Customer Upset About Being Treated Rudely by Off-Duty Checker

[purplecat41877]

Yesterday, a customer came to the service desk wanting the store manager. My coworker at the service desk ended up helping this customer since the store manager had the day off and the assistant store manager had recently left.

It turned out that the customer asked the checker who was off duty and talking with a couple other employees if she was open and she rudely said that she wasn't. The customer mentioned that she had been shopping at the store for a long time and that the staff used to be nice. My service desk coworker mentioned that this checker had recently lost her mom. The customer mentioned that the checker shouldn't even be there in that situation.

[Sandman]

Even though I can't tell how the customer's voice was, I think the customer ment that the employee shouldn't be working if she just lost her mom (as in a few days ago).

[0oAmericanGirl]

I think that the customer meant that if the employee was still in such greif that she was snapping at customers for little reason, even if she is off the clock, that she was in too much pain to be at work.

I side with the customer on this, the checker had no right to be rude even if she recently lost her mom. The customer asked a simple question, I'd be pissed too if somone snapped at me for no reason.

[BusBus]

I have to agree with the customer as well. Respect is a two-way street. She only asked a simple question. It is possible that the cashier was not in a financial situation to be taking time away from work, but at least she could have apologized (if I am a bit snippy and am rude to someone, I usually feel bad right after )

[Anthony K. S.]

Originally posted by purplecat41877 :

"It turned out that the customer asked the checker who was off duty and talking with a couple other employees if she was open and she rudely said that she wasn't."

Purplecat41877, did the customer ever actually say how, specifically, the checker was rude?

I mean . . . Was it the checker's choice of words that was rude?

Or her tone of voice?

Or did the customer simply say, "She rudely said that she wasn't," and leave it at that, without going into specifics?

Also, did you talk to the checker herself, to ask her what exactly happened?

The reason I'm asking these questions is because there are details missing here.

Originally posted by purplecat41877:

My service desk coworker mentioned that this checker had recently lost her mom.

To me, it sounds very much like your co-worker heard that this checker was rude, and instantly jumped to the conclusion that the checker must have snapped at the customer because she was in grief over her mother's death.

It also seems that the other posters on this thread have jumped to the same conclusion.


Now, it certainly is possible that that is, in fact, what happened . . . But it's not the only possibility.

There are other possibilities, such as :

The customer walks up to the cash registers, and sees lines at every register except one. She walks over to the register with no line, and asks the checker there if she is open.

The checker politely replies, "No, I'm not," and instructs the customer to go to one of the open registers. After this, the checker resumes talking to her co-workers.

The customer goes to wait in line at an open register.

And the whole time that she is waiting in line, she is fuming, "Well, that was rude! She wasn't doing anything! She could have rung me up! Why do I have to wait on this long line, when she was available to help me?"

The customer glares at the checker, thinking, "I can't believe the nerve! She isn't doing her job because she's too busy talking to her friends!"

After making her purchases, the customer then storms off to complain to the manager about the rude checker.

And when she speaks to an employee at the service desk about the matter, the employee draws the logical (but incorrect) conclusion that the checker must have snapped rudely at this customer because of her personal situation, and the story proceeds from there.


Or, how about this one :

The checker, who is off duty, has turned off the light on her register, hung up a "CLOSED" sign, chained off the aisle for her register, or otherwise done something to make it perfectly clear that she wasn't open.

And in a classic example of SC behavior, a customer walks up and asks her, "Are you open?"

The checker gives her a "WTF?" look, because her register is obviously closed. She proceeds to tell the customer so, perhaps less than politely.

And again, the customer storms off to complain and . . . Well, you get the idea.

In this case, the checker may indeed have been "rude" to the customer . . . But not because of the checker's personal problems, but rather because the customer asked a truly stupid question.

Would the checker still be at fault, because she was still rude to the customer? Even though the customer arguably deserved it? Possibly . . . That's more of a grey area, I think.

But even if the checker was still wrong, it's certainly not the same as if she had snapped at somebody for no reason, or just for asking a simple question.


Perhaps this customer was just one of those "No=Rude" types, and believed that she was treated rudely simply because the cashier wouldn't ring her up.

Or perhaps the checker had politely informed the customer that she was off the clock, and the customer turned out to be one of the "I don't care if you're off the clock! You still represent this store, and you should still help me!" brand of SC.


Who knows?

The point I am trying to make here is that, based on the given information, it is very easy to jump to the conclusion that the customer had simply asked the checker a question, and the checker had rudely snapped at the customer, out of her own personal grief.

Too easy, in fact.

I would very much like to hear the checker's side of this story. Which is why I asked if purplecat41877 ever spoke to the checker to find out what happened.


If, in fact, the checker really did snap at the customer just for asking a question, then I would agree (albeit very reluctantly) that she was wrong.

I can sympathize with her for her personal loss, and I would find it difficult to reprimand her for this . . . But the fact that she was in grief over her mother's death would not excuse her actions. It would merely explain them.

That said, I have seen many, many cases of customers making complaints that seemed to be perfectly valid . . . Only to have that validity completely blown away once the employees had the chance to tell their side of the story.

I'm sure that everybody else here has, as well.

As I said, it's too easy to jump to conclusions about what happened here.

Personally, until I hear more about how this happened, and the checker's side of the story, I'm not willing to assume that the checker was, in any way, at fault.

[purplecat41877]

The customer complained about the way the checker said that she wasn't open. I haven't gotten around to talking to the checker about it, though.

I'm not sure if my coworker talked to her or not. Also, we don't have closed signs-just lights and springy things that go across the back of the register lane.

[AirHostess]

I think it's interesting that the customer thought the checker shouldn't have been at work if she was upset. I know of cases where staff didn't want to go into work due to grief etc and the management made them anyway!

And we know that often 'rudeness'=an SC request being denied.

[ditchdj]

I know people have problems in life (who doesnt) but it pisses me off when they take it out on other people. I've heard be referred to as the "Kick-the-Dog Syndrome". It really doesnt make things better. Instead it make things worse.

[Mighty Girl]

I don't mean to play devil's advocate here, but I've had people complain about me simply because they didn't get the answer they were looking for. When I worked at Marc's (aka the pit of despair) and I closed my register for either a break or to leave, there were several times some cranky old hag would start loading up her stuff anyway, and I would nicely tell them that my register is closed and point to the light showing that it is, in fact, off. More times than I can count, they would stop by the service desk on their way out to complain about that rude cashier that either- wouldn't wait on us because she wanted to leave, or say that I got snippy with them. Especially when they pull the "I've been shopping here for 20 years, but your cashier hurt my itty bitty feeling so bad I'm leaving FOREVER". Cry me a river, and don't let the door hit you in the a$$.

The kicker was, the spineless managers would actually tell me I should have opened back up just for them. Needless to say, I only lasted three months there- I quit when the manager wouldn't let me off to study for finals because, after all, he doesn't have a college education and look how far he's gotten (actual words).

[Coconut]

I quit when the manager wouldn't let me off to study for finals because, after all, he doesn't have a college education and look how far he's gotten (actual words).

He actually said that? Ugh!!!!

[BlakeMP]

Wow. Just wow. That's about as assholeish a thing I can imagine a boss saying.