Retail jobs teach you quickly that decorum is optional, but consequences aren’t.

One hardware store cashier encountered a customer who thought throwing a receipt at an employee was no big deal.

What the customer didn’t realize was that his own arrogance was about to become a problem he literally had to dig through.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

Throw your receipt at me? Have fun picking it up from the trash.

I worked at a hardware store about 7 years ago.

We sold big gas bottles (11kg, or 24 in freedom units of LPG), and if you brought in an empty bottle, we would give you a filled one in exchange for a fee.

The process for these transactions was well established.

The process was simple: the customer came to the checkout, told us what kind of bottle they needed, and paid. The gas bottles were then handed over outside the store at a loading station for larger goods.

The checkout machine automatically printed two receipts: one normal receipt and one that the customer had to hand to a worker at the loading station outside as proof they had paid for the gas.

Cashiers were required to ask customers about their receipts — and for good reason.

By law, we always had to verbally offer a receipt to every customer. This rule existed to prevent under-the-table sales, and cashiers could be fined if they didn’t offer one.

Because of this, a lot of customers would automatically deny the receipt and say, “No receipt, thanks,” before you even opened your mouth. Some would take the receipt and immediately throw it into the trash bins after checkout.

But one notable customer took his refusal to the next level.

Then came the villain.

A middle-aged man came in wanting to exchange his empty bottle for a filled one. He was a generic jerk and barely acknowledged me, the cashier in my mid-twenties.

He paid and took the receipts, then crumpled them up and threw them at me. He said he didn’t need a receipt.

This was a new low.

Working in customer service was not a peak career point, and as every sane person knows, customers are often wrong. But never had I been disrespected so much that someone would throw literal trash at me.

That’s when the malicious compliance kicked in.

Turns out, the customer really did need this receipt.

I knew the guy needed the receipt to get what he paid for. So I took the crumpled receipt ball he had made, quietly dropped it into the large trash bin next to me, and started helping the next customer in line.

It didn’t take long for the customer to realize the error of his ways.

The disrespectful man took a few steps away, then realized his mistake. He came back and said he actually needed the receipt.

I was already busy with the next customer, so with the brightest smile and happiest tone, I said, “Sure! It’s in here!” and handed him the trash bin.

Here comes the best part.

Divine justice also arranged it so that we had recently cleaned the checkout floors and emptied the dust into that same bin. He had to dig through gray dust, old chewing gum, and whatever other gross stuff had ended up inside to retrieve his receipt.

I’m glad to say the jerk turned much nicer and completely lost his demeaning attitude as he shuffled through the trash.

This customer’s outsized ego had taken quite the hit.

What did Reddit think?

One cashier took things one step further.

Many customers think employees are obligated to just deal with the mistreatment, but they’re often sorely mistaken.

Many customers would outright refuse to dig through the trash.

This customer admits they weren’t always the most well-behaved with support reps, until someone changed their outlook.

This customer left with his gas bottle and a freshly humbled attitude.

Funny how respect suddenly shows up once you’re elbow-deep in garbage!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.