Some customer service encounters leave a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.

One man’s refusal to communicate caused unnecessary confusion for staff, and he somehow managed to turn his own cantankerousness into a complaint.

Read on for the full story.

It’s not harassment

This happened a couple days ago, but there was this man with his kids standing around our line area.

This customer appeared to have no sense of situational awareness.

When I first called “next customer,” he allowed the customer behind him to go ahead first, as his kids were still looking at items around our front island.

When my coworker called “next customer,” he didn’t say a word nor reacted.

It took multiple employees to try and get through to him.

It took three other coworkers to call for his attention (since he was still standing in our line area and it was unclear whether or not he was ready to pay) before he approached my coworker’s register.

So when he finally snapped out of it, he had something surprising to say.

As he was walking up, he said in a quiet voice, “I’m going to pay when I want. I’m not going to let you guys harass me.”

The employees were flabbergasted.

Sir… all you had to say was you weren’t in line/not ready to pay yet.

After he paid, he went to complain about said harassment to another coworker.

This guy needs to take a quick little tour through a dictionary.

What did Reddit make of all this?

Retail workers are no strangers to babying their customers.

There’s no way the staff could have won in this scenario.

Two strikes — you’re out.

Time is a valuable thing in a business.

If the customer didn’t want to be rushed, he could have just said so.

A little communication goes a long way.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.