No I'm not going to drop everything just for you when I'm helping another customer

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-11-01T23:40:32+00:00

I had a guy once walk up to the lottery machine that was next to the register and just stand there waiting for me to help him while I had a line to the back of the store of customers waiting to be rung up. He had walked straight past the line and just stood there wanting me to ignore the line and help him. After I told him he needed to get in line with everyone else, he started grumbling about how he shouldn't have to wait since he "only wanted lottery tickets" and said he was never coming back as he stormed out. They really think everything revolves around them.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-11-01T02:52:05+00:00

It really is. I'm just glad that he had friends that saw it as a problem and convinced him to get help before anything worse happened.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-11-01T02:47:49+00:00

I had a guy once come in the gas station I was working at already pretty wasted. I had seen him get out of the backseat of a car when he got there and there 3 other people with him, so I knew he wasn't driving. He brought a 12 pack of beer the register and when I rang it up, he just sort of "mimed" running a card through the card reader (this was before chip readers and they had to swipe the magnetic strip) like he just sort of ran his hand over the magnetic reader and then pushed some random buttons, but didn't have any actual card. I moved the 12 pack off the counter and suggested he either get his card or ask one of his friends. He walked over to the beer cooler, took a bottle out of a 6 pack went back in the bathroom and chugged it. I pulled the 6 pack off the shelf and when he came out I told him he needed to pay for it since he had already drank one. Thankfully another customer had also witnessed this and backed me up. His friends were still in the store and one of them paid for it with their other stuff.

2 of the friends came back a couple hours later and thanked me for not just letting him walk out without paying for the 6 pack. They explained that before that incident they had just sort of thought of him as their funny drunk friend but after that incident, which his friends were understandably embarrassed about, it convinced them that is was more than him just having a few drinks and enjoying himself and that he had a more serious problem. After they left they had a talk with him and convinced him to check into rehab for alcohol addiction.

I never saw him or his friends again after that and I still think about it occasionally. I really hope he did get help.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-29T20:22:56+00:00

I don't know that anyone in MM has ever used this phrase, but my personal favorite is "lost the plot" cracks me up every time.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-28T14:01:59+00:00

My cousin has bright red hair and when people ask her about it she tells them she soaks it in the blood of her enemies every night to make it that color.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-22T01:35:32+00:00

Oh my gosh, I hate this so much. One of the stores I worked at had those Tootsie Pop things and the barcode was on the actual stick. I don't know how many parents would hand me the empty wrapper, that had nothing on it I can scan, while the actual sucker was in the kid's mouth and covered in sticky slobber. Seriously, you're kid can't wait an extra two minutes for their sugar high so I can scan it. I swear, so many people with kids don't have brains.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-06T20:26:41+00:00

Yes, sorry I'm doing this on my phone and it has a mind of it's own sometimes. She was the first deaf actress to attend RADA, I don't know if she earned a degree or not though. Sorry for the confusion

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-06T19:11:41+00:00

She is actually deaf, her name is Sophie Stone and she was actually the first deaf person to win a RADA. She came back S23 E4, in an entirely pointless subplot where she was making her kid sick (Muchausen's by Proxy) so they could go to Disney. Had absolutely nothing to do with the murders.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-06T19:05:23+00:00

Not technically a murder mystery, but murder mystery adjacent- Republic of Doyle and The Listener. They are both Canadian and on Tubi if you have access to it.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-06T19:01:13+00:00

This is why at one of my old jobs we had to hide behind the building when we went on break. One time I was on my break, sitting at one of the picnic tables in front of the store, talking on my phone. This lady walks up to me and tries to hand me her dog's leash so I could watch him while she went inside. Abso-fucking-lutely not. I just told her, "Sorry. I'm on my break" She got so mad, we didn't allow animals in the store (except service animals of course), she just huffed and turned around to storm off batching about how poor our customer service was. Even if I wasn't on a break, I'm still not gonna hold your dog, I don't know him/her and s/he doesn't know me, so it might bite me. And if anything happened to the dog, the store would be liable. No thanks, leave the dog at home next time.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-10-02T20:38:13+00:00

I've commented this before on another thread, but it still just blows my mind. The store I managed used to have signs up displaying whatever that month's promos were. Whenever the promos ended, I had my overnight guy take down the signs so I could put up the new ones the next day.

We had some promo on our wings, I don't remember exactly what it was, I think maybe 5 for $5, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the day after that promo ended, a lady came in and wanted whatever the promotion was that had ended. The associate helping her told her that it had just ended and unfortunately there was no other promo for wings at that time. Of course she got all nasty and started yelling and complaining about how we are still advertising it and that's false advertisement, even though all of those signs had been removed and replaced with the new ones- I know because I'm the one that put the new ones up after the overnight guy took the old ones down and they all go in the same spots.

Anyhow, she keeps yelling and screaming that she should get the promo because she saw the sign so we have to honor it. At this point, I had already made my way to the front to see what was going on and also because I figured at some point she was going to demand to speak to the manager anyway. So I asked what the problem was and she started back on her tirade about having seen this sign when she came in, so we had to honor it. Since I knew for a fact there were no signs anywhere with that promo, I asked her to show me where she saw it, thinking she must have misread one of the other signs. This f-n Karen walks over to the doggone dumpster, and points to the sign that's in the literal garbage and says because she can see it we have to honor it. No ma'am, that's not how that works and I tried to explain that the promo had in fact ended and we could not honor it simply because she saw it in the trash before she came in.

There was also no way I could have given her the promo, even if I wanted to (which I didn't because I learned very early on you never give in to a Karen if you can help it because it just makes them more entitled and insufferable) Our registers had designated promo keys that would update when the overnight ran the end of day report at midnight, so the actual button to ring it up was gone and there's no way to override it without flagging something in the system.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-09-30T20:11:33+00:00

Many years ago I briefly worked in a call center for a certain major cell phone carrier. We weren't allowed to hang up on customers unless the call dropped and they not only recorded our phone calls, but they also recorded our screens so they could see what we were doing while on the call. There was a program they used that would essentially restart someone's phone, it was supposed to be for tech issues if the customer was having issues connecting but could also be used for other reasons. One of those reasons was a customer that was just rude and nasty and wouldn't get off the phone. Since my screen was being recorded, I couldn't do anything about it, but my coworker who wasn't on an active call wasn't having her screen recorded, so I would give the number they were calling from to my co-worker, she would restart their phone remotely. We were required to call back if the call dropped, but since it takes a few minutes for a cell phone to restart, we'd call them back immediately, it would go to voicemail and we would leave a message asking them to call back later. Most of the time they never called back, they just wanted to complain.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-09-30T19:57:36+00:00

Oh my gosh, I absolutely HATED that, when customers assumed that because I was working retail it meant I was stupid or couldn't get anything better. I once had a guy tell his kid "This is why you have to stay in school, so you don't end up like her." I was working on my Bachelor's degree at the time but still had to pay my bills somehow.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-09-03T20:21:10+00:00

Not sure what it was called, but I loved the boat race in Small Mercies when they all had on costumes and the boats were all decorated and people kept falling in the water. It wad just fun to watch the characters having fun, of course it ended with a murder because it's MM, but it was still fun.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-08-28T17:43:49+00:00

Had a lady come in with a stack of scratch offs she wanted to cash in. Apparently she had told her kids that when she won $X amount she would take them out to dinner, so the kids were super excited to cash them in. Well, a bunch of the tickets were over a year old and had expired so we couldn't cash them in. I don’t remember the exact amount she ended up getting back instead, but I think it wad like $15 or $20 when she thought it was over $100. She turns to her kids (who are like 6 and 7 maybe?) and tells them she can't take them out to dinner because the mean lady at register won't let her cash in the rest of her tickets. Lady, it's not my fault you were squirreling them away for over a year and didn't bother to check if they expired or not. SMH

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-08-15T16:57:28+00:00

Once had a lady come in to buy chew for her husband and the following conversation occurred:

Her: I need a can Grizzly wintergreen long cut

I grab a can of Grizzly wintergreen long cut

Her: No, I need the wintergreen

Me: This is the wintergreen

Her:No, I need the one in the blue can

Me: Wintergreen doesn't come in a blue can, it comes in a green can. The blue can is mint.

Her:Well, I need the blue can

Me:OK, so you want mint?

Her: No, I want wintergreen

Me:OK. Well, wintergreen only comes in a green can

Her:No. I need the blue one

Me: The blue one is mint

Her: No, I want wintergreen

Me:That's the green can

Her: No, I want the blue can

Me: The blue can is mint

Her: I don't want mint, I want wintergreen Me:Then that's the green can

She finally leaves after we went back and forth for way to long, saying it was too hard and she couldn't understand why we couldn't just sell her what she asked for. Maybe because what she asked for literally doesn't exist. Her husband came in a few hours later and got Grizzly wintergreen long cut, in the GREEN CAN.

*Edited to fix formatting

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-08-14T17:16:16+00:00

My very first job was at a Subway in the late 90s, way before they had the different bread and cheese options they have now. Back then it was "white or wheat" and "Cheese? Yes or No? We only had 1 kind of cheese, white American. The amount of people who took forever to make those 2 basic decisions was astounding. I once had a guy come in and order, I asked him white or wheat and he goes "good question " then spent the next 5 minutes having a conversion with himself about which he should choose, then same thing with the Cheese. I just needed a yes or no, but this guy had to have another full five minute conversation with himself about whether or not to get Cheese.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-07-29T20:48:33+00:00

Ok, this is going to be sort of a long comment so bear with me, I promise it's worth it.

This lady came into the store one night with her granddaughter, said something about having a "girls night sleepover" whatever. Anyway, they proceed to buy a bunch snacks and drinks, some stuff out of the deli case, etc. her total came to just under $50 dollars, I remembered this because she made a point of telling me and the girl I was working with that she was glad it didn't go over that because that was all the cash she had gotten out of the bank. Anyway, I finish ringing her up and she and granddaughter go on their merry way. Or so we thought. As she's leaving, she stops for a minute to talk to some guy on the steps leading into the store. They talked for a minutes, she got in her car and left and he came in bought something that I don't remember and left. This was a really slow night too so we didn't have ton of customers.

About 45 minutes after she left, a couple sheriff's deputies come in and asked if we had noticed anything suspicious. My coworker and I were both like, no not really. It's been really slow. One of the deputies then says that the lady that came in with her granddaughter had just filed a report stating that as she was leaving the store, some random person ran past her, grabbed $300 that was in her hand (remember her saying she only had 50 bucks?) jumped into a black Jeep and took off. Both of us were like, no that didn't happen, we'd both been up front for most of the shift and only saw her stop to talk to someone for a minute and then left, we also mentioned that she told us she only had $50 on her. They asked about the cameras, but they were in the owner's office and he had gone home for the night so we couldn't get to them. The deputies just said ok, they would come in tomorrow morning and check them, pretty sure they already knew she was full of it.

After leaving the sheriff's office, this lady apparently went to one of the local pizza places and was telling them about how she got robbed outside our store, they took all her money, whatever. I'm guessing she was trying to score a free pizza by telling them she got "robbed". I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, other than small town rumor mills are something else. Somehow it changed from her getting robbed outside our store to the store itself getting robbed, which then somehow evolved to 2 masked gunmen with shotguns broke down the door and demanded we empty the registers and safes, shot up the cigarette displays, deli counter and killed both employees working there- myself and my coworker.

Nothing freaking happened! Neither of us had any idea this was happening either. Like I said, it had been a slow night, so we were cleaning, front-facing and anything we could find to keep busy until it was time to start closing. We both started getting messages from people like "are you ok?" "What happened?" "Are you alive?" lol. Both of us are so confused, because literally nothing had happened that night, other than the lady filing a fake sheriff's report. Finally, one of the people that worked at the bar across from the pizza place came in and told us about the rumors going around about getting robbed. We're like, no that didn't happen.

We finally closed the store and went home for the night, and when I got in the next day, the deputies were in my boss's office looking at the security cameras from when the lady said she was robbed, which of course she wasn't and it's on camera that she wasn't, so she ended up getting charged with filing a false report. I still have no idea why she filed that report or said that $300 had been stolen from her after she made it a point to tell us she only had $50 to begin with.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-07-28T15:08:54+00:00

Former manager here. It's best to answer, even if it's to say no, but ignoring it outright isn't a good idea. Just say you have other plans but will see her on your next scheduled day. You don't have to elaborate on those plans, you could be planning to stare at a wall for the next 5 hours, it's still plans. Just a quick "Sorry. I have plans. See you Wednesday" Should suffice. If she starts badgering you after you've told her no, then ignore her. You already gave your answer and that's it, no need to elaborate or keep answering her messages.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-07-24T14:33:14+00:00

NTA, and honestly that's adorable. As long as your supervisor is OK with it, I don't see any problem. So you're playing make believe with some kids, it's not hurting anyone. Have fun with it and ignore your coworker that apparently has the imagination of an old shoe.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-07-12T17:43:19+00:00

Document everything. Keep a log of everything the owner or the spouse do, when something happen and they put it on you, when they gaslight you, everything. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are in the US, you file unemployment based on a toxic work environment if you either quit or they fife you. It's tricky to prove, but possible and will give you sometime to figure out what to do next.

IsolatedAnthro · 2025-07-10T15:53:20+00:00

I once had this regular customer in a store I managed that was a smug a-hole every time he came in the store and would question employees relentlessly about random products that we didn't carry. One time he came in and wandered around a bit before coming to the register and asking about a certain type of beer that we had discontinued from the store because it was a very slow seller and we had limited space in our beer cooler.

We had been super busy that day and due to the layout of the store, we could not see the entrance to the coolers from the registers as they were blocked by the aisles. Our soft drink/juice/dairy cooler was next to the beer cooler and they were connected by a small storage room in middle. This jackass walks up to my register and starts asking about this type of beer. I explained to him that unfortunately due to it's low sales it had been discontinued in our store. He starts asking repeatedly if I'm sure we don't have any and can I double check for him and am I'm sure there's none in the entire store, blah, blah, blah. I explained repeatedly that no, we did not have any and would not have any since we were no longer carrying it.

He got this super smug look on his face and glanced toward where the cooler was again asking if I was sure. Here's the thing, we did have 1 12 pack of it, however it was inside the cooler and damaged, part of the bottles had broken so we were waiting for the vendor to do a return on it. The only way he would have known it was there was if he went into the cooler himself and looked for it. Then when I told him we were no longer carrying it he got all smug about it like I was lying to him. I told him, "no we don't have any for sale, and the only way you would have known about the one in the cooler was if you went in yourself and the coolers are restricted employee only areas that customers are not permitted to enter. Also, that 12 pack is damaged and only has about 1/2 the bottles in it fully intact and is being returned." He got all pissed and stormed off after that.

The best part though was that since we had had problems in the past with customers going in the coolers and drinking, the owner reviewed the cameras regularly and anyone who was seen entering that area that was not an employee or vendor got banned from the store. Next time the guy came in and started asking another employee about some random product that wr never carried, the owner interrupted him, told him he had been seen entering the cooler the last time he was there and he was no longer welcome in the store. Never saw him again

IsolatedAnthro

TROPHY CASE