The last month or so of my retail job hasn’t been too awful. There’s the normal “I can’t believe your bathroom’s broken” still happening and the “When are you gonna get more lysol/clorox wipes/rubbing alcohol/paper towels” every few days. But it’s become bearable. The overall rage people expressed through the first few months of corona have ebbed. They understand that we’re not hiding product in the back and we’re just as frustrated as them that we don’t have cleaning supplies. So that means we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming of people complaining about….
COUPONS! “The lady yesterday made them work,” is going to be written in the police report when I finally snap. When I read the coupon description to you and it specifically excludes the item you’re trying to buy, guess what? I will not scan it. When it says X size and above and the one you have is clearly below that size? Yeah, not scanning that one either. When it’s not even the same product, just the same brand? Yeah, nope. No savings for you there either. And then, oh no, I’m so sad now that you don’t want any of it and you walk out. Darn.
Another lady even tried to argue about a digital coupon. The entire conversation was a headache. She typed in her phone number and when I hit total, there weren’t any coupons taken off. So, I asked her which coupons she had. And she said, “the ones on the website.” Yes. But which ones? Because nothing came off and I want to make sure you bought the right items. “Well, I just got on there and clipped coupons.” WHICH ONES!!!! Sigh. “Oh, well, there was that $5 off one.” You have to spend $25 for that one and you only spent $16. “Oh. The one by my house doesn’t make you spend $25.” Blank stare. Sure. If you say so. It didn’t take it off though, so you’re total is such-and-such. Gah.
And then we have the people who don’t know how to follow directions. I say, “Down this aisle, on your left, last section on the top shelf,” and then you go down halfway, look right and at the bottom? Why? Or I say, “The very last aisle on your right,” and you stop to glance down every aisle on your way to the last one? Did you think I was lying? And I say, “last aisle,” again and you say, “Oh, the last one?” and finally just walk to the last one??? WHYYYY???? If you don’t want to follow the directions, why ask? If you’re just going to wander aimlessly until you find it, why ask??? Ugh.
And the worst thing I’ve had to deal with lately is our “new” and “upgraded” internet at the store. *This problem has now been fixed, but it was two weeks of hell.* The internet would randomly go down for about five minutes. And the debit machine would say, “no connection,” and we’d have to ask our customers to run their card one more time. Generally, it would go through the second time, the system just needed a second to reconnect. But other times, it would take four or five tries before it was back up. And if one more person asked, “I’m not going to get charged a bunch of times, am I?” I might have exploded. It’s just as irritated (if not more) for us to deal with. Trust me. We don’t want to have to stare at you for five extra minutes as you try your card over and over and the line just gets longer and longer. When there was literally nothing for us to do but wait and you look at us like we’re supposed to just put our technician hat on and fix the internet. Not a fun time. But thankfully, they came out and fixed it the other day. I was losing my mind.
Anyway, we’re now creeping into Christmas. Glitter is all over my store and people are complaining just as much as they are buying the decorations. It’s going to be a great few months. Let’s get this year over with already.