Life is all about learning from our mistakes, right?

You bet!

And this employee made an EXPENSIVE mistake at their grocery store job.

It started out as an ordinary transaction, but the employee made an assumption that was completely wrong.

Check out what happened!

Customer walks away with $200 worth of groceries without paying on my last day.

“I worked at a high-end grocery store in the Chicago area when I was in high school.

Due to bowling season starting and a strong dislike for the new manager, I put in my two weeks.

A couple days after my documented last day, the manager calls me and begs me to come in and work to help them out during the Thanksgiving rush.

And I agreed, since I needed the money.

One more shift…

I go in for the 7 hour cashier shift and everything is fine in the beginning. With a decent bagger, my line typically moves the fastest, so customers would gravitate to my register.

Ten minutes before I’m set to leave, a customer comes to my register and I start ringing up her groceries. She has a little over $200 worth, and the bagger and I bag as we go along so everything we bag and scan is loaded into her cart.

The belt is maybe 6 feet long, and customers tend to stand at the end of it by the card machine to pay.

I saw her move down there, with her cart in front of her, and thought nothing of it.

When I finished, I look up from the last of her items at the man who had been behind her (she was no longer in front of the belt so I assumed they were together) and announced the total.

Uh oh…

He looks at me, confused, and says that he wasn’t with her.

So now I’m looking around for the female customer and her cart and neither of them are in sight (I can see all the registers, the front doors of the store, and the produce section).

This has happened to me before, when a customer walks away before they’ve paid, but it’s never been this much worth of food, nor have we not been able to find the customer.

So now I have this confused customer that wants to buy their food but can’t until I process the transaction the female customer walked out on.

Sorry about that!

I call my manager over and tell him what happened.

He asks me to describe the woman and after I do so he runs outside to see if he can find her (he doesn’t, at this point about 5 minutes have passed since we realized she was gone and who knows when she just walked away).

The bagger and I awkwardly wait until he gets back so he can cancel the transaction. And I get relieved right after.

They never call me back to come in again.”

That was an interesting way to end working at that store!

Let’s see what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Another individual has been there.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Oh well, you can win ’em all…

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