Basic math was not his strong suit

[Dreamstalker]

The cashier I was bagging for last night had a customer who brought up about four packs of butter. They rang up at $2.89 each. SC starts ranting...

SC: "Two for six! Two for six! Sign say two for six!"
Cashier and I look at each other. He's saying he wants to pay more?!
Guy continues, so Cashier has me take one of the butters over to FEM for a 'price check'. I explain. FEM and ASM: *blink*
ASM: "If he wants it for the sign price, give it to him for the sign price."

We suspect that SC was looking at a sign for the item next to it...demanding to pay more and not shutting up until he does is a first though.

[raudf]

*facepalm* Oooohhh, yes. That kind of customer. My store was in the senile, idiot, entitled and barely functional "mentally different" neighborhood. Rollbacks became hell on my nerves during the year I cashiered.

Even if you showed them the math, they would not believe that they were wanting to pay more than we were charging for the item. I suspect some were functionally autistic or senile.. a few where OCD in extreme. (The entitled always wanted to pay LESS, so that got ruled out.) In their mind it was that price, that price only, and never changed.

The OCD would get it after the math was shown, usually. For the other types, I tried a tactic of "Well, today, if you buy X of an item, we have it priced at Y. Looks like you have X, so the register is giving it to you at the Y price. I'm sure that next time it will be at Z price again." So what that I had to do it for the same customer three times in a row... their carer found the tactic pure brilliance. (She'd been trying to explain it to him.. only to have him melt down or just go glassy eyed.) I'm still not sure how the heck my tactic worked, unless these were once Entitleds who were getting on in their twilight years. Thus the "Extra speshul snowflake" side of their personality was stimulated and sated at the same time?

It was very rare that I'd encounter the walking brain-dead. Those poor souls who were exhausted to the point where thinking clearly wasn't happening. Having been one of those, I would just point out that they lucked out and the price had dropped.. and that they should go buy a pillow while they were here. Poor sots.

[ADeMartino]

This happens more than you know. It's usually not a case of not being ABLE to think, it's usually a simple 'knee-jerk' reaction to something unexpected. Some people mistrust retail and sales personnel so much that ANY variance from what's expected immediately puts the customer into 'lockout' mode. Any attempt to explain to that person that they're actually getting a better deal is summarily rejected.

It's the same response you get when someone is confronted with the possibility that maybe, just MAYBE, they made a mistake. "Who, ME? Make a mistake? INCONCEIVABLE!" Try as you might, you'll never get them to admit a mistake - even if you have 10,000 witnesses, video tape footage, and a signed affidavit from God.

[AccountingDrone]

Back when I was working odd shifts I was occasionally the brain dead shopper I can remember working a double and a smidge shift, my relief never showed up so I was walking rounds in a bank over the weekend for about 20 hours. I used to have the drivers license that I picked up on the way home that saturday morning, I looked like a zombie with no need of makeup. Luckily the person at the convenience store where I stopped for gas and a coffee knew me, because I left a $5 for my coffee, which normally cost .95 and wandered off without the change. He gave it to me the next morning when I stopped for a new notebook.

[Bright_Star]

So they wanna pay MORE? By all means...sure!!....LOL! Just take the extra green stuff & buy pizza for all the minions.

[Dreamstalker]

Don't I wish there was a way that the 'overcharge' could go into a tip jar/food fund of sorts (if not directly to the employee dealing with the nonsense). If an SC starts in with that, I don't even try to argue with them anymore.

[ADeMartino]

So they wanna pay MORE? By all means...sure!!....LOL! Just take the extra green stuff & buy pizza for all the minions.

Yeah, like management will actually allow THAT to happen.

[mjr]

Don't I wish there was a way that the 'overcharge' could go into a tip jar/food fund of sorts (if not directly to the employee dealing with the nonsense). If an SC starts in with that, I don't even try to argue with them anymore.

Maybe something like Chris LeDoux's "Five Dollar Fine"

From the Chorus:

"We've got a Five Dollar Fine for whining,
We tell you, before you come in.
And if it ain't on your mind to have a good time,
y'all come back, and see us again!"

[raudf]

Don't I wish there was a way that the 'overcharge' could go into a tip jar/food fund of sorts (if not directly to the employee dealing with the nonsense). If an SC starts in with that, I don't even try to argue with them anymore.

A Ma and Pa place around my area has a jar for just that. It doesn't go to the employees (who are a family), though. It goes to the local food bank. The mentality being, "I take the bad karma that you heap onto me, and turn it into good karma! The more people who win off your bad karma, the better!"