customer told me I was miserable as sin.

[loserlily]

Feel very pathetic. Working in retail over Christmas during the Uni break.

On my shift, a woman in her 60s comes to the till. I serve her, and she snaps at me "I said I didnt want a bag!". I say sorry, take the bag off her purchase and carry on. After this, I didn't make an conversation with her, like I normally do, because she seems impatient and not wanting to talk.

She then decides she wants the bag, so I pass her it.

She snaps at me "are you having a bad day?" I said no.

She then shouts loudly "well you look as miserable as bloody sin". Grabs her receipt off me and leaves the shop.

I could feel my cheeks burning up, and my lip start doing that stupid wobbling thing. Had to carry on serving the next customer, who heard.

I feel pathetic for getting upset. AIBU to think she treated me like a piece of shit? Or is this an okay thing to say?

@ohprettybaby - The trouble is you can never win working in retail. Some customers don't want to make small talk/want help. I have a couple of regulars who I have literally never had any eye contact or a 'hello' or a 'goodbye' back from in years of coming into my shop. Others expect you to spend ages helping them to then not end up buying anything. Most customers don't smile at you, so I'd feel like a grinning chump if I had to smile for 10 hours straight on a shift.

Who cares if she was miserable as sin ohprettybaby, she's there to sell people items quickly and politely, not to be their best mate. Is your life so empty you need random check out staff to fake big smiles and fawn over you while you're buying a chap stick?

I'm so sorry, OP, she sounds horrible. I agree with PPs that customers are rude to shop assistants because they're not allowed to be rude back. I tend to think that they're people who were bullies in the school playground and never learned their lesson.

The sales assistant isn’t there to boost self-esteem by fawning over customers. Unless you are in a high-end store where more personalised service is warranted, the job of the cashier is to take payment in a polite and efficient manner.

She was rude.

This is the sort of thing my ex-mil would do. She got pleasure out of having dogs at people to ruin their day. I would see her do it, the other person had done nothing wrong but she would step in with a nasty comment anyway. Take no notice.

Digs not dogs 🐶

When I worked in retail I always ensured I wished someone a nice day or, if appropriate, a merry Christmas as they left if they had been shitty. I never said it with a ‘tone’ as such but there would be an edge so it wasn’t clear if I was being sarcastic or not. Some people are just vile and treat retail workers (amongst others) in an awful manner. The trick is to not let it bother you and know that they have to walk around with their crappy attitude all day.

A friend of mine manages a few stores in M&S - the staff there are encouraged to remember rude customers and when they return are the ones hustled to self-service.

@NewtonPulsifer why on earth? Was she really miserable herself?

I can still remember when I was 16 working in the food hall at Mark's. A customer asked me where he could find a mug. I told him in the homeware dept. They said in food because it had chocs in it. He purposely queued up at my till so he could berate 16 year old me (And I didn't look more than about 13 tbh). I had tears in my eyes. The following customers were all really lovely, telling me what an idiot he was and not to let Mr angry get to me.
I swear everyone should work in retail even in for a short time and the world would be a far more pleasant place.

@PhilSwagielka She was a bit Hyacinth Bucket, thinking she was superior to everyone, she would even put on an RP accent to belittle people, which made her sound ridiculous. Her way of getting self esteem was by feeding off feeling superior and having digs. She hasn’t got any friends and is miserable but as long as she walks about with her nose in the air looking down on people she feels happy. If I was with her when she did it, (she would always drop the nasty comment and walk off) I would apologise and say she had a mental illness which I feel is true because it isn’t normal to hurt other people to boost your own feelings.

@ohprettybaby

I am a very friendly person, but I draw the line at continuing to be polite to someone who is snapping at me for no good reason.

If she thought I was being impolite she could have raised that with my manager.

Telling someone that they look miserable as sin is designed to be an insult. .

I also think you should read some comments on here and have a think of why you think you need checkout assistants to be "sticking a smile on their face"

Yes I am in the wrong job, but I need to pay bills alongside getting a Master's.

I’ve worked in customer service all my life. Most people are lovely but you always get one or two that wouldn’t smile or be polite whatever you did for them! We have a saying at work ‘never mind, at least we’re not the one that has to live with them!” Don’t let it worry you. Unless several customers are saying it, it’s not you that’s the problem.

YANBU OP, sorry you had to deal with that. I worked in a supermarket a few years ago over xmas and was asked to take someone off a till for their break, a man who was obviously annoyed with the queue was in the way, so I said nicely ‘excuse me can I just get down here please’ he abruptly shouted ‘no u can wait’ at me without looking at me. The girl waiting to go on her break looked at me and the man proceeded to shout how effing rude we were and we can wait for him to move, he then walked close to us both one at a time and took a good look at our name badges as if to let us know he was going to complain, by that point I then told him my name incase a close inspection wasn’t enough as he obviously thought swearing at girls half his age was appropriate any thought of professionalism went out the window. A manager saw it all and came over and explained to the customer that we were asked to swap over, he didn’t want to know, he was in a foul mood and wanted to take it out on someone. It’s horrible OP especially when people are around. Sod em and don’t let them get to you x

When I was a flight attendant, a random person complained via email to customer services that I didn’t smile or interact with her.

I was sitting on a train at the time, in uniform after a flight. Why on earth would I want to talk to a random woman when I’m not even at work? I’m still not sure if I was meant to juggle for her like a performing circus monkey or regale her with tales from my travels around the world.

People are batshit crazy.

'I'm sorry the customer upset you but it might be worth thinking about whether you do need to try and be a bit more welcoming.'

Working in retail fucking sucks, and sometimes the endless stream of wankers means that people working in shitty, lowpaid jobs sometimes just get a bit fed up, and that's perfectly fine because they are, in actual fact, people with thoughts and feelings and stuff.

Don't take it to heart, you'll always come across arseholes when you work in a public facing role unfortunately. I'm guessing she was annoyed about something bigger than a bag, but you were a convenient person to take her anger out on. Laugh about how pathetic she is and forget about her.

The customer was incredibly rude. But my gosh, the ageist/sexist posts on this thread are a bit much.

Working in retail you get to meet some delightful specimens of the human race. It's her, not you. She was as miserable as sin and wants to spread her misery to others. Keep your head held high and carry on spreading happiness and brightening people's days. :)

Working in retail or as wait-staff really shows you the all the horrors of the human condition. For you OP

This reminds me of the days when I worked as a legal secretary and had to tell clients that they couldn't speak to their solicitor because they were 'in a meeting', or 'unavailable' or, shock horror, off sick. There really was a tendency to shoot the messenger,

The irony was that the majority of the time, a secretary would be able to answer their question, but they were too busy moaning about their solicitor (who apparently had no other clients) and wanted to speak to the organ grinder and not the monkey.