A woman REFUSED to take her grocery bags off the plastic bag wheel so I could continue ringing her up and bagging her other items. She had to be in her 70′s and I swear she was acting like a 3 year old. She got the manager’s involved in an attempt to get me fired.

One woman slid her ATM card and insisted that it be run as credit. I told her ok no problem. Well she goes and enters her pin number and the transaction defaulted to debit and there was no way to reverse it back to credit. Well I was called every name in the book in front of her young granddaughter.

This other lady walked in and demanded that I sell her a pack of postage stamps. When I told her we don’t sell stamps she copped this attitude and went absolutely ballistic. Her husband had to restrain her and guess what: we really didn’t sell stamps. She also tried to get me fired.

One man’s credit card was declined several times in a row and he called me a stupid b word because I told him I’d need another form of payment.

These are just some of my experiences. I’ve had many more. Why customers come into stores with malicious intentions I’ll never know, but they do. Some are trying to get you fired and others just like to pick on you because you aren’t in a position of power.

Also sometimes I wouldn’t be smiling because I was absolutely starving and had no money to buy myself something to eat. Even though I had a job all my money went to bills and I was left with nothing the day after payday. Cashiers make minumum wage in case some of you didn’t know.

I’ve run into rude cashiers before, but I always brush it off because I know exactly what it’s like on the other side.

Society has gotten more and more rude, and demanding, then when I was a kid. I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and there is no craziness like clueless, SELF-ABSORBED people, these days. They walk around like zombies, high on religion, processed foods, full of hormones and pesticides and what-not.

Plus, they know the poor cashier needs his/her job and can’t really say much, or they’ll get them fired on the spot. There is a rapidly growing number of really sick bullies in the world, and will take their frustrations and misery out on those who are positive and just trying to do their job(s).

I’m just reminded how grateful I am, that I’m not one of those a-holes. I really try hard to give cashiers, baggers, and waitresses (I’m a generous tipper) my upmost respect. I show my appreciation by thanking and helping bag, so does my husband.

When Terri Sinclaire wrote that her manager told her to “bend” a little, I was really saddened. That manager should have called child protective services on that woman that left her child negligently in the store and left the building. What is happening in our society, when we place greed over human life?

That reminded me of a story when I was in retail. A woman left a baby in a baby carrier just outside the waiting room, and went across the isle to another part of the department. After awhile, I called security and I let them reprimand her, thankfully, yet she had the nerve to get angry with us. That was some years ago, and things are worse today. Today it’s, “I’m going to have a temper tantrum if I don’t have it NOW!” – and these are supposed to be adults? How about awful Black Friday, where customers trample people to death and act like apes? Do those cashiers need to “smile and be proud of their work?” How about that poor security guard that was trampled to death, are you going to tell his family that they need to “don’t worry be happy?” – when they just lost their father for Christmas? People need to stop gloating, stop preaching, take their blinders off, and show some real empathy and respect.

I really enjoyed the comments by most of the cashiers, especially by Angie, Katrina (yes, I fully agree that this author is elitist – thank you – and to criticize posters when asked of their opinion, what happened to your “30 days of YES” attitude?), Jin, Terri Sinclaire, and Caro. Thank you.

Location A, the prevailing attitude as a customer: me vs the store (cashier). I waved a barcode across the scanner and most of the time was told “you scanned that wrong.” Folks generally grumpy, they don’t make eye contact in an apt. that’d mean interaction. Race to the next red light – me first!

Location B was like a whole new world. The prevailing attitude in the above situation went like this: “Excuse me sir, but I think that item came up at the wrong price. Would you call back to the dept. and check please?” Folks waved at eachother and said “hi” at the apt. and stopped at YELLOW lights.

In both locations I was “hit” by several mystery shoppers evaluating my service. I never knew who they were until I got my reward for receiving perfect service scores and wished I’d get the next one! I didn’t change my style and yes, when my wife and I finished school and landed better jobs, we moved our home out of location A.

Having a positive attitude doesn’t always help because you can be polite and courteous and some rich fuck will still be the rudest asshole in the neighbourhood. And being positive all the time can be very unhealthy for a person. People need to be able to express their frustrations, it’s all that “The Secret” stuff and “Don’t worry, be happy” SHIT that is ruining the world. Are you going to tell a single mother who is working full time hours at a place that pays minimum wage or god forbid, some sort of training wage that is less than minimum wage, “Don’t worry, be happy” when she has been reduced to working a crummy job, barely squeaking by on bills? I knew a stock person (also a lousy job) who was working two jobs to support his family. Sucks balls and I think he should be allowed to feel as shitty as he can.

There’s too much wrong with the world to bother being enthusiastic about a cashier job.

The most dreaded part of the job for most employees is when they need to run on register. More and more customers are in a hurry so the cashier can never go fast enough for them. There are constantly people trying to get things for free or for a majorly reduced price and God forbid the cashier dares to ask for someone to do a price check to prevent the store from losing money. A lot of customers come in angry or stressed out and decide to take it out on the cashier when the store can’t do something because of store policy or because the registers just won’t let them. Sometimes they manage to humiliate and anger the cashier enough that they either have to leave so no one sees them cry or they just feel off for the rest of the day. It’s easy to say they need to get thicker skin if you don’t have to do their job, but remember, they’re already running around trying to get their job done, then everyday people take out their frustrations on the person behind the register, it wears you down after a while. Even a store manager who has been in the business for 16 years started crying after a customer started verbally attacking her character, intelligence, and abilities just because the manager could not take an expired coupon(all coupons needed to be scanned). My sister has been a cashier for 7 years and is constantly coming home with new stories of stupid customers who think my sister is nothing more than a robot who must do exactly what the customer says.

I’ve never been a cashier but I’ve seen people treat them like crap when I shop or when I’ve visited my sister at work. Luckily, for every time an irate customer has yelled at her, she’s had at least two customers who treated her with respect and actually remembered that she is a person.

Also, for the person who said that your patronage pays the cashier’s paycheck, I don’t remember seeing your name on my sister’s checks. Stop acting like you’re the most important person there ever was and try to imagine what it’s like having to deal with rude people who think they’re better than you every time you go to work. Maybe if you were actually nice to the person behind the register, they might return the favor.

That’s gotta have an unhappy outcome no matter what.