If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you’ll know that the customer isn’t always right – and can sometimes be incredibly impolite.
This was the experience of one woman when she attempted to assist a customer at her workplace. The customer became excessively demanding and rude, insisting that she scan all her items for her – despite being at a self-scan checkout.
Bonnie, who shares content on TikTok under the handle @bonniemads1, revealed: “So apparently I’m getting reported to head office because I refused service to someone lol. The till was open by the way, if you wanted to get served by a person, you could’ve just gone to that one” – but that’s not what transpired.
The woman approached the self-scan and beckoned Bonnie “over for help,” so she went over and greeted the woman with a hello. She received “no response” and saw a “basket full of stuff just on the self-scan and she’s looking through her bag with her head down.”
Bonnie said: “So I was like, ‘Are you okay? ‘. She goes, ‘Yeah,’ and stares at me, so I just stare back, and she just gestures her hand at her stuff and I was like, ‘Yes sorry, did you need help with something?’ She goes, ‘Can you scan my stuff please?’
“This is a self-scan, are you stupid?”
The shop worker pointed out that there was a cashier available at that very moment who could have assisted her, without the icy exchange, and she was puzzled as to why the woman had addressed her in such a manner.
Bonnie highlighted that it was a self-checkout and asked the woman if she’d prefer to use a manned till instead. The woman responded: “A till is a till, it doesn’t really matter. Can you just scan it?” Bonnie recalled.
“I should’ve refused right then and there but maybe sometimes I’m too much of a f***y and can’t be a***d with the confrontation so I was like, ‘Yeah okay just next time you can go to that till if you would rather.’ She obviously doesn’t want me to have the last word ’cause she starts arguing back, being like, ‘Well no, I’ll go to whichever till I wanna go to if you can just scan my stuff. What’s the difference?” she said.
Bonnie described it as “stupid back and forth” until the woman’s “final trigger comment”: “It’s really not that difficult if you could just stop arguing and scan my items.” Bonnie told the woman she wouldn’t serve her “with that kind of attitude, thank you,” and walked away.
The woman ended up at a regular checkout and later confronted Bonnie, threatening to report her to head office. Bonnie offered to write down her name for the woman so she “didn’t spell it wrong,” but the woman declined and “stormed off”.
Bonnie was left perplexed, questioning the woman’s actions and wondering why she hadn’t simply gone to the checkout in the first place. The comments section was divided, with some defending the customer’s behaviour, while others claimed to be familiar with the type of shopper Bonnie had encountered.
One commenter wrote: “Do people actually have the cheek to go to self scanners and ask for a member of staff to scan their stuff for them?”
Another shared: “As a people pleaser I couldn’t imagine speaking to anyone like this! I was so shocked when I started working in retail when I was 19 at how rude people could be”.
A man angrily responded: “You deserve the sack. Everyone knows retail is like that you chose to be in that job so deal with it or leave, don’t get on here to bad mouth them! ” However, someone came to Bonnie’s defence, writing: “Eh no one is paid to deal with attitude they’re there to assist that’s it.”