Surviving Retail: NO RETURNS ON OPENED INK

 

Welcome to Surviving Retail!

Yes, this could have been a TikTok, but otherwise I wouldn’t be practicing my writing and storytelling skills.

I always knew that retail came with complicated customers, people who try to shoplift, people who do not know what the word ‘no’ means, and such. Well, the first ever peculiar customer I ever had came from the lovely city of Toronto. How do I know? Let me tell you:

This man comes up to me at the register and he says that he wants to do an exchange; I was on my first week working at my job and knew how to do the process… with a receipt. No, I did not know how to do it without a receipt, so I look at the machine and go for the option of “No, this customer did not take the receipt… not even a digital one”. So, I get the information the machine is asking of me, and I check the item. Want to know what the item was? INK. Not printer ink; not a bottle of ink; just plain old pen ink.

It was four dollars… FOUR DOLLARS!!!

 And the thing was… that without a receipt, it turned into store credit. However, because it was less than five dollars, the system would not let me put it into a gift card. By this point, this man starts getting cranky… to say the least. I found myself trying to push the button for him to get his credit back. But the system, once again, would not let me. Therefore, I could not give him his money back and let him go away with the new ink that he said would probably be better for his pen… and yes it was one of those fancy pens that people get because they think highly of themselves. And if you hadn’t guessed before, yes, he wanted money back on his AMERICAN EXPRESS.

Following act, I had to ask my manager “WHY IS THE CASH NOT LETTING ME FINISH THIS UP?!” I just wanted this man gone. Why? He started asking me if I knew how to do an exchange, followed up with a look that said “are you stupid?”. He then said “Do you want me to do it? I worked at Staples in Toronto, I can do it if you want. It’s not that hard to do an exchange.” Yes, word by word, trust me.

Fortunately, my manager did come to my aid and told him that because the item was in such a low price, it did not come up with the amount for there to be a credit return. Added to that, no, we were not going to take off the price difference between inks. We don’t do that here… sir. By this point, this guy just took the ink and left. Yes, shoplifting because he thought he had paid and that I did what he asked me to do, even when my manager tried to explain to him that WE DID NOT DO THAT. Unfortunately pen ink was confused for a purchase, but the best part of my day, when he left.

This made me realize how people see retail workers as less than, when things do not go according to the customer. 

Moral of the story: The customer is NOT always right.