Man complained about me re yoghurt brand stopped doing a flavour

[Auburngal]

I was at work. Man (early 80s) asked me why we stopped doing a certain flavour yoghurt and the other two supermarkets stopped selling too.

Had my work’s handset on me and went onto the brand’s website and there wasn’t the flavour listed. Brand have dropped the flavour. On hearing the news - he flipped

He then went to the CSD asking for a manager. Manager said the same thing as me.

Do people realise that behaving like this is making staff leave retail?

In this situation I would usually ask the complainer what they would like me to do to resolve the situation, they usually go quiet while they think about it and then make their excuses when they realise nobody can do anything.

The general public are entitled cunts. The end.

His behaviour was unacceptable but I'm afraid it's part and parcel when working with the general public.

Many moons ago when I worked at Asda a customer made it personally my fault that they had changed the packaging of the butter she liked.

A manager had to come and save me. People are scary when their favourites are mucked about with.

Hear hear👏👏👏

It has been going on for a long time. I worked in a M&S in the 1960s and one customer stands out to me. It was in the middle of a heatwave and no air conditioning. Customer complained to me about the heat, I agreed and said it was awful. She looked at me like I was the lowest form of life and told me I had no right to complain as I was being paid. As if being paid means you can't get hot and I wasn't complaining I was sympathising with her.

I was on footwear and I lost count of the times people kicked off if I checked the shoes/slippers they were buying and pointed out the were different sizes and asked what size they actually wanted. I was initially surprised at how many people had odd sized feet and were happy to spoil two pairs of shoes so they could have the two sizes they wanted.

Nothing new about the entitled British customer.

As well as dementia, there's a few neurological issues that can come with aging, I tend to give the over 75s the benefit of the doubt. My mum's personality completely changed in the seven months before her death from cancer. People are cunts, but this isn't necessarily a good example.

Was it Ski hazelnut?

I worked in a M&S in the 1960s and one customer stands out to me. It was in the middle of a heatwave and no air conditioning. Customer complained to me about the heat, I agreed and said it was awful. She looked at me like I was the lowest form of life and told me I had no right to complain as I was being paid. As if being paid means you can't get hot and I wasn't complaining I was sympathising with her

We used to get the opposite, people complaining that we had the temerity to have the shop's heating switched on in the middle of winter and they were far too hot in their winter coat/hat/scarf etc. Let's just let the staff freeze all day so you don't have to take 30 seconds to take your coat off then shall we. Thank fuck I don't work in retail any more, the stupidity and rudeness of the general public knows no bounds.

What a dick, how do you not laugh at these people?

I'd never leave a job because someone kicked off that a supplier stop making something, he's either pathetic and a horrible shit or he's actually possibly got dementia at that age and already confused and vulnerable. As long as its not something you done wrong I don't see why you'd take it personally.

I worked in a call centre and my very first customer calmly read out the building address to me and said 'I'll be waiting outside all day and I'll shoot you in the head when you walk out'.

Because his wifi was going to be delayed by a couple of days. Some people are just off the fucking map.

The general public are just awful unfortunately.
Years ago now I worked in HR for a major supermarket. Every week without fail I'd have a staff member in tears in my office after being treated like absolute shit by a customer. I can hand on heart say that in every situation there was no need for anyone to have spoken to (or assaulted on a few occasions) staff the way they did. Some people come in with a vendetta. They come in spoiling for a scrap. We ended up with the manager and team leaders wearing cameras for their own safety (and this was a supermarket in an upmarket tourist town).
Worse I saw was someone throw a frozen chicken at a checkout lady because the queue was a few people long. It required hospital treatment. Also had someone assaulted when self scan first came in and the staff tried to help and was punched and pushed. We had a serial flasher who would expose himself to female staff regularly (yes police were involved) and Friday and Saturday nights were awful with staff having to refuse to sell alcohol to clearly inebriated people who then turned really nasty.
I'd never advise my teens to work in a supermarket.

Maybe you are not cut out for retail.
It's dealing with people mono a mono.
An 80 year old man was upset that a flavour was discontinued. He expressed that (irrationally as clearly not your fault).
AIBU
I worked many years in the industry.

Dementia

This 100%

Arfid parent is no reason to take it out on the retail worker

He's a weirdo

You and others have no idea whether that's the case.

His behaviour was unjustified whatever his age.

It is annoying but not worth getting so het up about. You need to develop a thick skin to work in customer facing roles and not let it bother you. Just move on.

I absolutely agree with this. If he was in his 80's he might have been in pain, had cognitive issues, cancer, dementia. Life gets bloody hard when you get to that age. The OP still hasn't told us how he "flipped". Did he say "that's simply not good enough young lady" and march off to see the manager or did he call her a cunt and threaten to smash her face in? If it was the former, and at his age, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

True. We don’t know for certain, although this kind of behaviour is consistent with dementia. He could just be a bastard. He could have dementia AND be a bastard. The rich tapestry of human beings.

I got annoyed when Gregg’s stopped making their chicken and mango chutney sandwich. I’m going back a few years now. I still don’t know why they discontinued that. Of course it’s completely unacceptable to take out your frustrations on staff!

Yeah, if it was peach Melba he was bang on point…

Absolutely! Or are people saying that for some people it is OK to be violent/aggressive because 'reasons'?

He was annoyed at the situation, not annoyed at you!

I worked at the CSD in a supermarket for years and have dealt with hundreds, maybe thousands of complaints.
Yes, it's annoying but don't take it to heart. He was disappointed and in that moment he needed to channel it somewhere.

Just gotta try and see it from their perspective. Maybe there are mental health problems at play or it's for a family member. He tried 3 separate shops so it was clearly important to him.