We’ve all heard or maybe personally experienced rude customers, but what about the other way around? Any experience with rude employees? Well, these shoppers have and reveal the time they clapped back at them for their inconsiderate behavior. Some people aren’t meant for customer service and it shows. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Mean Girls
“The employees’ names were Jennifer, Belinda, and Suzanna; California girls with gold, sparkly name tags.
My colleague/friend Chris raved about the dress boutique where those three worked, encouraging me to go there for my makeover, saying that the staff was very good at finding just the right clothes for customers. She and her friends bought there almost monthly.
Chris was attractive, confident, and outgoing. I was a work in progress, basically, a mess, shy and unsure.
The ladies had been very attentive to her, yet they clocked me as someone they needn’t bother with. The staff of three sized me up from the moment I walked in and then ignored me. I approached them, saying that I was Chris’ friend, but their incredulous faces called me ‘liar’.
I explained that I wanted to look more businesslike, and the looks that passed among them should have caused me to walk out, but I was naive.
They brought in clothes that made my faults more glaring. When I said something, they dismissed me as fashion ignorant. The goods were cheap, not at all like Chris’ outfits. They stood outside the changing room and made snide comments. When they cooed over a horrid yellow dress that was clearly the wrong size, I had had enough.
As I left the try-on room, Suzanne, not seeing me behind her said, ‘You can’t change a turd into a cheesecake.’
I knew she was referring to me because Belinda shushed her. I thought I could walk out, head held high, but I missed a small step as I left the service area and fell. They all laughed.
Chris heard them, too, having excitedly come to see my new outfits. She rushed over to help me up while the three stared. When I told her I had bought nothing, she noticed the discarded clothes on the sales desk.
‘What is THIS nonsense?!’ She repeated herself over and over, louder and louder as she sifted through the cheap, ugly clothes.
She glared at the three, demanding an explanation. As they looked at each other and tried to clear themselves, I said, ‘Chris, you told me how good they were, but Suzanne said they couldn’t turn a turd into a cheesecake.’
A furious, ranting Chris was frightening. She promised them that neither she nor her friends would ever buy from them again and that she would be calling the owner. And she and her friends kept those promises.
Then she told them I had come to spend an amount that was probably what they each made in a year, which was true. I had been saving forever. They begged Chris (but not me) to reconsider as we left.”
“His Whole Attitude Sucked”
“I was used to friendly cashiers at my local grocery store and was surprised when they hired a part-time fellow to work weekends. The first time I picked his till I was aware of his sullen attitude but let it pass because perhaps he was having a bad day. The second time he displayed an extremely negative demeanor as if he was doing me a favor by ringing up my order. His whole attitude sucked, so I went to customer service and explained that he needed an attitude adjustment and they seemed to agree because he wasn’t there the next week.
I was so ticked off so, I had said to him, ‘Look, we are paying your wages!’
I was sure he got the point from there. I hope he found work more compatible with his personality, like a prison guard or janitor. Some people are just not suited to work with the public.”
Who Was Right? The Customer Or The Employee?
“I went to Circuit City, which is a store I will always miss, and bought a brand new washer and dryer and a new tv that was a display model on the shelf for my new place. They took 50 bucks off the tv price. I had never been able to do that before, pay cash for nice new things.
The salesman told me to pay the cashier and go to the pickup counter and they would get the tv for me. The washer and dryer were going to be delivered in a couple of days.
The girl at the counter looked at my receipt and asked me where the other tv was.
I asked, ‘What other tv?’
She replied, ‘The one you brought back.’
I said, ‘I didn’t bring one back, I bought one.’
She said, ‘No, you have one we gave you credit for, where is it?’
This went on back and forth till I got mad.
I exclaimed, ‘What the heck are you talking about? I just now paid cash for a washer dryer and tv. There is no other tv!’
She said, ‘You’re trying to pull something on us and get two TVs.’
I said, ‘What the heck is wrong with you? Just give me my freakin’ money back and I’ll go to Best Buy!’
I didn’t know there was a big guy sitting at a desk around the corner listening to our conversation the whole time. He stomped up to the counter and looked at my paperwork with her. I thought he was going to go off on me or something.
I was thinking, ‘Uh oh, I shouldn’t have cussed at her.’
He handed her the paperback and said, ‘Give him his darn tv and take 50 bucks off for being stupid.’
Then he told me he was very sorry and he hoped I would still come back to the store again. Well, yeah. Of course, I would. I just got a new 215 dollar tv for 115 bucks.
I told him, ‘Thank you.’
That tv worked perfectly for 20 years until flat screens came out and I gave it away.”
No Verbal Abuse On His Watch
“I am frugal, so frugal at times it becomes a joke in the family. They NEVER go grocery shopping with me. It’s a three to four-hour excursion as I check prices, weight, cost per gram, the whole nine yards. If I have to walk to the other end of the store to save 10 cents, I walk. I buy all the meat that has the 30 percent off sticker because it is coming close to the ‘best before’ date and it goes in the freezer. I’m holy terror when it is the one-dollar sale event.
So the Food Basics near me had one of that one-dollar sale and away I went. I had three carts filled with stuff. My sons were with me and getting antsy as they wanted to get out of there.
As I was strolling up and down the aisles, I got near the end of an aisle and there was a chap stocking the end shelves. I watched as a very elderly gentleman went up and asked where a certain product was.
The guy stocking shelves tossed the cans that were in his hand back into the box and said, ‘I’ll show you this time, but I’m not going to do your shopping for you, you need to open your eyes.’
OK, now I was upset. Here’s a chap that seems to be about 70, maybe even 80, using a cane and this guy was lecturing him? Nah, not on my watch.
I went, sons in tow, to the front of the store. A young lady was standing by the office door texting. She was ignoring me even after I said, ‘Excuse me.’ Finally, she looked and I asked for the manager.
She said, ‘Oh, he’s on the floor somewhere.’
So I asked her to page him for me. She couldn’t do that because she was on her break. Ok, fine, I thought I would go find him after I got the boys in the line up to cash out. Mind you, this was on a Friday, at seven pm, and they had only ONE cashier working. The lineup went to the end of the freezer section.
I asked if they were opening more cash registers.
The cashier said, ‘I dunno, I am not the boss.’
We left, empty-handed. I got home and got on the computer in search of the email address for customer comments. Once I got it, I told them about the elderly gentleman and how he was verbally abused, about the clerk who could do nothing because she was on her break, and about the one cashier at the busiest time of the day for the store. Everything was mentioned in my email.
I ended it with the observation that this was obviously a mismanaged store. I was retired and had experience with in-store operations, and for 1K a week for a six-week contract, I’d go in and clean the place out of the deadwood and get it operating as it should be. I gave them my phone number.
A week later, the store manager phoned me and wanted to chat. Told him I didn’t discuss issues on the phone, I would come by and see him. I got there about an hour later, and he wanted to talk in front of the store. I told him never mind that then I offered to take him across the street to McD’s for coffee.
So we went over, I bought the coffee because he forgot his wallet at home. And I believed that since he was somewhat addle-brained. We went over what happened, and he told me the clerk who berated the elderly gentleman no longer worked there, nor did the clerk that couldn’t be bothered to page him that evening. He explained that a silly computer determined which registers and how many were to be opened at any given time and he had to go by that.
I mentioned to him that I was a regular, I bought a ton of groceries and I loved the 10 dollar bags of frozen stuff like stuffed chicken thighs, perogies, chicken nuggets etc. A 10 dollar bag can go a long way. Then he said he wanted to compensate me and buy me dinner. We were still in McD’s and I was suddenly envisioning coupons for a happy meal or a number two or three. Instead, he told me to go get whatever I wanted for dinner for myself and the boys, steaks, a roast, veggies, potatoes and a pie or cake and it was on him.
It was a nice gesture and I was somewhat happy with that, happier that they got rid of the clown that verbally insulted the elderly customer.
So I went and got everything for dinner, and since I was there, got a second cart and bought all the stuff that I needed for the house (that was on sale, of course.) When I got to the cashier, and as requested by the manager, asked her to page him so he could void the sale for the dinner stuff. I put it on the conveyor, put one of those dividers up, and started to unload my cart.
He looked and said, ‘What’s all that stuff?’
I said, ‘Those are my regular purchases. You’re paying for dinner, I’m here, so I figured I’ll buy my groceries and save a trip.’
He looked at this overflowing cart and shrugged and said, ‘What the heck!’ and turned to the cashier and said, ‘Scan everything on one bill, and then I’ll void it.’
About two months later, it was a one-dollar day again, and four carts of stuff, including a ton of 10 dollar bags of frozen goods. We hit the cashier once we finished. Accidentally, because my sons sometimes are not the brightest bulbs in the ceiling light, we left two bags of frozen 10 dollars stuff at the store. Once we got everything out of the cab and started putting away groceries, that was when we noticed it was missing. So I called the store and sure enough, they were there. I asked the nice lady if she’d put them aside, I’d be down shortly and pick them up, and then, gave her my name.
About 10 minutes later, I got a call. It was the manager, he was calling to see if I was the same Robert he spoke to at McD’s a while ago?
I said, ‘Yup, that’s me.’
He said, ‘Yeh when I saw the bags of frozen stuff, and the name Robert, I sort of figured it might be you. Give me your address, I’ll drop them off on the way home after the store closes.’
Yup, got home delivery that night. I sat and had coffee with him in my living room, learned more about him, and the store, and how he was a relatively new manager and was just trying to turn things around to improve it and that he needed feedback about what was going on when he wasn’t there.
Now THAT’S ‘good customer service’. A far cry from telling an old gentleman that, ‘I’m not going to do your grocery shopping for you.'”
No One Was Going To Ruin Her Birthday
“I started a tradition for myself when I was 21, to buy myself a gift on my birthday. My birthday is very important to me. It’s my own special day of the year. I like jewelry. So I decided since I couldn’t be sure I would be dating anyone exactly on my birthday every year, I was going to buy myself a special gift to celebrate. That’s how my birthday tradition started.
Now I like Tiffany & Co. jewelry. And not everything is very expensive. I started buying sterling silver jewelry when I first started my birthday tradition. Over the years, I got to know the Sales Associates at Tiffany’s and they would know if they worked there long enough I would be in on or around my birthday to pick out my special gift for myself. As the years passed, and I made more money, I could afford to buy nicer pieces of Tiffany jewelry.
One day, right before my birthday, I decided to go in to buy my 45th birthday present for myself. It was summer, and a very hot and humid morning, so rather than dress up, I decided to wear shorts and a t-shirt and go to Tiffany’s.
If you’ve ever been to Tiffany’s, the more expensive jewelry, like the diamond collections, are upfront and the less expensive jewelry is in a different section.
This year was very special because my father had just passed away a few months before my birthday from cancer. He bought me my first piece of nice jewelry when I was about 13. I remember he took me to Macy’s and helped me pick out something for Christmas. He bought me a small heart necklace that had tiny little diamonds on it, not very expensive. I still have it to this day. And over the years, my dad who traveled quite a bit with his job would sometimes come home with a piece of jewelry for me. I still have a cameo he bought me in Milan, Italy.
This day I came into Tiffany’s to buy my 45th birthday present with some money my father had left me. I had always wanted a small diamond solitaire necklace. Now that I had some money from my father, it made it all the more special to buy my first real diamond necklace this particular year.
As I went when they first opened, I had the store to myself. It made me feel like they closed the store just for me on my birthday. I started to peruse around the diamond cases when this older gentleman came up to me and asked if he could help me.
I said, ‘No thank you, I’m just looking right now for what I want.’
He said, ‘The less expensive items are towards the back of the store.’
I thought that was an odd thing to say.
I just said, ‘I know, thank you.’
I went back to looking for my diamond solitaire necklace, but as I was looking in one of the diamond cases, this man came up to me again.
He said, ‘I would be happy to help you find something in the less expensive silver section if you like.’
Now I knew, by the fact I was wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt with sandals on, he was assuming I knew nothing about jewelry, or more importantly, he was making the assumption I could not afford anything as expensive as a diamond solitaire.
Again, I politely said, ‘No thank you.’
But he was determined to sway me to a possible piece I could ‘afford’. When he approached me for the third time, I asked to immediately speak to the manager.
She eventually came out. She was a young woman of 30 or so.
About this time all the sales associates I had dealt with over the years were coming to work and all greeted me as they came in. One woman I knew very well, walked over to the manager, and I believe she was telling her who I was and why I was there, as it was so close to my birthday. This young manager was so polite when I explained to her the story of my father, my birthday tradition, and how important this year was as I had just lost my father. She helped me select the nicest diamond solitaire necklace, took it back, wrapped it in a special porcelain Tiffany box, and put that inside a large signature blue Tiffany gift box with a beautiful Tiffany white ribbon bow. The porcelain box when I opened it at home, was a gift to me from the store. This woman made my birthday very special just for me. I thanked her for being so attentive while I tried on different pieces, and I said goodbye to all the associates I knew and went home.
The first phone call I made when I got home was to the Corporate office of Tiffany and Co. and I asked to speak to the CEO directly. His assistant put me right on the phone with him. I introduced myself and explained my birthday tradition, how I was a good customer of Tiffany’s and had purchased at least one piece of jewelry a year since I was 21. I also wanted to point out to him what a wonderful young manager he had and how she made this important birthday very nice for me. I also explained how rude this gentleman sales associate was to me. I said I could have worn ripped jeans and been a billionaire, but he treated me like I didn’t have two pennies to rub together by this rude man in the store. He apologized on behalf of Tiffany’s and gave me his direct phone number to call him any time I had a question or needed to speak to him personally. I thanked him for his attention and said goodbye.
That is how I handled my rude Sales Associate and his poor customer service.”
They Were “Too Busy” To Deal With Him
“I was at a Wal-Mart pharmacy to pick up my prescription. The pharmacy technicians were too busy chatting and drinking their beverages to deal with me. They didn’t explain why some of my meds were covered on my insurance and some weren’t and were basically dismissive.
The thing is I WAS a Wal-Mart pharmacy technician at a different store, and I would have been instantly fired or at least written up if I had talked to one of our customers that way. We weren’t even allowed to have drinks, not even water, in the pharmacy.
I transferred my prescriptions to CVS.”
Obnoxious Saleswoman
“Twenty years ago, my family and I were all out shopping for furniture. We went to a place that was ‘Going out of business’ and soon after walking in, a tall slender woman with an accent zoomed over to help us. Not Russian, but one of the areas to the south of Russia.
She said, ‘My name is Olga. Can I help you?’
I said, ‘No.’
She asked, ‘What are you looking for today?’
I said, ‘Furniture.’
She asked, ‘What kind of furniture?’
I said, ‘No idea. We’ll know it when we see it.’
She said, ‘Well, you must have some ideas.’
I replied, ‘I do have some. Yes, but none of them involve you. Thanks for offering. I have your name, I’ll call you if we need any help.’
So we walked away but she was very ‘pushy’ and tagged along trying to talk to us. I ignored her and we wandered around talking, looking, and sitting on various pieces of furniture. She followed and made suggestions, often pointing out something random and uninteresting to us. She kept up a rambling commentary. The kids were a little nervous about her and refused to engage.
At some point, I saw a man arguing with a sales staff that he wanted only the sofa and the chair out of a brown leather set which included a love seat. They would only give him partial credit because they claimed the love seat would be impossible to sell alone.
I listened for a minute, fingered the really excellent heavy leather, and then butted in, ‘I’ll take the loveseat! This guy can’t use it, right? He just wants the other pieces.’ I then looked at the guy, ‘Is that OK with you pal?’
He smiled and agreed. He said, ‘Thanks.’
So I was then making the deal with whoever he had been talking to and the semi-Russian woman grabbed their arm and demanded that she was my salesperson so she should get the credit/commission. The saleswoman brushed her off and after a bit, she came back around to me for support. I tried to politely but pointedly ignore her, and turned and stepped away a few times, but she kept at me.
So finally I turned to her and said the, now classic, words, ‘Please get away from me and do not ever speak to me again!’
I suppose I used at least a bit of my big voice because everyone in that area stopped talking and soon someone rushed over to get the semi-Russian woman away.
Periodically ever since in certain public situations, one of my children will grin and whisper to me, ‘Tell them to get away and never speak to you again!’
And at the table every so often it will come up as one of those ‘remember that time’ stories. It seemed like nothing to me at the time, but it’s always fascinating to me what the kids remember and what they don’t.
I still have that leather loveseat in my kitchen. It’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture.”
Why Be Mean To The Grandma?!
“I was with my grandmother a few years ago at a popular superstore. The store had just been totally reset and nothing was even close to where it was prior. My grandmother was searching for saltine crackers. I went to the other end of the aisle to look.
As I came back around, I heard my grandmother ask an associate, who was stocking in that aisle and obviously worked there, where she could find the said product.
The associate told my grandmother, ‘It is right in front of your face if you would freakin’ look.’
Me, being the sweetest smart-aleck ever, walked up and said, ‘Hi (whatever her name tag said), I was wondering if (I called the store manager by name) was working today.’
Her face went pale and told me yes he was. I told her great I haven’t seen him in forever, grabbed the crackers, and walked out of the aisle with my grandmother. I went and had him paged. When he came up front I told him I wanted to make sure he knew he had an employee with exceptional customer service skills. Knowing me he knew this wasn’t going to go well. He and I walked back to the aisle and went to the associate with the tremendous vocabulary and attitude. I explained the situation that took place earlier and that her description of the location was amazing.
She was sent into the office for disciplinary action, while other customers in the aisle had already complained to the department head.
You see, my grandmother used to babysit the store manager when he was younger. He and I basically grew up together.
He just looked at me, shook his head, and said, ‘I see you’re still sweet as ever.'”
Never Judge A Book By Its Cover
“A friend of mine told me about an experience that he had with a friend. His friend always wore overalls, his work gave him a slight odor, and he went into a jewelry store to buy something for his wife.
A young, snooty, salesperson tried to shoo him out of the store, but he insisted on looking at a very expensive diamond piece.
She, indignantly, showed him the piece, and then he said, ‘I’ll take it.’
He reached into his pockets, and he had a roll of bills the size of a grapefruit. They were all hundred-dollar bills. He started just counting them out until he had all the money, in hundred dollar bills, laid out on the counter. The clerk didn’t know what to say.
The clerk asked my friend who the customer was and he told her. He owned the sewage system for the city, and three other cities. Every time somebody flushed a toilet, he got paid. He made more money per day than most people did in a year. He wore his ratty overalls because that was the work that he did, but he made enough money to treat his wife the way that she deserved.
Never judge a book by its cover or a customer by the clothes they are wearing. He didn’t mind the rude customer service, it was beneath him to be upset by small-minded people.”
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