This is a story about one my customers from hell and my subtle revenge. I admit it was not my finest hour. Ok...before I start this story there are a few things I want to say. First, I want to let you know that normally I am a fair, rational, and patient person--so this story is pretty out of character for me(at least I hope it is)--maybe there is just something about being stuck at a cash register for hours on end that makes me irrational and cranky. But if I'm going to write honestly about my experiences as a cashier I have to tell it all--the good, the bad, and the ugly. But please don't judge me too harshly after reading this. Secondly, I want to give you a brief background so that you have a context for what happened. Not that I'm trying to make any excuses--I'm just trying to explain part of the reason why I consider this particular lady the customer from hell. Under normal circumstances she might not have pissed me off so much...but it had been a looonnnggg day. My day started out (like it normally did) with my alarm going off at 5:30 in the morning. I hit the snooze bar like a million times before I finally dragged my ass out of bed. I got ready for work and left the house and ran to catch the train (which I almost missed)--riding an hour into the city to get to work. I had a bad day at the office and then took the train an hour back home. From the train station I went to work at the grocery store. After all that...Finally, it was 11:56 and I only had 4 more minutes left--Yay! Then I glanced up and saw this woman standing across from the registers, staring at a display of potatoe chips. I watched her for a minute. She would pick up a bag of chips, examine the bag very carefully, put it back and pick up another bag of potatoe chips and examine that. She did this for a while. I swear to god it was like this woman had never seen a bag of chips before in her life. So using my cashier's intuition I just knew this woman was going to take her sweet time shopping. Then I watched this woman walk over to the produce aisle and pick through the apples. By this time it was after 12:00. When the woman finally came to the checkout it was 12:10. Like many grocery stores, at our store each lane has a light so that customers generally know when the light is on the lane is open. Since it was after 12:00 I had already turned off the light but I was standing at my register. She stared at me and aid, "Which register do I go to?" I answered, ( I admit, very sarcastically), "Uh, the one where I'm standing." And she said in a nasty, sarcastic tone, "Well all the lights are off so I didn't know which register was open." "Well, all the lights are off because all the registers are supposed to be closed for the night." I told her (again, being rude and sarcastic--I know, but it was after 12:00 and this woman was already on very thin ice with me). So then she sets her hand basket down on the conveyor belt and she doesn't move and neither do I. We have a stare off because I'm waiting for her to unload her basket of groceries. It was like a game of chicken to see which one of us would move first. As I wait for her to unload her basket (she's still just standing there) she finally snaps, "What?" At this point I was so furious all I could do was shake my head at her and laugh. So I removed the groceries from her basket and start to scan them. I send them down the belt and (surprise, surprise) she just stands there staring, not bagging her groceries. At this point a light bulb went off for me--like a cartoon character with a brilliant idea. I was being paid to be there and she wasn't so I was gonna take me sweet time and she was gonna stand there and wait. I thought if I have to be here after the store closes to help this woman I was damn sure going to get my moneys worth. I would scan an item, count to 15 in my head and then scan the next item. I did this for the rest of her order (and let me tell you 15 seconds feels like a long time when you are talking about scanning groceries). She still had not moved, she was not bagging her own groceries, no apology. Then I got to the produce. I dug my nails into her cucumbers and apples. I squeezed the peaches hoping to bruise or damage them somehow. This I admit was a low point. Then I threw her groceries into a bag, as slowly as I could.
Now to be fair some grocery stores are open 24 hours and maybe this woman thought our store was open 24 hours too--but she saw all the registers were closed and she watched me getting ready to close down my register before she walked over to produce. If she wasn't sure about the store hours all she had to do was ask someone or check the hours posted on the doors at the front of the store. So what's the moral of the story here? I think it's that you get back what you give. Would things have been different if I had been nicer to her? Would she have been nicer to me if I had been nicer to her? Possibly. Would I have been nicer to her if I hadn't been up since 5:30 in the morning? Probably, but I will never know for sure. What I do know is that I wouldn't have been nearly as hostile if she had apologized at the start or if she hadn't been rude right from the start. When I perceived that she was rude and nasty from the start I was rude and nasty back. And maybe she's normally a very sweet, kind person who was just having a bad day. I'll never know. Again not my finest hour and maybe I overreacted. I do feel bad that I was so nasty to her but that is my story of the customer from hell.
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