Customers play keepaway

[BowserKoopa1]

Yesterday I was very tired. I had not slept very well the previous night and got only 4-5 hours of sleep instead of my usual 8-9 hours. I was in a slightly irritable mood, but had managed to work through most of my shift without incident (thankfully it was only a 6 hour shift).
A couple comes up to my register and hands me something, then he pulls it back as I reach for it. This dumbass and his wife are smiling and obviously finding this funny. Repeat 3 times, and then I back up and kinda look at the ceiling. In the middle of the transaction, the guy says this.
SC (with an obvious sarcastic tone): Sorry to piss you off.
ME: You didn't, sir. I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well last night and got only several hours of sleep.
ME (what I wanted to say): Well maybe if you'd stop being an idiot and playing stupid childish games and just pay for your stuff, I wouldn't get pissed off at you.
Neither of them got mad, but they obviously didn't like "my attitude" Unfortunately I had to apologize to make sure they wouldn't complain.
ME: I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression, sir. I'm just so sleepy and tired.
SC: We forgive you. Just don't take it out on your customers.
ME (what I wanted to say): Yeah, and I forgive you for being an idiot.
ME: Have a nice day, sir.
Anyone else have any customers try to play these stupid games with you?

[HorrorFrogPrincess]

Yup. That's how I managed to develop a Death Glare. After the second time, I'd just look at them with my hands flat on the counter. If they keep playing this game, I'll just cancel the transaction, which fortunately, I never had to do.

[Automan Empire]

Aaah, you lost the match when you spoke of your sleep.

Stay on topic. You are trying to process a transaction. They are playing games.

I like the hands on desk/death glare solution. I use this a lot when customers ask a question, then interrupt my answer. I. Stop. Talking.

Then: "Sorry to piss you off."

Two good responses. No, you're not. Or, But you did it anyway. Delivered in a calm, unruffled tone, it is hard for the SC to take back control of the situation and abuse it. I would dump a girlfriend for playing such stupid games; a stranger hasn't got a chance to make me give a damn about them after such blatant asshattery.

[Nashida]

Yep. I've had that. And I was given explicit instructions to just cancel the transaction if they continued to play games. That was fun.

K used to do that, and if the customer made a fuss, he'd ask them if they were all grown up now and could handle this seriously.

[Kiwi]

Next time that happens, after you go to grab it a second time drop your hands to the counter and wait

and wait and wait and wait

until the come to the realisation that you are a human being and they will eventually scowl about how customer service sucks nowadays, but they will then hand over the object like normal people.

[cinema guy]

I've had customers try and hold up bags of pick n mix sweets so the scales didn't register so much weight. They usually make it a joke. One customer was doing this and I had been having a bad day so without thinking gave him a deat glare. He said to his gf "Ooh he doesn't like that." and put his sweets on the scales.

[NightWatch]

Had that happen when I worked at the burger joint. If it was a busy part of the day, I'd just walk away and bag a bunch of orders that needed to go out or make shakes or something. Most of the time they'd apologize to me, or if they started to "wtf?!" at me, I'd tell them that it's the dinner rush and I don't have time for games. Then they just look embarassed.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, what Kiwi said. I'd just say, "Well, whenever you're ready then." and go on to whatever I was doing before. Or go on to the next customer.

Not much of a game-player that way.

[Meegz]

To me, the customers that do me that crap are doing that on purpose. Obviously. The ONLY people that can get away with playing games like that is because a) they were mocking a previous customer, b) they do it once, laugh, and do it to cheer me up, and rarely its c) the customer is a regular and will give me a hard time because I give them a hard time back and it cracks me up. Most of the times if they're giving me a hard time, I will kill them with kindness and then I will be more than happy to exuberate the same treatment back to them! If that means they won't come back to me when they shop, so be it!

[Skeksin]

I don't like keepaway. Can we play Customer Checkout instead?

[Anakah]

I hate that! We're not allowed to take money from a customers hand, they have to set things down for the cameras. But sometimes I take it out of their hands if they're really old or something but one guy thought it would be funny to not let go then pull back. I pulled myself back and said he had to drop it for the camera.

Its annoying and you have to make sure no complaints are made, that sucks ass.

[BowserKoopa1]

It was worse when I worked at the movie theatre and I was assigned to do ticket drop, especially with stupid young teenagers, or sometimes even adults, who think its funny to play keepaway. Back then, I snapped at a few of them and told them I don't have time to play games. I even was so irritable one time, that I grabbed some guy's arm, took the ticket, and told him where his theatre was.
I also had some wiseass customers shove their ticket right in my face. Every single time they did that, I would push their arm right back, tear their ticket, and then give them an evil smile and say, "Enjoy your movie".
Some of them would even come up to me with several tickets. Then as they are about to hand them to me, they hand the tickets out to everyone in the group. Why don't these morons do that outside before they come up to ticket drop? I wish I knew.