To reply to a rude customer, saying no customers no wages….no workers no benefits

He sounds rude. You get rude people in all walks of life. If you can’t deal with them in an appropriate and professional manner then you shouldn’t be working in a public facing role.

Agreed and it is disclosing personal information. OP you sound like you are in the wrong job if you can’t deal with your customers in a professional way.

Are you allowed to refuse service?

Was this your first day dealing with the public, OP? Because this is what retail is like. Now multiply that by the fact that pharmacy customers are often legitimately stressed due to being ill and you are going to meet a lot more people like this.

You are not BU by being upset by their attitude, but you're going to have to either find a way to deal with this sort of thing that doesn't involve giving comebacks to the punters, or find another job (before or after they fire you).

Quite often in smaller pharmacies it is the same person doing all of the above.

It would be a nasty jibe, and totally uncalled for.
People queuing at a pharmacy are often unwell. A little empathy and tolerance wouldn’t go amiss.

You were right to point this out. If you behave like a dick you deserve to be served a shovel of reality.

I hope he thanked you for sacrificing your salary so he can get his benefits.

So you're the person at the till and the dispensing pharmacist? Otherwise it's not your job to 'count the smarties'. He was rude, you were rude at work. Maybe you'll need benefits when you get fired for being unprofessional.
I work in criminal justice and a judgemental comment line that would be taken very very seriously from a member of staff and my teams deal with an awful lot more than a snarky comment.

You sound incredibly rude. 'I'm sorry for your wait, someone will be with you shortly' would have been a professional response.

This!!!

You don’t sound very nice OP. He’s in a pharmacists and maybe can’t work due to illness but you’ll know if that’s the case from his prescription.

Either say “be with you shortly” or “sorry for your wait”.

he doesn’t pay for his prescriptions because he’s on benefits
so his point no customers no wages
is the same as no workers no benefits
Here’s rude, fuck off with your prejudice and work from home so you can’t belittle people on a public forum.

Ive worked in a number of pharmacies and only 1 had a magical room out back for the pharmacist to work.

The pharmacists job was to sign off on prescriptions, quite often it was pharmacy staff putting them altogether and insuring correct instructions whilst patients peered over the privacy screen trying to get your attention, rather than queuing up at the correct point.

Some of the smaller pharmacies only had a pharmacist to deal with patients/customers, make up prescriptions, do consultations, do vaccines and answer all questions from people who are unable to get appointments with GPs.

The public can be right demanding arseholes. Hopefully you didn’t respond with that garbled message as no need to stoop to that level but venting here is an appropriate response.

Did you let him know you were busy and he would be next?

I've had shocking customer "service" in a couple of pharmacies, they are like nothing else. Literally wondering if I was invisible / they were closed as they didn't acknowledge me for a few minutes while they walked back and forth. They were well trained as pharmacists, but didn't have a clue about customer service.

I eventually sent a lovely thank you (via head office) to the one member of staff who can actually deal with customers and always gives a cheery "we'll be with you in a minute, just sorting something out!" type of acknowledgement.

Some customers seem to think if they're rude they'll get served faster, as you want to get them out the door as soon as possible. I guess maybe it works in enough places, so they keep doing it. I'm normally extra cheery with them the first few times and explain they need to wait their turn etc. The ones that don't grasp it, do get the bare minimum polite service from me after that. I would never be rude to their face, but do internally think 'oh no, not that prick again' etc.

You sound belligerent and intolerant.
Regardless of conditions in the pharmacy you work front of house with the general public.
Your "give as good as you get cos that's what we were always taught" is just childish and has no place at all in a public facing role.
The fact that you are drawing any conclusions at all about nonprescription payers, even if only in your mind, is shocking to me. It figures in your admin and you have to do that correctly, but beyond that you shouldn't be working in that role if you cannot process every customer as requiring pharmaceutical care equally, regardless of temper, manner, appearance, financial status.

You're not special or hard done by just because you have to work with people that don't appeal to you personally. We all do!
I hope you get some ideas about this from the thread, you sound quite young and I wish you well, but really you need to toughen up your resilience to the inevitable variety of people you work with.

To be honest, the tone of your comments tells me that you shouldn't be working in a public-facing role, and absolutely not in healthcare.

Did you or your colleagues, at any point, smile and say "I'm sorry there is a delay and we will be with you as soon as we can".

Look, the public can be frustrating to work with and for. Part of your job in a pharmacy is to recognise this and respond accordingly.

If you don't like working with the public, don't.

I've worked in retail and customer service for years and if I had spoken to a customer like that, I'd have been given a warning or even sacked! Never have I heard that you get trained to "mirror" a customer's tone or rudeness!

Now you are stretching. It is the pharmacist in the back who makes up the prescriptions, in relative solitude and certainly out of the way of customers so should be able to ‘concentrate’. Then there is the part where the forward facing staff member (might also be pharmacist or might not) matches the customer to their correct made up prescription. If you can’t do that without the total exclusion of everything/everyone else around you then you are not safe in the job and should leave.

Gosh you're full of attitude perhaps you should get a job where you aren't having to serve people.

You're job isn't the equivalent of a hospital accident and emergency department. What a silly comparison.

We always have to wait but it's obvious if someone is counting and checking medication that takes precedence. It does feel incredibly rude but not their fault management won't pay for enough staff.
I worked retail and I hated having to make people wait because management expected us to serve and stock shelves and keep an eye on self scan at the same time.i always apologised and said "sorry they expect us to do 3 things at once". My manager heard once and asked why I said that, because it's true and I don't want people thinking I'm ignoring them.

I think this is where an inner voice is helpful. You are working, he isn’t and thinks it’s acceptable to say that. He’s also in a pharmacy so maybe under some stress because of an illness? None of that makes it right he said that, the fact he said it suggests he’s also a bit thick . So I’d suggest he’s in an inferior/weakened position and has no agency, saying stuff like that makes him feel a bit better about himself.

so I’d say either no reaction as that’s what he wants, or a concerned are you ok or a - I think you feel quite marginalised and are trying to get some power back by saying that to me (but I’m a cow so maybe not the latter!).

every time I go in a pharmacy there is someone being rude. It’s a real powder keg.

Publicly calling out that the man was on benefits in front of the whole shop is shaming him - otherwise you wouldn’t have said it.

I work in a supermarket and occasionally get the 'I pay your wages' type remarks. I tend to reply to that with a big smile and a 'can I have a raise then?'

If you can make them laugh, they are on your side. If you are rude then things escalate. But it is frustrating when customers apparently can't see that you are busy and want individual treatment - but that's people for you.

That's interesting because I fill in the prescription form (medical exemption) after I've been served and been given the drugs. Grew up in a similar business working customer facing and would never have replied like that - just a sweet smile and an insincere "sorry we're so busy" is more than enough. You can't separate who's being snippy because they're in pain or majorly anxious about their health from the plain rude.

Of course you can always be rude if you choose. In my case my mother would have smacked me across the back of my legs if I'd spoken to a customer like that especially within hearing of other customers.

I'm on regular medication and have used a few different pharmacies. If I go in and there are people Infront of me I don't expect the staff to stop what they're doing and greet me. I wouldn't be too happy if they stopped serving me to greet someone else earlier (although I wouldn't be a dick about it).
In response to another poster saying they should have a sign saying please be patient etc, people shouldn't have to be told that. It's basic good manners and most do have a sign but some customers are still dicks.