Had an extremely bad experience with a customer today. Ranted on another forum website, gonna just copy+paste from there to here.
Basically, this happened around 2pm, a pretty busy time of a Saturday. I was working in the express lane, when a lady queued up with a big trolley that was over half-full. Considering express is mostly only baskets allowed or small trolleys, we told her that she'd have to go to one of the five big registers that we had open. She then pulled the biggest frown at us, remarking "but there's queues!", as if she doesn't understand the concept of waiting in line. Not wanting to cause a fuss, and because I was basically just standing around looking good, I went out and opened up a register just for her.
It gets worse. She had two loaves of bread amongst her groceries. Usually if you just put one loaf on top of the other in the bag, customers are sweet with that. I did that, and she goes "Look, I know you still live at home with your parents and they do your shopping for you, but us people don't like our bread squished thank you". I felt like telling her that I have actually been out of home for over a year now in a foreign city and I do all of my shopping for myself, but I bit my tongue as I was a bit taken aback by her comment.
Due to my lack of a reply, she stared at me, and goes "Oh my god, how rude can you be?" loud enough that customers on both the registers either side of me could hear. I once again didn't say anything and kept scanning her items, then she goes "you know what, what's your name? Give me your name right now, write it down, and write your store managers name, I want to make a complaint about you". I was incredibly stunned at this point, because I wasn't being rude at all, I was just being really quiet because I was massively retreated in my shell. I wrote it out for her on a bit of paper, but the handwriting wasn't the best because I was shaking a bit (happens when I get confrontational issues). It was still readable. Anyway, my last name is a strange one, and she scoffed at my writing, saying "what kind of name is that?!" That pissed me off a fair bit, having had family under that name fighting in the war.
I told her that our manager wasn't in, but our duty manager was over at the service desk. She turned around to look where I was pointing, saying "where is she!?!?" I asked if she wanted me to take her to her, and she goes "I don't need to be taken anywhere thank you!". She also had two 24 packs of coke, which are on special for $13 with the rewards card at the moment. I scanned the two packs, which came at the normal price of $26 each. She says "you've overcharged me, the sign said $13!" I tell her that it's $13 with a rewards card, and she goes "well maybe you could your job properly and let me know that in advance". Then she tells me that I should quit my job and let someone who actually needs one take my place, and that "she knows I'm just a casual worker on a few hours a week" (I did 11 hours TODAY, and have done 35 this week)
We got to the end of her shop, and she says "you know what, I'm not finished yet. You wait there, I'm going to get a few more things" and off she went. Anyway, the chick in the register booth behind me asked if I was okay, and couldn't believe how much of a bitch she was being. All of the customers that were in earshot were telling me to keep my head up and just keep being quiet and polite instead of biting back. A couple of ladies even went up to the duty manager to tell her how badly I was being treated, and to dismiss any complaints they get about me. That was really nice, plus the two workers that were near me agreed to back me up if the situation goes further.
I was fighting back tears when she returned. I got the transaction finished, and she goes "enjoy your final day here" as she walks off. I got sent on my lunch break just after this, which was lucky as I wasn't in any way capable of continuing serving. Anyway, she went to the service desk and complained to them about me, soon after I got sent there myself to speak to the duty manager. She told me not to stress about anything, I did everything fine, she was just a bitch, and that I won't get in trouble, and she told me to take a bigger break if needed.
Sorry for how long that was, but I needed to get it off my chest. As I said earlier, it was an 11 hour shift, so I've been stewing on this all day since I finished half an hour ago. Can be pretty shit when you get customers like this, as rare as it is, but gee it made me appreciate how good the people I work with are, and the customers that helped back me up.