Working in retail can be a juggling act, especially when you’re the only cashier on duty and your health decides to throw a curveball.

One particularly hectic day when a cashier’s blood sugar dropped unexpectedly, a rude customer’s outburst led them to turn an awkward moment into a well-deserved break.

Read on for this clever and funny tale of malicious compliance!

Can you do that some place ELSE?!

I’m a middle-aged cashier with hypoglycemia, among other hard-to-spell ailments.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no withering waif; we’ve all got problems.

On this day, this problem became, well, a problem.

They first set the scene.

Prickly nestled in the Phoenix desert lies Your Arizona hometown grocer: Masha’s.

Since the pandemic , “U-scan” has been all the rage. Literally.

Masha’s insists that only one live, actual, scanning, thinking cashier is scheduled. That cashier is me.

Naturally, things can get pretty hectic during busy times.

During forty-to-fifty percent of my shift I’m busy, nonstop scanning and bagging (yes, we have no bananas/baggers) to my hearts dismay.

No problem it’s a job, cool beans.

That is, until their backup is nowhere to be found.

But when my second front-end guy who runs the u-scan leaves to the back for the last half of the shift, I’m caught between ringing up plus jumping over to an assortment of angry-eyes waiting for me to scan their “overrides”.

These overrides happen frequently. Anytime liquor is purchased, cough syrup, etc. it’s all me.

Things get busy. I get thirsty. I drink water.

They feel a health episode coming on, so they try to preempt it.

I feel a spell coming on even after water, so I know I need sugar and fast.

So I bust open a Coke and guzzle like it’s my job. I must have looked like a commercial for the product.

An angry customer doesn’t take kindly to this.

The second I hit that second ounce, I hear a nasal “you’re disgusting! Do you have to do that here? Go do that someplace else???!!!!!”

Then she sputtered into a curse-laden tirade that I swear involved the word donut someplace. She also called me fat.

Not cool broheim.

They try to reason with the customer, but then they decide they should just oblige.

I stopped, explain-ogized that I desperately need sugar for my blood sugar, while simultaneously opting to deliver some good old fashioned MC

“You know what you’re right! I shouldn’t be drinking soda right here… let me go someplace else”.

So I did.

They caused quite a scene in doing so.

I walked, sauntered if you will, right to the managers office as I leave behind a parade of customers whose anger now transmogrified into one superbeing, à la mighty morphing Power Rangers, shifting it toward the curser.

I told my manager “I need to sit down , I haven’t had a break in six hours and need to refuel stat. They’re out there waitingggggg.”

Then sat while he went to deal with the leftovers.

This overworked employee finally got the break they needed.

I took a seat in the deli area, slowly sipping my soda and watching my manager try to deal with what I’ve been dealing with my whole life. (Imagine a diapered version of myself.)

The main complainer wound up leaving grocery-less and even angrier, flipping off no one in particular

Huzzah!!!

The rude customer didn’t get off scot-free either.

I missed a lot in the moment, but evidently many of the customers were regulars and stood up for me in the best way: by collectively telling her where she can go and what she can do when she gets there.

It’s heartwarming when a rude customer gets what they deserve!

What did Reddit have to say?

Real human cashiers have real human emotions.

This commenter knows what it’s like to feel ostracized because of a health condition.

Kudos to this author for finding the humor in an unpleasant situation!

This user thinks the cashier deserves more breaks away from rude customers like these.

As the storm of complaints whirled, this overworked employee got to watch their manager clean up the mess.

Sometimes you need a little sweetness to counteract a sour attitude.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.