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?

I work in a shop and the general public are vile. I've been called fat, ugly, thick, lots of different insults! Lied about and made up complaints. People are so entitled it's unbelievable

I really need to know the yoghurt flavour otherwise I'm going to be obsessing about this for hours.

He's elderly and being irrational. I'd assume there's something more going on other than he really likes yoghurt. Don't take it personally.

I wish retail didn't require you to pander to these fuckwits, to enable you to match their energy... but alas, profits...

I used to feel the same when still teaching, I would have loved to respond to the pond-life parents who liked to share their opinion of me with me! The best I ever managed was 'Do you feel better now?' and she complained that I'd been rude. Usually a clear example of the apple not falling far from the tree.

I agree we deal with some truly shitty customer behaviour, but unfortunately it's part and parcel of working in retail.
I tolerate it because it pays the bills, but when my shift ends and I take off my name badge, that's it, the arseholes get no more of my headspace. I put up with their crap at work but I certainly won't give them a seconds thought in my spare time.

Customers are the worst thing about retail. Especially when managers won’t back their workers.

But we're all members of the general public so what does that say............?

Yesterday bags, today yoghurts. OP, you sure start a lot of threads about the shoppers who go to your supermarket…

Soppy old duffer

He complained about you because your store stopped selling a flavour of yogurt he likes?

The complaint won’t be taken further, your manager could see it was a bollocks complaint as you’re not responsible for purchasing or the companies decision to no longer stock products. Don’t let bogus complaints drive you out of your job.

Stop medicalising bad behaviour.

Sending hugs and sympathy to OP and everyone with similar experiences. I did a lot of casual work in shops, restaurants, venues etc when I was young and luckily didn’t often meet abuse. People do seem to have got ruder. That’s a shame.

I don’t think the internet has helped at all. No excuse for an old man carrying on like that!, but dementia does take many forms.

It could be an explanation as this poster was politely pointing out.

At College I worked for the Golden Arches, at uni and postgrad I worked in a pub and a high street clothes store. I was a very self-assured teen and when I would get a regular ear bashing from customers, especially when I worked for McD’s (because people seem to assume you’re thick as mince and like to vent their general spleen at someone they see as an underdog), I would stop, smile, tilt my head and say ‘feel better now?’ Took the wind out their sails and often embarrassed them. It was almost always a man who did it. I’m very well spoken which always seemed to surprise them, too.

Ah the joys of retail!

Now I work for the NHS one of things that has me scratching my head is when people get angry that the phone number they want is engaged! Surely they have phoned numbers in their life that have been engaged before? They take it really personal. Ah well... and also if you explain that no one can come to the phone right now because the alarm system is going (basically someone kicking off) they claim that is a lie. It is a psychiatric unit for god's sake! Cue chairs being thrown, patients absconding, attacking staff etc etc........

Aaaaah it's crap isn't it? It used to be 1/1000 customers would be like this, then it wasn't so bad, a vast majority were nice and pleasant even if something had gone wrong. When it got to 1/100 I started to lose the will, but you could still cope because the majority were alright. When it got to 1/10 I left public facing roles forever. I just couldn't take it with a smile anymore and started biting back, so I knew my days were numbered anyway. There's only so many polite ways to tell someone to fuck off, eventually I was going to just tell someone to fuck off.

I don't know what's happened to people but no job pays enough for the amount of abuse people in public facing roles are expected to put up with.

I wouldn’t call going to the Customer Service Desk and asking to speak to a manager as “flipped” or characterise it as being abusive. That is the low tech process that an 80yr old would be familiar with. The complain on X or do a dance Tik Tok with sad faces over a missing yogurt flavour isn’t the way his generation gives feedback to companies. Brands have been known to bring back flavours of products if enough supermarkets say their customers are missing them.

Omg!! I'm praying he was all tall and no trousers.

All right then.
Leave retail.

Lovely supportive human

When I worked it retail I loved these whackos. It’s a really boring job and there’s nothing like a yoghurt related meltdown to liven it up.

'If you're not willing to put up with abusive psychos you shouldnt work retail' country would be starving without heroes like OP so zip it.

Was it rhubarb?

Reminds me of taking my 80+ year old mum to M&S and her complaining to the staff that they had changed her favourite ready meal, that only M&S did and she ate twice a week, to have peas instead of cabbage and she didn't like peas.

I apologised to the staff member who was restocking the fridge and tried to usher mum away from annoying her, but the staff member was lovely with her told me it was ok, spent time listening to her complaints, sympathised with her, agreed with her how annoying it was when things were changed, said she would pass on to her manager, and mum left satisfied. I thanked the staff member by name (from her badge) and left mum looking at the magazines while I "reported" her kindness and expertise at dealing with mum to the store manager on the way out.

Part of any job with an element of customer service involves dealing with awkward customers, sometimes those customers are vulnerable and that comes through as unreasonable complaints. You should never have to put up with abuse or direct threat (if that is what flipped means and if it is you should have said that), but an old man being upset his product is no longer available and wanting to be heard/complain/raise further is the very core of a customer services job. If you can't deal with that, then yes, you should leave retail.

I remember working in a supermarket and getting rammed into with a trolley by a little old lady with an angry face on Christmas Eve when the store was packed. No such thing as online delivery then so everyone had to go to the shop and pray for their lives. This was years ago obviously! They were twats then and they'll continue to be twats now sadly. I imagine it's much worse now though. I also remember someone screaming down the isle at me because they'd found an out of date item and apparently "oh I'm sorry about that, I'll get that off the shelf right away, thanks for pointing it out to us" wasn't good enough. She was literally screaming at me as she walked away that she going to report me personally to some kind food standards place. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight okay.

My sympathies to the OP and everyone else in retail.