The Story of All Stories: Screaming Self-Checkout Guy (A Long Story...)

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

This is one of the work stories I have that I remember as one of the more shocking ones I've experienced.

It all started one busy Sunday afternoon during my stint as self-checkout attendant. The person who was assigned to the cashier's station that day was about an hour late for lunch, so my manager pulled me off cart pushing and sent me to cover the lunch. Because there was only one person running cashier station for large-order and small-order self-checkouts, I was in charge of both. It was a welcome break for me. I enjoyed running self-checkouts and knew what I was doing, and I really needed a break from the hot summer sun.

First, a little background on the self-checkouts. Of all the places in the store, the self-checkouts were the culprits of the highest stockloss. This happens when people switch clearance tags from their corresponding item to another totally unrelated item in some far-off corner of the store away from the surveillance cameras. Then they come through the self-checkouts and scan the items themselves, thinking that because they don't go through a lane with an actual cashier that they can get away with the price-switched merchandise for huge discounts. Sadly, this happened a lot, and the price switchers brought said items back to the store without a receipt and tried to return it for full price. Because of this, we were all told to keep our eyes open and to stay near the cashier's station so we could pay attention to each individual transaction.

Now that you know that, back to the story. Things seemed to be going great for most of the lunch...until it happened. A normal-looking guy, who looked to be in his 40's, approached me at the cashier's station. Little did I know that he seemed to be on a mission to yell at someone, and that someone was going to be me.

Screaming Guy: SG
Me:

Me: Hi, sir! How can I help you today?
SG: I'm gonna come through these things, and I need someone to scan my stuff and hit the button to make sure my s*** gets itemized!
Me: I apologize, sir, but I'm in charge of 10 of these self-checkouts at the moment and have to stay here at the cashier's station to watch over the area. I'd be happy to help you should you need me, so feel free to ask.

Screaming Guy didn't show me the least bit of respect, I was respectful to him all the way through. Despite that fact, things were about to start coming off the rails--and it wouldn't even be the most off-the-rails part of the saga of Screaming Guy.

SG: I don't f****** BELIEVE IT! This is the worst f****** store in the WHOLE D*** TOWN! Maybe if they would hire some f****** people who KNEW HOW TO F****** DO CUSTOMER SERVICE, the world would be BETTER!

I'm standing there in shock. By this time, the customers on nearly all the self-checkout bots have stopped scanning their orders and are staring Screaming Guy down. One lady even stopped mid-order and ran down to the service desk to tell my coworkers that she had witnessed the situation, the dude screamed at me for no reason, and I was not at fault for any part of the situation. A minute or two later, I see the guy at the desk talking to my boss. I have to see what's going on, so I see one of my coworkers walking by and ask them to cover the cashier's station while I went down and snooped into the conversation.

I did not believe my ears. Just as I got down to the desk, I overheard my boss telling Screaming Guy that he did nothing wrong...and then gave him a gift card for his inconvenience.

Let's recap. Screaming Guy yells at me because I won't abandon taking care of all my customers to give him special treatment. Screaming Guy makes the jaws of everyone within earshot drop to the floor. Lady leaves self-checkout bot with a running start to beat Screaming Guy to the service desk to clear me from fault. Boss gives Screaming Guy gift card for screaming in my face. But that's not all, folks!

My coworker who was assigned to self-checkout attendant came back from lunch while all this was going on, so I went back to my duties as a cart slave. I went back out on the lot and started pushing in a group of carts that I'd already put together before I covered the lunch. All seemed normal, until things went as much off-the-rails as they would go.

I noticed a Volkswagen Beetle coming straight at me. I let the carts go and dodged out of the way. I managed to get a look at who was behind the wheel. It was Screaming Guy. Driving a Slug Bug. With a little yellow flower next to the steering wheel.

In case you're wondering, I was fine. You may not be surprised judging by my former boss's reaction to Screaming Guy during her first encounter, but the guy didn't even get banned from the store for all this. They didn't even pull the footage of the guy trying to run over me with his car and even refused to call the cops. I still saw him occasionally back when I still worked there, and I chuckled a little knowing he acted like a tough manly-man but he drove a Volkswagen Beetle.

[Akasa]

*I* would have called the cops and made them pull the footage.

[Red_Dazes]

*I* would have called the cops and made them pull the footage.

Seconded! But it's in the past now.

What an @$$

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Ah, small guy, little car, big mouth. Ain't it cute?

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

*I* would have called the cops and made them pull the footage.

This. An asshole who tries to run you over deserves to be punished.

[Draco]

*I* would have called the cops and made them pull the footage.

...

Thisthisthisthisthis!

And then I'd be pondering a hostile workplace complaint against the manager who rewarded that asshole.

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

And then I'd be pondering a hostile workplace complaint against the manager who rewarded that asshole.

Basically, long story short, this manager had it out for me for some reason. You should hear the comment she made to me the day she fired me--ironically, the same day I was trying to file a hostile workplace complaint against another manager for verbally abusing me on the sales floor for a situation completely out of my control. (I still have customers who witnessed that situation coming up to me to this day when they see me in public and recognize me, telling me they still refuse to shop at a store where managers can talk to their employees that way. ) "Open Door Policy", my behind. That's a story much longer than this one, though. I'm just glad to be out of there!

[Bloodsoul]

Hey, are you saying that Bumblebee is neither tough nor manly?

[Bright_Star]

So basically they gave him a gift card for acting like a baby having a tantrum. You should have called the cops when he made u a target with his car. Because they refused to call the cops, doesn't mean you couldn't have.

[Moon]

Isn't the point of a SELF check-out that you check yourself out?? If one wants an employee to scan items for them, there's actual check-out lanes for that! He must have been trying to scan incorrectly marked items. One thing these scammers don't think of, though.... There are scales there, and if the weight is different it yells at you and requires an employee to come and clear the error. At least they have for the last few years, maybe not when this happened.

And WTF is up with them refusing to pull the tapes of someone trying to KILL you??? Sounds like you're much better off not working there. I've heard of bad management before, but when they stand by and do nothing when an employee's LIFE is in danger that's a whole new level of suck.

[Shalom]

I let the carts go and dodged out of the way.

I suppose you'd have gotten in trouble if you'd let the carts go in such a way that he rammed right into them?

Hell, that's attempted vehicular homicide in any case. I'd've called the cops myself, the hell with the manager.

[b2addm]

*I* would have called the cops and made them pull the footage.

Yep, I also agree with this. We take sosososo damn much abuse from these assholes and idiots that when one of them crosses the line and does something actionable, I'm ALL over that action.
Vengeful? Most certainly. But it feels good to have one of them squirming and not one damn thing the store can do to me about it without risking a lawsuit.

[Laund-o-rama Mama]

HOLY CRAP! It takes a special kind of sociopath to get his ass kissed with an apology AND a gift card and STILL feel like getting "revenge" on you!!

I'm going to be charitable and say that he was probably only trying to scare you, but that was a very dangerous game to play! What a douchenozzle!

[Bob The Random Boy Wonder]

So basically they gave him a gift card for acting like a baby having a tantrum.

This happened quite often there. As a matter of fact, they fired the store manager because the store was bleeding money due to this. They were going to make the guy who harassed me the store manager (they always pick the best and brightest, don't they?), and literally everyone in the store threatened to walk out. Wish I could've been there for that!

Isn't the point of a SELF check-out that you check yourself out?? If one wants an employee to scan items for them, there's actual check-out lanes for that! He must have been trying to scan incorrectly marked items. One thing these scammers don't think of, though.... There are scales there, and if the weight is different it yells at you and requires an employee to come and clear the error. At least they have for the last few years, maybe not when this happened.

My motto has always been, "It's called U-Scan, not Bob Scan." I've always been happy to help people if they needed it (there are always, inevitably, those items that just don't want to scan) but not on every single item when you're literally trying to keep an eye on 10 self-checkout bots at a time--and most certainly not for someone who feels entitled to have preferential treatment over everyone else. If you're waving your hands in the air on a busy day and I have 9 other people needing help, you will be last even if you're standing right next to me. Everyone else is being patient. There's no reason you can't do the same.

Our scales actually did that at the cashier's station, but most people didn't bother to check the item before overriding the weight alert. Most of the price-switchers actually did it on huge items. I once caught a lady that put a $10 clearance sticker from a notebook/organizer thing on a $200 air conditioner, and she actually thought I was going to be dumb enough to not notice!

[ApolloSZ]

Bob - You and I shall start up Car-dodgers anonymous - I've had a customer try and run me over too, I posted it on here a while ago. Took him to court and all (but he ended up getting a warning I think).


Wonder if we need member shirts or something.