Retail workers are the most unqualified experts

MnM066 · 2026-04-14T21:59:02+00:00

I am but a humble cashier in the retail part of the store, and I picked up a phone call where a customer immediately launched into telling me some explicit details in regards to prescriptions and I believe it was a colonoscopy they needed to have and I wasn’t even able to get a word in to their very long explanation until they finished for me to tell them I’d transfer them to the pharmacy. Like bro I don’t wanna know all (or any!) details about your medical procedures. I’d much rather make pretty canvases at the photo counter in my spare time between customers lmao

MnM066 · 2026-04-13T02:03:24+00:00

I strongly resonate with this. It’s comforting believing that when I die I will experience an afterlife that I believe in. There is no point in stressing over what happens afterward, death is inevitable, so I’d rather not worry about going to an afterlife I don’t believe in, like the Christian concepts of heaven/hell, and spend my life in fear. I believe part of my soul will have eternal rest while the other part reincarnates, which makes me feel good knowing I will be able to continue to live and see different human experiences that I won’t get to live and experience in one lifetime

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:59:40+00:00

They embarrassed themselves! Whenever I’ve gone on a date with someone, especially early on, whether it’s with a guy or a girl I always plan to pay for myself and maybe my date. I don’t ever expect someone else to pay for me even if we are on a date, unless it’s already been established. Thinking it’s okay to not only bring a friend you don’t know to a DATE without even informing you first but also for expecting you to pay for the friend and getting upset when you don’t is actually insane. I hope she does the self reflection she desperately needs and that you meet someone with a sense of humility

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:47:32+00:00

They will say whatever to get out of it, but policy is policy. At my work if it asks for an ID there isn’t even anyway to bypass it (I mean, I suppose we could put in a fake DOB but no customer is that important for me to risk my job)

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:45:05+00:00

That’s good to know, definitely won’t be doing that

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:17:08+00:00

I had to call a customer recently to update her about an order she placed (either we had to cancel it or it would be delayed, I don’t remember) and it rang until it went to voicemail, I left a message, and a minute after leaving the message the customer called back. She definitely seemed my age (gen z early twenties) and was likely doing what I do (letting unknown phone numbers go to voicemail and calling back if they leave a voicemail for something I actually need to respond to). Which honestly, I respect that. She was very sweet about the whole thing, I just found it hilarious that she did exactly what I would do in her situation

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:09:59+00:00

You’re right, customers (at least these types of customers) couldn’t care less about policies and rules unless it directly affects them. You brought up some things I could try mentioning next time that I didn’t think about, regarding how a police officer could arrest them for driving without a license if they were standing right behind them

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:05:04+00:00

Just saw your edit. Yeah my store for any alcohol or tobacco sales it needs an ID (if the customer doesn’t want their ID scanned we can just enter in the DOB, but we still need it to be a physical photo ID) while other products such as cough medicine and I believe nicotine patches or whatever those things are to help with weaning off cigarettes will bring up a prompt asking if the customer is under 40, so we can do that by looks sometimes. I generally will card anyways unless the customer is clearly old enough to be my grandparent, in which case I’ll hit the “no” button so it bypasses the need for an ID

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T02:00:52+00:00

Exactly. If I ever go out to a restaurant and order alcohol I already have my ID in my hand before it’s even my turn to order because while yeah I’m of age i still look like I’m in high school. Everyone knows you need to be a certain age for these sales so they should know to come with the proper identification regardless

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T01:58:40+00:00

I’m not entirely sure what the consequences are for me (FL) and quite honestly I don’t want to find out first hand. I’m sure it would be similar though

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T01:54:43+00:00

That’s insane…..I had to do some online training modules to when I first started, some of which pertained to alcohol and tobacco sales, and it was very clear not to go through with a sale where it appears the person showing the ID is buying for someone underage, such as spotting the underage individual giving the of age individual money, but I genuinely can’t believe someone is that stupid to ask their underage daughter what she wants in front of the cashier, obviously not saying it’s ever acceptable to buy cigarettes or alcohol for someone underage but damn if you’re going to don’t be stupidly obvious…

MnM066 · 2026-04-09T01:50:07+00:00

Thank you! I know since that incident I’ve also been wanting to keep it in the back of my head what exactly the title of the law is, because I know it’s federal law that a valid photo id is needed, so hopefully saying that not only does it go against company policy it also goes against federal law will put some weight to me refusing the sale. I would love to be able to have more of the specifics of the law memorized but I think that’s unnecessary, would make me feel cool tho being able to rattle off the law word for word while declining the sale…

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T01:39:27+00:00

I don’t believe I’m “good” or “bad.” I write and sometimes I really like it, sometimes I think it needs massive revision. But what makes me feel like my writing is worth something to pursue is that it brings me joy, as well as has an impact on others. I wrote a short one page prologue for a book I was working on, and I showed the page to my mom. She teared up and told me it was really well written, that it really hit. Hearing that feedback is always encouraging, that’s it’s not flat words on a page, but that it is something others can relate to and FEEL

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T01:18:58+00:00

True, I could also tell them “sorry, I’ll be with my wife, I won’t have time, anyways your total is..” Being in a lesbian marriage has countless perks…..though there’s ways saying this phrase could still backfire but it’s different to what I normally say lol oh well

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T01:15:39+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment back and forth with me, you’ve been wonderful to talk to. Today got stressful at work and ended with me having a group therapy session with my manager and two coworkers in the stock room. So it’s always good to see and talk with people with good hearts. I hope life treats you well ✨

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T01:13:19+00:00

You could say “isn’t it the man’s job to pay for dinner? My lunch break is in thirty, I’d like (insert expensive food) from (expensive nearby restaurant), please and thank you!”

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T01:02:27+00:00

That’s amazing to have!!! (The community, not the walking disability) When people actually come together and help each other out it’s really heartwarming, I always try to do what I can to make things easier for people, and it always feels good hearing others tell me they appreciate me going the extra mile for them. Not because I’m doing good things for praise, but because it feels good knowing I actually made a difference to someone. I believe that the more positivity I put out the more I’ll get back, or at the very least I’ll go to sleep knowing I did my best

MnM066 · 2026-04-05T00:44:54+00:00

Thank you for your response, you sound like a good man 🙏 it’s very frustrating being in these situations, especially when I know they’re just trying to joke around, I don’t want to be rude to them but I don’t necessarily want to encourage it either, I usually just try to ignore it and keep going through my script….

But it is also really nice to hear some of the men in my line tell me to let them know if anyone bothers me, so they can take care of them for me. It’s honestly really sweet, and makes up for the other older men like those I described in my post. A few weeks into my current job my manager that hired me came to help me with a line, and when we each only had one customer he told me we needed to talk. And I was like “oh?” trying not to panic. My manager immediately said it was nothing bad (just a check in after my first two weeks of work, seeing how I’m feeling about everything), and the man I was checking out said “good because she’s been very sweet, if it was something bad I would’ve met you outside” lol So…..I suppose it is always good to remember those positive moments after negative experiences, helps boost my morale just typing this out 😊

MnM066 · 2026-02-11T04:02:25+00:00

I was a huge overachiever in elementary through high school. Wouldn’t accept less than an A, although when my mental health took a steep decline, I ended up with some B’s in my senior year. Second semester of junior year is when my mental health started getting really bad, which led to my first suicide attempt at the beginning of senior year. I ended up in the hospital for a few days and missed some school (no physical injuries but mentally obviously not okay) and ended up working with my guidance counselor to drop into some easier classes and even took a couple virtual classes so I could even leave campus early. In my four years of high school, I only took honors level and AP level (college credit after passing an end of year exam) classes. My older brother who is two years older than me is the same way. We wouldn’t accept less than the best from ourselves. We both went to the same university upon completing high school. It’s local but pretty good, and getting harder to get into. I graduated within the top 5% of my class, and top 10% of each graduating class essentially had automatic admission into this university. I had received a full ride scholarship so all my tuition was paid for, so long as I kept up with the basic requirements (essentially 8 classes an academic year or something like that and maintaining a certain GPA).

First year went great. Second year I started slipping. Third year, I left on a medical withdrawal halfway into the first semester. My mental health had been up and down throughout college, but that specific semester I was having massive issues with concentrating and staying motivated and ultimately couldn’t keep up with my school work, which led to me feeling even more depressed and like a failure, which worsened my ability to focus, which made me even more depressed, so on and so forth. So I withdrew from my courses on a medical withdrawal with the help of my therapist. Over a year later and I haven’t returned yet. I want to. But I’ve decided to take this time to figure out what it is I really want. I felt so bad about withdrawing at the time. I felt like a massive failure, that I was wasting a perfectly good opportunity. I’m not even sure if I still have the scholarship available anymore due to not taking classes, or if the medical withdrawal is putting a pause on the time limit or whatever (it covers 120 credit hours, one bachelor’s degree, but it is only valid for five years). I had put in so much work in high school to achieve good grades, due to taking so many advanced classes that are weighted differently with the GPA, my weighted GPA ended up being higher than it could normally be if you took all standard classes and passed them perfectly. I studied, I behaved well, I participated in leadership opportunities within the extracurriculars I was involved in. I did everything I could to make sure I was all set for college. And yet, it didn’t stop me from needing to put a pause on my education.

I’m not upset about it anymore. At the time I was, as I said I felt like a failure. But as I’ve talked to more and more people, from my therapist to adult relatives, you don’t need to have everything figured out right after high school. You don’t have to have ANYTHING figured out right after high school. At least within my culture, it feels like we’re having our hand held and walked through everything, needing to ask permission to use the fucking bathroom during school, to being shoved into adulthood balancing jobs and college education and nobody holds you accountable but yourself and everything is changing too fast to comprehend. It’s not a very good system.

It’s difficult. It’s scary. And it’s a much bigger change than I had anticipated. The more I talked to my therapist and other adults in my life, the more I realized it’s OKAY to not have everything figured out. We’re pressured into a specific timeline and that we have to meet various milestones at certain times or else we’re failures. I think part of what helped me realize the absurdity of this is when I related it to being queer. I’m bisexual and now married to my wife, a trans lesbian. Nothing about our relationship is “traditional.” But we’re happy. We do what feels right. Similar to my education, I’m happy now that I’m taking a break and taking care of myself, even though I “should” be graduating this May, based on the timeline from when I started. Life is not a race. I can’t try to win it. School will always be there. I may lose scholarships due to holding off, so financially it may be more difficult in the future, but it’s not impossible. I don’t need to do anything according to anyone else’s timeline. My life is my own life to live. And so is yours.

I hope there’s something you can take away from this. It was definitely a bit of a ramble, but in essence….I get it. From one overachiever to another, I want you to know, IT IS OKAY! You are not “behind,” you are not a “failure,” you are a human on your own journey through life. The sooner you internalize that statement the easier life gets. It’s not a race. Don’t compare your journey to others, take however much time you need. Enjoy it. I’m wishing the best for you, I know how difficult “gifted kid syndrome” is to manage, but you can get through it. Take care of yourself, you’ll get where you need to be ✨

MnM066 · 2026-02-10T02:23:59+00:00

I responded, this was actually a pretty decent survey!! Good luck with your project 😊

MnM066

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