To hate customers

[rahjama]

Somewhat lighthearted.

Working in hospitality/retail, what things do customers do that really, really annoy you when you're working? I'll start

• Booking for 6 people and then saying "Hope it's okay we're now a party of 194"

• Paying in cash but they're 1-20p short. "Can you cover it?" No I cannot

• Sitting on tables that are dirty/unset/in the process of being cleaned when there are clean and set tables literally next to them. Then complaining about the lack of cutlery.

• Buying the cheapest pint, saying it's flat/doesn't taste right, then swapping for the most expensive pint.

• Picking up an allergen menu and then saying "is this all you do?" No that's all we do GLUTEN FREE it says at the top!!!!!!!!!

@Fraaahnces -

I bet you could write a whole thread on your own about things that have happened on planes.

I remember one flight into Chambery and we had just all been served hot drinks when the tannoy asked us to buckle up as we hit turbulence. A few seconds later the plane literally plummeted downwards for several seconds and my drink went straight out of my mug and all over the ceiling of the plane. It was a very weird feeling like being on a rollercoaster

Another time we had one of those Camelbak children's drink bottles with water half filling it that he'd last had in the departure lounge.
Halfway through the flight my DS wanted a drink but then we realised it was in the overhead locker... my DH got it and I flipped it open not thinking about how pressurised it now was.

Water sprayed everywhere over several other passengers - it was just after the shoe bomber and everyone was really jumpy.

We got some filthy looks and felt very

Former retail manager here:

• Shouting, staring and screaming at me through locked doors which you then proceed to kick and smack whilst ignoring the opening hrs sticker will not make me open up early or let you in past closing. I might even wait a couple of minutes extra to let you in.

• Yes, I have the lights on outside of opening hours. It's not rude or audacious of me; I need to see to do my job, which involves working around opening hours. We are real humans!

• USE YOUR EYES. Lights on hrs post trading hrs with a bunch of people clearly putting up new window decals and moving fixtures etc is clearly a sale set up or OOH floor move. We aren't open & won't open up for you. Tills are taken offline and cashed up and daily takings processed at end of trade- I can't just sell you something. Bonus points to the woman who rang up to demand an item at 9:55pm after seeing us do this and got pissy- we only answered the phone in case it was a person call.

• Stating at ppl doing the window is rude. Fuck off to the zoo.

• USE YOUR EYES- if it says "Sainsburys TU" on the receipt and the label in the t shirt, don't be shitty when the staff in A N Other Shop won't process your refund. See also worn items you've had since 1975 and which aren't from my brand: I can't replace, refund or repair/sort an exact l-f-l new part out for a coat you bought in Chicago in 1975 (and haven't washed since) - this is Surrey in 2017. True story.

• Being vile to the third person behind a 2-till cash desk, clearly there to get something from out of a cupboard/under a counter but not stopping won't make them help you and certainly doesn't mean they can serve you on an invisible till.

• The bag charge is nothing to do with me. I can't refund it either.

• Screaming abuse at me won't get your out of date voucher accepted and means there's nothing I can do about it. Being polite means I can probably find a valid code or equivalent discount to apply as a goodwill gesture because we generally like to help.

• Calling up 4 months after the fact for the "navy quilted jacket in the front of the shop" you saw and then getting pissy isn't helpful. We sell at least 5 items with that basic description and I've had Christmas, 2 sales/promo events, a season change and 4 floor moves since then.

• I am not the town visitor info desk. Call them for your parking problems.

• I can see the £20 note you don't want to break in your wallet. You're not 5p short and no I can't let you off & cover it.

• No I can't take your word for it when you rock up with no receipts or bank statements and demand a full refund for £150 in cash on an item that's now worth £60 in sale. My auditor will fire me.

• Non- scanners/non-prices goods aren't free & you're not funny... but RRP is recommended price & not law so I could charge you more if you like?

• Changing rooms (and the stock) are not for pissing, shitting, puking, bleeding or cumming (always the fucking pockets) in and on. Used drugs needles, dirty nappies and wipes and your used sanpro belong in bins, not my changing rooms.

• Fire alarms mean get out NOW. I am not risking my life to sell you jeans or wait for you to try on 2 more tops before you evacuate.

• Mind your own kids. I'm not Mary fucking Poppins.

• Asking "where is the sale section" when you're stood in front of it makes me wonder if you can manage wiping your own arse, too.

• No, I won't check the back for something I've told you we're all out of /have already put remaining stock out for. I might go & swig my drink or check my phone though if you really wanna watch me go off the shop floor...

• If it's in the shop you have to pay for it or put it through the till. If your online order is stuffed up, I still need to process your exchange or whatever and can't just let you leave with an item. It's called stock control. My auditor is hot on it, for some reason.

• How dare you look down on us when you apparently can't tell your arse from your elbow or do basic maths and need things like "£20 off if you spend over £100" not meaning £40 off your £200 spend explained 3 times. Slowly.

• I have a "real job". I'm the manager. So do all of my staff, even if they do 6h a week. If they look young they're probably also students- so stop trying to use them as examples of "failure" to show your kids. We can see and hear you. You don't know us.

• If we're busy, standing about with a face like a slapped arse because only one of us can help you and we can't all rush over and fawn on you like it's still the 1930s doesn't incline us to help you.

• Wordlessly dumping stuff on the till or shoving it into the arms and faces of staff is rude and may result in an unfortunate misunderstanding...

• We are humans and your equals. Treat us as such. Commenting that we are "quite fat" or have "a dull complexion and mousy colouring" like the person you're buying for won't incline us to help you.

• I hate the sound track too. No, I can't change it, it's set by corporate. I quite understand that you think it is "unaspirational", "dumb" and must be "lowering my iq"- I'll pass it on.

• I can't just sell or give you my permanent fixtures. Step away from it.

• The most under used words by customers are "please" and "thank you"

• The most underused word by staff is "NO".

I was threatened, sworn at and physically intimidated by a customer who had his small children in the shopping trolley for not refunding an item, he hadn't ordered or had delivered..while my male colleague sat on the other side of the desk studiously ignoring the situation. The children were laughing at 'daddy's' behaviour.

Eventually he walked off shouting, only then did other staff members see/ hear and alerted the store manager who went up to him and told him to leave or police would be called. The manager then came to check on me. He also let rip at my colleague for not helping me out or getting help.

I am the person other staff come to to ask if we have something in so it's always funny to see customers try another staff member after they've been told a line is out of stock. When they see them coming to ask me and the answer is the same they often look a bit shamefaced

I was there during toilet roll gate. People coming in as a couple and then splitting up and using two trolleys to get ‘your allowance’. We can see you doing it. Or the women who took all bottles of the hand sanitizer when it came in. We really really shouldn’t have let her do that.

Words fail me regarding pinching the hand soap from the toilets during that time (and the toilet rolls!)….

Yes - I have to say a lot of this would be solved both ways with a bit more verbal communication and a bit less reliance on mind reading 🤣

I don't doubt that there are shitty customers; there are also retail staff who aren't suited to the job as well. StrawberrySquash wasn't rude, said that she hates to complain so doesn't. What gives you the right to refer to her as a 'shitty customer'? You're very rude.

Tipping for mediocrity is expected in the UK, reading the posts from US restaurant staff shows a world of difference in service; possibly some of the better restaurants here too, but it's certainly not standard.

I do feel sorry for retail staff though who aren't tipped and who really do take the brunt of difficult customers.

We had someone hammering on the door one Easter Sunday demanding to be let in! When I shouted through the glass that we were shut with it being Easter Sunday they thought I was lying. Said we opened every other Easter Sunday. We definitely didn't as you can't by law!
I've heard it all! From people complaining about the old bogof offers because they didn't want two. Someone complained that his bacon packet said 6 slices and it came with seven and he didn't want seven so threw it away.
I've had products thrust at me because they wanted a refund for quality but the actual product was from another supermarket 🤣
Another one was a guy who would walk the shop floor looking for bogof offers where there was only one item left. He would bring it to us and demand it as the free one and if we brought more out the back would decide he didn't actually want it. I was knocked over by someone shoving in to see what I was reducing and didn't get an apology even when I stood up and was clearly heavily pregnant. From then on I collected it all and reduced it in the back away from the feral hordes.

I do find it amazing and frustrating, though, how often shoe shops don't seem to have the right sizes. I mean, I know there are a lot of sizes but you are a shoe shop and that is what you are selling…

I find it to especially frustrating with children's shoes as you finally find one they like and fits them well and then the shoe shop don't have it in the right size.

Back to square one.

@CruCru I used to work on a high street so would sometimes be recognised by my customers and asked for x y z item in different shops if I was shopping too! They were usually just momentarily confused and then very lovely about it luckily!

People trying to maks me help them when I'm clearly omw in or out the building- bags & coat with me etc- despite there being many other staff around pissed me off though. I'd just smile sweetly, say no and point them at a colleague. If I'm off the clock, I'm not paid to help you and I have a train to catch or a lunch break you're wasting- off you fuck.

Like many other pp, I also don't answer to clicking fingers and I wouldn't let my staff do so either.

I work in a hotel and we had someone getting very angry with us the other day because a bus timetable for the local area was apparently 'wrong'

@Franklin12 - if I was a supervisor I would be tempted to just loudly tell everyone to shut up and close all the tills and tell him "sorry sir we are now shut, you will have to come back tomorrow to complete your purchases."

He would then only do it once…

But there is probably a reason why I do not work in retail!

Its been over 30 years since I worked in hospitality as a student, but a lot of these are horribly familiar.

This supermarket always gave the customer the benefit of the doubt though. In my view far too much.

There are some great subreddits for stories like these. For restaurant staff there's

www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/

and for hotel workers

www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/

Yessss!!! In retail so many ppl answer "hello" or "good morning" with "just looking thanks"! Err... I didn't ask if you needed help? It wouldn't be acceptable in any other setting so why do it to us? I had someone on here once who couldn't understand why it was rude until it was spelt out to her.

We do appreciate people don't want us breathing down their necks and we don't want to talk either- but it's in our service code to be welcoming/friendly and our mystery shopper will mark us down if we don't say hello (clue is in the name there, lol)- so everyone gets a hello.

Because the main point of a shoe shop is to sell shoes?
They can't have a never-ending warehouse out the back so they will never sell out of a certain size.
Like every other retail store there's only so much room for extra stock and it takes time for deliveries to arrive.
Plus the fact the range changes constantly and so certain items will sell through and not come back in.
Can't believe I have to explain this actually!

I was a manager for Clark’s for a few years - each store will generally stock 1 each of the smaller & larger sizes with 3 or 4 pairs of each of the more popular sizes. When you think about how many sizes there are, times that by how many styles there are that equals a lot of shoes!
The stores generally stock as much as they physically can - the racking in the stock room goes up to the roof. It’s impossible to have every size in stock all the time (my shop was in C London & had daily deliveries - we still sold out during the day)

Look at the airlines though. Cannot get through to BA or Virgin. Wait times in excess of 90 mins and risk of being cut off! Holidays are not cheap Purchase yet they get away with it. If you start complaining they will cut you off and goodness knows who you were speaking to. You could complain to add to the 100’s of complaints they are currently receiving.

If you arrive at the airport having not done the covid forms correctly or just didn’t bother you will NOT be allowed on the plane. If you kick off security will be called. You will not be allowed to take up a check in desk whilst you bore on about how your friend told you you didn’t need to fill in this that or the other form or get a specific test.

I know how tricky flying is now but you have a choice, check and double check the requirements or just don’t go. Just because you didn’t understand what was required doesn’t mean you can go anyway.

I am guilty of making the is it free joke-i blame my father who wo9uld always make jokes in shops it must have rubbed off on me-im only being friendly though and am never rude

some resturants ive been to do know which person ordered which food-i dont expect all to do it but it is possible

@CorsicaDreaming - I have thought about writing about flying, but worried I’d come off as a cynical twerp with a warped view on society. It took a while to realise that the idiots are high-needs and require most attention, but a majority of passengers just get on with things sensibly by themselves. Just don’t get me started on people being pissed off about flights running out of meals because some twat has decided to change their baby in a seat (yuk! Use the change table!!!) and decided that they couldn’t wait for rubbish clearance. The number of times we’ve had to stop serving and close a whole cart down because someone has shoved a dirty nappy in it while our backs are turned. (Ew!)

@CorsicaDreaming I worked in a v small independent shoe shop for a while. The owner would buy a crate of each style, crate would have; 1 x size 3, 2 x size 4, 5 & 6 and 1 x size 7 & 8. Unless he bought another crate, if the style sold really well then that was it.

I appreciate larger retailers may be different.

@swapcicles

so are you saying that when you go shoe shopping, you shouldn’t expect to be able to buy the pair of shoes that you’ve tried on and have fitted and you like? But rather if you do manage to walk away from them on that visit, you’ve got lucky?!

@swapcicles - part of the problem is the ranges are so big.

How many different ranges of shoes & trainers do you need for school boys? But Clarks alone do dozens of very slightly different styles of black leather school shoes... and then do not actually have them in stock.

The level of choice is just out of control now - very wasteful - and is a main contributor to this issue imo

But thanks for explaining how shoe shops work 😉

Our store only has one very obvious till/counter which we sometimes move slightly away from (always in sight) to do something else. If you want served then please stand at the counter and not behind the cabinet beside it or 10 ft away from the counter and then get angry that nobody comes to you.