Working as a cashier in a grocery store for three years, I came to the realization that the general public doesn’t know how to act properly and I would never EVER want to work with the general public again. There have been many instances where I am mind blown at the way some people act. Grown ass adults getting in arguments at the grocery store, crazy coupon ladies pulling out their binders full of expired and fake coupons, and a customer giving me 200 one-dollar bills for her form on payment, to just name a few.
On a particularly busy day, I can’t remember if it was a holiday or not, we had almost all the registers open, but there were still two to three customers per checkout lane. We were working as fast and efficiently as possible, but apparently, certain customers like to get angry and frustrated when they have to wait in a line. I had two ladies in my line — and this was before Corona-times — so they were standing pretty close together. One lady bends down to grab something and accidentally bumps her cart into the lady in front of her. Next thing I know, the lady is accusing her of intentionally hitting her with the cart! I watched the whole thing happen so I knew it was truly an accident but I didn’t want to interfere with a “Karen.” The “Karen” starts yelling at the other lady and keeps saying that she knew she intentionally did it. I thought this whole situation was outrageous and somewhat childish. I honestly couldn’t believe that two adults were fighting over who bumped who with their cart.
If you have ever seen the show “Extreme Couponing,” you know how much customers value their coupons. I pride customers who are actually able to pay for their entire order with just a five-dollar bill. It takes a lot of skill and planning to figure out what coupon to use and what the deals are for the week. However, we also get the customers who give us coupons that are expired, for the wrong product, or even fake. I remember one customer who had a TON of coupons. I started analyzing them and realized they were all either expired or for the wrong product. I told her and she acted like she had no idea. People always try to scam us with their coupons and think we don’t pay attention to the details. I am very stringent when it comes to coupons, and the coupon scammers will never get past me.
The most insane experience while working at Harris Teeter definitely has to be when a customer gave me 200 one-dollar bills to pay for her groceries. Her total was around $220 and she first gave me an entire stack of 100 one-dollar bills and I had to sit there and count them for five minutes. I thought it was a little weird that she gave me 100 one-dollar bills and then she pulled out another stack of 100 one-dollar bills. I couldn’t believe this was happening. The bills couldn’t even all fit in my register. The funniest part of the whole situation was my boss comes up to me after and says, “Hmhmhm wonder where she got those from?”