So sick of rude customers!

[Patrickstarisabadbellend]

We were closing up yesterday when a last minute shopper appeared. I politely let her know that we were closing and that the store would be open from 9am the next day.

She wasn't happy with this. She asked me what time we shut, checked her watch and asked to speak to a manager.

My manager let her in! She browsed for a few minutes and kept smugly smirking at me. Eventually she bought some bleach and as I was serving her she laughed that the customer is always right.
As I was closing the door (over 15 mins late) she was reversing her car out of her space smirking and laughing at me. As she drove off she was glaring at me!

I felt totally undermined and like the manager/owner had made a fool of me. The manger/owner treated and spoke to me like a child being told off in front of the customer.

I'm due back in work on Monday but I'm serious pissed off. I've been job hunting all night too.

Why are some people such twats? Aibu?

Along the same vein but not retail......
I used to work in a Health Centre where they gave out milk from 1-30 -4pm on certain days . There was a large prominent sign and it was in the childs book.
Milk was also available at some chemists via vouchers.

Many, many times someone turned up late (5pm) or during lunch break (closed) to hammer on the door and demand milk because they had none. The rececption staff would sometimes honour the request but said "You cannot leave a baby with no milk".
No thanks were given. The suggestion that if they ran out of milk and couldn't use the milk tokens they'd have to buy it was met with foul mouthed abuse.

One woman accosted me in the staff car park - I told her I couldn't, I didn't work in the office and by law I couldn't.
I got called all names.

What was so important that she couldn't wait until the morning?

Maybe she'd just killed someone and needed to get rid of the blood stains.

Don't be so judgemental. Each person has different needs and priorities.

pivot our old local Woolworths was like that. I never used to go in there in the summer for this reason.

Years ago our local Superdrug and The Works were like it too but the staff fought and fought and got the air conditioning in the end. Shouldn't have to be like that though should it.

And I advised one of the shop assistants in Superdrug years ago to point out to those above that the shop does actually sell over the counter medication some of which cant be stored in sweltering temperatures.

I used to work in a hospital shop that closed at 7.30. Visiting was until 8pm. I would let people in just after closing if there were still customers in . One of my coworkers, a nasty and rude piece of work who wanted to be at her bus stop by 7.30 would go nuts if I let anyone in after 7.25. I was 18 and she was in her sixties and fearsome (though we had the same job).

I felt awful for visitors and patients who just missed the shop. It was the only shop in the vicinity and should have been open for another hour.

I worked in a jewellery store when I was in school and uni. One memorable year it was Christmas Eve, and we were putting the roller door down at the end of the day when a guy did a commando dive underneath it. We told him we were closed, but he started going off like a frog in a sock. The boss told him we were shut, were not serving him, and he had to leave or we'd call security. He finally left, yelling that we had 'ruined Christmas' because his wife would yell at him. Umm you didn't realise Christmas has been coming? Some people are too thick to be allowed to go in to retail stores.

I work in retail and yes, customers can be a pain in the arse. At the end of the day though, they pay our wages. Yabu.

Your manager needs to define what the policy is and stick to that policy: do checkouts close at closing time, or just the doors?

In the absence of a policy, in your shoes I would have assumed that anyone who walks in the door before the official closing time should be served.

I personally can't stand going into a shop at 4.55pm if it closes at 5 and being refused service!

I do agree that the customer's behaviour was totally unnecessary.

Bit surprised at people who think other people have nothing better to do than to rush back to a particular shop when it opens at 9am. I would make an educated guess that someone making it to that shop just before closing time has had to rush just to get there, possibly from their own job.

What are they meant to do? Take a.morning off work to go to a shop?

But then I really did get told to come back at 9am on a Monday morning once when i went into a shop at 5.10pm that closed at 6, because tge specific assistant had finished for the day. Of course i didn't dutifully trudge back, i simply bought the thing from another shop.

Read the updates, fgs.

Midnite scribbler exactly the same sort of thing happened to me when I worked in a jewellery shop during uni. People banging on the shutters at half four (when we'd been open since 7) yelling 'Don't you have any Christmas spirit?' Well yes, I do, that's why I want to go home to my family!

To those who said 'Well, it's annoying but at the end of the day the customer pays your wages,' that is just the point the OP is making - they don't because for that extra half an hour to an hour everyday (when I worked in retail) we didn't get paid at all, but still had to be there to open and close, however long it took. Very irritating to be working for free, at the end of a long day when you just wanted to get home, when you were hardly earning megabucks for the time you were paid, anyway.

So grateful for flexitime now I work in the public sector.

What I find works best for everyone concerned is that any free time given by either the staff or the business owner should be viewed as a kindness NOT an obligation.

Whenever any one of us chooses to go the extra mile and work a little (or a lot) unpaid it is a gift of goodwill both to the company and the customer and should be respected by all concerned as such.

I think to maintain a good attitude of one's staff you have to appreciate and respect what they do - otherwise you will end up with only desperate employees who are only there because they have no other options, they will not perform well and and the good customers will fall away.

If you nurture a culture of mutual respect then the best employees are yours to keep and the best customers are yours forever because the values of all concerned are a good match.

The minute you allow disrespect to creep in on any level, resentments will start to churn in employees which will seep through to customer service and your business will no longer keep the best customers, but will then attract the abusive ones like flies as those types live for a 'ruck' with someone.

Ahhhh yes idiots at Christmas! I remember it well. As a teenager I worked at Argos, and oh my god was it an eye opener. You wouldn't believe the amount people who'd do all of their Xmas shopping on Xmas even itself.

I'm not kidding, we'd get parents coming in on Xmas eve ranting and raving because we'd sold out of a particular toy that their child wanted for Christmas and were frequently told that we'd "ruined" their child's Christmas, well why the hell did you leave it till the day before to purchase it you thick twats? You've had weeks, no months, to plan and buy Christmas presents, but no you leave it till 24 hours before! Obviously a common sense gene missing in some people.

The customers frequently behaved like animals. Collection point was a scream, it was like feeding time at the zoo at busy periods, grown adults standing there waving their tickets screaming "there's, mine! There's mine!" When they saw their item appear on the shelf, impatient fuckers, we'll get to you when we've finished serving the person in front of you!

I once helped someone carry a very heavy item out to the car park in the pouring rain and didn't get a thanks for it. When you work in retail you have to deal with rude arseholes like this on a daily basis. Don't get me started on the mess either, people use the shop floor as a bin, we'd find crisp bags, drinks cartons, sweet wrappers, and I once even found a half eaten Big Mac. It's disgusting, people have no respect.

And do you know what? The chavvy types were always the most polite people, the middle classes were rude fuckers, likewise teenagers were great, but OAPs rude and entitled. It's an eye opener working in retail I tell you.

My best customers (attitude-wise) are either upper working class or top-end wealthy, anything in between and they can be prone to 'middle-class wannabe' syndrome! Not all of the middle class of course but definitely not great when it does occurr! Talk about entitlement and passive aggressive digs!

Im not class or status conscious btw I just don't know how else to describe the problem! Lol!

YANBU - surely if you need something so fecking badly as a customer then simply make the effort to get to the shop on time? if you didn't for whatever reason then that's your fault (NOT the shop) so there's no need to get all hens-arse about it, just suck it up and go to one of the many other places that are open.

It's not like it used to be when shops close on Sunday or early etc, there's places open 24hrs fgs! Some people just like the power trip of treating others like shit or are just so far up their own arse they believe their own needs/wants are more important and trump everyoneelses. (I am also a survivor of retail work, we should have a group )

Also, I have never heard the phrase went off like a frog in a box but will aim to use it at every opportunity, it really made me laugh!

Surely the manager should've offered to stay & serve the customer and let you go off on time?

My boss just wants a sale. She's not interested in anything else.

but OAPs rude and entitled

I second that. The older people, who would always complain about rude youngsters, were always so rude and treat shop staff like utter shit.
I always found the middle class 'ladies who lunch' types to be the rudest though.

I encounter an awful lot of old dears who know more than i do about the products i sell. One even told me yesterday that she knew for a fact that the store i work in is being closed down. That made for a good night's sleep - not - even though i know the store is not closing!

Then you get the ones who've known the products since they were a child. Excuse me - you are well over 70 and the company is 26 years old...