well as her unused one. She takes one look at them, crumples them up and throws them back across the counter, saying “These are all trash. They’re completely worthless.” She grabbed her groceries, and walked out.