Retail stores have rules. For example, many retail stores don’t want customers to bring shopping carts into fitting rooms.

If you worked in a store that had that rule, would you ever allow a customer to break it, or would you insist that they follow the rules?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation, and she insists that the customer follow the rules. The situation escalates, and the employee is worried her supervisor will be mad at her.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Brand New Manager Saves the Day!

I work in a franchised thrift store.

It’s the end of the night – the store closes in a little less than an hour. The store is already nearly recovered – an absolute miracle.

There are maybe five groups of customers. Most of the groups are polite and handle our merchandise with an acceptable amount of care.

But one group is being pretty messy.

Only one group – a mother and her teenage daughter – are making a mess of the place.

I hold nothing against them; I’m in a good mood and they seem to be having fun. The store is beautiful otherwise, anyway.

I start cleaning up after them as they shop. There’s nothing else to do.

The woman and her daughter decide to go to the fitting rooms (I know, right?).

The teen is really paying attention.

The mother begins to bring her cart in, but her daughter says, “Mom, you can’t bring the cart in. There are signs on the doors.”

Good girl. Those are small signs; most people miss them. She’s a smart cookie.

But mom. She looks at her daughter and then at the door and says, “Oh, they all say that.”

I’m ten feet away, straightening up some pants. I tell her politely, “Ma’am, you can’t bring your cart in the fitting room.”

The mom is pretty upset.

Mom throws her head back, saying, “OH MY GOD, I’m not gonna STEAL anything.” She whirls around to look at me.

I quickly calm myself and tell her, “That doesn’t matter; it’s store policy.”

Daughter says, “It’s store policy, Mom.” I love this daughter.

Mom huffs and puffs but brings her two handfuls of clothes in the fitting room with her daughter and leaves the cart outside.

She was suspicious of the mom.

I go to another coworker (read: big, cozy family member) and tell her what mom said.

Coworker agrees that mom is probably trying to steal, because of basic retail logic (mom brought up stealing, not me), and I ask friendly coworker to watch the only fitting room in use while I use the bathroom.

Mom opens the door so she can slam it. Obviously she heard us.

Upon exiting the bathroom, I discover that mom has left me a few discreet piles of clothing in the fitting room. Actually quite a bit less messy than I expected.

Coworker tells me all items are accounted for and I begin picking up the piles.

She asks for a manager.

Mom walks up to coworker: “Can I talk to a manager?the customer service here blows.”

Coworker complies, and gets brand spanking new Customer Service Supervisor (managers take turns on closing shifts; he was the only one there).

Outside the fitting room I am currently cleaning, I overhear mom tell CSS, whom I’ve only worked with this very night, that I didn’t let her take her “full” cart into the fitting room, and that she overheard me talking about her outside the room.

CSS asks which employee.

The mom calls out OP.

Mom says the one in the fitting room right now, and even specifies that I am cleaning. You know. Doing my job.

I’m a little nervous. I don’t know how the new CSS is.

CSS says, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

A few seconds later, I am called into the office.

She was worried.

I whistle my way over there as mom makes nasty faces at me.

CSS looks me dead in the face and tells me, “Next time, just [wrenching motion] pull her legs out from under her, okay?”

Mom continues making nasty faces at me throughout the rest of the night. Daughter looks pretty embarrassed; poor girl. I just smile and wave girlishly.

New guy’s okay.

Some customers can be so ridiculous. The mother should’ve just listened to her daughter. Leaving the cart outside really wasn’t a lot to ask.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person knows what to say when people want to bring the cart in the fitting room.

Here’s another suggestion of how to handle situations like this one.

A customer is surprised at how other customers behave.

Here’s some praise for OP.

Just because a customer argues that you’re wrong doesn’t mean they’re right.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.