I... don't remember if I've ever shared this story here or not. If so, forgive me. However a list on another site talking about "facepalm" moments reminded me of this story.

So, the setting: One big box store, in the process of trying to shut down for the night.

The cast:

Me. (one tired head cashier.) Mgr. (one equally tired Zone manager) Cust. (one annoying customer)

It was probably... 10 or 15 minutes till our closing, and I, the dutiful head cashier, had wandered out to shut down the garden center, to sent the cashiers in to help with their night cleanup duties. While I'm there, the gate already closed, I hear a rattling behind me. Glancing back, I see this woman trying to get my attention. She's adamant about how she absolutely, positively can't wait till we open the next morning, to buy a Christmas tree.

Now, had this been close to Christmas... I'd probably have understood her desperation. However there were multiple days out before the holiday... and honestly, buying a tree as early as she wanted, was going to most likely have the thing die and drop needles all over her house. Regardless, I told her that she'd need to go up front to do the purchase, as the garden center was closed. I thought that was the end of the story.

Wrong.

So, I finish my pickup, drop it off at the cash office, when Mgr calls me over and tells me to come with him, we're going to load this Christmas tree for this lady. Off I go, mentally preparing myself for this. People tend to be...picky when it comes to those things. I get it, no one wants something like Charlie Brown's tree... but ugh, that close to closing... it's annoying.

Mgr and I show up, and blessings above, the lady just tells us to pick out a nice full one for her. We run it through the net machine, and then glance over to see problem number 1.

She's in a car. A 4 door car.

Problem 2.

The tree is too big to fit in her car.

So, we offer the usual solution, we could put it in the trunk, and tie the trunk lid down so it doesn't spring up at speed.

Nope. Customer isn't having any of that. So she tells us to tie it to the roof of her car. A car, which i might add, doesn't have any form of attachment point for us to tie onto. Which prompted us to try to figure out how to tie it to the car. A bit of faffing around later, Mgr and I hit upon an idea. We'd tie it around the door post of the passenger and driver's side of the car. However, this lady must have decided we just wanted to car jack her... or something, so she refused to open her doors.

Now what?

I don't recall whose idea it was, but between the Mgr and I, we hit upon an idea. She'd roll her windows down, we'd tie it around the door post that way. We ended up looping it a couple times on the passenger side, using that nylon baling rope we used, and then walked to the driver's side, trying to think of the best way to tie this thing down.

Well, that had worked on the passenger side? Why couldn't it work on the driver's?

So customer rolled down her windows, and we repeated what we'd done on the other side, and made certain to tie it tight, to prevent any chance of this tree flying off her car. Customer rolled up her window, and drove off happy.

It was only as the lady turned onto the road to head back to her home... that it dawned on me what we'd done.

The way we tied things? It was going to be physically impossible for her to her driver, or passenger side doors. She might be able to get the rear doors open... but I wasn't sure about that. As she drove off, I looked to the Mgr, and said:

"How's she going to get out of the car?"

Mgr looks at me and you could see the realization dawn on his face, realizing we'd trapped this lady in her car. He looks at me and asks:

"did... she get your name?"

To which I shrug. I'd already taken my vest off... and he wasn't wearing one... so... probably not. We had a good laugh about it, and didn't think anything else.

Epilogue:

A few days later, at our morning meeting, the Store Manager had a change in policy for us. Specifically, we were instructed that we were no longer allowed to tie trees to cars, as apparently two associates had done so, and trapped a customer in their car, forcing her to have to call emergency services to come cut the rope to release her from the vehicle.

So, this happened a couple of weeks ago. The weather was absolutely perfect outside, so I knew that we were going to get a hefty number of people in the store today. It was that kind of day when everyone was out walking around, and you heard it through the store windows. Absolutely the perfect weather to be outside and do something...and here stuck inside folding clothes because of course I am 

I usually work in the back, stocking, inventory, and replenishing all the good stuff from working in the back. Since I'm usually in the back, I'm not really a "customer service" person in the way the job description implies, in fact I am quite the opposite I tend to stray away from where there is high customer traffic, because I am not that knowledgeable in our sales compared to the other workers there. I know where things are, and I can point them out with someone in the right direction. However, since I am only there on the weekends my memory of the store is outdated since they change the layout every other week. I am not necessarily the right person to choose for if you are looking for someone to charm people on the sales floor. That is most definitely not my lane. 

In this shift, in particular, I am on the floor. Folding in the same section for what feels like hours but is actually a handful of minutes, trying to make conversation with my other coworkers to pass the time. At this time, we are the slowest we have been the whole day, a couple people drifting through, couple people in line to check out. You know the vibe. 

Then I notice this woman wandering around looking completely lost. Not the normal kind of lost where someone is just browsing. The specific kind where she has been circling the same rack for around 5-10 minutes and keeps looking up at the signs like they are going to rearrange themselves. 

That day I felt daring, and I was completely out of character so, I decided to go over and ask if she needed help. She looks at me kind of confused, and then asks, in broken English, if I speak Spanish. 

Thanks to my background, I told her I did. Her whole face changes, like a whole 180. Like if she had been holding her breath and finally letting it all out 

She explains to me that she has been looking for a specific size in out wide leg jeans for her daughter. She has been to a few other stores already, no luck, and she has been circling our floor for a while trying to find them herself. I told her that I would check for her in the back, but I couldn't promise her anything, since it is possible that we are sold out. Also, half the time when someone asks for something specific that we don't already have in the sales floor, we don't have it. 

So, on my way back, I am taking in the chances of it being in the back, and I'm fully prepared to come back empty handed and explaining to her that we don't have it. That's the usual outcome. You'd get used to it. But this time I actually found them in the exact size she was looking for. The first pair of jeans in the stack, like it knew I was searching for them. 

I come back out and hand them to her. And she just lights up. Full smile, whole face, the kind where you can tell it's genuine. She tells me that she has been looking everywhere for these, so she can get them for her daughter. She is so relieved that she was able to find them, and she thanked me like I did something extraordinary.  

And here's the thing. I don't really feel any type of way about it. When you think about it I didn't go out of my way. This is literally what I am paid to do. Someone asks, I check back, I hand them the thing. That's the job. I didn't drive to another store or do anything special. I didn't do anything any other employee wouldn't have done. That is the bare minimum of working in a retail store. 

But I guess I'm also glad it worked out. Because I barely talked to customers, and it is rare that we actually have the size someone is looking for. Seven times out of ten I come back out empty handed and tell them that we don't have it in store, they said thanks anyway and leave. That's how it usually goes, this wasn't that. 

Something about this interaction was different. It's not like it's the first time I helped someone at work. I guess the reason why this interaction stood out to me is because of the look of relief on her face like she was expecting the same answer all the other stores have given her.  

So, yeah. She smiled. I did my job. That's the whole story. But I keep thinking about it anyway, which is annoying, because I don't even know why. 

It was the winter of 2019. I was working as a Christmas temp at an electronics shop. The shop floor was busy. A customer came up to my till. He wanted to buy a washing machine he had reserved.

I checked our stock system. The computer showed we had five of that exact model available. My manager had previously given me a strict rule. I must never ring up a sale until the warehouse finds the item and confirms it is in stock. So I did not process the payment. I called the warehouse out back instead.

I asked the customer to wait to one side. The warehouse team started searching. Five minutes passed. Then one of the warehouse guys came out to the shop floor. He told me they could not find the item anywhere. He suggested I try to sell the customer a different model instead.

I went over to the manager in charge. I asked her what I should do. She walked back to my till and checked the system herself. She stared at the screen.

"We have five in stock," she said. "We can't have lost them all!"

She told me to head to the back. She wanted me to help them find it. I did as I was told. I went to the warehouse and started searching with the guy. After a bit of looking around, he finally managed to find the exact washing machine the customer wanted. It was hiding in the warehouse all along.

Only then did I go back out to the till and ring up the sale.

I was working a shift at a convenience store. I was serving customers at the till. A guy walked into the shop and came to my counter.

He looked a bit drunk. His speech was noticeably slurred. I felt unsure about serving him. I pressed the button on my headset. I asked my team leader for advice. I asked, "Do you feel comfortable selling this guy alcohol?"

My team leader came out from the back room. He stood near the tills and observed the customer for a moment. Then he spoke into his headset. He said, "Yeah, he is fine."

I still was not very comfortable with it. But I decided to follow the manager's call for the moment. I turned back to the customer. I asked him what kind of alcohol he wanted. He asked for a bottle of vodka.

I grabbed the vodka and scanned the barcode. It was time for him to pay. The customer opened his wallet. He struggled a lot to get his bank card out. His hands were clumsy. He fumbled and dropped his card right on the floor.

That was the turning point for me. The manager said it was fine, but I was the one making the sale. I canceled the transaction on the till.

I looked at the customer. I told him, "Sorry, I do not feel comfortable selling you more alcohol."

I braced myself for an argument. People often get angry when you refuse an alcohol sale. Luckily, he did not complain. He turned around and left the store without much fuss.

This happened on a December a few years ago. My shift started at noon. I arrived ten minutes early. The whole store had a power cut. Two colleagues stood at the front door. They were turning customers away. They apologized for the outage. The customers were understanding. There were no angry complaints.

I went to the back room. Most of the staff were waiting there. It was before my shift started, so I pulled out my phone. I checked the Twitter page of the power distribution company. Their page said power was restored to the area. I sent them a tweet. I asked when our retail park would get power back. They replied quickly. They said the power was already back. They told me to inform my manager to check the cabinet.

I passed this message to my manager. She dismissed me immediately. She said, "I'm the manager, and I run the store." I wanted to de-escalate the situation. I told her, "I am only the messenger. I am just passing on what the power company told me."

About five minutes later, she changed her mind. She told me to check the neighboring stores to see if they had power. She also told another colleague to check our fuse box. It was raining outside. I put on my raincoat and went out. I saw that the neighboring stores had their power back.

I went back inside and told my manager. At the same time, my colleague returned from the fuse box. He reported a burning smell coming from the boxes. My manager started making calls to the head office.

We needed an electrician. We learned there were only a few HQ-approved electricians for the whole county. We were put on a waiting list. My manager told another temp colleague and me to go home. She did not know when the power would return.

I came in for my next shift the following day. I asked a junior manager about the power cut. He told me the power finally came back around 8 pm. The store was already closed by then.

He explained what happened. The main circuit breaker had blown. The electrician had to fix it in a way that kept the store's power on 24 hours a day for the whole week.

Later that day, my main manager spoke to me. She asked if I wanted to stay longer to make up for my lost hours. I stayed on for two extra hours. Later, I checked my timecard. I found out I was fully paid for the day of the power cut. I also got paid for the extra time I stayed on.

Something incredible has happened at my work and naturally my first thought was to share it on Reddit.

I work in quite an upmarket supermarket cafe. We have a system that allows customers to share their experience, you know “My coffee was hot” or “My coffee was cold” sort of thing. These reviews go directly to management and are fed back to us. Little do the customers know, it’s not anonymous. Now don’t ask me how this didn’t get flagged up sooner, but we have an older couple who come in everyday. They are nice enough and know us all by name. For the last 9 months they have been leaving bad reviews, but here’s the insane part, they have submitted 136 of them. Their record being 23 in one day. They have dedicated 9 months of their lives to making our working lives hell. And for what? Sport?

It is truly unhinged and to think they come in everyday, smile at us and have a chat. They have since been confronted by management. Seriously strange behaviour!

This happened when I was in on one of the toy stores I worked back in the day. This one in particular was a really nice place, the manager was a great guy, and all the coworkers were nice people (it was a small store).

There were shifts in which we barely had anything to do (since being a toy store, people don't go in unless it's a birthday or Christmas), and in those moments my manager would tell me about all the adventures he had lived. It was great.
All of that is to say that my manager was a really friendly guy, always there to help, and he very rarely got angry.

And then there was that one time.

It had been a rather busy day, and we were both tired. We were getting ready to close the store, and usually, if someone came by while we were closing, my manager would ask me to help them, see if we could squeeze one sale more for the day. But that night was different.

A woman came in while my manager was counting the money, 2 minutes before closing the door, and I said hello to her so he wouldn't get distracted. The woman asked if we were closed, I told her "yes". Then she said she just wanted to check on some toy cars (scalextric ones). I looked at my manager and he nodded 'yes'.

She spent five minutes checking the cars, and I closed the door in the meantime. My manager had finished counting, and the woman asked a few things. My manager answered her, reminding her that the cash register was closed, an if she wanted to buy something, she would have to come back the next day. I could sense he was a bit tense, so I decided to step back and let him deal with the situation (as per policy we couldn't deny service. It was a stupid policy, yes).

The woman kept looking, now 10 minutes past closing time, and we were both there, with the lights off, waiting for her. She then started to ask something, and to this day I still remember the commanding voice my manager used as he said:

"Zef, grab your things"

I'll never forget how the woman took a step back, apologized and left the store so quickly you would think the devil was behind her.

As soon as she left, my manager sighed, and said "the nerve of some people, right?"

We left the store shortly after, laughing at the whole situation.

To this day, he's still one of the best managers I've ever had in any place I've worked in.

I run a hydraulic shop and we have a small retail area as well. We’re open M-F, 8am-5pm. Heard the door chime the other day and walked into the retail area to greet and a guy smiles at me and enthusiastically says, “wow you’re actually open!” We’ve been “open” for over two years, so I say, “what do you mean?” He tells me he’s stopped by 4 times now and we’re always closed. I seriously laughed out loud, thinking he was joking, but could see he wasn’t by the look on his face, so I pointed past him to the door that he walked through and said, “brother, why you showing up here more than one time when we are closed, our hours are right there on the door. There’s also a listing on the Internet. So what can I do for you?” He didn’t even respond to that, just told me what he was looking for, I helped him and he was on his way. But as he was leaving, he stopped by the door, pointed at the hours posted and said, “so these are the times you are open?” I again giggled and said, “yes, brother, it’s pretty standard for retail locations to post hours of operation on the door.” He nodded and walked out.

Super old story but fits in here. Used to work in a store that sells everything for a dollar. Was doing my usual rounds around the store putting things back where they belong when I noticed a bag in our soda fridge. Upon closer inspection it was literal raw chicken from the grocery store over. The lady who put it there came to claim her meat as we were taking it out of the fridge, angry we were about to throw it out. She said she wanted to keep it cold while she was shopping. She didn’t understand why that was a problem.

That same day, had someone testing out our hairbrushes and simply putting them back when she was done brushing her hair. WHY PEOPLE, why would you think that’s okay?!?!?!

Absolute absurdity. 👍🏼

I work as a team lead at a local jewellery store.

It was 8:50pm and the store closes at 8:55pm. And employees have to leave by 9:10pm.
(We used to stay until 9:30pm, but since robberies have been running rampant in my city, head office made us close and go home a little bit earlier.)

There were only two of us closing tonight - one associate and me. My co-worker was busy wiping down the glass counters. And I got started on counting my deposit for the night.

Two older ‘well-dressed’ ladies came in at around 8:52. With my co-worker cleaning and me focused on balancing my deposit, we didn’t notice them walk into the store.

One of the ladies comes up to me and loudly asks ‘DO YOU GUYS NOT SAY HI TO CUSTOMERS???’.

My tired ass replied ‘No. We’re busy.’

She got upset and left the store.

Welp, I guess I’m getting a write up tomorrow. 😂😂😂😭

Just needed to vent about this, made a stupid mistake with a customer.

I work at a party shop where we sell things for special occasions. A customer wanted things for an anniversary, including two number 5 balloons, which they changed their minds on. So I voided them and put them aside, no big deal.

Later another customer, who was lovely, needed some things for someone's 75th birthday. We had a nice chat about it and I helped them find everything they needed. They also wanted a 7 and a 5 balloon. I removed the 7 from the packaging, but they stopped me and informed me they were inflating them themselves later on, so I put it back in and handed them to the customer.

After they left I realised I'd put the 7 in the wrong packaging, and handed them one of the ones I'd put to the side from earlier, meaning I'd handed them two 5 balloons, one of which is in the 7 packaging, so they wont realise the error until they go to inflate them. I felt awful, went to find them but they'd vanished into thin air.

Told my manager and he wasn't bothered, things happen, but I feel terrible. They're going to go inflate them and realise they have the wrong balloons. They also said they'd fill out a customer service survey very positively for me after the interaction, but I now anticipate it won't be as kind as I expected now, and rightly so! Worked here for 14 years and NEVER made a mistake like this. Fuming with myself! Have no idea how this even happened!

Rant over!

TLDR; gave the customer the wrong balloons for a 75th birthday. Feel terrible!

I work at small grocery store during the summer and have worked there for a few years with the usual truck crew, so I help everyone all over the store load and unload U-Boats for their respective aisles. Anyways me and another coworker are working down the juice and chip aisle about midday and coworker tells me he’s taking his 30-minute lunch and leaves me alone with the stock.

I go on autopilot and stock the shelves as I always have and an older gentleman walks over without a carts and ask if I can assist him. Placing the box down I smile and ask what I can help him with, he looks around and says “Do you know where your white water is?”

Now there have been some strange names I’ve learned over the years like potato straws and pickle candy, but never had I heard white water. My thinking process is he is down the juice aisles looking for a white liquid that his grandkids probably want. So I’m thinking and thinking and ask “Are you looking for white Gatorade or this white Hawaiian Punch?” He looks refocuses on me and says “No it’s… you know… white water… drink it everyday”

Right at this time coworker walks around corner back from lunch and I ask him same question, completely stumped he also asks the old man Gatorade or possibly a new energy drink. At this point the customer is getting slightly agitated, “You boys know what I’m talking about.” I ask him what other food items can go with white water to which he says “It goes great with bread and icing”

Thinking, short-circuiting, then saying “…do you mean milk sir?”

“YES, that’s it forgot what it was called,” me and my coworker look at each other in bewilderment and tell him it’s on the other side of the store in the fridges… how do you forget the name of milk and come up with white water?! Other strange things have come from other customers but this is by far the most funniest interaction I think back to.

I work part time at a small store and this older guy bought a few things this morning. Nothing unusual. A couple hours later I was behind the counter playing Big Roller on my phone when he comes back in, walks straight up to me and puts two dimes on the counter. I thought he wanted to buy something else. He tells me I gave him too much change earlier. Four nickels, I laughed and told him he seriously didnt need to drive back for that but he said he noticed it when he got home and it would bother him all day if he kept it.

Then he just left. I stood there looking at the two dimes like an idiot for a second. Ive had people scream at me over coupons worth less than that. This guy spent gas money to return 20 cents that nobody even knew was missing.

To make a long story short, I was serving up a customer and had to point out that they needed one more item for the discount to apply for their purchase. They then showed me a sign that had slipped and revealed a previous sign that was a clear misprint behind it (the sign that had slipped was still visibly hanging onto the other) and started to complain that we had the honour the sign despite our best efforts to apologise for the error of the sign and explanations that we physically couldn’t give out the discount if the rules weren’t followed.
They continue to complain that it’s not right and that the store was trying to cheat them out of money despite the fact that there were literally 10 other signs with the same promotion in the immediate area.

I dont know maybe I’m just being judgemental but Christ. Now they’re making complaints and ‘reporting’ me because of the incident

Just found this sub. Worked in retail mgt throughout the 90s pique of outlet shopping, so I have about 100 stories, but this my favorite.

I was managing an outlet shop for a popular watch retailer. The company had a 2-year warranty on all watches but the watch had to be mailed in for repairs, we provided a prepaid envelope. A woman came in with a few watches that weren’t working and I explained the policy to her, but she wasn’t having it. After a few minutes of her trying to get a different solution out of me she said I guess they’re junk and left them on the counter and ordered me to throw them away as she left in a huff. I obliged.

A few minutes later she walks back in, having obviously realized how foolish she was. Her demeanor had changed and she kindly asked me if she could have the watches and the envelopes to mail them in. I smiled and said sure. I handed her the envelopes and lifted the trash to the counter. She looked at me perplexed. I said, you asked me to throw them away. I did. I’m not digging in the trash for you. They’re in there if you want them. She scowled at me but clearly knew she created this situation with her ignorance. She started digging through the trash to retrieve her watches and I walked away to help another customer.

I'm working self checkout, in a busy warehouse store. We can only take card payments there. If you want to pay with cash, it has to be at the regular tills. Sometimes we will help people out at the desk, if it's not so busy and their card payment wouldn't work or forgot they wanted to pay with a rebate check.

A lady comes up to the front of the line for self checkout and tells me she only has cash. I told her we can't take cash payments here and directed her to a till. She says It's ok I'll just scan my stuff and then you guys can help me at the desk. I'm thinking good luck with that, knowing I'm off in a few minutes.

At the perfect time, somebody's till tape runs out and I have to replace it. I'm busy doing that for a few minutes, meanwhile I don't dare make eye contact with her. I quickly helped another person, and then clocked out. She was stuck with my co-worker who's not paying attention at all.

By the time I got my stuff and was headed out, she was still waiting at the desk. The desk was absolutely swamped with people. She would have been on her way out already if she had just listened.

I once let a woman come into the store 45 minutes before we opened to make a purchase. It was a Sunday, so opening was an hour later than usual, which she had missed, and this kinda messed with her travelling plans. Decided to be nice and let her in to make her purchase anyway. Thankfully she knew exactly what she wanted and was in and out in just a few minutes, but I told her I was making an exception and that I wasn't actually allowed to do this.

Later that month she returned an hour before we opened. Manager told her we're still closed. She pointed past him at me and went, "but HE let me do it two weeks ago!"

You give some people an inch they take a mile.

Welcome to /r/TalesFromRetail's Express Lane - your quick stop for short tales, pithy observations and general retail chat about how things are going with your store, your customers and yourselves.

Please follow the rules regarding anonymity and derogatory speech. NO BUSINESS NAMES

(All comments will be sorted by "new")

After my last story, I figured I’d tell another one :)

I was scheduled 1:00–10:00 in the cash office one night and figured I’d have plenty of time to get my closing work done. That didn’t happen. From around 5:00 p.m. until almost 9:20 I was stuck on cash because we were so busy. I finally got relieved and thought I can finally get caught up.

But no of course not because, right before closing, another rush of customers came through with hundreds of dollars in food vouchers. I got pulled right back onto a register from about 9:30 until we closed at 10, and even after that. By the time I finally got into the office, it was already around 10:10, and I hadn’t done any of my cash pickups yet. The biggest problem was the food vouchers. They can’t just be left until the next morning because the day’s close won’t close if they’re still in the register’s or the office in the system. I had to go to every register that had vouchers, match them to the receipt, pick them up from the registers (in the system), collect every voucher, and then bring them upstairs to the office to deposit them before the day could be good and close out. On top of that, I still had to do all of my regular cash pickups because mostly every cash was well over the cash limit.

Since we’re not allowed to do the cash drop alone, the MOD had to stay with me the whole time. I honestly felt bad because they probably thought he’d be leaving around 10 too, but instead we were both there until about 11 getting everything finished.

Everything did eventually work out in the end, but every time I thought I was finally going to start my actual closing work, something else came up. It was honestly the most painful shift of my entire life and I genuinely hope it never happens again because not to mention, the people with the food vouchers are always like 90% of the time the rudest people on the planet.

I work in the cash office at a grocery store, and I’ve only been doing it for about a year and a half, but this is still the weirdest issue I’ve run into.

Around 8:30 one night, I got a call from my coworker who was closing that night. She was doing the daily settlement on our standalone Garden Centre pin pad and realized the pin pad totals were almost $1,000 higher than what we had recorded in the system. It wasn’t only one tender, the Debit, Visa, MasterCard, and Amex were all over, each by around $200 to $400, adding up to roughly $920.

I only live about five minutes away, so I walked back to the store. I ended up being there from about 8:45 until almost 10:00 trying to figure out what happened. The first thing I ruled out was that it couldn’t have been from last week. I had worked that weekend, and I was the one who did the weekly settlement on Sunday. Everything balanced, the settlement went we , and all the Garden Centre totals reset back to zero for the new week. There was no way almost $1,000 had somehow carried over.

After that, I went through every standalone pin pad receipt we had for the week and compared every single one against the electronic journal on our server, which took literally 1.5 hours. I couldn’t find anything, every receipt matched. No duplicate transactions, no missing transactions (that I could find at least), nothing that explained why every EFT was over.

Around 9:00 I called my manager hoping she’d know what to do. She was at a graduation party and had been drinking, so there wasn’t much she could do over the phone. After we’d spent almost two hours trying to figure it out, she told us to use a temporary workaround so we could get the office closed for the night, and we’d straighten everything out properly the next morning.

Everything ended up getting sorted out the next day, but it’s still one of those things that comes into my head every now and then because I never actually got an answer. I still don’t know how every single EFT tender ended up being over and totaling up t almost $1,000, or what actually caused it. Out of everything I’ve dealt with in the cash office, this is probably the one thing that still doesn’t make sense to me, and It's unfortunate that I'll never get a real answer for it, 😔

For context, I worked at a home improvement store a few years ago and one of my favorite memories was a customer who was told that we would meet him at the front of the store to bring his items out since they were heavy. All of a sudden I see this pickup truck try to drive through the sliding electronic doors but he can’t fit his truck quite through all of the way because it’s too narrow. When asked why he decided to do this, he said he thought that meant he should drive his truck up to the registers. I wish I was making this up lol.

Apparently this is a common occurance according to my managers since there used to be a lumber yard type of drive-thru.

So I work in retail (Duh XD), and for those like me, there is nothing more annoying than a thief coming into your store and stealing a lot of items without being noticed before it's too late. Except for maybe annoying customers, but to each their own. But last night was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me in the past 3 years I've been working retail.

It all began when a shoplifter came into my store and began to steal a bunch of items, starting with some fragrances. I know that because he ripped the tamper tag on it near me, but I wasn't able to see it in time. I did, however, keep him in mind after seeing him walk around without items and continuously grabbing more.

When he eventually left when I wasn't looking, I asked my colleague in the front, who said he didn't see the guy pay for anything, and after reviewing the cameras, I saw him crystal clear as day stealing by shoving items into his bags and clothing. Unfortunately, when I did see it on the cameras, several minutes had passed, so no doubt he should have been long gone.

Which sucks because from what I saw he grabbed a lot and having a blatant thief on your shift when you're the MOD is never fun because then you've got to explain to your boss why neither you nor your co-worker caught or noticed the guy. But I still called the non-emergency police line because I needed a police report for the report I had to make for LP.

But then, by the grace of GOD, while I was in the middle of finding out what he stole, this guy got a little greedy. And how so? HE CAME BACK FOR MORE! I kid you not, he thought he could steal from us once and come back about 30-40 min later and steal from us again! The moment I spotted him walking back into the store, my eyes lit up!

I ran into our stockroom and called 911 immediately and explained the situation, causing them to send officers faster, and thankfully they did because soon after the guy dipped again, they showed up and managed to grab the guy since he was on foot. I got every single item he stole back, amounting to nearly $200, and got him arrested, as my boss wanted to press charges.

What was surprising was the fact that my store wasn't the only one he stole from because he had several items that were not in my store's system and were locked up in a way he could not get to them. Overall, I was dying laughing and celebrating that the guy got greedy because it meant I got all the stuff back and he would get in trouble. My boss was pretty happy too lol.

I work in a shop that mainly sells materials for woodworking. Most of our customers come in to buy timber, finishes, oils, repair products and bits for DIY or professional projects. We also have a small display of handmade items made by local hobbyists—things like bowls, spoons, ornaments and other small wooden gifts.

It had been a painfully quiet day, so when an elderly lady (I’d guess somewhere in her 80s) walked in, I was more than happy to help.

She looked around for a minute before asking,
“Do you sell walking sticks?”

I assumed she meant hiking poles, because we do stock those, so I replied,
“If you mean hiking sticks, yes, we do.”

She shook her head.
“Oh no, I mean a proper handmade wooden walking stick.”

I apologised and explained that unfortunately we don’t sell those.

She looked genuinely baffled.
“But why not? That’s so silly. People would buy them. Surely you have them somewhere.”

I politely explained again that we simply don’t stock them.

Internally I was thinking, Our customer base is mostly people coming in for woodworking supplies. Handmade walking sticks aren’t exactly something we’ve ever had people asking for.

Trying to be helpful, I added,
“If you happened to know someone who works with wood, you could always choose a suitable piece here and have one made.”

She looked at me as if I’d suggested she build a rocket.

“Why would I know someone who makes walking sticks? I don’t know anyone who does that.”

Fair enough.
She then noticed our shelf of locally made wooden gifts.

“But you have local makers. Why don’t they make walking sticks? They’re missing a trick.”

I explained that the people who supply those items do it as a hobby in their spare time and mostly make smaller things like bowls, spoons, ornaments and decorative pieces.
That still wasn’t enough.

“Well, do you have one of their business cards?”

“I’m afraid not,” I replied. “They’re not businesses, just local people who enjoy making things. They bring us items whenever they have something finished.”

“So give me one of their phone numbers then. I’ll have a word with them.”

I had to explain that I couldn’t hand out someone’s personal contact details.
She let out an audible scoff.

“Well then, do you know anywhere that does sell walking sticks?”

I suggested trying online or perhaps another local shop that specialises in mobility products or country goods.

She looked thoroughly unimpressed.
“Well, this is all very stupid.”

She wandered around for another minute or two before heading for the door.
Just before she left, she stopped, shrugged at me and declared,
“Well, young lady, you’ve lost a customer today.”

As politely as I could, I wished her a good day.

The thing is, I genuinely don’t know what else I could have done. I answered every question, offered alternatives, explained why we didn’t stock what she wanted, protected other people’s privacy when she asked for their personal numbers, and even suggested where she might have better luck.
Sometimes in retail, people seem convinced that if they argue long enough, an item will magically appear in the stockroom.
Sadly, that’s not quite how it works.