If you’ve ever worked in retail, you know just how hard of a job it can be. One of the most challenging aspects? The customers. People can be just plain ol’ stupid, or even worse, RUDE. These AskReddit users share their most WTF moments while workin’ in minimum wage hell.
1. Your Fault For Wearing Red
“I was in Target, and a customer turns to me and asks where a particular product is. I reply, and tell her what aisle I think it’s in, and roughly where to find it. I then go back to what I was doing.
This lady suddenly gets all huffy, and is like “that wasn’t very helpful, aren’t you supposed to take me to the product or something”!? I’m kind of taken back by her rude response, and just kind of blink at her for a second until I realize what’s happening.
And then I look her straight in the eye and say: “I don’t work here.”
The look on her face was priceless.
I try not to wear red shirts to shop at Target anymore.”
2. Who’s Gotta Clean Up The Mess, Though?
“Watched a man carrying six bottles of red wine simply drop all six bottles on the ground (shattering them) and walk out of the store, khakis stained bright red like a savage business casual warlord.
My assumption was that it was an accident and he was horribly embarrassed and just left. I’d like to believe that it was an intentional piece of performance art, because it was the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed.”
3. Some People…
“I worked at a fast food place for a while and had this one regular who ALWAYS had something to complain about.
The worst was that no matter what, our fries were NEVER fresh.
Whenever we saw her we’d drop fresh fries just so she wouldn’t complain about them. She’d order, and we’d give her fries directly from the fryer and she’d tell us they weren’t fresh…what the fuck? My manager got them from her, walked to the back, and brought her the exact same container and apologized…The lady said “these are perfect” and went about her day.”
4. Who Wants A Dirty Bag Of Dirt? Nobody.
“I worked at Walmart. A woman came in to return a bag of soil because “the bag was dirty”.
She was dead serious.”
5. Casual.
“So I used to work in H&M located on 5th Ave in NYC, so as you can imagine we would get assholes from all over the world. One day I hear over our radio a frantic call for the porter to come to the ladies fitting room. Turns out a woman decided to take a shit in the fitting room, and use some shirts to wipe herself.
The real ‘are you serious?’ moment was that she continued shopping through the store casually.”
6. Smart Thief
“I used to work at Walmart, and one day some people came in saying they wanted to purchase a TV. I knew these people to be rather shady (they would come several times a week and try to ‘return’ cans of food for cash that were not purchased at our store, likely taken from the local food pantry). They asked to borrow one of the big flatbed carts from the service desk where I worked. I asked if they would like me to page someone to Electronics to help, and they hastily said no and booked it out of the service desk area.
A few minutes go by and I see them rush out the door, TV, cart and all. No spider wrap, no alarm, no door greeter to check receipts. My supervisor just shook her head and said there was nothing we could do. About a week later, who do you suppose shows up? The people with their TV, saying it didn’t work and wanted to return it… and they “lost the receipt”.”
7. Got Milk?
“I hear “excuse me?” and look up from stocking the milk, which I’m standing in front of. “Could you tell me where your milk is?”
I almost didn’t answer her, milk is basically the whole aisle and I had it in my hands.”
8. That’s One Way To Handle Yourself…
“I worked in an Old Navy for quite a few years. We weren’t particularly known for our thorough loss prevention, so some people had gotten quite comfortable openly stealing in front of employees.
Eventually, loss prevention turned over to new management and kicked into overdrive. They had squads of people who would team up in stores to attempt to catch a few people so the word would spread and we’d see a few less shoplifters.
They were running this operation at a store in a low income area, when suddenly a Caucasian lady in her mid 50s came in and started shoving random things in her purse with little regard to her surroundings, shoes and tops hanging halfway out of her purse. When she tried to leave, loss prevention stopped her at the door and informed her that they had notified the police and she needed to remain there until they arrived. She immediately said “I have to go to the bathroom”, and as they tried to tell her that wasn’t an option she started screaming “I’M POOPING!” and shit herself.
They escorted her to the bathroom, since it’s a single room without windows and she has no chance to escape. They figured this would be an opportunity for her to clean herself up, and this was mostly for the police, so they wouldn’t have to have to soak the car in bleach afterwards. After the police arrived they realized she had been in the room for a while and wouldnt respond or unlock the door. Management opened the door with a key and found the woman covered in her own shit, which she has also rubbed all over the walls, ceiling and floor.
People are fucking nuts. I’ve got a million stories.”
9. Genius.
“Guy walks in to Tractor Supply, steals bolt cutters off of the shelf. Then walks to the side door and cuts the lock where two of his buddies have been placing items near the door. They pile everything in this tiny car and just drive off. They were caught later that day for trying to steal from another store in the same plaza.”
10. That’s Just Good Business Sense
“I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16-17. My first day, in the grill area training during lunch rush, this guy comes through the drive thru and orders 100 burgers, 50 plain, 50 with cheese. I was like, “WTF man?” I was told it was a lunch truck guy that would order them (at the time we had a 49 cent burger and 59 cent cheeseburger day) then dress them out and sell them for like 2 to 3 bucks a piece to his customers.”
11. Cat Milk
“I didn’t work there but was behind this woman in line at my tiny town’s dollar store place. She was buying a couple cans of that milk supplement for kittens. Thought it was actual cat milk and was buying it to drink herself in some sort of fancy food party she was throwing for herself. “Yeah, I done went to Kroger’s and got me some fancy cheese and shit.” I had to leave the line because I was on the verge of bursting into laughter at the look on the cashier’s face.”
12. Dude Likes His Spam
“I work overnight stock at Walmart. One night, I’m over stocking the Spam section, and this big guy walks up. Big big. I’m talking 300-400 pounds big. I continue minding my own business, putting things on the shelves, and he speaks.
“Excuse me, sir. I am so, so sorry that you have to see this.” And then he just…pauses. Confused and concerned on equal levels, I stand up and turn around to look at him, wondering what, exactly, he plans on doing. After staring at me for about a good twenty seconds (no exaggeration) he reaches over and and grabs a ton of Spam. More containers of Spam than I ever thought anybody should ever need in their lifetime, let alone one shopping trip. (That one is an exaggeration, sue me.)
With his cart fully loaded with Spam, he turns around and walks away, leaving a huge empty spot on the shelves that I’d been filling up. I manage to get out a quick, “Have a nice day” before he escaped around the corner. It was… certainly an experience.”
13. Obviously
“Definitely the time when I was moaned at by a customer for not being on a very obviously unmanned checkout despite there being a very obvious long line because I was very obviously on the phone for an ambulance for a customer who had very obviously collapsed and was now very obviously bleeding to death.”
14. Stalker
“A guy came in who I have never encountered in my life, served him and all was well. 3 hours after my shift, a notification pops up on my phone. This guy had found my instagram and my Snapchat and added me. What’s creepy is the only thing he knew about me was my first name. That was it. Also, I only recently moved to the area and know nobody here. Creeped me out for sure.”
Photo Credit: YouTube
15. Aren’t People Just The Best?
“I work at Macy’s in the women’s shoes department. Our customer base mainly buys clearance items, and they rarely spend more than $40. Every day I watch as customer after customer asks if they can use coupons, get an extra % off of the price, or any discount possible. Now, one customer took the cake over every other one. She came to me and asked me to get 18 clearance shoes. As I work off commission and this was a pretty large sale, I basically ran around the stockroom to gather these shoes. I brought them all out neatly stacked in their boxes, and rang them up at the register for her and her total came to $236.
This is where shit went south. She asked if she could use her 20% off coupon, now normally hell yeah you can use that coupon, but this day we were having a sale. All clearance shoes were marked down 80% and were roughly $10-20 per pair. So coupons were prohibited. She then SCREAMED at me until I called my manager. Like calling me every name in the book, telling me I’m a fucking idiot, that I shouldn’t be allowed to work there because I must be retarded, everything. My manager finally came and when she explained that coupons weren’t allowed for this particular sale, the woman bought all 18 pairs, for $236, but made someone else ring it up so I wouldn’t make commission on the sale. Little did she know the other sales person rang it up using my ID number. Dumb bitch.”
16. Miscommunication
“I worked at a store as a pharmacy tech, and it was very slow. People would often come up to me and ask if I knew where non-pharmacy shit was, and I always just pointed them towards customer service.
One day this VERY old black woman (had to be 85+) with a strong Southern accent comes up to the counter.
“Hello ma’am, how can I help you today?”
“Wheres the collagen?” (I think: ah, a skin care product perhaps?Maybe the health section? So I walk out to the aisles and start looking with her).
“Collagen, well…I don’t think we carry pure collagen…are you looking for a skin care product or supplement?” She just stares at me, looks up and down the aisle, at all the lotions, then back at me.
“Collagen. Where’s the collagen?” She repeats.
At this point I’m getting quite frustrated. I’m rummaging through these shelves of creams and lotions and coming up with nothing. So I walk over to the pharmacists, and consult with him…he recommends sending her to customer service, but I decide to push through. Keep in mind, it’s been about 10 minutes.
I walk back over to her, and start scouring the vitamin/supplement section, and finally locate some kind of powdered collagen.
“Aha, here we go!” I announce, as I hand her the bottle.
She looks at the bottle, then at me and says:
“Where’s the collagen??? I’m makin soup”
Fucking College Inn broth.”
17. Did I Stutter?
“I used to work at a grocery store as a bagger. This guy said he wanted his milk in a bag, and he has a lot of stuff…so when I finally got around to the milk (’cause, prioritizing and all that jazz), I wanted to confirm that’s what he said. It just slipped my mind. So I asked again…
He proceeded to yell, so loud that the next two lanes got quiet and they were all staring at what was going on, “Are you fucking stupid? You have hearing problems? Where is your manager? They should fire you for being so stupid. I already said I wanted it in the bag.”
For fucks sake, I just want to make people happy. Of course, the asshole manager was working that day, so he didn’t say a word, even though he watched it go down. I at least had the sympathy of the checkers from the other two lanes.”
18. Where’s The Beef?
“You’d be surprised how many women would rather slip a raw steak into their purses/pants than pay whatever sale price they are going for.
And this is in the ‘Upscale’ supermarket as well.”
19. So…Delivery?
“Woman bought a shed. I asked her her loading bay number and she said she hadn’t driven. Asked her if she needed the number of a man with a van or something. She said her husband could carry it.
I stared at her and said very slowly “Madam, it is a building.”
She insisted that I was being ridiculous and demanded we bring it up so her middle-aged, slightly chubby husband could carry it out the store as they only lived “about ten minutes walk away”.
We brought it up, with extreme difficulty, and she asked me “what’s that thing?” I said “That’s your shed madam.” “There’s no way Jeff is carrying THAT!”
Oddly, she decided to pay the money to have it delivered.”
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