Some customers treat grocery store staff like personal assistants.

What would you do if a manager told you to leave a packed register lane to grocery shop for someone too important to push their own cart?

Would you resist and risk getting in trouble?

Or would you do as you were told and not worry about the rest?

In the following story, one cashier finds themselves in this very situation and decides to give the customer the premium experience she wants.

Here’s how it all unfolded.

I followed the list

Over twenty years ago, I worked as a cashier at a grocery store.

The place was enormous, and sold a wide variety of food from standard groceries to expensive delicacies.

On a busy Saturday morning, when we had lots of customers and the lines were long, I was called away from my lane to the front desk.

The manager on duty was speaking with a well-dressed woman.

I was told that she wanted someone to get her groceries for her and bring them to the front desk for checkout.

In the “before times,” this was a very unusual request.

Our store did not offer personal shopping (I hadn’t even heard of it before).

I respectfully tried to communicate that by leaving my lane, we would be inconveniencing the other customers because checkout lines would just get longer.

I was told to just get it done and handed the woman’s shopping list.

The list was very vague.

Here’s where malicious compliance kicked in.

First, it had already been a long morning for me, and my feet were killing me, so I took my time.

Second, the list didn’t specify how many or what brand when it came to groceries.

It just said basic things like “apples, meat, tomato sauce,” etc.

Apparently, the total was more than the woman was expecting.

So I delighted in selecting the very finest foods, and lots of them.

Pounds and pounds of expensive specialty organic apples.

Meat? Prime rib and filet minion.

Tomato sauce? I distinctly remember selecting 8 jars of an imported sauce that cost $16 each.

I wheeled the cart back to the front desk almost an hour later, where the woman was still waiting.

The manager rang everything up, and it came to over $600!

The woman balked and tried to argue, but somehow the manager had grown a spine in the hour I was away, because he told her that we had already honored her request.

She could either choose to pay the bill or do her own shopping.

She decided to pay the bill (although she was clearly unhappy).

I went back to my lane, and I never heard another word about it!

Yikes! Sounds like she learned an important lesson that day.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit have to say about this.

This person thinks the manager chose her on purpose.

Yet another person who thinks the manager made the decision on purpose.

Here’s someone who would’ve gone the other way.

Most people probably don’t know this.

Bet she won’t do that again.

And if she does, the list will probably be more specific.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.