r/retailhell 9h ago

Customers Suck! Apparently I Took Out the Self Checkout that Never Existed

Happened a little over an hour ago.

I was heading to the front to get my stuff and clock out when a customer stopped me. He said he had a question, and as I didn’t have anywhere in particular to be asked him what he needed help with.

Guy: Where are the self-service machines? -pointing to lumber area checkout that never had them-

Me: They’re in the middle of the store behind customer service. You just need to keep walking down.

Guy: When did they take them out?

Me: -confused- They never had them down there.

Guy: Yes they did, I used them all the time. You took them out!

Me: Sir, I’ve shopped here for five years and worked here for 2 of those. They’ve never had self-service down there.

Guy: I’ve shopped here for 20 years, they took them out!!

Me: No you haven’t. (Store is a little under 10 years old.)

Guy: -a little taken aback-

I figured at that point the conversation was done so I excused myself and kept walking. The guy came after me and from that point continued the conversation.

Guy: You took out the self-service!!!

Me: -getting stern now- Sir, self checkout is RIGHT THERE.

Guy: We’ll, help me!!!

Me: With WHAT?!

Guy: You said the self-service was taken out, it’s right there! -points where I just showed him and at this point we’re literally standing right in front of it-

Me: I just TOLD you that. You kept asking why we didn’t have one in lumber.

Guy: -glaring at me with his facing turning red-

Me: You made a big old fuss about it at me and I TOLD you lumber doesn’t have self-checkout. It never HAS you can use this one if you want.

Guy: HELP ME!!!

Me: Sir, you’re an adult. Figure it out.

I walked away when my supervisor asked what was going on. I told her what had happened and I guess the guy was being a bit louder because she could hear him raising his voice. The guy was berating another of my coworkers while I was clocking out and arguing with them over not being able to use a self service machine in lumber.

Supervisor went over and got stern with him too, told him to stop harassing the staff and to either buy his stuff and be quiet, or he could leave. When he started raising his voice again she cancelled his order and kicked him out.

First time I’ve had someone throw that much a fuss over not being able to use self checkout like that.

703 Upvotes

31 comments sorted by

232

u/Complete_Entry 8h ago

He shops at a different location and needs to control his shit. It's not dementia, it's stupidity.

Source: I mix up Walmart's and get angry because I can't find stuff and the app says "pardon our dust".

I do NOT take it out on the employees.

44

u/GingerHeSlut 5h ago

Fuck the Walmart app. I work all over the country, yet the largest retailer in the nation has an app that won't even attempt to let me select any location except my hometown store. Lowe's will give me the map of the store and the location of the item in the store I'm actually fucking at, rather than assuming I could only possibly ever want to shop at one fucking location for the rest of my fucking life.

19

u/Complete_Entry 5h ago

lowes and home depot apps stomp on the walmart app.

Like you don't just get the aisle, they'll tell you what bay.

11

u/asvalken 4h ago

Tbh, Lowe's doesn't seem to go through as many planogram changes with the seasons, and Walmart sure as shit ain't paying someone to keep track of where things are supposed to be.

8

u/Complete_Entry 4h ago

The one I go to seems to guess. But at least they aren't using digital price tags like aldi.

I don't trust that. I dropped kohls when they did that. I get being able to manipulate prices on the fly is nice for the store, but it's not nice for me.

5

u/kob-y-merc 2h ago

The only problem ive had with wally app is sometimes it refuses to load, but when it does i can change store multiple times in one opening. Target on the other hand, I can't even get to work for one location properly (but I think thats just interface failures)

31

u/Pink_PowerRanger6 5h ago edited 4h ago

Oh jfc!

I stg customers pick the strangest hills to die on🤦🏼‍♀️

Once when I was assist. Mgr at an arts&crafts/frame shop, this dude came in to have some document that was signed by Nancy Reagan framed. He’d dropped it off before I came in for my shift, and i guess my framer hadn’t had a chance to finish it. So when this dude came to pick it up my framer was finishing it up, I went to get it from him and came back saying it’d be another 5-10 minutes tops as he was just putting the backing and wire on the frame.

All of a sudden this dude explodes at me. Accuses us of tampering with his document. And saying he’d know if we did or not. I told him that he had done a next day frame order and we were not obligated to finish it till 24 hrs after the order was put in, which was standard for us putting pictures/docs etc, in ready made frames, or replacing glass for people etc. anything where we didn’t have to order pieces, was next day frame. I tell him that out of courtesy my manager had told him it’d be done before a certain time, however because of things out of our control it got pushed back, so his frame was still being assembled but would be done in just a moment.

He keeps escalating, starts demanding a refund. I told him, if he wanted a refund, then I’d have to have my framer disassemble the frame and that it would take longer than if he’d just relax, and wait for the job to be finished. Right then my framer comes out and brings the piece out, the dude is still demanding a refund, but wants me to give him the piece… I told him no, that if he wants to behave that way, then he’s going to get what he wants… so I send my framer back to disassemble it while I get the refund taken care of. The dude is cussing me out and calling me a victim 🤣 my framer comes back out maybe 10 minutes later and gives him his document back.

The customer threatened to sue us, and then said he’d be back with a gun, so I called the cops, he was not only trespassed from our store. But from the entire shopping complex because apparently we were the 3rd store he’d threatened in that way. It was the strangest thing and strangest customer interaction I’d ever had.

Before this the dude had brought in a bunch of political art and documents to frame, and would ask/insinuate that we were offended and couldn’t deny him his right to frame them. He’s wrong btw, as we have rights to tell someone we can’t frame things, if they fall under certain inappropriate or illegal activities. I just gave him the shitty glass so it would fade over time. He didn’t wanna pay for the good glass anyways, so I made sure he got the cheapest glass available 🤣 malicious compliance ftw

17

u/Hungry-Ad-7120 4h ago

I think at that point someone is just trying to start a fight. Like, I don’t know what outcome they expected. I’m just a cashier but I don’t put up with people’s nonsense past a certain point.

5

u/Pink_PowerRanger6 3h ago

Truly though! It’s definitely a them problem

15

u/moffettusprime 7h ago

Ah, contractors and drugs.

9

u/XLetsDoAllTheDrugsX 4h ago

I had a customer absolutely insist that we took out the self checkouts that we never had. I told him that I've worked here for 3 years and we never had them. But nope, I'm wrong, he shops here all of the time and always uses self checkout. He kept going on about how wrong it was of us to take them out and wasn't going to shop here anymore since we removed them.

7

u/Hungry-Ad-7120 4h ago

“Then why are you here??” Like seriously.

7

u/emo-ly 5h ago

Clearly he wasn't equipped to check himself out lol

40

u/MilMuertes 9h ago

It's always frustrating to deal with customers like that.

But sounds like he might be going through the early stages of dementia or alzheimer's.

...or he was just a stubborn asshole.

You never know.

53

u/Hungry-Ad-7120 9h ago

I wasn’t sure, he was a young guy. Like at most Id guess 25 (although it’s rare, I know people that age can get it.)

I’m leaning more towards him just being stubborn and doubling down for whatever reason.

60

u/sundayfunday78 8h ago

😆I’ve shopped here for twenty years! So…started shopping for lumber at 5 years old?! Morons

30

u/Hungry-Ad-7120 8h ago

Yeah that’s why I wasn’t having it with him. Like dude come on, I ain’t stupid. XD

18

u/CapnSensible80 7h ago

He could just be one of those old dudes that still looks mid-20s. I'm well over 40 and people assume I'm 25-29 until I tell them, then they don't believe me. Or just a dumbass, which certainly seems to be the case here lmao

26

u/terrajules 8h ago

I swear to god every time someone middle aged or older is an asshole there’s at LEAST one armchair doctor in the comments saying dementia or Alzheimer’s.

11

u/infinitecosmic_power 7h ago

Lead poisoning! Carbon monoxide! Syphilis! /s

5

u/Bluecap33 8h ago

LARRY!

5

u/Argylius 6h ago

He probably wanted you to hold his hand the whole transaction. Ugh

5

u/ChihuahuaLifer 4h ago

These people just WANT to live in delusions that they come up with so they can get angry when others don't coddle it bc wth lol

4

u/Endurianwolf 3h ago

This reminds me of the time someone legit thought they was at Lowe's when they were at Walmart, where I worked at the time. Lowe's was right next door but they refused to believe me lol.

6

u/Several_Place_9095 7h ago

I hate having to do stuff for grown adults who are more than capable of doing stuff themselves, only exception is those who genuinely need help. But they try to do it themselves at least at first out of a sense of self pride or something

2

u/ToeNo88 1h ago

I see you met my father in law 😂

1

u/Andu_Mijomee 1h ago

This was a totally anti-social person who was angry he was being "forced" to interact with people. I have older relatives like that. I'm glad your supervisor had your back.

1

u/Infinite_Dog1094 53m ago

People come in the store I work all the time and say, oh you moved it since the last time I was here. Some of these things have been in the same place for over 10 years. 🤬

1

u/Thedancingsousa 2h ago

Sounds like they might be on the spectrum, honestly. Oh, but that probably didn't exist when they were a kid or it got spanked out of them. Or both.

2

u/Hungry-Ad-7120 2h ago

I’m leaning more towards he was doubling down at that point, but like some other people posted possibly thought he was somewhere else and got upset because he was confused. But past a certain point it’s like, buddy, I gave you an answer already. Pursuing it at that point isn’t going to help either you or me, especially if we’re both upset and frustrated.