Some customers seem to think “the back” is a magical place where anything can be found.

So, what would you do if someone insisted you check the stockroom for an item you already knew wasn’t there?

Would you stand firm and tell them there is none?

Or would you cave just to make them happy?

In the following story, a retail worker faces this exact decision when a customer refuses to believe a product is out of stock.

Here’s how he handled it.

Can you just check in the back?

My shop is tiny, so there are usually only two people working: a manager and a person on the till.

The one on the till can’t leave the shop floor without someone else being there for any reason whatsoever.

On Sunday mornings like today, I’m the till human.

Guy comes into the shop while I’m finishing serving someone else at the till. He goes into one of the aisles. I can hear him let out a huge sigh, and then he pops back out in a huff. The other customer leaves.

The customer looked like he needed help.

Me: “Are you looking for something?”

Huffy: “Do you have any of [PRODUCT]?”

Me: I start to say, “It should be on the shelf just,” but instead, I walk to see the shelf, and from where I’m standing, I can see there’s the ‘out of stock’ label over the price tag. I tell the customer, “Oh, sorry. It looks like we don’t have any left.”

He just couldn’t let it go.

Huffy: “What about in the back?”

Me: “Sorry, I can see the out-of-stock label, so there isn’t any in the shop.”

Huffy: “Can you check?”

Me: ….

Reluctantly, he went to ask the boss.

I go across to the warehouse door, push it open with my foot, and keep eye contact with Huffy, feeling like I’m in Hot Fuzz or something.

Me: “Hey, Boss!”

Boss (calls from the warehouse): “Yeah?”

Me: “Do we have any (PRODUCT)?”

The manager repeated what he already knew.

Boss: “No! There’s a label on it. Out of Stock generally means out of stock!”

Me: I tell the guy, “Sorry, we’re out of stock and there’s none in the back.”

Huffy huffs on his huffy way.

Wow! This sounds like a typical day in retail.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about this story.

This person deals with the same thing.

They would use this as an excuse to get a drink.

For this reader, it’s an appropriate question when clothes shopping.

According to this comment, their work isn’t allowed to keep most products in the back.

It’s obvious he’s never worked retail, because if he had, he wouldn’t bother to act like that.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.