True Story.
The other night I got called into work last minute. I spent the better part of my shift watching self scan; no surprise. I had just come back from my break so my coworker who was watching went to take her break; she'd come back and take over after while I finished the throwbacks. For the most part it was an easy enough shift, surprisingly. Until this lady and her husband showed up. She was trying to pay with food stamps and the pin pad rejected her card. That's nothing new; our self scan machines are well over 10 years old so sometimes it takes a few tries for it to read the magnetic strip. So I went over and did the old plastic bag trick. Worked like a charm. And everything seemed to be going fine... Until completing the payment came up. It asked her if she wanted to process the balance remaining, which was about 50 cents. Now I usually don't see this end at the pin pad because when it comes to paying with food stamps the customer does everything on the pin pad; I just wait for them to finish. So despite having done this for over 5 years I still don't know every step the pin pad gives for this form of payment. As a result when the lady says, "Oh so I just owe you guys 50 cents" I'm thinking, what? It says 'process remaining 50 cents'. So her wording doesn't sound right. But of course, The Customer's Always Right™ so I said "let's click Yes and find out." Because clicking No would have canceled the transaction and we'd be back at square one. The payment went through for exactly 50 cents. At first the lady was just confused, asking why that happened. Because she claimed she had at least $100 on her card that refilled last week. She asked if I could check the balance on her card, or if she could go to customer service. I told her that I couldn't log onto my register (as my coworker never signed out of it) but she seemed fine going to customer service. Fastforward almost 10 minutes later. I was still at self scan. Her husband was with their wagon of stuff, which he'd packed as she was scanning earlier, and fiddling on his phone. I happened to make a joke as I passed by him, "And to think I was gonna stay home tonight. Its never a night unless something happens here." And he was totally fine with my joking; he even encouraged me to look at it that way to lighten the mood. If only his wife could've been that way. Wife returned with my supervisor. Lady was going on and on complaining about how her card DEFINITELY had $100 on it, that it should've processed most of her order, that she shouldn't have even been able to pack everything if the machine was just going to reject her card, that she NEVER has this problem at other stores, ETC. Basically at that point, it was mostly about her card but it also became about EVERYTHING. My supervisor attempted to explain to her multiple times that it's how our store is. The machines don't know. This isn't even a machine problem, it's a card problem. "But it JUST refilled last week. I called about it this morning. It's THERE. I want my damn 50 cents back then." And she and my supervisor proceeded to go back and forth for at least the next 5 minutes. My coworker returned in the middle of it, having no idea what was going on. But it was easy enough for her to catch on because every other sentence out of this lady's mouth was the same. "I'm telling you, it has $100 on it." "It JUST refilled last week." "I want my 50 cents back." "Your machines shouldn't have even let me pack everything if it knew there was going to be a problem." "I never have this issue anywhere else." "This is all your fault." It eventually got to the point where my supervisor just snapped back at her. I don't even remember what she said anymore. But supervisor wasn't having any of it because she knew that no matter what she said or did, this customer wasn't going to be happy at all. So whatever she said, she let the lady have it. (Meanwhile her husband's still standing back with the wagon of crap just staying out of everything.) When my supervisor asked me to cancel the transaction I told her my self scan card doesn't have that capability. It's basically a function for employees who are either have experience watching the front end or have been theren 10+ years. Fortunately my coworker's card was able to do that. And it took her a few tries to get the machine to comply and refund. And even as she was trying to do her thing, this lady was STILL not shutting up and going on complaining about our store. She ended up leaving everything behind because without her card she could only cover a portion of her purchase. But after that she didn't even want the stuff she could pay for. She just stormed out. And I had to spend the rest of my shift putting the crap back on the shelves. I learned later when I came back to the front to clock out the reason there was a problem with the food stamps in the first place. Back in January, up until February 1, we had signs posted on every register, at self scan, customer service, and by the entrences that because of the government shut down customers' balance for February food stamps would come in January and they could only access it on X date. So the food stamps wouldn't refresh in February like they normally do. So basically, even though the lady swore up and down for the better part of 20 minutes that her stamps JUST refreshed the week before, in February, they couldn't have because of the shut down. Could my supervisor have told that to the lady when she had the chance? Absolutely. Would it have made a difference? HELL NO! And my supervisor knew that. She's been in this job for decades; she, as well as my self scan coworker, are fully aware of and able to recognize that there are some customers that no matter what you tell them they will find a way to complain about it and blame us. I have never been so happy to have that supervisor help take care of everything because if that customer lost it at me, I would not have been able to handle it. I am so fortunate that, at least as far as the night shift usually goes, I have coworkers and a supervisor who are willing to help out and that I think I have an overall great work relationship with. The customer environment is toxic to say the least, but it's these coworkers that make it tolerable on some level. So while this advice may vary depending on the relationship between coworkers I do think it's the best piece of advice I can share from this experience: Call over your supervisor. If you're near a coworker who's been at the store longer than you, ask if they know anything. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it, especially when dealing with a customer like that. And I say this is the best piece of advice I can give because, sadly, the most logical help I can share is something that we know will never happen no matter what. But I'll still share that piece of wisdom just for the hell of it: Customers - STOP BEING SUCH DICKS TO RETAIL EMPLOYEES.
