People Are Unreasonable

We went to Target this morning, just to grab some of the Christmas clearance stuff — and found ourselves with an overflowing cart. This is why we don’t go to Target very often and why we never go with a vague list of what we are looking for.

But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about the woman checking out in front of us. She had a ton of 90% off Christmas clearance stuff and she really flustered the cashier — when something didn’t ring up 90% off, she SWORE it was in the Christmas clearance area and so he kept having to over-ride the price. A couple of times I was tempted to say — no, it was in the area that they are beginning to stock NEXT to the clearance area… but I kept quiet.

She also kept taking things off of the belt saying she’d gotten more than she needed. Sometimes after he’d already scanned some, so she kept asking him to make sure that he’d scanned only the number of items that she really wanted. She was a mess. Really.

At the end, he totaled her up and she insisted he had rung up the wrong price for one item or maybe he had rung an extra one up… he tried to get back to the list of items rung up and… lost the entire thing. Poof. Empty.

The cashier called for help… but no, there was nothing that could be done. The woman was livid. She didn’t have time for this… the floor person (where’s Michelle to tell me what these people are called) offered to ring it all up and have her come back later and just pick it up and pay for it at her convenience. No, she lives a half hour away and did not want to come back.

She decided they should just ring up one item at whatever she believed her total was… $74 and change, though the last total I saw was $89.67 but whatever… the guy said, no I don’t think we can do that. We need a record of exactly what you bought… she asked to speak to the manager.

The dude called the manager, explained what happened, asked if they could just ring up one item… while they waited for the manager to find out if there was a way to retrieve the entire order, the guy said we can offer you a percentage off of this order if we have to ring it all over again.

The woman said fine. I want something for this inconvenience!

The manager came back and said no, we have to ring it all up because we have to know exactly what was sold — and I was saying, “DUH”…

The woman said WELL I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS AND I WANT SOMETHING FOR THIS INCONVENIENCE! and she started to pull items out of the cart back onto the belt.

At which point I said, is it possible for you to re-ring this at customer service since you’ve already held this line for a half hour? The guy said, yes — of course, you’re right, we’ll move to an empty aisle at which point the woman yelled, “FINE BUT I WANT SOMETHING FOR THIS!” as she walked away fuming.

Who would ever believe that you could just ring up some random item for some random amount of money and let someone walk out of the store with hundreds of things. They have an inventory to deal with, ya know? And if she hadn’t been such a butt about her order in the first place, the cashier probably wouldn’t have gotten flustered and hit the wrong darn key and she’d have been out of there in a decent amount of time rather than adding 20 minutes for ranting on top of re-ringing her entire order.

They do not pay those poor Target employees enough to deal with asshole customers — don’t be an asshole at checkout, ‘k?

9 thoughts on “People Are Unreasonable”

  1. That woman was special. We thought the man who stole the parking spot we’d been waiting for was special but that woman was a whole other level.

  2. This was common behavior when I worked at Borders, and don’t get me started on the holiday season I worked at Pier One. Ugh. People really do treat you like dirt sometimes, and when it comes to sales and money, forget about it. Returns are a nightmare.

    This is why I believe everyone would benefit from short stints in both retail and food service. These experiences have made me a better citizen of the world. Poor guy. It really is tough, and the “customer is always right” line is…just inaccurate, although it almost always has to be enforced.

  3. Lord have mercy, one day that woman is gonna get bit in the ass for being such an ass…I honestly don’t understand how people can treat others so badly 🙁

  4. Enraged customers ANYWHERE for ANYTHING are ridiculous. That woman was stealing by anger. I wonder how many times she has done that?
    Hope you got some good deals anyway.

  5. Argh. Raised by wolves, I guess.

    I worked in a small family printshop where we had a simple, one-page credit app. I had people furious with me because they couldn’t just pick up their order without any payment whatsoever, not having applied for credit with us. I would wonder why they thought they could walk in and receive thousands of dollars worth of goods without any form of payment…

  6. Hello there, Denise! What a painful experience. I am feeling the imposition, and I am no where near Target. I owned and operated a retail store for nine years, one that operated primarily for women customers. I finally decided women who do this public ranting are lonely and feel so invisible, the only way they can affirm their existence is to hash it out in public with someone who is a captive audience and paid, not enough, to stand there and take it. The husband’s passed on. The kids don’t care about her. It never occurs to her that honey would get her the attention she craves. The only thing she knows to do is demand it, because that’s what she had to do at home to get anyone to listen to her. I really think they stack the cart with the most outlandish check out issues, just so they will have something to talk…on and on…about. Not saying it makes it any easier to know that….

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