This rich mom was already being very disrespectful to the cashier who was working part-time. But what she said to her daughter brought tears in the eyes of this cashier. (This story was sent to us by Genesis).
A couple of years ago, I worked at an office supplies store as a cashier. I was doing this to earn a little income while working on my bachelor’s degree, and plus I liked the job and the people I worked with.
The worst time for our store was during “back to school”, a time when everyone one came in during the tax free weekend to buy school supplies for their special snowflakes. It was crazy busy, so we had everyone working that day and manning the registers, including my managers.
This one upper-class woman with bleached blonde hair carrying a designer purse came up to the register and threw her stuff down on the counter. She then proceeded to toss her coupons at me and told me to “run ’em”. I smiled through gritted teeth and asked if she found everything okay. She proceeded to completely ignore me and text on her phone while her 7+ year old daughter stood quietly next to her.
I scanned the items and then scanned the coupons. My computer informed me that one of the coupons was expired, so I took a look at it and saw that it had expired a year ago! There’s no way I’d be able to override that. I politely informed her that I would be unable to apply that particular coupon to her purchase, as it was expired.
She huffed. “But why? It’s a coupon and you guys should take any coupons that the customer gives you.” I repeated myself and told her that the items on the coupon didn’t even match the items in her purchase, and she was visibly agitated at this point.
“Let me speak to your manager, I don’t have time for this crap.”
Ooookay. I motioned for my manager to come to my register from where he was standing close by, and while he was on his way, the lady leaned down to her daughter and said, in a sickeningly sweet voice: “See honey? This is why you go to college and get an education, so you don’t have to end up like her working as a cashier!”
What did she just say?? My face turned bright red and the tears starting forming in my eyes as I muttered to her that I was, in fact, going to college and that this was a part time job.
At that moment, my manager showed up behind me and asked the lady to repeat herself, which she stupidly did. She had a smug look on her face as she explained that she was the customer and the customer is ALWAYS right and that she just needed this coupon to be applied.
My manager stood there and looked at her for a few seconds, and then began taking all of her already bagged items out of their bags. “What the hell are you doing?!” SHE screeched.
Slowly and calmly, my manager said: “Ma’am, I will not let you stand here and ridicule and abuse my employees. I am going to have to ask you to leave. We no longer wish to do business with you.”
She stared at us wide-eyed and red in the face, and then looked behind her to see a long line of customers all looking back at her. She sputtered. She cried. She threw a tantrum. Her young daughter behaved better than this grow-a** woman! It was insane.
She took her purse and her cards, grabbed her daughters hand, and stormed out, while screaming “I AM NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!!! I AM GOING TO CALL YOUR BOSS AND HAVE YOU ALL FIRED! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?”
My manager chuckled, and then told me that I could go take a breather in the back because at that point I probably looked like I had seen a ghost.
