You can card me anytime you want. I don’t smoke tobacco so you would have to card me for milk, but I’d still love it if you did.
I get snarky if I’m in line behind someone too dumb to carry their ID while buying age restricted stuff. I can say things that staff cannot and I carry a big stick.
You are doing great. If this thread is ever zombified, you will probably cringe looking back at how silly your concerns were. 
This. Just explain that you are required to card everyone who buys certain items and you don’t want to risk your job so please show me your ID so I can sell you cigarettes/beer/what have you.
Or say “It’s a pain for me too, but I don’t want to be fired.” and request their ID again.
Perfect. I’ll say exactly that.
On second thought, maybe not so perfect as the corporation probably doesn’t want you expressing a job requirement as a pain. This varies from company to company though. You might want to ask a coworker what the correct response should be.
“I sympathize, but it’s my job.”
NM, I’ll start a new thread so as not to hijack.
Link us to it in here; I’d like to be part of that discussion.
That’s the nicer way. “Sorry, it’s company policy” is fine enough for me. If they argue, well, I mean, not your monkey, not your circus is the attitude. You don’t make the rules; you have to follow them. I’ve seen 70 year olds get carded at the airport ordering drinks. The server basically repeated that line and held firm after protestations. (And, I mean, they’re at an airport. They clearly have ID.) Has nothing to do with you. Don’t give a shit if the customer is an ass about it.
This.
I know that you are a nice person who wants to make people happy. One of the first things I learned when I started working with the public is that some people just want to see the world burn and will throw fits over pretty stupid shit. Do not take it personal.
It will not kill anyone to have to show you ID. They are required to carry their driver’s license if they are using a motor vehicle.
OTOH, if you were to card me, I would be shocked and would ask if you were serious. This would not be the start of an argument, it would be shock that anyone thought I was younger than 40. Be ready for that response as well. (Please don’t break my heart by pointing at the sign saying that you card everyone.)
When I get a customer who gets crappy about having to show an ID I agree with them it’s stupid/oppressive/whatever, but hey, it’s still the law so both our hands are tied. It usually works.
Sure, double check, by my employer actually suggests “commiserate, agree, but still get the ID” as a strategy.
DesertRoomie was working at assistant manager a gas station/convenience store about the time the pump card readers started demanding the zip code on debit cards. People would come in to the store to complain about it after pumping their gas. She’d just shrug. “So, if you accidentally dropped it on the ground unnoticed you’d be okay with anybody picking it up and using it to buy another tank of gas?”
Hehehe, I always just say “oh, being a bald guy with long hair and a white beard isn’t fooling you, huh?” and reach for my ID.
I’ve had to explain the “card everybody” policy to a large number of U.K. friends who pop over here occasionally for racing. When explained that “card everybody” means even the white-haired ones, it also means that employees won’t be breaking the law or losing a job because everyone got carded. They agree that it just makes sense. Even if it is a pain in the butt.
But you already have your wallet in your hand to get the cash or card. How much effort it it to fish out your ID in addition?
If you are not from the U.S., you will likely have to dig out your passport. And that’s a pain. Others I know keep their cash or pymt card separate from their ID.
It doesn’t bother me to show ID but to each their own.
I usually say, “Oh, you want to see if I qualify for the senior discount, right?”
I mean they’ve heard it all…why quip? I’d get sick of it right quick as a cashier. I guess it’s just so usual and normal here for me to get carded even though there’s not a chance in hell I look under 30 with two kids in tow, with some places requiring a license scan, I just shut up and hand over the ID.
Because I’m a senior and it gets a laugh. (Also, I became a senior pandemically and nobody’s given me a discount yet.)
Because it signals that I think the situation is humorous and I’m complying?
Mind you, I’ve always looked older than I actually am since hitting puberty, and I wasn’t carded for alcohol or cigarettes at all when I was too young to buy them, and was never carded for anything until I was 25 or so. So, getting carded is particularly humorous to me. In fact, I had someone in my high school algebra class stop me as I was leaving work one night and ask if I could buy them beer. I said “Yes, but not here at Kroger where I work, because I’m the same age as you are. Also, if you didn’t notice the guy in your algebra class with long, dyed black hair, you might want to try to be more observant in the future.” Then I went across the parking lot to Conoco and bought them beer.
Oh, and one thing I may add: I have gotten into arguments over whether I need to have my six pack of beer put in a fucking bag at the convenience store. There’s no such law, and the only thing I can find on the subject is this tweet from the TABC saying there’s no such law:
I’ve gone so far as to tell them they’re wasting their employer’s money forcing something on a customer that they don’t want, generating trash, now I’m off to buy my beer somewhere else that doesn’t hire the same class of idiot, and I won’t be back. I mean, they’re all in one container, why in the hell would I need a bag?
So, before you try to enforce a myth like that one, try to make sure it is true. The job of a convenience store clerk is hard enough without irritating the customers with weird fantasy laws.