Retail workers- Whays the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you ?

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I work in retail and provide good customer service and always help customers.

Last week I had one go in to a full blown rage as we did not have any hand sanitizer and it was apparently all my fault. So I said dont speak to me in that manner and turned around and walked away from her.

Therr are many other moments I could mention but we would be here all day
So what is the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you?

When I was 18 I was waitressing and taking a tray of drinks over to a table. This drunk guy tried to grab the bottle of wine off the tray as I passed him instead of me just waiting to serve it but he managed to topple the whole lot onto himself. Red wine poured down the front of his shirt and he stood up over me and started screaming in my face. He called the manager over and demanded I pay for his shirt and that I be sacked. Nice guy! The manager was a bit of a wimp - sucked up to the guy, didn't sack me of course but gave him loads of free stuff. I was livid.

Used to work on a till and one delightful customer was rummaging in his overall pockets for some change and dropped coins in my hand along with 4 pubic hairs. I was completely revolted. He looked at my open palm and laughed before walking away.
That has to be my most disgusting memory of working in retail.

@@oldspaniel
I actually laughed at your first example (and I'm overweight.)

I used to work at a perfume counter in Debenhams and we had display bottles out for people to test/look at. One day the fire alarm went off and we were told to stop serving and evacuate the building. I was just packing up and a woman came up and asked to test something I said sorry could she come back as we were evacuating. She must have known as the fire alarm was really loud and all the other customers and staff were leaving. She called me a stuck up little bitch and pushed a row of testers off the side smashing the bottles,

To be fair I work in teaching now and have been told to fuck off by students in the past so not much has changed 😂

I haven’t worked in retail for years (thankfully) but did for a while as a student.

Greggs was my least favourite job. I’d have customers literally walk up to the counter and grunt ‘pasty please’ , would be nice to know which pasty but never mind. Also would have some twats just stand and tap on the glass saying nothing at all expecting me to guess what they were pointing at. I always hated the people who would decide to add six thousand things into their order after I had completed their order too, I had to put it through as a separate order and when you have a queue at the door it’s not ideal. The guy who came in every Sunday morning asking for his sausages chopping in half really fucked me off too, I had to burn my fingers and risk cutting them to chop his already tiny sausages in half. Cunt.

Most people just had no manners at all. Lots of ‘cappuccino’ with no please or thank you at the end. People spoke to me like I was dirt because I worked in Greggs so must automatically be stupid and not worthy of basic manners. I left that job after ten months, just walked out one day and never returned.

I got "don't you know who I am" from someone while I was doing the Saturday night shift at KFC in my uni days but being very aggressive about it. Some boxer apparently according to a colleague. Still none the wiser.

I had stuff thrown at me on multiple occasions, people yell in my face, sworn at, men would occasionally get inappropriately close, often got spoken to as if I was so far beneath them they barely considered me human.

There is a depressingingly large minority who think people who work in retail (and no doubt, call centres, restaurants etc.) are inferior - while also apparently thinking we're high up enough in the company to have control over how much/what stock there is, what the rules are around refunds, what colour the bloody floor tiles are etc.

@Namechangeymcnamechange11

Many moons ago I worked in a Executive Department and we were lumbered with dealing with VIPs. Most were really nice, but Thierry Henry called one day (this would probably have been in the invincible season so he was at the height of his fame). He gave it the "do you know who I am" and brilliantly, he was speaking to probably the only person in the team who legitimately had no idea who he was.

Little victories, Godber, little victories.

I enjoyed working in retail as a teenager so a couple of years ago I decided to go back...
The convenience store I worked in set me on for 3 afternoons a week, however, they then moved those goalposts and changed my shifts to Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. I complained and was told they would sort that next rota.
Meanwhile, the store was robbed (not whilst I was on fortunately), there were violent shoplifters daily and I spent twenty minutes one evening explaining why I couldn't physically reduce the already reduced to 12p bunch of bananas any further.

The final straw came when the rota was put on the wall and once again I was given the shit shifts. I got home, DH looked at me and said 'why the fuck are you doing this?' I agreed and quit the next day.

I then had to spend three months fighting for my pay because the supervisor had performed some fiddle with my hours. Rather than telling head office I'd left they put me down for a months holiday, which I wasn't entitled to and she then used my hours to balance her books.

Utter shit show from start to finish. Never again.

I was screamed at and told I was a rude bitch when serving someone in McDonalds many years ago. Huge crowd of people waiting to be served and it did feel like the whole place went silent. I was convinced I was going to lose my job.

A manager came up and asked what was going on, and the customer in line behind the screamer defended me, thank goodness.

I was quite a naive 18 and totally shocked by the whole thing.

These kinds of people need to be removed from the store. Show them their behaviour is not acceptable. Yet policy seems to be to placate them and give them whatever they want. Unbelievable!

Haven't worked in retail but did work in a customer facing role occasionally. Mostly the good outweighed the bad but its the bad customers who stay with you unfortunately. 25 years later can still remember being asked for "the man in charge" - there wasn't one, all the staff up to head of dept were female. That really pissed off certain men. Always men!

However I came on here to say, that phrase "the customer is always right" really gets my goat. It's patently untrue. It leads to staff having to put up with so much crap from rude entitled nasty customers. Less catchy but how about "all customers will be treated with respect as long as our staff are treated likewise".

@dustybluebell I wouldn't even have served her while she was on her phone. I'd have sat there and waited until she'd finished.

I’ve been called all sorts. I was also attacked on on the shop floor Ona busy Saturday by a group of guys.

The one that always sticks out is the woman who called me a cunt and informed me (and the entire shop) that I was shit at my job and should be sacked as she didn’t want to accept her direct debit on her bill has failed.

That was somehow my fault.

I’m very, very glad I no longer work in retail. The customer is not always right.

I worked in a grocery store when I was 18. After a hard Friday night out clubbing I managed to drag my butt in for a 7am start only to have a roast chicken thrown at my face by a disgruntled customer who was outraged by the price of them.... Little did they know how hideously hungover I was (think: the world is still spinning), and the smell of the roast chicken set me right off... I projectiled bright pink vomit (I couldn't face another vodka fire engine for a year afterwards) all over the register and the customer. I don't think that was the response they were looking for. I felt great afterwards though!

You're right, but you know you get that feeling about some people. Her manner was a little bit off to begin with, but I honestly didnt think twice when she came off the phone that she wouldn't have been capable of packing her own bags.. some people!!

Last message in reply to DdraigGoch

I’m usually polite to people who work in customer service but I was full of rage once with Asda pharmacy, they were meant to put in my DH prescription & collect it then dispense it, it was the day before Easter Sunday so went to collect to find they hadn’t even put it in, they didn’t think was a problem & one of the girls behind the counter actually thought it was funny! Told me to ring 111 & get emergency prescription, told them to get the pharmacist & that I wanted a weeks worth of medication doing right away!

Think they could see how mad I was & quickly got pharmacist & he kindly did the prescription & apologised too!

When I was a teenager I was once in a shop looking at some jewellery - I had sat down on the floor to look at the ones lower down on the rack and a posh mother and daughter came in, assumed I was a shop assistant and started talking loudly within earshot about me, saying how bored and lazy I was.
I wish I had had the confidence to tell them to their faces that I didn't work there, I could hear every word and they should be ashamed of their lack of manners.

I was told I was a racist c£&! and should watch my back because we did not have dental facilities in an A&E department.

Back when I was doing A levels I worked in a supermarket and was at the basket only till. This was back when carrier bags were free and when a man came to the till with his basket I said "hi, would you like a bag?" and he replied with
"Oh you've figured out I can't carry all this with my hands then. That must be all the GCSEs you have working here." Which was nice.

Not retail, but I tended bar while in Uni, mostly at home while on breaks. It was an Irish style pub. The regulars during the day, who were well known to the owner, couldn't have been nicer and actively defended me when some random was rude.

The teenagers who came in at night with $5 in their pockets for two beers were a nightmare. No tips, rude, and of course the men were constantly trying it on with me. Fortunately we had a bouncer at night and were just two blocks from the police station. Fights were common later in the evening when everyone was three sheets to the wind. I had the owners permission to close early if things really got out of hand.

People in general are arseholes. I work in theatres & the amount of rude patients is unbelievable. Sorry your operation has been previously cancelled, but it isn't my fault. If there's no beds, what do you want? A parking bay?

I was asked if we were likely to be getting more hand sanitiser in. I said yes of course but cannot say if we will have any in at a specific time as it goes straight off the shelves as soon as it comes in. He said “you’re standing too close to me, you should be 6 feet away” I told him that he asked me a question so I was just assisting him FFS

I worked in retail as a student and everyone was quite nice to the poor wee students - I was lucky.

Nothing can quite match the rudeness of BA staff though. I think they have special training.