If you take anything away from this story, take away that being rude to cashiers and other retail workers is not actually going to help you in any way.

It’s not the cashier’s fault the company is short staffed, and it’s not the cashier’s fault there are a lot of customers in line.

If you the only cashier at a register with a long line of customers waiting to checkout, would you smile through each transaction no matter how rude the customers might be, or would you eventually decide you’d had enough?

In today’s story, one cashier hides how she feels from the customers, but it was a horrible night.

Let’s see what happened.

“What’s wrong with you people?”

So, right before I quit my job because I was so tired of the people, I had a few rude customers. It was actually the reason I quit, and if I knew it was gonna make me quit, I would’ve responded very differently.

Anyways, where I worked, we have maybe 20 employees total, and the closing shift was given about 4 employees.

I was main cashier, taking on the line full force. There were three other employees, a manager and two stockers. One of the stockers was my backup.

It was a pretty busy night.

We were getting really close to the end of the night, we closed in about an hour from the time this happened.

My backup was extremely busy. During the day, very little was done, so he was trying to get out anything and everything to make sure the shelves were properly stocked.

I was in the flow and finally looked up to see my line was about 15 people long.

I’m supposed to call for backup after 3 people. So I call, and tell some people to head over to another register.

OP was busy, and the customers were impatient.

This is when time slows down for me.

My backup took about 5 minutes to get to the register, it felt like 15. Probably because my customer had just handed me a handful of change, around $7 worth.

I started counting it, she helped a bit, and I was totally ignoring everyone except for this lady when I hear “Is someone coming over or what?” It was an older lady.

I responded with “Yes, someone is coming. He’s busy, please give him a moment.” I called for backup again, and continued counting.

Things moved a lot faster when the backup showed up.

A few seconds later, a man goes, “Well? She’s waiting for you to answer her.”

I responded with, “Well, sir, I already responded to her. Someone’s coming.”

I finished counting the change, and my backup and I cleared the line pretty fast. But when it got to the man who told me the lady was waiting, he decided to be not-so-kind.

I begin ringing him out, and the first thing he said to me was, “So, what’s wrong with you people?”

She would’ve responded differently if she had known she was going to quit.

Immediately, I’m annoyed. Most customers don’t talk to me as I’m really fast and finish their order before we can really talk. So, I say, “What do you mean, sir?”

To which he replies, “Well, clearly you all suck at your jobs, and you don’t have nearly enough employees. What’s wrong with this place? When are you going to get your act together?”

I replied with, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. It’s late, and we’re extremely busy. My backup was clearly very busy and couldn’t get up here immediately. Here’s your receipt, have a wonderful evening.” And I smiled at him.

If I knew it was my last day, I would’ve told him that if he felt that way, he could take his sorry butt out of the store and never shop with us again.

A little patience goes a long way, and being rude to employees doesn’t help anything. I don’t blame this cashier for deciding to quit.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person had a great comeback to a customer’s question.

This person defends cashiers.

Here’s another person who defends cashiers.

Customers need to complain to the people in charge.

This sign is a clever idea.

Complaining just makes the line move slower.

Every single time.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.