Nothing chaps my hide worse than the Guy That Writes a Check for a Sixpack. I’ve been behind him in line about ten times at our local store. Every time, he buys one six-pack. Every time, he waits until after he gets the total, (which he surely has committed to memory by now), then pulls out his checkbook and writes a check. I pass the time acting out different ways to kill him on the spot. (Lean forward, slit his throat with the razor-sharp edge of his own check, break one of the sixpack bottles and slowly rub it into his temples, etc).
What I hate are the people who are like, “I hate those stupid self-scans! They cost you your job!”
Oh! Well then, please excuse me while I take them out right away!
Or people who piss and moan because we have to have ID with checks-I don’t care how many times you’ve been here. So what if you’re in the computer? These would be the same assholes who would come back and bitch at us for NOT checking if their check books were stolen.
Oh, and if you’re going to keep telling me all about how “Walmart does this” and “Walmart lets me!”, then go to fucking Walmart.
Saying to me, “I’m never coming back here again!” is going to result in my bursting into applause. So don’t think it’s an insult.
Peeps, if something doesn’t have a tag, I can’t just type in a price-my manager will kill me. I have to have the UPC. Tough shit.
If you’re in a hurry, or you have an appointment, then why are you here?
Oh, and finally, when my light is out, that means my lane is CLOSED. Do NOT beg, do not get pissy, and do not tell me how long you’ve been here. It’s probably not as long as I have been. I’m not a robot they hook up to the register. I have to eat and pee and they even let me go home!
This thread brings back memories…
I worked eleven years in retail. I still have visible scars.
I was a front end night manager for seven of those years. I was in charge of the cashiers/service clerks (p.c. term for baggers) and my all time stupid customer story is this…
I’m walking the floor and hear a customer start getting loud with a cashier. I walk over to see what the problem is.
The woman is buying a bottle of Tide and two potatoes. She is paying with food stamps and is having a hissy fit because she has to pay cash for the Tide. I tried to explain the concept behind food stamps to her. As in food stamps, meant for edible items only.
She kept arguing the point that she could buy anything in a grocery store with them. I told her a) food stamps are meant for things you eat and b) if she would eat a bowl of Tide, I would let her buy with the food stamps. Shut her up real good. 
I also had a drunk man try to kiss me when I was covering the third shift cashier shift. Apparently I was “real purty” that night. I told him once to let me go. When he didn’t, I punched him in full view of the night crew manager (who had heard me yelling and run up front) and kept my job.
…I have to confess, I’m quite recently guilty of talking on a cellphone while checking out of the Hobby Lobby near my house (sorry; my best friend called from Nice, France, and I couldn’t just NOT take the call, and the line was long as hell…I’m sorry…).
Thing is, I took about 1/4 the time as the Ladies Who Have Nothing Better To Do Than Spend All Day In The Hobby Lobby that were in line before me.
Look, if there’s a big ass line of people behind you and your purchase consists of about 65,000 assorted silk flower wreaths, do not take time out from unloading your cart/paying for your items to chit-chat with the other people in the store. I mean, this lady just turned around in the middle of taking her silk flowers out of the cart and started talking to her friend who was walking in about her freaking diet.
I mean, come on; at least when I’m on the phone, I’m able to get my money ready, pay, grab my bag, etc. about as fast as I could otherwise. This lady seemed incapable of doing anything while she was talking. Gah!
I’m still sorry, though.
At a gas station I once picked up a bottle of dry gas for $1.79 and then pumped $8.21 of gas. When I went inside to pay the cashier was amazed that it came out to exactly $10. I told him that I planned it that way and he called me his customer of the week.
I’ll have to admit my guilt for the “Tax? Huh?” blunder. My state does not have Sales Tax, and I rarely travel, so I often forget about it when I go out of state. Please forgive us!
I have been spared the joys of working retail, but I can sympathize with everything I’ve seen in this thread because I’ve been in line behind every one of these idiots at one time or another. I tend to charge most of my purchases, but when I do pay cash I always have it ready by the time the cashier asks me for it. If for some reason (like I’m starting to walk at an angle from the weight of the coins in my pocket) I decide to pay in exact change (or some variation thereof) I use the time standing in line to sort out my change so that I can quickly count out whatever is needed.
This is an especial pain while travelling in DC. I spent about a week there as part of a business trip, and was constantly thrown off by the taxes that were more than twice my state’s.
I am currently employed at the local WalMart store as a front end cashier. I absolutely lothe the job. The work’s not hard and I’m one of the most efficient cashiers (according to mgmt), but I can’t stand the customers. I may have about 70% good customers every day, but the other 30% makes my day a living hell. Some pet peeves that have’nt been mentioned:
Parents who let their children pay for purchases in change. Its fine to teach kids financial responsibility and all, but if they have a lunch bag full of chnage which they dump on the table, and you have no idea how much is there or have any bills to pay me with, you have just made my most wanted list. I do not have time to count out a US mint’s worth of change. Period.
People who don’t even accnowledge my existance. These customers go through the whole transaction without even looking at me or saying thank you. I am not just a machine here, I am not the cash register. I thanked you for shopping, at least a head nod would be appropriate.
I am a cashier, not a personal shopper. If you get to my register and realize you forgot to buy a teflon coated frying pan or something, don’t ask me to run back and get it for you. I have a line to deal with. You can walk back and grab the item yourself, then wait in line again with the people who made lists.
We may be a WalMart, but we do not sell everything known to man. We are not forced by law to carry 2 litre bottles of Citra or SCSI computer hard drives. Don’t get ticked at me when we don’t. Also, please refrain from asking my opinion about what brand or type of product to use. I usually will not know becuase I haven’t used most of the stuff in the store.
Do not walk up to the register and ask the price or exact location of an item. Our store carries over 80,000 items and I do not know the details of every one.
We gladly match our competitor’s price, but I can’t just take your word for it. I need an advertisement or price tag, no execptions. And if the sale ended Monday, and its Tuesday, you do not get it for that price.
I CAN NOT EXCEPT EXPIRED COUPONS!! I don’t care if the store down the street does, we don’t. I can get in trouble for it and I’m not risking my ass to save you $0.22.
At our store, there is a set of automatic doors, and a set or normal push-to-open doors. If you samsh your cart into the normal doors, don’t whine to me about it. Its clearly marked and is there because of fire code. If you can’t tell the diference between electric and nonelectric doors, just stay at home.
By the way, we are free to charge whatever we wnt for an item, as long as it is clearly marked on the shelf. Just because the WalMart one state over sells something for less doesn’t mean we have to, so don’t ask me to mark it down especially for you. Aint gonna happen.
Finally, if some error genuinely is my fault or the store’s fault, please be patient. If a manager needs to be called, please wait for them politely, they are busy people. Do not bitch at me. I will not take it. I don’t yell at you when your credit card is denied or you lose your check book, and I expect the same level of respect.
woo, that felt good. I need to rant more often 
I just posted about my nightmare customer experience in my [url=“http://jinwicked.livejournal.com/”>LiveJournal. I had linked to it in MPSIMS.
My worst experiences in general with customers, since I’m not really a cashier, per se, but I do ring people out when doing framing orders, are the guys that hit on me. Now, if you look like my grandpa, I don’t so much mind you calling me sweetheart in a granddaughterly way. But these 40 y.o. perverts that want to tell me how pretty I am, and ask my age, and any other number of personal questions, can take a long walk off a short pier. I’m sure plenty of them have walked out of the store calling me a bitch for being so mean after they were So Nice to Me. Humbug, I say.
“Well hi sweetheart, you sure look pretty, how are you today?”
“Fine, asshole, and you?”
“I’m not an asshole!”
“And I’m not your sweetheart.”
Get a life, losers. I am smiling at you because I smile at all my customers. You are not special. As a matter of fact, you are a sicko for even hitting on me to begin with, since most people tend to think I’m about 17 or 18 before I tell them I’m actually 22.
I really liked the “web designer” that came in our store offering to make a website for us. He had a binder full of printouts of pages he’d “designed” which basically were the run-of-the-mill FrontPage templates. He was wearing a shirt and tie and everything, and left us business cards even though we told him that the web stuff was handled by the corporate offices. It took every ounce of self-control in me to not laugh right in front of him, his whole little spiel was so pathetically cute and naive. I had questioned him about some of the backend and programming stuff, and he was completely clueless.
That, and he missed the boat by about three years.
Gah, I mean loath, not lothe
Whoops. Damned HTML.
Jesus, jin, you need to get yourself to www.customerssuck.com STAT!!!
Hang in there. That SUCKS!
Yeah, but I have permission from the DM now to refuse to serve them and tell them to leave the store and not come back if they do anything like that to me again. If it happens again, and I ask them to leave, and they refuse, I’ll be calling the police.
I also framed a very personal, sentimental item for a lawyer recently who was so pleased with my work that she left me her card, and told me to call her if I needed anything.
hey cashiers, I wanted to say thanks for
- giving me all that useful Candian change
- handing me the bills first and then dumping the change on top so that it spills all over the floor or parking lot. I love scrounging for it!
- not waiting 2 seconds for me to put the change in my wallet before shoving a stack of receipts in my face.
- gabbing incessantly about last night’s kegger with the bagboy. It’s not like he’s bagging slow enough as it is without being distracted by thoughts of cheap beer and cheaper women.
- smacking gum like a cow chewing cud.
- sighing audibly and demanding to know “WHAT is THIS?” because you don’t recognize a few fruits and vegetables. Excuse me for buying something other than an apple or beefsteak tomato.
- not mastering 5th grade math
- discussing the merits of each and every one of my purchases. YES, I like that product - that’s why I’m buying it.
The pet peeves go both ways. Most cashiers are great, but there are a lot of dim bulbs out there, too. My local grocery store has a cashier who is simply amazing. I get in her line just to watch her sling cans, boxes and produce at lightning speed.
Well said evilhanz.
Retail - The good, the bad and the ugly. On both sides of the counter.
Please don’t ask me for something free. I am not obligated to. If you are an attractive female who shows the slightest interest in flirting with me as I make your drink, I might not charge you for that flavor shot in your cappucino. However, if you blatantly ask for a discount or free stuff, you will be politely denied. Unless you are attractive and write your phone number down : ) I will give out free things and put out samples when we need to move something or I messed up on a drink. If you’re lucky enough to be around at last call, I might even offer you free coffee because we just cleaned our espresso maker.
Another point. It’s eSPresso, not eXPresso. Arrgh.
Making a complicated drink takes time. Don’t get mad if I ask you to repeat it. Don’t get mad if it takes time. Please move to the other side of the bar where you can pick up your drink, and my cashier can take another order.
Hey Corey, go to bed
A couple of months ago I was doing some late night shopping at the supermarket. I was standing in line to buy my potato chips, chocolate and Vogue, there was a couple in front of me. They bought a teeny carton of milk and a packet of cigarettes, and tried to use a $10 Salvation Army food voucher. Like food stamps, this voucher is for food only. They didn’t present the voucher until the guy already had already put one of the cigarettes in his mouth, probably anticipating that the cashier would let it slide since they wouldn’t be able to resell the pack.
Of course, he couldn’t do it - he said that it could cost him his job, that the vouchers were intended for food. The woman made a huge scene and poked the cashier in the chest, saying that he would accept the voucher because they weren’t going to pay otherwise. He refused, and asked for the cigarettes back. A couple more minutes of this, and the couple stormed off, leaving their milk and unusable cigarettes. I’m glad they weren’t able to bully the guy into selling the cigarettes.
It’s not that late… oh good god! eh, not tired. Think I’ll SDMB the night away.