Opinons Needed

Okay so i posted this in my journal but since the SG community is so big...i really wanted to get all of your input on what i should do about this or if i should just let it go. I wasnt sure what board to post it in either i think this best covers it. Anyways please give me your opinions if i should take action or not....

Saturday- All in an normal truck day....dead til truck gets there and then were busy...well the first customer i had happen to be an empolyee for walgreens...i give her discount and start ringing her up and she starts gettting an additude with me cus the valentine stuff isnt ringing 75% off (okay u work at a walgreens....u know that this happens all the time so drop it) I price modify all her shit...and begin putting it in bags (a large one cus thats all we have back in the lab...cus usually we dont give bags if they pic up pictures) she starts bitching bout that ...okay by now im really fucking annoyed and gettin to the point where im really about to say something. (I call a bag check in photo over the speaker which basically tells the manager that its an empolyee transaction.....and since there unloading truck i paged it then so they would have time to come up to the lab instead of having her wait) what do i get for that...yelled at because thats not proper procedure and she gets all shitty and says that im trying to rush her outta the store then she tells me and i qoute "i can put those smaller things in one of this sacks since its not all the way full" (okay so i leave things on the counter for her to put in her sack like she said and i take her money and hand her the recipt) Then the bitch starts going off on me again for not bagging her shit the next thing i said i shouldnt have but it made me fill a whole lot better "Your from Wabash arnt u?" (now we have 3 stores in this town one south, one up north and one in the middle (wabash) Wabash is nasty, dirty and has rude ass people working there) Then she says i want to speak to a manager starts going off bout when she comes in here shes a customer and she shouldnt be treated like this blah blah blah that i should be reported to district ( im thinking...u shouldnt come into my store and treat me like shit just cus ur store sucks) well luckly there was a customer behind her and she stayed around for a bit and talked to my manager bout how the girl started it i did nothing wrong and that she would write to district and tell them excatly the same

Yesterday- Went into work today and right away i get a very pissed off look from the store manager....now until this moment the above situation totally slipped my mind. He asks me to come in the office for a min so we can talk. so at that moment i was so worried what he was gonna say. He asked me what happend and i told him what i told u guys ...apparently this lady and fellow walgreens empoylee had decided to take it upon herself to call district office and tell them that i was being descrimatory to her and that i should be fired and so forth.
she told my store manager that is said "I hate your kind and your store is dirty" UM OKAY TOTALLY WRONG WHAT I SAID WAS "You must be from Wabash Store" (because she was acting like a total bitch and most of the customers and empolyess are that way) IN NO WAY AM I RACISTS....I dont make judgement on people by the way they look....or there age or sexual prefrence or any other thing. SO news quickly spreaded around my store that i could be losing my job....so i had to explain like 10000000 times today the situation and practically everybody is pissed that this bitch had to go out and pull a damn Racists card....I still dont know what to do...one part of me so wants to pull it back because i have this feeling that if i had been anyother nationaitly she would have let it slip...but just because i am white she automatically assumes i hate African Americans. I also want to get a damn restraning order against her because i swear if she ever walks in my store again after all this shit is over im gonna spaz....i mean seriously dude GROW THE FUCK UP!

Not much else to report sadly...im super pissed and super upset because if i lose my job because of this women im so gonna sue im not even playing...ill go bankrupt just to make a fucking point and pull my name outta the gutter

You're in the wrong. It doesn't matter if the customer was getting pissy. It doesn't matter if the customer is an employee from another chain of the same store. You, as an employee on duty, cannot get into a pissing match with a customer. If the customer was truly being unreasonable, you should have followed your store's procedure for calling the manager. You should have said to the customer "I'm sorry there seems to be a miscommunication, I'll get the manager so we can clear this up".

If you can't deal with an unruly, unreasonable customer you need to find a job that does not put you in contact with customers.

In the meantime...the way you deal with customers like that is to kill them with kindness. You "sir" and "ma'am" them to death...all the while with a pasted-on fake smile. You know why? Because it's funny. It's funny that their life sucks SO bad that they're going to get all pissy about a transaction at a Walgreen's. You need to recognize that and let it slide off your back. Yes, it sucks having to deal with people like that...but can you imagine how much is must suck to BE that person? How sad their life must be that they're actually going to get upset over a fucking clearance sale? How pathetic they are for actually raising their bloodpressure over some stale goddam vanentine's Day candy and an ugly-as-sin teddy-bear?

You're not going to lose your job because of this woman. If you lose your job it will be because you didn't follow store policy and didn't control yourself. You could've handled this much better.

Yeah, in a perfect world, I'd agree with the above post. But since I happen to be human, I can understand losing your cool from time to time. I try to have the pasted-on-fake-smile thing happening and it usually works. You can say incredibly condescending things to people if you do it with the right tone of voice. Most of the time they don't even catch it. And Cash is right: those people are just miserable pathetic people. But sometimes you can't resist the urge to defend yourself and to treat them like the miserable pathetic people they are. Sorry you had to deal with that stupid bitch.

God, I hate customers like that. I work in retail too. A while ago, during the Christmas season, I dealt with a pretty pissy customer too. She had brought a lot of stuff up to the counter and then said that she is an employee of my store's parent company. She even has an ID card. Fine. Good. So I give her the 25% discount. Then she says that she is supposed to receive 50%, same as an employee of the store. And I tell her, no she isn't supposed to. Well, I have before, she says. And I tell her she shouldn't have. But she won't give up. She asks me over and over if I'm sure. And that forces me to have to show her in our store manual where it says, in no uncertain terms, company employees only get 25% off. But in her twisted mind, she's as much an employee of my store as she is, so she should get 50%. So, finally, she left without buying anything, but not before she made sure she got my name so she could bitch to someone about me. But I never heard anything. So either she cooled off, or she bitched and no one cared. I win.

The moral is: People suck. Esp. the lady from your story, Cassie.

Um... dude... it's fucking Walgreens. I'm sure CVS down the block is probably hiring.

The race card! I play it all the time. It works because nobody *ever* questions the race card. Who loves ya, baby?

I hate to say it... and so I won't! Let's just say be glad you're not in the restaurant business.

Yahtzee!

It's funny cause it's true.

lol did u know CVS bought out OSCO drug corp...lol i wouldnt work in retail again if i got fired im gonna sue

This should be interesting. What do you think the basis for this lawsuit would be? My understanding is that wrongful termination is pretty hard to prove...

I'm with Cash, you're in the wrong. Just from the tone and manner you wrote your post, iit comes off like you were all filled with attitude, and what store someone works or normally shops at should mean absolutely zero.

I know retail isn't an ideal job and you'd rather work elsewhere, but if you're going to sign up for it and collect the check, suck it up and do the job well.

~Trilo~

"The customer is always right!"

I hate that saying but it's true, you always have to act like they are right. That's just part of the service industry.

I have found that the best way to deal with crap like that is to just not care. Have fun pretending that you care, too. But deep down, you have to really not give a shit if someone like that gets angry, just laugh inside at their hollow life while paging the manager and apologizing.

Chances of you being able to sue are even less than you being able to file a restraining order.

You lost your temper - even if she was being a bitch, she wasn't on the clock, and you were. I understand it's totally unfair: I worked in retail for two years, I completely comprehend what happened. Regardless, you only really have three options:

1: Let it go, realize it was a shitty situation all around, and that you're not going to work at Walgreens all of your life (your profile says 19, so I figure that's true.)
2: Sit on it and stew, get angry about it with your manager and coworkers. Eventually blow up on them, get fired, lose a reference.
3: Blow up about it now, get fired, lose a reference. File suit, lose, get countersued if they care enough.

To summarize, you have no real good options. Just let it go.

Like others have said I've found that the kill them with sarcastic kindness is usually the best way to deal with ass hole customers. That and don't care about this job too much, life gets simpler in this line of work if you don't care too much. That having been said I completely understand the urge to say something back, especially to someone so deserving. Also I don't know what the discipline process at Walgreen's is like, but where I work they have to give you one verbal warning and 4 written warnings before they can fire you, so unless you have been written up I don't think you're in any danger of being fired. While I agree that this situation could have been handled better, I'd be pretty tiked if a fellow employee went and whined to a manager over a situation like this. That lady (and I use the term loosely) should be glad that you are a decent person as there are some less then ethical ways to exact revenge on people who like to stab their co-workers in the back. However, all in all it is probably best to let this situation go. I don't think its going to cause you to loose your job and anything else you might do would probably not be worth your time.

[Edited on Feb 22, 2006 by daggx]

Im over it for now...i hope i dont get fired...i just know she claimed discrimation...so therefore im under investigation at the end of the week for this whole stupid thing...I know i was wrong for talking back and i really shouldnt have said what i did...but i do feel like shes doing discrimation because im white....which is discrimation...but im not going there...I actually talked to a lawyer and he said if i get fired i can get unempolyment and also sue the lady for discrimation and if i wanted to walgreens for wrongful fire...but i think ill be okay...i just have to sit through a interview of sorts with her in the room claiming her side and me on the other claiming mine with the other customer backing me up. *shrug* Im getting ready to start college and get a degree in crim...so if i get fired i can focus on school more...thanks for you help guys.

go into her store and her counter and act mean!! it wont solve anything but it will make you feel better

that would be beyond hilarious.

You know its funny...my manager said the excate same thing...he said if i do get fired which he thinks i wont..but if i do i should send some friends in and pull the same shit to get her fired...lol thats great