The Retail Horror Thread 2: More Tales to Chill your Bones

[ShavedSheep]

I have not ever had a retail job. I was lucky enough to jump right into public sector contracting. However, all of my other roommates work at local Wal-Marts

Please direct all feels ratings for this tale to my roommate, C, as this is his story told as it was told to our people.

Spoiler

The Heist

C was fortunate enough to be able to get a job in the electronics department. He is now pretty much the only guy who can do phone contracts in that whole store, and was pretty sure he was going to be promoted to the Electronics manager, but they decided to promote someone from Produce to be the Electronics manager... Okay.


Anyways, about a few months back, C would come home and tell me about how there was a lot of stuff being stolen in the evening/night shifts, and although there was no proof for this, the higher ups were suspicious of the Electronics crew for that shift. The things that were going missing included multiple PS4s, Xbox1s, WiiUs, iPhones, and similar high ticket items.


After hearing about this for a few weeks, one day C comes in and he is pretty excited. They figured out exactly what had been going on. When C was helping the back crew unload the truck, he double checked the manifest and noticed that the palette that should have the PS4 on it was missing a PS4. He figured it might have been put on the wrong palette or something, so he checked the other palettes. He found it on another palette for the garden center, but in such a way that it was buried in the center of a stack of other items. Unless you took the palette stack apart you would not have noticed this was the case. He told the manager about this and they decided to keep an eye on it and see what happens.


Now, the garden center at our Wal-Mart is basically an outdoor, chain link fenced off section with a corrugated metal roof. It is on the side of our building, so the back part is adjacent to the rear of the building lot. There is a gap between the top of the fence and the roof of about half a foot. During the day you can walk into the garden center from the parking lot, but at night the gate is closed and chained, but you can still get in there from inside the store. These details become important later.


So as C was working that night, his friend A working in the area next to the garden center saw an employee going into the garden center. But he was one of the truck guys in the back. A called C and the manager and they sneakily watched what this guy was doing. They saw him throw something through the gap of the fence and the roof. Now C was thinking about this, and remembered that there are bags of mulch kept on the outside of the fence stacked up on the back side of the building. If something was thrown over there it wouldn’t drop very far. Then, later, someone could have driven by and quickly picked up the item that was dropped off. C went to tell his manager and check it out. It was at this point the guy noticed that he might have been caught, and he quickly pulled out his phone before anything could happen to him, likely to call off his accomplices. Sure enough, a PS4 box with the same serial as the one that was missing was sitting on top of the mulch bags. This employee and whoever he was working with had stolen probably over $5000 worth of stuff. Suffice to say, he is probably in jail now.

And, as a bonus, I have a couple side stories from this same Wal-Mart

Spoiler

Crazy Bitch

C was leaving his shift, and was still in his work clothes. He was walking to the front, and there was a middle aged white lady in the way. As approached, he said “Excuse me.” Apparently the crazy bitch took this as some kind of an affront at her right to be in the store and yelled at him, things such as, “You’re asking ME to move? A CUSTOMER? I should tell your manager. Do they not TRAIN you people.” C just left but that lady needs a slap upside the head.



No Games

C bought a copy of a video game from the Wal-Mart he works at, it was a new game, still in the shrink wrap. Once he got it home and opened it, there was a blank 256mb CD inside. On looking closer at the shrink wrap it was very obvious that someone bought the game, opened the shrink wrap, replaced it, then put their own shrink wrap on and returned it for full price. Luckily C was able to return this and get another copy this time that wasn’t a blank disc.


The Stick

Wal-Mart apparently has these cardboard box compactor things in the back for compressing the junk cardboard to throw out. They have a safety on them that they cannot operate if the lid is not closed. When C was being trained, they told him that they broke the safety latch because the compactor does not feed the cardboard properly. They then showed him a large stick and told him that this was used to stick into the machine and push the cardboard down if it doesn’t work.

 

[Smarmy]

I have one story from when I worked at Sears that I love to tell everyone. It's a heartwarming story of an old lady and her lawnmower. It's really long, and for that I apologize.

Spoiler: The Snapper Lady

No one shops at Sears anymore, which means I got paid to socialize with my coworkers. That's exactly what I was doing when this little old lady approached my coworker, F, and me chilling at one of the registers. She had a bunch of paperwork in her hands, and she had that perpetually confused look on her face. F asked her what we could do for her, and she launched into this tale about her Snapper lawnmower. She told us that she managed to crack the back wheel in half, and when she brought her mower and her protection agreement to the store to be sent out and fixed, they refused to fix it for her. They took the lawnmower, but apparently after sending it out and actually looking at it, they called her and told her that the damage constitutes abuse, and her protection agreement doesn't cover that. She'd have to pay for repairs out of pocket. This is a Snapper lawnmower. When I still worked at Sears, the rims were made entirely of plastic, and there was just empty space where the black plastic is, so it was really easy (and really common) for people to break a wheel. It was also covered not only under the protection agreement, but also the manufacturer's warranty. F and I expressed both our confusion about the situation and compassion for the old woman, took down her name and phone number, and promised her we'd let our manager know what was going on once he was back in the store.

Later on, our department manager, H, showed up and asked what was going on. We told her the story, and H decided she was going to look into it further since something didn't sound right. By all accounts, at least one of her warranties should have covered a broken plastic wheel. H eventually discovered that yeah, the wheel was busted. She also discovered that the little old lady absolutely mangled her lawnmower: the blade was bent up towards the engine, and the entire front of the thing was bent up diagonally like she had tried to take out a stump or a large rock. F and I were kinda shocked, because this was truly a little old lady. The lawnmower itself had to weigh as much as she did. H told us she'd let C, our store manager, know what was going on, and told us to tell our other department coworkers the story and to just tell her there's nothing we can do to help.

The next day, I came in as the morning crew was leaving, and I gave them the heads up about the Snapper Lady. F and I ended up working together again, and of course that's when she showed up again. We were at the same exact register, and she approached us with the same exact paperwork, and she asked us if we had been able to talk to our manager about the situation. I decided to break the news and tell her that we sent our department manager up to talk to the service people, and they simply said that the damage constituted abuse, and there wasn't much they could do about that. She tried to argue her case, but all F and I could do was apologize and play like we were on her side. She wasn't at all angry with us, so she was very sweet and sorta took it well. She simply asked if she could talk to our store manager, and we told her he was usually in from 9-5, so she had only missed him by an hour or so. She promised us she'd be back tomorrow to talk to him during those hours, and then left the store. Little did we know, it was the calm before the storm.

The next day (I worked 39-hour weeks), C was waiting for me in my department. Apparently, she was true to her word and did come in to talk to C about the lawnmower. H had already filled him in on what actually happened, so he had to explain to her more candidly why her warranties wouldn't cover the damage. Apparently the conversation didn't go to well, because he looked like he had just seen the devil or something. He told me that if she comes back in, I needed to tell her there really wasn't anything we could do. If she asked to speak to him, I needed to tell her that he wasn't in, but I'd be sure to pass the message along. Basically, keep turning her down without being rude about it. However, I was given a free pass to hide somewhere if I saw her before she saw me. I also needed to pass this memo on to the rest of my department coworkers, but soon enough, everyone on the lower level (my Sears has two floors, with all the commission-based departments on the lower level) knew exactly who the Snapper Lady was.

For weeks, she would show up. Some days she would talk to us, other days we'd manage to dodge her, and then there are some days where she'd just stand at a far end of the department and just stare at us. She wouldn't approach us, wouldn't touch anything, wouldn't talk to anyone. She'd just stare. Then, when she wasn't in the store, she was at home calling us. I remember coming in one day to a group of people huddled around H. Turns out, she had recorded a message that the Snapper Lady had left for us, and it was...exciting. It started out with her being very normal, just calmly asking about her lawnmower. She didn't understand what the issue was 'cause she only broke a wheel, she has the paperwork, etc. Then she would start sobbing. Then she would start screaming "I WANT MY SNAPPER! YOU GIVE ME BACK MY SNAPPER! DON'T YOU TOUCH MY SNAPPER! I'M BEING ABUSED!! I AM! NOT THE LAWNMOWER!!" and the message went on for what felt like an eternity, just this little old lady jumping between being calm, then screaming, then sobbing, then screaming again, then sobbing, then calm, etc. It was completely insane, and at that point we spoke to security about what should be done. They told us that if she shows up again, to just call them and have her escorted out of the store.

Things were quiet for a few days after that, though everyone on the lower level was constantly on the lookout for the Snapper Lady. We knew she'd be back, but we weren't sure when. The day she finally showed up again, I was working with another coworker, D. While we were standing at the same register as always, she only approached us with a folded piece of paper. She completely ignored D and handed me the paper. She told me that she wanted to tell me that she appreciated how much help I've been in this situation, and while she was sure C didn't want to hear from her, would it be at all possible for me to give C the note. She didn't want to be a bother, and really just wanted her lawnmower back so she could mow her lawn. Then, without another word, she left. Once she was out of sight, D and I looked at each other and then back at the note, and very hesitantly decided to open the note. It was just a simple piece of college-ruled notebook paper, but written on it in cursive, in blue ink, it said:
"I want my snapper back."
But it wasn't just a single sentence--it was the entire page. Just that sentence over and over and over. All work and no play, indeed.

D remarked that we should probably give the note to C. So, I paged him to the department, handed him the note (and watched his face go pale while reading it), and wished him well. He ended up buying the lady, right out of his pocket, a brand new Snapper lawnmower. He also told her that if she came within 20 feet of his store again, he would have her escorted off the property by security. We never saw her again.

 

[The Master Debater]

I worked the night shift at Taco Bell one summer during high school, so I have a bucketload of stories to tell.

We had a woman come in every night at 10 pm on the dot and order a good $50+ of food, which she would explain to us how to prepare in precise and excruciating detail -- down to how many damn 'speckles' she wanted on each tortilla. Of course, since her request was completely and utterly insane, we never lived up to her expectations and she'd chew us out for it. Still, our manager refused to ban her from the store because she came at a pretty dead time of night and she was 'one of our best customers.'

We'd get the stoners and druggies on my shift a lot too, and I was usually working the drive-through whenever they came by. I once had a man opine upon the legality of something he called 'elephant juice' and had my fair share of wasted teens sound out every letter on the drive-through menu when they tried to make their order. Of course, we always had to check the bathrooms to make sure no one was stashing anything or shooting up in a stall. (The manager was actually busted for aiding and abetting drug deals in the parking lot after I left, so it might've all been to distract us -- I dunno.)

My favorite Taco Bell weirdo, however, was a woman who became known as just 'Granny.' One night, in walks this sweet little old lady -- could've been anyone's Grandma-sort of woman -- and she places her order as politely as one can at a fast food joint close to midnight. I figured that maybe it was for her grandkids or something but after I gave her her burrito and watched her for a minute, it got... odd. There was something coming out of her sleeve. Thought it was a trick of the light or maybe 'cause I'd been working a ten hour shift, but my coworker pointed it out too. Then I realized it. She had brought a fucking rat into the restaurant with her. Not just one rat though, but a good three or four popped right out of her sleeve and went to town on that burrito. She sat there, just smiling, until one of the girls in back came out to clean and flipped her shit. The rats climbed right back up her sleeve, and the old lady looked at us like we'd all grown second heads or something. She tottered right on out, taking her half-eaten burrito with her, and we never saw her again.

Granny Rags?

 

[Tehshigelisok]

Another update on Milk Eggs Girl: The other day, she put in her two weeks notice so she could focus on her job at the supermarket. Said two weeks notice had perfectly clear handwriting and no misspellings…

…in highlighter pen on the back of a piece of scrap paper.

 

[Len Kagamoney]

Holy shit some of these stories are unbelievable

Spoiler: Just general ranting about working in a coffeeshop

I never worked in retail, I've only ever worked in a coffeeshop. The closest I can come is customers who don't understand policies or how the fucking rewards system works. And creepy old men trying to pick me up. No thanks. And people who don't know how to fucking read coupons. If your coupon is for an iced coffee, you cannot use it for an iced latte, you dense shit.
People also don't know what the fuck they're ordering ever, because they don't know a latte is espresso and steamed milk. Customers are too lazy to read the signs to see what flavors we have or what our prices are. And they treat us like a bank. No, I don't have a fucking key to the register. You should have told me you wanted all singles BEFORE I closed it. Jesus, there's a bank right down the fucking street go there.

Well, there is this one story. It's not a customer story, but an injury one.
So, we're rushing a lot because a lot of people want their coffee in the mornings, and they get agitated if it takes more than a minute. Between that, stocking, and cleaning, we move around a lot and often are doing multiple things at a time. Well my coworker S was picking up a coffee pot, fresh brewed, it literally stopped dripping. She turned around to get something and hit my coworker R, who is a literal disaster. R makes messes and is known for dropping shit literally all day. S gets coffee all over the both of them, but mostly herself. For some reason, R had two shirts on so the coffee didn't burn him for some reason, but S
S had blisters. Bad blisters. She rubbed her arm and layers of skin came off. Since I am a nursing student, I was able to identify a second degree burn. She drove home by herself (against our discretion) and rushed to the hospital. It was so bad she couldn't even close her hand.

Another injury story.
So as I said, we get a lot of old people. One morning, this guy who is a regular, is leaving and trips on a mat. You hear a huge crack as he hits this sign/the window/the door/floor. He hit a lot of things. He has a huge gash on his head that is gushing blood, and cuts on his arms. There is also a smaller gash on his head too. After pausing for a bit, I rush to ask him some questions. My boss calls the police. I have a little experience with some of this as a nursing student, and in one of my classes that I took the previous semester we learned about a scenario exactly like this through some boring video so I was a bit prepared. I asked him some questions, such as if he was on any coagulants, to which he said he was. This made me a bit nervous, as if we didn't react quickly it could end up really bad. A few other people who were in the store put pressure on his wounds and cleaned him up a bit with some paper towels, since my boss was quite anal about what we workers do. It was nice to see people helping out, as a lot of our customers are really nice people. Well, the regulars are.
The ambulance arrived and took practically forever to load him up though. I let them know what happened and told them what I knew. I was really worried for him because he looked bad.
He came back once he was discharged from the hospital and said he had a concussion, on top of something else.
He is suing us and the company that makes the mats. He has owned businesses before so he knows what he's doing.

 

[Tehshigelisok]

I just got off work at McDonald's. On my break, I was behind a lady who took a good five minutes to figure out that she had two separate coupons for two separate items, and could not use both at once. It also took her two explanations to figure out that "hot drink" included anything on the coffee menu. She then got one of the little slips that has the "get your fifth coffee free" stickers, and was confused about what it was because it also had an ad for the new store app on it (despite otherwise looking identical to the other stickers). She had the gall to ask me, while I was standing there with my McDonald's cap, and a big yellow M on my shirt and nametag, if I worked there. I jokingly said, "No, I just like how I look in this uniform", and SHE BELIEVED ME.

 

[fishercat]

Hey, remember the creepy kissing guy story I told back on page 5? Well, today I just found out that he is a regular. Everyone that works up at the front of the store hates him and prays that he won't go to their register. I am so fucking scared of seeing him at work again.

 

[Tricksy Fuckin Hobbitses]

So I used to work at Joann's, which is a fucking soulless fabric and craft store. I worked there five years, and I have many stories ranging from hilarious to shitty customers to the fucking place being haunted.

I'll start with a story about a brony. Because bronies.

Spoiler: motherfuckin' rarity

So there was this guy that would occasionally come in, and he bored a pretty wicked resemblance to Rocky Dennis from Mask. He gave off this really weird vibe and never said anything beyond telling us how many yards of fabric he needed, and we never tried to engage him. So one day a few years ago he comes in and he gathers up the fabric he needs, and comes up to the counter to get his fabric cut. He tells me how much he needs from each, I start cutting it for him, and one of my coworkers who was standing there (older lady, she's super social and loves talking to people) asks him what he's planning on making.

"Do you know what My Little Pony is?"

I pause, horrified at the prospect of where this is going.

My coworker responds "I think I remember that show from a long time ago."

He turns his gaze to me, and I mumble that I know of it. (One of my roommates is a brony, he's backed away from it recently and thank god for that because I was fucking sick of pony shit being all over the goddamn house)

"Well you know Rarity?"

"That's the white one, right?"

"Yes. It's me."

"What?"

"Let me assure you, I am Rarity."

"...What."

My coworker, confused by all this nonsense, decides to exit the conversation and walk away, leaving me to deal with this train wreck. Dude goes on to tell me that he's making a Rarity fursuit or something (and assuring me repeatedly that he's actually Rarity, could I see the resemblance?) and then spends twenty minutes telling me how he knew MLP was gonna be huge and talking about pony shit. Mercifully another customer eventually came up needing help so I was able to get rid of him but every time he came in after that I always noped out in to the stock room to hide until he left. I later saw him at a local con like two years ago and he was dressed like a woman that had walked straight out of the little old lady floral patterned section of a thrift shop. Horrifying tits and all.

 

[AnimuGinger]

I've started working, but since this isn't retail, it doesn't apply entirely at the moment, but fun work stories!

Spoiler

So, it's day 1, and I'm following C. She's awesome, somewhat sarcastic. Our patient assignment isn't terrible, but there's one room everyone wants to stay away from. It turns out, the patient in that room has Wilson's diesease, so we think his mental functioning is fried. Everything we do with him is a struggle, and we can only placate him with milkshakes. No big deal, nothing overly exciting. The sitter is useless, so 1/2 of my time is spent in that patient's room.

Day 2. Patient is getting discharged that afternoon. He gets a call around noon from his family, and he gets pissed. Completely and utterly pissed. Flipping me off, and then trying to kill himself. Everything he types on his board to talk to us is him asking to die. He tries to drown himself in the sink, choke himself, and bash his head into the floor. At one point, I'm debating calling staff assist because he's trying to pull my hands out from under his head. To bash his head into the floor. The nurse almost called security on him, but ended up calling lift team so we could get him into bed and use physical restraint to keep him from getting out.

The girl from his group home gets there, and she's probably 5'3, max. He's 6'2. She stands no chance at manipulating him into a wheelchair and getting him home. The nurse has maxed out his sedatives at this point. We had to call security, and it took 2 officers an hour to get him to agree to go down nicely in the wheelchair. But we all know he'll be back.

He was in full control of his actions. Yet, he wasn't declared a suicide risk. Sometimes I hate the system.

 

[peribot]

Dont have any stories myself but this thread gives me life

 

[Len Kagamoney]

Went to work today, business as usual, everything's fine. Except no, it's not fine. A stench demon has entered my serene world of moderately priced fragrances in the form of a 400+ pound woman and her pregnant looking husband. The woman is being pushed on a device I have never seen before, some wheelchair that has been jerry-rigged to keep the woman's bulbous form horizontal at all times. The smell surrounding her is unbelievable, some kind of rancid mix of fish, sweat, and the distinctive order of blood. I'm scared. They wheel towards me.

"Welcome to [store], what brings you guys in today?"

"Wa she say?" the stench demon croaked.
"She asked us 'howdy doo?", her husband hollered back. I swear on Chris- he really said that. I was officially in an unironic Mark Twain novel.

"Oh. Tell her I need the shower spray. And sanitizer. And ask her 'bout the cooty stuffs."

"You heared the wife. Hook her up with some shower spray." Except they didn't say "shower spray". It was more like "sure spry", and I had no idea what they were talking about.

"I'm sorry, what was that? Sure deodorant? We don't carry that product here. But I can help you find something similar!" No I can't. Disappear from my life so I can forget you.

"The SURE SPRY! THE SURE SPRY! The red bottle right there!" stench beast gestured wildly at an ordinary bottle of body spray. You know, the light fragrance mist you might spray on your arms and cloths to freshen up? Body spray. Just body spray.

"Did you perhaps mean our fine fragrance mist?" I asked.

"Yeah the sure spry. The spry you used stead of a sure." Oh, that explains the smell. Alright.

"Well, we don't recommend that that our products be used instead of a shower...perhaps after a shower would be more appropriate."

"Girl, I look like I can git in a sure?"

"Um. Well, maybe..., we have these really nice loofas with a handle..."

"Well wa bout the sanitizers? You still go thems?" I need to add that I would never recommend a person in her condition use any alcohol- based body products. Her skin was so pocked and thin and pale, I would be afraid the alcohol would instantly burn her.
I won't bore you with the details of me selling them miniature hand sanitizer, and selecting a "Sure spry" for the mrs. The real fun came when I tried to recommend a lotion to go with her new "sure spry".

"This is a great choice for someone who has sensitive skin. It has aloe in it, so it will feel cool against your skin." I demonstrated by placing a small amount of lotion on the back fat of her hand and rubbing it in. When I removed my hand from her, she extended her paw towards her husband and he dutifully licked it.

"Naw, this one don't taste no good," he determined.

"With all due respect sir, it isn't suppose to," I reminded them. He just chortled.

"Well, if I'm going to be tasting it, it better taste good!"

"I don't understa- oh. Okay. Wow. Well. Are you guys all set then? Ready to check out?" MOTHERFUCKER LEAVE MY PRESENCE BEFORE I GET MYSELF FIRED.

"Well this help the wife with her cooty bumps?"
"Sir?"
"When she shave her cooty it gets real red and bleeding. What we got to do to stop that?"

How do you even respond to that? How does one respond to the physical embodiment of yahoo answers? Unfortunately for me, this is not the first time I had been asked that particular question, so I actually knew exactly what to recommend (shave with lotion as a lubricant, moisturize with shea butter, and treat with no-bump anti- antiperspirant deodorant, for all you curious kiwis). I told him this, and his face lit up. Clearly he was thinking about all the creepy sex he was going to have with his nearly immobile wife.

Their grand total came to only 26 dollars, too little for me to make my sales plan or even close in on my daily sales goal. Motherfucking retail.

Did a reading of this masterpiece
please excuse my terrible mic, and somewhat of a lisp

 

[littlebiscuits]

Did a reading of this masterpiece
please excuse my terrible mic, and somewhat of a lisp

omg I love you!

 

[moorhen]

I love this thread, and I thought I'd share some of the shenanigans that have happened at my place of employment. (I work in food service)

• Man comes into shop, goes over to sandwich fridge, picks up sandwich, looks at me, right in the eyes, and takes a bite, through the wrapper, then puts the sandwich back into the fridge and leaves the shop.
• Baby throws up down display counter. Mother laughs and leaves without paying for her food, or even attempting to clean up the mess.
• We package up sweet stuff in a morning, and one morning while I was sadly shoving donuts into a bag, I hear the counter gate open and turn around to a customer sneaking behind the counter.
• "Can I have a bacon sandwich?"
  "Sorry, Sir, we stop selling bacon after breakfast finishes at eleven."
  "What time is it?"
  "Half four."
• Polish man is insistent on ordering something from me even though he doesn't understand English, and I do not speak Polish.
• Woman spills a hot cup of tea (that she didn't buy from our shop) over my hands. Blames me because "I should've known she didn't have a proper grip on the cup."
• "I'll have a hot dog please."
  "This is a bakery."
• Lots of people actually asking for things we don't sell. Burgers, sausage and chips, mashed potato, and my personal favourite, ice cream.
• At the end of every day, we package up leftovers to be sent to charity, and just before we closed I was moving stuff into a tray. Guy in a suit comes in and spots what I'm doing.
  "What's that tray for?"
  "We donate our surplus food to a charity for the homeless."
  "Can I have it?" - Wearing a nametag for the bank across the street.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

This entire thread makes me so fucking glad I'm only doing volunteer work for now

 

[littlebiscuits]

Yesterday a woman tried to buy hand soap from me. I say "tried" because it was an ordeal, a journey, a quest for handsoap that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Most people just grab the soap and go. Not her. She smelled every bottle in the store, opened them all up to make sure they were each at the same level of fullness, called two people - two separate people- to ask their opinions on handsoap, and cried when she couldn't come to a decision. It took her two hours to not buy handsoap.

 

[MarineTrainedTard]

Yesterday a woman tried to buy hand soap from me. I say "tried" because it was an ordeal, a journey, a quest for handsoap that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Most people just grab the soap and go. Not her. She smelled every bottle in the store, opened them all up to make sure they were each at the same level of fullness, called two people - two separate people- to ask their opinions on handsoap, and cried when she couldn't come to a decision. It took her two hours to not buy handsoap.

That's actually kind of sad and makes me wonder if she had some serious mental disorder.

 

[Ace_Reloaded]

Okay guys I'm going to have to ask you to engage your imaginations on this one. Imagine you are a 70 year old man on a quest to learn how Windows works and decide to get yourself a Windows for Seniors for Dummies book...at the local office supply store. (apparently you have no grandkids to get you on Amazon) Said store does not carry the book, but orders it for you.

Fast forward two weeks. Something has gone wrong and your order never made it to your house. You're probably frustrated, right? Maybe you demand your money back, maybe you do as the counter slave suggests and call the order hotline and yell at them, maybe you yell at the counter slave because they're the unfortunate representative of the company you're pissed off at.

What I'm guessing you probably wouldn't do is tell the counter slave, "Well I'm going to go home and get my gun and come shoot this place up, what do you think about THAT?"

Yes, this man threatened to shoot up our store over a missing For Dummies book.

The coworker he threatened didn't believe he'd do it, but we had to call the police anyway because you never know. (and then that very day we heard about the Oregon shooting so...yeah.) And of course since a police report had to be made it had to be reported to Loss Prevention, who reported it to the District Manager, who called our store manager and maybe expressed concern about the safety of his employees? WRONG KIWIS. No, he called the store manager and yelled at her about us "allowing the situation to escalate to the point that we lost a customer." And ordered the SM to write up the employee who was threatened, call the customer to apologize, and offer him a $50 gift card as an apology.

I don't believe DMs are actually born. I think they just emerge fully-formed from Satan's asscrack. Because I will never understand how a human being (on the very day that a mass shooting has occurred for fucks sake) can look at a situation where someone threatens to shoot their employees, and decides it's the employees' fault and the customer needs to be rewarded.

I need a new job.

 

[Malleus Narcissus]

This was many years ago.

I worked in a store that sold firearms. They were kept in a seperarate area of the store, far from and out of sight of the front counter, caged off and locked. Anyone that wanted to look at them had to ask to be let into the area. We also kept things like pepper spray, tasters, air guns, etc back there. Pretty much anything dangerous was kept locked up in some way. For obvious reasons, since they are items people would love to steal - or rob you for.

Or maybe kill you for...

We also kept several hidden loaded firearms around the store for this reason. And in the firearms area, loaded magazines for at least two weapons on display. There were always some kind of AK variant or AR-15 variant displayed on the wall, so those were the mags kept loaded. Convenience, since handgun mags are less interchangeable.

So, this guy comes in. Acting kinda...twitchy I guess. Nervous. Odd, won't look at me, just at the ground. Asks if he can look in the gun cage. Okay.

So we go to the gun cage. The counter there is L shaped - the long part is real firearms, the short part for air soft and tasers and such. He goes to the short leg of the 'L' and asks to see a pistol there - points at very realistic air soft replica of a handgun. I relax a bit, 'dude just wants a fake gun, shoot at cans or something'.

I hand it to him, and he is holding it, staring at it. And kinda rubbing it with his thumbs. And looking at me, then the gun. Me, then the gun. Just with his eyes, down, then up.

Oh, dude, no...you're really gonna try that?? I don't think he knew it wasn't a real gun.

I backed around to the long side of the L, he was watching me, then back to the pistol, back and forth. Pulled an AR off the wall, pulled back the charging handle, ejected the empty (display) mag, grabbed the full mag from under the counter, inserted and hit the bolt release.

That sound got his attention. Now he was looking at the rifle in my hands, and the pistol on his hands. With his whole head turning, not just the eyes. A couple of times...

Then put the air soft pistol on and counter and said "I'll think about it", turned, and walked out.

Dumb fuck...

And, no, I wouldn't have shot him. I knew that pistol was fake, even if he didn't. I wanted to scare him, make him think. Not hurt him.

I've had other things happen there, close-to-robberies, people bringing in live explosives, pepper spray accidents, threats with a knife, accidental 'panic alarm' set off, meeting some really bad people.

 

[The Lizard Queen]

I worked in a big box electronics retail store as my first job, then got out of it and never looked back. Here are some of the reasons why...

Terrible boss. She would often screw things up, misplacing items, getting into arguments with customers, miscalculating discounts, or botching paperwork. She would then shift the blame to the workers below her (including me) which resulted in several of them being fired for her screw ups. Eventually her incompetence caught up with her, and she was fired as well, but it was no comfort to the half-dozen people who had already been fired because of her, or me, who had quit weeks before.

Terrible working conditions. Customers are shits, often literally. A lady would bring her little dog in about twice a month, and it would go wherever it pleased, usually in the carpet. Other customers would step on it, grinding it into the carpet, and tracking it all over the store. Rather than telling that customer to never come back, Terrible Boss would then assign a cashier at random to clean it up, rather than someone more qualified. Guess who got picked several times?

Terrible Co-workers. We were all required to "sell" the store's credit card, which was stupid and pointless, and did not give any kind of discount, which made it hard to convince customers to sign up for it. I happened to be good at convincing them (by lying through my teeth), and would always surpass my quota. The company offered prizes for the workers who got the most customers signed up for the damn card. I was well on my way to having the most sign-ups at my store that quarter, but when the end of the quarter came I noticed my numbers were way lower than they should have been. Turns out aforementioned Terrible Boss had been giving credit for my sign-ups to the co-workers who sucked up to her -- that way all her friends could meet their quotas and keep their jobs. I went over TB's head and complained to the general manager about it, but nothing came of it.

Needless to say, I started looking for new jobs soon after.

 

[Goofy Logic]

Another tale from mom at the bank:

The Old Man
There was an old man (former prospector, I think) in town that had gone senile. His nephew was his caretaker (And the only one he was gentle with; we'll get to that in a moment) and had set up with the bank to make a small amount of his savings available a week, as he apparently thought he was in the gold rush days and would buy everyone in the bar rounds of drinks.

Because he (Rightfully so, I guess) thought the bank was holding out on him, he would come in madder than a wet hen to demand why he had no money available. Now this man was actually quite large, and apparently quite dangerous, especially to woman. He broke a nurse's arm because she put her hand on his shoulder to coerce him to do something, and swung his cane at mom when she was trying to escort him out of the bank because the bank was closing. Because of this, the man was to be sent directly to the manager so he can deal with him.

Now the manager was not really enthused about dealing with this man either, so he would leave the old man waiting outside his office, often for hours. Problem was he was incontinent, and he would pee on the seats while waiting. Since most of the mess was absorbed by the old man's pants and the vinyl seats could just be wiped off, the mess was fairly minimal. When they renovated those seats were replaced with fabric chairs, they were quickly ruined by old man. Mom found this out when, during a deposit box opening, she stumbled and placed her hand on a seat, only to get it soaked with old man pee.