AIBU to think the shop owner was rude for no reason

[Issania87]

Hi all,

So I took my 2 year old out to the shops with me earlier, and as we were on the way back to the car we stopped at a greengrocer.

I picked some items and went to the till to pay with my son, and then as she was ringing up with items I heard her mutter rudely "oh great". I looked up and saw that my son had picked up a carrot and chopped the end off of it. I turned back to her and asked her to please add the carrot on to my bill, and she did so. I paid, and then as I was putting the items into my bag, I heard her say "oh for God's sake", and I turned and my son had taken a strawberry off a punnet and eaten it. I admit I did lose my temper a little because the whole time we had been in the store from the moment we walked in, she had looked at us like we were both pieces of poo on the floor, so I said to her that there was no need to be rude, and immediately apologised and offered to swap the punnet with the one I had purchased, and she basically told me that she wasn't being rude and I needed to watch my child. I said to her that I was watching my child I just had to pack my bag, and said it wasn't like he had done anything major, he had eaten one strawberry. She said to me that he can't just go around helping himself to food, and I said yes I realise that but he is only 2, to which she replied well he needs to be in a buggy then, my children would have been in a buggy at that age.

Now, I am by no means suggesting I dont realise that my son was naughty in what he did, because I do, and I have never had a problem with him in those kind of shops before or of course I would have taken a buggy with me, but AIBU by thinking that she completely overreacted and there was no reason to be so rude to me?

But this didn’t happen so...

@MoonJelly

Half the time if you go in a shop with a buggy you can't fit down half the aisles or you're constantly in the way so you can't win either way!

The answer is reins.

Because reins magically stop toddlers doing anything wrong? I have a nearly 2 year old and whilst reins are a godsend, if you're busy trying to do something else, it's pretty hard to control them when they start having a tantrum or trying to lie on the floor or pulling away from you. Obviously that's just because my DD is naughty and I'm a shit parent though 😂

@Smallgoon

She was incredibly rude. If it had been my shop, I'd have laughed at your cheeky son and allowed him to take the punnet without charge. But then again, I'm not a horrible witch

Who's going to explain to the owners why their stock is missing? If you give away free products in a shop then you will be fired.

If that happens once a day then a £5 punnet of strawberries is £30 per week (with Sunday closing) or £1500 per year. Shops can't take those sorts of losses, especially at the moment.

Don’t be so ridiculous @slashlover

I don’t think slashlover is being ridiculous. It’s very easy to say that “if it had been my shop blah, blah, blah, I’d be giving away stock “ when it isn’t your shop. The person writing that is just talking bollocks.

I wouldn’t give a punnet away! But I’d accept the swap/payment for it gracefully.

All retail assistants get the same old shit from customers all day - whether it’s kids eating fruit or smelly people trying on clothes or rude customers. Pandemic or no pandemic. If you can’t deal with those irritations without being rude, you’re in the wrong job. My manager once saw me mock telling off a customer for something in a jokey way and ran over to apologise to the customer. He was about to give me a warning when the customer revealed herself a relative of mine who found the whole situation hilarious. Even so, he still told me not to behave like that in front of other customers.

There’s a shop local to me selling something you can’t buy anywhere else within a two hour journey, with a notoriously rude owner. So many of us have had bad experiences there that we buy the goods online or on major trips to avoid her, despite it being a massive pain to do so.

All retail assistants get the same old shit from customers all day - whether it’s kids eating fruit or smelly people trying on clothes or rude customers. Pandemic or no pandemic. If you can’t deal with those irritations without being rude, you’re in the wrong job

Just tolerate people being rude and ignorant all day. It’s your job.

Don’t be so ridiculous @slashlover**

What's ridiculous? Being fired for giving away stock or shops having tight margins at the moment and not being able to afford to give away stock?

Just tolerate people being rude and ignorant all day. It’s your job.

Pretty much, yes. There are limits, obviously. But there are a lot of irritating and unpleasant people out there who you have to smile at and serve or you lose your job. That’s why retail is hard work and I didn’t enjoy it much. I wouldn’t class the OP’s behaviour as unacceptable - she apologised and compensated. Plenty don’t and wouldn’t. If you own a business, you will stand or fall on your customer service as much as anything else. Can’t cope with the daily irritations of customers? Don’t open a shop.

Daily:

I can’t agree with that, sorry. The OP let it happen twice, which would annoy me and I would probably show it.

If you can’t deal with those irritations without being rude, you’re in the wrong job. My manager once saw me mock telling off a customer for something in a jokey way and ran over to apologise to the customer.

Dailyhandtowelwash Incorrect. Wherever you work, you don’t need to put up with rude, abusive, aggressive etc. customers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the newest employee or the boss, you’re not there to take customers rudeness, irritableness and abuse all day. If they can’t be polite, they shouldn’t get served.

Your manager was weak for running over and immediately wanting to apologise without knowing the situation; that’s exceptionally poor management. The customer isn’t always right, and they’re not automatically right simply because they are the customer.

You still have to behave like a reasonable human being.

Best you don’t open a shop then. Frankly customers that apologise are the best ones.

She was a little rude but you should have been keeping an eye on your little one too.

Working in retail is pretty damn shit as it is lately. Some people just don't seem to care.
The shop assistant may have had to deal with these sort of behaviours all day,you may have just got on her last nerve.

Dailyhandtowelwash

If I open a shop and want to show my annoyance I will. People should use their manners, and the OP didn’t.

Dailyhandtowelwash Incorrect. Wherever you work, you don’t need to put up with rude, abusive, aggressive etc. customers.

The OP was none of the above. What happened was mildly irritating. You have taken the goalposts and moved them a mile.

And I said within limits. No one should put up with abuse or aggression. Casual rudeness I’m afraid is very common indeed and mostly needs to be shrugged off to stay sane unless it verges into something more.

If you can’t deal with minor issues without being rude, you shouldn’t work in retail.

My manager in that job was very hot on customer service indeed. It was good training if nothing else. I’m willing to bet that plenty of people here would be up in arms if they saw a shop assistant tell an elderly lady she should be getting vouchers out of her purse more quickly as there was a queue? Or is that allowed as old people are always too slow and you can see how that would annoy staff?

Ah, good old MN where shopkeepers and restaurant staff already struggling, should be constantly tugging their forelocks and muttering 'the customer is always right' while people are rude, demanding or failing to keep enough of an eye on their kids.
It's hard to stop kids buggering about half the time. So you have to allow for that. You were right to buy the carrot. You should've bought both punnets of strawberries.

f I open a shop and want to show my annoyance I will.

Cool. I hope you don’t rely financially on its success.

If I open a shop and want to show my annoyance I will. People should use their manners, and the OP didn’t.

When I worked supermarket retail, I often daydreamed of opening a shop with pricing like this.

Nobody wants to buy unwrapped food that people's toddlers have touched and chewed. He hardly ate the only two pieces of food he touched.

She may have lost customers if other people saw, it's really off putting. I imagine shops like greengrocers are having a hard time right now.

I don’t tug any forelocks. Nor do I think it’s good customer service to be proactively rude to a customer who is apologetic and trying to put things right. I cannot count the number of threads I’ve seen on here complaining about bad customer service over the years, usually because staff have done the things I was trained not to do.

The same people on here defending this person would be up in arms if it happened to them in a situation where they deemed themselves to have made efforts to minimise something going wrong. Obviously the OP is not a perfect parent and therefore deserves everything she gets.

The OP was none of the above. What happened was mildly irritating. You have taken the goalposts and moved them a mile.

Dailyhandtowelwash Incorrect, again. The OP was rude.

If you can’t deal with minor issues without being rude, you shouldn’t work in retail.

I’m a manager in a related industry and I’ve won awards for my customer service. I still won’t put up with rudeness and won’t let my staff either. They’re not there to tolerate miserable fuckers all day long.

The very least one should expect is civility and politeness.

My manager in that job was very hot on customer service indeed.

In the situation you described he displayed poor judgement and jumped in without any knowledge of the situation. Upon seeing that, a good manager would come over and politely ask both parties what was going on.

You can be great at customer service and at the same time know how to responsibly and effectively deal with rude customers.

I’m willing to bet that plenty of people here would be up in arms if they saw a shop assistant tell an elderly lady she should be getting vouchers out of her purse more quickly as there was a queue?

This has absolutely no relevance to anything in this thread.

Cool. I hope you don’t rely financially on its success.

Probably be a roaring success. No rude kids or parents as they’ll all have taken their business elsewhere, leaving everyone else in peace.

'I’m a manager in a related industry and I’ve won awards for my customer service. I still won’t put up with rudeness and won’t let my staff either. They’re not there to tolerate miserable fuckers all day long'

This. All day long.

It's absolutely extraordinary how many people think they aren't paying for goods and services - they think they've also purchased a side order of behaving how they damn well please.

It’s entirely relevant as that is what my manager saw me saying when he intervened!

We will have to differ on whether the OP was rude. I don’t think she was. If retail staff shouldn’t put up with rudeness (and realistically of course they have to, as the rest of us do, because people are a bit rude to each other all the time) then neither should customers surely? The assistant’s initial reaction was rude and unhelpful. Would you encourage your team to behave like that?

By everyday rudeness I mean the customers who don’t pause a phone conversation while you serve them, or who don’t say please and thank you, or who don’t acknowledge you at all, etc. No one is going to pick up on that all day - they’ll get cooler service than people who behave better but it will be professional.

Outright rudeness is something else and of course not to be tolerated. But that was not what the OP was.