Retail Worker Got Bullied By A Regular For Five Years, But This Incident Made Him Finally Stand Up For Himself

Liz Wiest

5 months ago

Source: Pexels/Reddit

One of the hardest aspects of working in any sort of public-facing job is not being able to stand up for yourself to the public.

Which is why stories about those who finally do remain so inspiring. One guy recently took to Reddit to talk about giving a nasty repeat customer their comeuppance. Here are the details.

Finally learnt to give it back after 5 years

Working at a bottle shop, we are usually solo with occasional overlapping where there are two of us at a given time.

This particular day, I was by myself.

Working at a bottle shop alone? Sounds like a recipe for chaos.

I had to close the store to take rubbish out, take the pallets out and take my 15-minute break, and get change for big notes to small notes from a machine.

So I shut the store, and had a cardboard clock hanging which said be back at 6:55-7:00pm and I had closed at 6:30.

So I am already trying to rush my break, (I don’t mind much because usually the last hour is so quiet that it’s technically a break for the whole hour because I make sure everything is done.)

Don’t get used to retail feeling idyllic.

Anyways, as I was getting changed (last step before opening the store, the machine is next to the shop) I overheard another store’s employee saying, “He won’t be too long. They are usually working by themselves, so they have to shut the store.”

I knew she was talking about me and trying to defend me.

So I look at the person that she was speaking to, and he said to her, “It doesn’t matter. How do I know how long he will be?”.

Then I told him there is a clock on the door and to have a look, and he looked up, as it was just under the time the cardboard clock showed.

Patience is a virtue.

He then looked at the clock and then at his wristwatch and realizes that not only was there a sign showing when the shop would reopen, but also that there were still a couple of minutes left.

As I was inserting the big notes into the machine, he came over and said, “Take your time, mate, I have got all day.”

I asked if he was being sarcastic or if he was serious, and again, he said the same thing: “Take your time, mate.”

I just replied by saying, “Mate I am going to open the store in few mins and if you come in, I am not serving you, so might as well get lost now and go somewhere else”.

He then proceeds to walk away.

It was such a great feeling.

That’s sweet victory right there.

This guy was always a rude person.

One time, we ran out of bags.

So he asked me for a bag and I said, “Sorry, we ran out,” to which he says “well get some. How hard is it?”

How hard is it for regular customers to treat retail workers with respect? Let’s see what the good people of Reddit had to say about this one.

Most were completely incensed.