A customer’s inability to understand that self-service checkout is made for serving yourself, without an employee’s help, ended up ruining a supermarket worker’s day.
The customer threatened and promised the worker that she’d “report her to head office” for not servicing her at the self-service checkout. The worker was shocked, to say the least, and took to TikTok to vent about the incident.
Retail work can be a handful
Working in retail can be a challenge and a huge hassle. Some customers make it their life mission to make the workers’ lives a nightmare, simply because they’re in a bad mood. Supermarket worker Bonnie Madison shared her story to prove that she’s no exception.
A woman didn’t understand the concept of self-service checkout
Madison opened up to TikTok about how a customer called her at the self-service checkout machine because she wanted her to scan her items for her. She didn’t share the name of the supermarket she worked at but she was understandably bothered by the request because that’s not the purpose of self-service checkout.
She could’ve gone to the till
Madison recounted the events that took place, saying: “So apparently, I’m getting reported to head office because I refused service to someone – the till was open by the way, if you wanted to get served by a person, you could’ve just gone to that one but no, this lady goes to the self-scan and calls me over for help.”
The customer was rude
Madison greeted the customer with a polite “hello” only to be ignored by her while she rummaged through her stuff. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, Madison greeted her again and asked her if she was okay, assuming that the customer didn’t hear her.
She left Madison confused
Madison didn’t like the customer’s tone, saying: “[The customer] goes, ‘yeah’, stares at me, so I stare back and she just gestures her hand at her stuff. I was like, ‘Sorry, did you need help with something?’ She goes, ‘Can you scan my stuff, please?’”
Despite not liking the tone, she helped her
Despite being “put off” by the woman’s rude tone, she helped her nevertheless. She suggested to her whether she wanted to go to a standard till instead of using self-checkout. The woman was rude, again, and told Madison “A till is a till,” pushing for her to “just scan” her items.
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Madison regrets helping her
Madison blames herself for not refusing to help her, but she only did so to avoid potential confrontation. However, her attempts were to no avail as the woman wanted to have the last say and she started arguing with Madison, telling her she’d go to whichever till or service point she wanted.
The straw that broke the camel’s back
The woman rudely told Madison: “It’s really not that difficult if you could just stop arguing and scan my items.” Madison, of course, didn’t like the response, saying: “Do you know what it is? I’m not going to serve you with that kind of attitude, thank you,” and she walked away.
Madison wasn’t shaken
The customer told Madison that she would be reporting her to the head office. Funny enough, Madison has a reply up her sleeve for whenever a customer tells her that they’ll file a complaint on her.
She always tells them if they’d like her to write her name down so they “didn’t spell it wrong” in their complaint.
Madison’s followers react
People were in conflict as one user said: “It’s your legal right to refuse service anyway,” and another wondered, “Why are people so rude to staff in retail?”
On the other hand, one person disagreed, saying: “I would just scan her food and get on with it.”