We’re all in agreement that some people out there are terrible, right? Well, here is a list of the most memorable terrible people that I met working retail.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mesquite turkey shopper<\/strong>\u00a0I once worked in what you would describe as a grocery superstore, in the deli area.\u00a0This store was located in a very affluent, very protestant area. The mega church behind our store did a twenty-six million dollar renovation during the year this story took place. That was the same winter that seven people died under bridges downtown because they were homeless and they froze to death. But whatever, Jesus take the wheel.<\/p>\n Anyway, I find that in all of my work history, customers in this area were the worst. They wanted to let you know all the money they had, and that you were far beneath them because you were serving them, but they also wanted to argue about prices like they couldn’t spare an extra nickel. And they wanted you to wait on them like they were god damn royalty and the only people in the entire universe.<\/p>\n One day, we were super, super busy, when a woman came up and said she was interested in getting some turkey we had on sale. But the problem was, we cut the plain turkey on the same slicer as all the other turkey, including the mesquite flavor, and her son was allergic to the mesquite flavoring. She couldn’t trust the turkey already in the case, and would need us to break down the slicer and completely wash it before cutting her order. Yeah, this was a total pain in the ass, but her kid was allergic, right? What else was I going to do? And you could buy the same kind of turkey in the grocery section, but people who came to the deli were generally buying in pound quantities, or they wanted a certain thickness or whatever, so I didn’t think twice.<\/p>\n So, I work my butt off breaking down this slicer, completely cleaning every part, and praying that the stuff in the deli case won’t run out and I won’t have to slice more turkey and start over. I get it all done, and here comes the woman, and I ask her how much turkey she wants.<\/p>\n “Oh, about an eighth a pound.”<\/p>\n You guys, an eighth a pound is like three slices. I was like, “Are you sure that’s all you want?”<\/p>\n It was. She made me break down an entire slicer in the middle of a super busy day, keeping me occupied so I couldn’t help other shoppers, placing an extra burden on my coworkers who had to scramble even more to keep up.<\/p>\n For three. Slices. Of. Turkey.<\/p>\n The wedding underwear shopper\u00a0<\/strong>I worked for a while as a sales associate at a Frederick’s of Hollywood store. Though the mall closed at nine, we had a policy that if any customer came in before nine, even if it was 8:59:50, we would help them. Even if customers came in and just browsed a minute and we didn’t have the gate down until 9:06, it still sucked, because your feet hurt and you had to close and you just wanted to go home. But I never hated anyone for staying a little bit over, especially if they were going to buy something.<\/p>\n But I hated these customers. It was a mother and a daughter. They came in at 8:58. And, they explained, the daughter was getting married and needed to try on foundation garments for her dress. This isn’t a straightforward, “Hey, let me grab some underwear,” type thing. Measuring, sizing, trying on foundation garments takes a long time. And she tried every single one. Merry widows, corsets, bustiers, anything we had, multiple sizes, with chicken cutlets, with cloth pads, just.fucking.everything. At 10:30, the mother breezily declared, “Well, none of this will work. We have time, though, the wedding isn’t until May!”<\/p>\n It was September. And they didn’t buy a damn thing.<\/p>\n The inappropriate response to injury<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>I was heavily pregnant with my first child and still working at the deli from the first story when I had a fall. I was headed up to the counter to wait on a customer when I stepped in some grease that had spilled in front of the rotisserie oven. It was a very minor fall, and everything was fine, but it looked alarming, as I hit my stomach on the corner of a steel table as I went down ass-over-tea-kettle. My co-workers immediately called the store’s first aid department and gathered around me to be sure I was okay.<\/p>\n At this point, the woman at the counter, who had viewed the entire incident\u2013that is, saw an eight months pregnant woman fall spectacularly\u2013huffed and shouted, “Isn’t anyone going to help\u00a0me<\/em>?”<\/p>\n The Beanie Baby\u00a0<\/strong>I’ve worked at McDonald’s a lot over the years. By the way, never abuse fast food\u00a0employees. That job is hell on earth. You work super hard, only to have people scream insults at you all day long because you forgot to put extra napkins in their bag or some shit.<\/p>\n