15 WTF Retail Industry Stories that Will Freak You Out!

8. This employee of the year

Hired a new employee for a small home décor store I managed in the mall. She was good with customers, on time & dependable, her drawer always balanced, etc..the ideal employee, right?

A few months later, I leave the mall around 6 p.m. and she’s set to close by herself for the first time. Mall security calls me less than half an hour later because my gates are down during business hours; this is a $500 fine, which I’m now going to have to explain to our home office.

I head straight back to the store, she’s not picking up the phone, and I’m genuinely concerned about her welfare. Maybe she’s pulled the gate because she’s gotten sick or something. Nope.

I raise the gate, walk straight to the back room, where she’s busy blowing the manager from Journeys a few doors down. He’s horrified, but she’s calm & quiet as I tell her to get her shit and go, her last paycheck will be mailed to her and not to come back to the store.

And the next day, she calls me, asking WHY she got fired, because she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong..

Seriously? – receptionistra

9. This fruitarian

I worked in a supermarket for about a year and a half, I’ve had some crackers. The best one, by far, was a man walking up to me and demanding I show him fruit. I asked him what specific kind of fruit, as they are stored in different parts of the store, and he just replied with “fruit”.

So I take him to the part of the store where most of the fruit is kept and asked him if that was going to be okay, he then asked me for fruit in bags. I explained that he can put the fruit into the fruit bags to take to the till. He then decides that none of this fruit is the fruit he is looking for.

After what felt like weeks of trying to coax what fruit he was looking for out of him, walking him up and down the fruit and veg aisles, three different managers had to get involved after he started yelling at me because I “didn’t know where the fruit was”.

He cussed us all out and walked away. 20 minutes later he comes marching up to me, shoves a bag of raisins in my face, screams “FRUIT” and walks away.

TLDR – guy spent about half an hour screaming FRUIT at various staff members; he was looking for raisins. – euys

10. This customer who just wanted to be checked out

When I was a cashier at a general store, I had a woman get mad at me for not checking her out immediately, while I was helping a man who had collapsed to the floor, having a heart attack.

I was on the phone with 911, and was kneeling next to him as he struggled to breathe — the woman stood at the counter, watched me for a minute, then started banging her fist on the counter.

Then I turned my head to look at her, she let out this exasperated sigh and just goes “Um, I’m in a hurry!” I mean, she could see what was going on, we were in plain view of the register that she was standing at, not more than five feet away, and that it was a serious situation, but she didn’t give one single damn.

I just gave her an “are you kidding me?!” look, and turned my attention back to the man and the 911 operator on the phone. Every few seconds, she’d bang her fists on the counter and go “Can you just check me out, please?!”

So, I turned around at one point and told her what was happening. I told her “This man is having what I think is a heart attack, and I’m on the phone with 911.”

And she goes “Well, can’t you just check me out real quick?” and then informed me that she has to meet someone for lunch in a few minutes.. I just shook my head, and continued taking orders from the 911 operator. She did this the entire 10 minutes it took for the ambulance to get there– just kept banging her fist on the counter to try and get my attention.

It used to infuriate me whenever customers would bang on the counter to get my attention, it was one of my pet peeves, but I was double-pissed that she was doing it during that situation.

When the paramedics finally got there, and got the man on a (gurney? Cot? Don’t know what to call those..), I went back up to the register, and she bitched me out because she had to wait “10 fucking minutes!” to be checked out. I’m not sure what kind of self-absorbed little world she lives in, but I was furious at her behaviour. That was one of the most selfish things I’ve ever seen. – DruSparro

11. This shaving connoisseur

Worked at a Target and have literally a thousand stories, but the one that sticks out to me was one I wasn’t actually present for. Gentleman walked in one day with a blender, sat down in our Starbucks, and proceeded to make himself a smoothie. I can’t emphasise enough that this is retail, this is hardly the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to us.

The floor leader on duty ask if he needs anything, is looking for anything, he smiles and says no, thank you, very polite.

When he’s finished, he takes the blender, goes into the bathroom, and proceeds to pour the smoothie onto his head and begin to shave. In a Target bathroom, which admittedly, are already a little akin to the Twilight Zone. The Australia on the world map of Target, if you will. Anyway, a male employee was sent in to ask what exactly he was doing, and apparently, the man replied with “What? It’s not like I’m doing anything illegal? What’re you going to do, call the cops?”

Yes, apparently. I guess several other male employees were called up to guard the door before anyone else could get in before police arrived. Don’t know exactly what happened to the guy, but I’m glad he’s getting use out of his blender. – rogerdavist

12. This lady who needs to eat (poor lady)

I work in a butcher shop. Today a lady came in looking for lean turkey mince as she was on a new diet. She said her daughter made up her diet plan and is weighing her every day.

I asked her how is she finding it so far and she said “It’s really tough. This is going to be the first thing I’ve eaten in two days.” Fuck her daughter. – HalfSaneHalfWit

13. This confused woman

Handed a woman a pen to write her check with. She turned it over five times. Pressed on the cap like it was a click pen. Unscrewed the body so the ink well almost fell off.

She finally handed it back asking how it worked. I silently pulled off the cap and handed it back. She said ” well huh that’s different.” – Soyala

14. This moralist

We had a brand a soda that had a really good Blood Orange flavour.

We suggested it to a lady who had a different flavour..she was like “oh that sounds way too witchcrafty for me.” – ilovetortillas22

15. And this mathematical truth

It’s amazing how many people get mad that you are trying to “rip them off” for taking the 10% sale off their whole bill instead of 10% off each item on their bill.

– Vincent__Vega