But, unfortunately, there are as many nasty customers as there are pleasant ones, sometimes even more. And if you don't know if you're one of the customers retail workers hate, you're about to find out. And, really, it shouldn't be news to you. If you are the kind of person who will throw a temper tantrum and yell at a cashier to get whatever you want, we all hate you. We do not value your business. People treat retail workers this way more often than should be acceptable. Pay attention and you will see it happening. As a retail worker, I can say it happens all the time.
I have always hated the phrase "the customer is always right". It's complete crap. The customer is NOT always right. In fact, the customer is almost always wrong. What this phrase does is say the customer can verbally abuse an employee and throw a fit/temper tantrum to get whatever they want. Even if it's against store policy, even if it's going to make a cashier's drawer short at the end of the day. People scream and verbally abuse cashiers to get discounts, or something for free and it sucks that those of you who do that get more free stuff than the kind, considerate people who actually deserve it. Anyone who will actually stoop so low as to verbally abuse someone to get a few dollars off of something is a piece of trash.
In this post, I will attempt to instruct you on how to properly treat retail workers, who, believe it or not, are actually human beings. I wouldn't be doing this at all of if there weren't so many of you who treat retail workers like they are beneath you. I will also talk about how not to be an incredibly inconvenient customer. So, pay attention. Some of you might learn something.
1. Paying with a $100 bill
Sometimes, this is acceptable. Other times, it is incredibly inconvenient for the cashier. Please try and remember that the cash register is not an endless money box. If you are going to insist on paying with such a large bill, it would be considerate of you to make sure the cashier can break it first. This is especially true if your total is $20 or less. Like, why are you even paying with such a huge bill for such a small amount? You are not the only person paying with that bill and it's ridiculous to make a cashier pull out $97 in change for a $3 purchase. Please try to remember you are not the only customer. You don't have to pay with such a huge bill. Before you go to the store where you are only going to buy one thing, stop at a bank and get change for crying out loud. I have so many people pay with large bills for small purchases and it is so incredibly annoying. And some people are so rude about it. I once had a man buy something that totaled to $20 and payed with $100. Now, my manager had just come to my register and done a cash pick up, and the person before him had paid with $100, so I was relatively low on cash needed to make large amounts in change. I tried to make the $80 with the fewest bills I could, but it would have taken basically all the large bills I had left and you don't want to be stuck at a register with not even a ten or twenty for change. I politely asked him if he, by any chance, had a smaller bill and he said no. So I just gave him all the bills I could without leaving my drawer relatively empty so I had to throw a couple of fives and like five ones in there as he complained about how "ridiculous" it was that I "didn't even have $80 in the cash register" and then, after I gave him his change, whining to the customers behind him because he didn't like the bills used for his change. First, he whines because I "don't have $80" and then he whines because he didn't like the bills I had available at the time he paid with a large amount. But I had just given my manager most of the money from my drawer, as I'm supposed to, the customer right after that got a small total and paid with $100 so making large amounts in change with just 20's wasn't possible at the time. So maybe next time you have a total of $30 or less and you decide to give the cashier one hundred dollars, don't throw a temper tantrum because you get back more bills than you like. We have what we have. You don't know what's happened before you, so if you're not going to make sure they can break it, don't make a scene because they had to give you a few smaller bills to make the change. It's not worth it. Like, why? Whining doesn't put more money in the drawer, it just makes you a jerk.
2. Tapping/Snapping for attention
I should not have to tell you that this is rude. Retail workers are not dogs, they are not servants. They are people. You don't snap at people for their attention. Retail employees assist you, they don't answer to you. I can't even begin to describe how annoying this is. I work inside a small booth that is surrounded on three sides by glass windows. Sometimes, I have to do something that is not within a customer's line of vision. If a customer walks up and immediately doesn't see me, they are knocking on the window. Sometimes they knock on the window if my head is turned in the other direction. If I am right in front of them but writing something down, they knock on the window. Sometimes they knock on the window as they are walking up before they even get to the front. There is literally no reason on earth for this. For gosh sakes have a little patience. It has gotten to the point where if people start knocking on the glass for my attention, I intentionally take a few extra seconds with whatever I am doing. You can wait. We know you're there. We will help you. But sometimes, if we are in the middle of something, you might have to wait two or three seconds. Get over it. Believe it or not, helping you is not the only job I have. If you approach and don't immediately see someone, chances are we're not hiding from you. We are actually busy with something/someone else at the moment. Don't knock windows, whistle, or snap your fingers for an employees attention. Just don't.
3. Being on the phone
It's amazingly ridiculous that after all this time, people still don't understand proper phone etiquette. So, here is a lesson from a minimum wage retail employee to you: don't walk up to the register on your phone. Don't make a busy cashier stand and there and wait for you to be paying attention so they can check you out. It's very rude to be on the phone when someone is trying to help you. If you walk up to my register and expect me to do things for you while you are babbling along on your phone and not paying attention to me, I am going to talk to you as if you aren't on the phone. I'm going pretend the phone isn't there and if you miss hearing something, or don't understand after the transaction is through, don't whine at me. I informed you of everything. You just weren't paying attention because you were on your phone. Here's an idea: if you aren't done on the phone, don't walk up to the register! Or if you insist on walking up to the register before you're done on the phone, have the person on the phone wait, or call them back for crying out loud. It's not rocket science, people! It's common courtesy. Well, it should be common.
4. Complaining to a cashier about prices
Did you know that the employees of a retail business have zero say in the pricing of products? Some of you act like everyone who works at a business, cashiers and everyone else, sits in a back room and votes on the prices of individual items. That doesn't happen. What happens is we ring up the items you buy. We don't make the prices and we can't change them for you. If you think it's too expensive, don't tell a cashier, just don't buy the stupid thing. Telling a cashier does absolutely nothing! We don't go up to the manager at the end of the day and report to them what items you feel are too much money. We just clock out and go home glad to finally get away from you. Complaining to a cashier about it does as much good as complaining to your mailman about it. We may work there, but we don't own it. We just ring up your groceries. We have nothing to do with the prices. And just know, even if you think it's too expensive, plenty of other people are still buying it without complaining so if you think it's too expensive, we really don't care. At all. If it's too much for you, don't complain. We're not going to change the price just because you don't want to spend that much. Just go somewhere else.
5. It wouldn't hurt you to listen
While retail workers can't just give you anything you want as if you are some superior human being (which, if you haven't gotten it yet, you're not), we do have some information we can share with you. If you are going to complain to a cashier listen to the answer! I cannot stress this enough. Too many times those of you who are whiny entitled jerks complain to a cashier about something you don't like. Then, when we try to explain what happened, or tell you what you need to do to fix it, or (as is usually the case) explain why we did nothing wrong and it's your mistake (politely, of course), you complain over our response so that we have to try and get you to understand five or six times! You never let us finishing telling you what the solution is! What is up with that? It's become really obvious that you don't want a solution, you just want to yell at someone because you messed up and now want everything for free. We have policies, we have procedures, I can't just hand you free stuff. That's not how shopping works. If you make a mistake, we can usually fix it, but you have to let us talk! It may not be the solution you want, but that's not my problem, it's yours. It's not my policy, it's the stores policy. I can't change it for you. So instead of whining about it, put on your grown up pants and deal with it like an adult. Keep in mind that the louder you scream the less I care about your problem and the less likely I am to help you or do anything for you. You can scream until your throat is sore but I won't bend over backwards for a jerk like you.
6. Being nasty to an employee
This sort of goes hand in hand with the above section, but I'm going to add more here because those of you who do this need to get it through your thick skulls. It's like when you walk into a store or business, you think you've suddenly become some kind of god we all must worship. But that is not the case. The case is you are in a store with other people who are equal with you and you are not more important than anyone else in the store, even the employees. Employees are supposed to be nice and polite no matter how much of a pig you are, but we are not required to take abuse or to give you whatever you demand. We may be smiling and apologizing throughout your temper tantrum, but what we are really thinking about you is much less friendly. Inside, we are flipping you off, calling you every vulgar word that you are emanating and hating you with a passion. We are pleased and cry hallelujah when you say you are never coming back. If you throw a temper tantrum, you don't know what you're not getting. If you are nasty to me because you screwed up and I can't fix it, then I am actually withholding information from you and you will never know. There may some options you have if you really need what you are yelling about, but because you are yelling and not listening, you will never know. I will apologize for your screw up and pretend that I care but if there's something that could be done about it, I'm not telling you. I'm not sharing any alternatives with you. You can stand there and yell at me but just know I am less likely to give you any helpful information if you do that and you will leave as much of an idiot as ever and thank god if I never see you again. You never know what we are not telling you or what we are thinking about you because of your vile behavior. We may be smiling and apologetic, but when you are gone you just get called a bunch of names and become a joke with all the employees.
7. Being the ungrateful regular
There's one (or several) at every business. The person who comes in all the time and always gets the same thing. 99% of the time things go smoothly and they don't even say thank you. Then, every once in a while something goes wrong and they waste no time in immediately complaining and calling you incompetent. Yeah, we hate you. And, usually, customer, if something goes wrong, it's not our fault. Sometimes a machine isn't working and I'm sorry you don't like that but that happens sometimes. Get over it. And sometimes you screw up and then yell at us because you are unhappy that you made a mistake. And somehow that makes it my fault. Do you understand that no one who works at the business likes you and we all cringe when you come in? We do. And it's your fault.
8. Threatening to never return
Tons of you do this and none of you understand so let me clear it up: as a minimum wage hourly employee who has to work wether you show up or not, we do not care if you never come back. We won't even notice if you never walk in the door in again. If you are whining and complaining, we are praying you never come back. We don't want you there. No one wants to help you. Everyone wants you gone. Your "threat" isn't a threat at all but rather a blessing to each and every employee you imagine you have the right to verbally abuse. Half of you end up coming back anyway so this threat literally means nothing to us. My paycheck doesn't decrease if you don't come in the door. I am working for my paycheck not for you and it makes my day more pleasant if you don't come back. I'm not threatened by you never returning because it doesn't make one ounce of difference to my job. You think you're more important than you actually are and when you say you're never coming back it's such a relief to me because the trash is taking itself out.
These are some of the things that bother me the most about retail customers. There are hundreds of other things customers do that they really shouldn't, but if I mentioned them all this post would never end.
But my point here is to try and help people see that being a customer at a retail business doesn't mean you are superior to all the employees and can have whatever you want. Yes, it's our job to help you and try to make your experience an easy and pleasant one but you must understand that we are still people and yelling and screaming at them is rude and makes people not want to help you and you can be asked to leave. Businesses have policies and we have to follow them. You, as a customer, have to respect them. We will do everything we can for you as long as it's something our policy allows us to do. If you don't like that, don't be a customer.
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