To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

[JaneTheVirgin]

There's been an influx lately of people complaining about the most minor perceived slight from customer service staff when in reality what they deal with on a daily basis is 99% of the time worse than not kissing your backside for buying a £5 chicken or £2 nail polish.

So, current and former retail staff - who was your worst customer? What shit do you put up with daily?

*Disclaimer for the whiny and chronically offended, I'm not talking about ACTUAL terrible service, which does happen but at a much lesser rate than terrible customers treat staff on minimum wage.

Worked at a doctors on reception.A man came I'm and kicked off about something I forget what.Shouting at me and slamming his hand repeatedly on the reception desk.
It upset and intimidated me and I didn't get paid enough for that type of shit.

Many years ago I was a live in general assistant in a hotel. One night I was locking up by myself. Two drunk male customers left who were friends. One of them was related to our head chef. This guy came up behind me and kept running his hands up and down my sides breasts and backside. I asked him twice to stop.. The third time he did it I remembered the self defence classes from school. I had a nice pair of high heels on so I stamped on the boney part of his foot and shot my elbow backwards which caught him in his privates.
He went home very quickly after that and I never had any more trouble from him!!

😲

I remember once serving a mother and daughter at my Saturday supermarket checkout job. The mother pointed out to the daughter that I had mascara on my bottom lashes and that it looked nice. The daughter, probably about my age (I was 17 and doing my a-levels) curled her lip into a sneer and said 'ugh mum, I don't want to look like shopgirl scum'.

I worked in a Tesco fuel station when I was younger. I once had a middle aged man scream in my face that I had overcharged him by HALF a penny, as the fuel was 89.9p per litre and the amount he had filled up by, he believed he had been overcharged. Honestly he was up in my face, all red and yelling obscene things.

I just took a penny out of the till and gave it to him. Absolute wanker.

I worked in a call centre briefly between finishing uni and going on to a Masters degree. This isn't the worst as some were downright nasty, vile people, but I liked that this one had their comeuppance!

In between helping her, she asked if we were based in X town. I said yes. She then, very smugly, kept gloating about how her daughter was going to X University there, it's one of the top universities don't you know, very well-respected, going to get a GREAT job once she leaves.
"Have you ever... well, SEEN the university? I don't suppose you'll have had any reason to be there laugh"

"Yes, I just spent 4 years there, heading back to do my Masters in a month. It is a good uni, a lot of pretentious people who think they'll end up in a fantastic job on their degree alone though, haha."

I will always remember the "oh" and complete silence until she had to respond to what I was helping her with, giving the bare minimum answers needed. I loved it as so many people assumed you were there because you were stupid and would pass out in shock if you knew they had a - gasp - DEGREE! So getting my own back was good. 😂

What did the mum say, if anything?

I've worked in retail so long I have so many stories of awful people but the worst general time was during the beginning of covid. I'd cry most shifts because of the way people screamed at me, as if It was my fault the shelves were empty and they had to wear masks etc.

I honestly can't remember, I think she just paid and left. It was clearly an ongoing mascara conversation and I just got caught in the crossfire but also WHAT A BITCH

My mum would have absolutely cut me dead if I'd said anything like that when out with her (not that I would have).

I remember working at Boots when I was 17 in the fragrance department (Boots staff, just on a till). They used to gift wrap products a few years ago but stopped doing it. A woman came over with some perfume and asked for it to be gift wrapped. I said sorry we don't do that any more. She became irate, demanded to see the manager, then dragged the manager over to me to shout about how incompetent I was because I wouldn't gift wrap her perfume. Really weird.

@difficultspaghetti That sounds about right if I had a pound for how many times a customer used a stool to smash the TV's and machines I'd be a billionaire by now. I hope you and your colleague are ok 😊

@GarlicGrace yes we should have danger money but shockingly we're lucky to get a pay rise every year but the shop managers all get their £500 bonuses at xmas us keyholders got fuck all but grief and abuse and we were the ones who were making the company thousands of pounds a day!

I could fill this thread up with the incidents I had to deal with day in day out. One customer just wouldn't stop complaining I wouldn't give him a discretionary payment (he said my colleague had misunderstood his selection he was adamament he chose selection 9 when it was clearly selection 7 on the bet that he wrote) when I told him again for about the tenth time no he started screaming abuse at me how I was a stupid fat cunt, a bitch and a whore and my attitude is appalling he's been betting in this shop for years he can't understand why I'm being a difficult jobs worth. I told him to leave and he got angrier and said I've got plently of mouth behind that counter glass and if I weren't there he would he give me the hiding my mother should've given me to teach me respect!

Something in just snapped in me so I went out on the shop floor and told him there's no glass counter protecting me now and I've still got plently of mouth. I also added that if he touches me he had better knock me out because if I get back up you're in for it and by the way smile at the camera's he stormed out angry I know I shouldn't have gone out there but I'd had enough of grown abusive men thinking they could speak to and treat me like shit and expect me to still be helpful.

Also I had a customer come in who was so drunk he could barely stand before anyone could refuse to serve him he started pissing up the betting terminal and another up the gaming machine a week later and his excuse was the toilet was closed and there was nowhere else he could go, I told him he could have gone outside and done it up a wall his friend replied that no toilets open meant his friend had to make do and both were adamant it was right that his friend had pissed up our machine couldn't see what the problem was! That was one of the few times I lost my temper with a customer and my manager was so worried I was gonna hit the both of them he walked me back behind the counter and locked me in lol

We had to get our carpet deep cleaned because the smell was awful for days after I went a bought a plug in air freshner to mask it and when another interfering manager saw it she started telling me I shouldn't have spent the shops money like that I was so at the end of my patience with customers and a few lazy colleagues who needed surgery to remove the chair from their arses before they did anything I told interfering manager I am not doing a double shift smelling piss and technically we should be closed and it wasn't her shop so she can't tell us what we can and can't buy even the area manager sided with me and that cow started coming down and checking up on me afterwards I nearly bloody comitted murder because of that nosey cow she always sided with customers even when they were abusive lecturing us on how to handle customers and she would never shut the shop when it was a serious incident we had to keep working of course she never followed these rules herself and when a customer smashed one machine she closed up saying she felt too shaken up to work despite expecting me to continue after a customer had threatened to come back and stab me in the chest at closing time!

Wow what an essay! This thread is cathartic lol

I've been f/t employed from 16, I'm 58 now, then went f/t self-employed in 2018. I've worked in various retail, on 2 lots of bus companies, 2 mental health charities, various cafe's and restaurants, as a cleaner for different businesses, then back to Retail - Specialist Niche - in 2018 and have a whole host of weird customers!

Here when I am now in self-employed, last year I had a woman coming in to my shop, I was sat behind my desk, tapping away on my laptop. I greeted her as I do with everyone, ''Thank you for coming in, feel free to look around''.

She stood in front of my desk and very haughtily barked ''Don't you have ANY IDEA of who I actually am?''

I honestly had absolutely no idea who she was, never saw her before. So I replied ''Well, if you don't know who you are then how do you expect me to?!''

She looked like I'd just slapped her and she barked ''I am the former mayoress of this place''.

So I said ''Oh, OK, so you're just a glorified pen pusher then?!''

She was absolutely horrified! ''I'm going to report you to your boss and have you sacked on the spot and I'll make sure you you never get another job again!''

I smugly replied ''I AM the boss, I own this company, so who exactly are you going to report me to?!''

She threw a right royal tantrum and stormed out!

I never saw Miss Piddlepants again!

Good on you! You did a brilliant thing!

Not my story but when I was waiting to be served in the CoOp once a bloke pushed to front of the queue. He literally walked straight passed us all. The woman serving pointed out there was queue of people before him and he needed to go to the back of the queue and without saying anything he chucked the sausage roll he wanted to buy at her and walked out.

When I worked in a well know clothing chain as a teenager she found a half eaten Big Mac thrown and fries thrown on the floor.

Wtf?! Someone punched and spat at you?

Fucking hell I always told my staff if someone hits you and you hit them back I’ll make sure they don’t lose their job. Madness that people have treated you that way!

Name changed

Been working at a supermarket for 12 years.
I've had on several occasions (and have seen it happen to other female colleagues) disregard what I am telling them and asking for a male manager instead 🙄 on one occasion a male colleague came and explained the exact thing I had just said but they took his word for it, even though I'm this man's manager.
Another occasion someone loudly asked to speak to a "MANager, not you"

There's been smelly customers that are so bad we keep air freshener behind the counter for after they've left

There's the creepy ones who are usually much older men flirting asking what time we finish work etc one had a fall so had metal frame on his legs he told me his address to go give him a sponge bath 🤢

One time we pulled in a cage that had been outside and there was a used condom hanging on the bars 🤮

Once worked for Argoose Man bought a telly in & said he bought it last week & now it doesn’t work, Asking for his receipt he said he hadn’t got it., turning the tv round. I noticed that the catalogue numbers were not ours & explained that our numbers had 7 digits, the tv had 5. Of course he told me he didn’t actually buy it from my store but somewhere else but it was definitely from the big A store. Sorry sir it doesn’t scan on the system so it definitely is mot from any of our stores. The manager had now got involved & asked him to leave with his tv whereupon he picked it up ,walked to the door, shouted at us and proceeded to smash it on the floor. Weird

He'd probably found the TV in a skip.

My daughter works in retail now and doesn't take any crap from anyone! Had a guy trying to buy a bottle of prime for his son. My daughter refused as you need to be over 16 to have it. He threw the bottle at her. So she threw it back at him and told him to Fuck off out of the shop!

Worked in TK Maxx (in Belfast) for a year after finishing uni. Was on returns and had to refuse someone a return. Can't remember why. He started yelling about being in the IRA and he'd be waiting for me when I finished work. I said yes a lot of terrorists have been released recently. My uncle's one. He killed people. I'll let him know you'll be waiting. I'm sure he'd like to meet you. He wasn't waiting and none of my uncles have been to prison (or killed people). I still don't know how I kept my cool or mad up a believable lie!

The other worst customer was one that return soiled underwear. So gross!

So many when I worked in a major supermarket as a student:

The woman who screamed at me (literally) because there were sizeable puddles in the car park. This was North West England, in November.

The woman who demanded I get her some Tesco Finest Mincemeat. I went to the shelf but couldn't find it so asked a shop floor colleagues. He said that there was no such product as Tesco Finest Mincemeat, but suggested the most expensive Tesco own brand mincemeat instead. It wasn't good enough, apparently. It had to be Tesco Finest, which at that time didn't exist (shop floor colleague said they got a lot of queries and they'd checked). She stood there bawling at me, calling me useless, an imbecile, a liar. Her husband shamefacedly put a jar in their trolley and apologised.

The man who started swearing at me because at 4.58 on Christmas Eve, there were no fresh turkeys left.

And my favourite:

A man came to the till with Wliko own brand rubber gloves. I explained that I couldn't sell them because we didn't sell them. The household aisle was adjacent to my till and a colleague quickly ran and got some Tesco ones. He started ranting that he wanted the yellow Wilko gloves instead of the yellow Tesco gloves and I was giving him appalling service. I even offered to give him the Wilko ones, then he started to shout at me again because he wanted to pay for then. It was very strange.

I can’t match most of these, but having done shopfloor and till supermarket work I experienced:

• a man who came in smoking and when I asked him to go outside and smoke there he threatened to knock me out. A warehouse guy had to come up and face him down;
• a woman who threw things at me at the till because the till roll had run out, there were no spares at the till and I had to wait for a supervisor to bring a new one;
• a woman who had been caught shoplifting, banned, but returned a couple of weeks later, who told me she would kill me after I refused to ring up her shopping.

All many years ago. Happy days. Not.

Not retail but I’m an ex Holiday Rep from ‘back in the day’ when there were thousands of us across the Med (unlike these days).
Anyways, I’ll never forget one chap. I even recall his name and where he was from (Batley in Yorkshire).
It was October, third week, Corfu 1989. To be honest, it was miserable, end of season and it had pissed it down for pretty much his whole week. The week before it was sunny and 23 degrees all week.
I was taking a coach load back to the airport, night flights ☹️, so stopped at his hotel (about midnight) and gathered the departures and ushered them onto the coach. He was nowhere to be seen. After searching, he was located in the bar, off his face. He saw me and just launched his 18 stone bulk at me, red faced and literally exploding with vileness. Screaming and cussing like a banshee about how shite his holiday had been and how he was gonna ‘tear me apart’. He whacked me around the head, grabbed the front of my blouse (ripping it) and spat at me.
It took three people to get him away from me.
I was terrified.

My son worked in Tesco as a student. His colleagues on the tills were from India. They were also at the Uni doing Masters degrees and PhD. Customers were foul to them.
Drunk customer came in after a football match. He pulled down his trousers and shat in the cheese chiller.
Well spoken, nicely dressed man came in to buy something. He assumed it was on special offer. It wasn't. He paid full price with cash. As he handed the cash to my son he spat into the hand holding the money.
I had a friend who worked in Miss Selfridge. The shop had big pillars at intervals so the clothing rails were arranged in squares around the pillars. It created ' private' spaces. Every week someone would come in and do a shit in the private space.
I worked in a furniture shop . Every lunchtime a man would ring the shop phone ( no mobiles in 1988)and tell me he was masturbating.
We worked in our community shop during lockdown. We were volunteers. People were vile.