Please Pull Up to the Window

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How to get Banned from a Store:

Hit a pregnant woman.

This one wasn’t me, but my boss who was pregnant at the time. She was telling some crazy woman something and I guess the lady didn’t like it, so she hit her in the forehead with a roll of wrapping paper. Not bad, right? I mean it didn’t hurt, but my boss pushed it back and hit the lady in the forehead with it. And she started screaming about how she’d been hit and what a bitch she was. And when the manager got there, my boss just started holding her belly and leaning against a counter and breathing hard. So all he cared about was whether she was ok, and he escorted the customer out and told her not to come back. Being pregnant rules that way.

~B in KY

How to Get Banned from a Store:

Make a pass at a married woman.

I get all the perverts. They’re always calling me ’sweetie’ or ‘baby’ or ‘beautiful’ or even asking me to come over or trying to touch my hand or shoulder. It makes me nuts. I try to tell them I’m married, and some back off. But the gross old guys who won’t take no for an answer just keep bothering me. And they get worse as time goes on. So this one guy started saying these things that were dirty but I couldn’t really call it harassment because he’d say it in a way that wasn’t bad. Like he’d say he had a hard day. Or when he overheard that my car was broke down, that he’d give me a ride. I got so tired of it because I actually talked to security and they said they couldn’t do anything because the way he said it wasn’t outright sexual. So one time I told security that he said he thought I was a whore and that he was going to wait for me after my shift to fuck me in the parking lot and all this other stuff. He took a statement and I cried and everything and he even walked me to my car that night. The next time that bastard came in, they banned him from the store. So don’t fuck with the ladies, pervs!

~R in IN

How to Get Bad Service Forever:

Make a scene over nothing.

I hate people because I worked in retail so long. It’s like people leave their brains at the door. What I really can’t stand is when a guy starts yelling because they don’t get their way over some stupid little thing. Like this one guy who couldn’t get his iPod in the right color after he said he didn’t care. Called me a fucking bastard and everything else. Other customers even stopped to watch. I couldn’t say or do anything then because I’m on camera and my boss had come to intervene. But managers tiptoe around everything. Now when that asshole comes in I ignore him. If he asks for something, I tell him the bare minimum and then I walk off. I’m in the middle of helping him figure something out and I tell him, “I gotta go do something, be right back.” And I go on break. I never get caught, and I’ll keep doing it as long as he comes in because after being treated this way I really hate him.

F in MO

How to Get the Shit Scared Out of You:

Let your kid do stupid things.

I work in a store that carried bicycles, and so many stupid people let their kids ride all over the place on them. If they run into displays or something, the management asks the parents politely to keep the bikes in their possession, but I don’t think that’s good enough. These little brats are learning to be a nuisance and it’s their worthless parents who are doing it. Once I saw a kid on a bike and I started saying loudly, “Oh my God! What are you doing? Are you ok? Why are you riding a bike? Can you feel your toes?” The kid was so bewildered she got off the bike and it fell over, so I started looking at it like I was looking for damage. Her parents and other employees came running, thinking she’d broken her neck. I asked the dad, “Did you know she’d taken a bike off the rack?” (knowing that only an adult could have done that) and “She really needs to know how dangerous it is!” The kid started crying and her parents were so embarrassed, they left quickly. I told my manager that she was riding erratically and she’d hit me. I just wish I could scare the shit out of all the parents who think there’s nothing wrong with letting their kids destroy something that doesn’t belong to them.

~D in TN

How to be Treated Like an Outsider:

Treat someone else like an outsider.

I can’t believe how racist people are in my city, when there’s a really large percentage of black and Hispanic people. It’s usually Latinos who catch all the shit. Even if they have perfect English, some ass-wipe has to mouth off about them being illegal immigrants. So when that person gets to me, I speak only in Spanish. (I’m Caucasian, but I took Spanish in college, so I’m fairly good at it.) If I have the chance, I even change the credit card machine to Spanish. Most of the time they just stare at me like they don’t know what to do. Sometimes I get a comment like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Then I call management and complain that they’ve used foul language in front of me. I finish checking them out, and my boss walks them to the security office for a little “chat.” I’ve gotten another cashier to do the same thing, and we all laugh about it in the employee lounge.

~E in TN

How to Get Fired:

Lie to someone who has your boss’s e-mail address.

There are only so many people in a small office like mine. So when a client gets pissed off because we can’t do something, they don’t realize that saying, “So-and-so told me I could!” is such a dumbass move. It’s just bullying, and we’re not going to do the impossible for some son-of-a-bitch who thinks he can walk all over us. I just walk over to the person they’re talking about and have them walk up and say, “No, I didn’t.” The client always gets all red in the face and starts backtracking. We just stare at them until they leave. Then we check their records to see the higher-up contact that’s listed. We send out an e-mail asking that another liaison be sent next time because we caught him in a lie and he was abusive to our customer service staff. That way we know he gets the ass-reaming he deserves. I heard we got someone fired once.

~R in MI

How to Waste Your Time:

Talk over me, especially into a cell phone.

My job obviously requires counting money. I try to count the cash for each transaction twice: once behind the counter and once in front of the customer. This means that, if I do make a mistake, I have an extra opportunity to catch it so my drawer count is correct. Sometimes I have really rude customers who talk over me while I’m counting the second time, or say, “You don’t have to do that.” I smile sweetly and reply, “I’m not counting it for you.” Then I recount it two or three more times, even if it’s the right amount, just to get them back for being such a butthole. If the customer is on a cell phone, I count it normally, and then hold it and stare at them until they stop talking. They get really mad sometimes, but I tell them, “I don’t want to interrupt your conversation.” I always have to smile and have a pleasant tone because it’s a quiet environment and my boss isn’t far away. So I can’t really be an ass. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take an extra five or ten minutes of your time. The ridiculous thing is that some of these people are regulars and do the same thing every fricking time.

~K in AZ

How to Get Lost:

Ask me stupid fucking questions when I’m obviously off the clock.

I work at a big-box store and I get stopped a lot when I’m just coming in, leaving or on break. I have my purse on my shoulder, my cell phone at my ear, and my coat on, and the dumbasses keep stopping me! I ignored a guy once and he complained to my supervisor. Even though we’re not supposed to work on the clock, I got chewed out because directing a customer is something I “should be doing, even if I’m a customer.” Fuck that. So now when some asshole stops me to ask where something is, I give them all the same answer: it’s in aisle 3, next to the light bulbs. Then I walk away. If they give me a wierd look and ask if I’m sure, I say, “I work here, don’t I?” and storm off. I know it’s kind of petty, but they can leave me the fuck alone. I’m nice to these bastards for nine hours a day, six days a week, and if I’m not getting paid for it, I’m not doing it.

~A in TN

How to Get an Infection:

Bitch at your bag boy for not putting enough shit in the bags.

Even though I was trained to fill bags correctly (seperating items to prevent contamination, making sure they’re freestanding and stable, etc) there are still a lot of people who think they know my job better than I do. Once a woman kept yelling at me. She thought I should just dump everything together. I figured the best revenge was to do exactly what she asked. I put cans on top of her tomatoes and pool chemicals with her crackers. She started being less bitchy when the bags were full to the breaking point and all her shit was ruined. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. The last two things to come off the conveyer belt were a package of disgusting leaky raw chicken and a box of tampons. I would normally have put the chicken by itself, but instead I put it right on top of the tampons and quietly ran my finger under the tab to open the box. I hope she went home and used them.

~K in IL