Imagine working at a store when a customer tries to get you to make an exception to the rules. Would you be willing to bend the rules for the customer, or would you insist that the rules are the rules?

In this story, an employee at a store that sells construction materials encounters a customer who wants to buy items individually even though they’re only sold by the box.

Keep reading to see how he handles the situation.

Don’t waste your time? Ok I wont.

I work for a large store that sells many different kinds of construction materials.

The other day I had a very impatient woman that insisted that she could buy a few items out of a box that is always sold by the box and never individually.

She originally asked a fairly new coworker of mine if she could buy them individually to which he responded with “I’m not sure, let me ask my coworker.”

This is fairly standard for new employees of course except the moment he turned his back to her she took the few she had in her hands and began to leave.

The customer was trying to trick them into giving her what she wanted.

I told him that we do not in fact sell them individually so he called her back to him to inform her of this.

We led her back over to the products to see if we could help her find something that she could buy individually when the woman pointed at the boxes she had taken the items out of and said “well these ones are open. so people must buy them individually all the time”

Of course there were none actually missing from the boxes except the ones she took out it was just damaged packaging on the others.

She was not going to get her way.

I was trying to explain that they wouldn’t let her pay for the items as they were out of the package but I was cut off by “Well the boxes are open so people buy them individually , so I’m buying them individually. Don’t waste my time”.

I warned her once again that she wouldn’t be allowed to purchase the items but she ignored me and kept walking so I pulled out my work phone and called my cashier manager. I quickly told her that I had a woman coming up to the front of the store with a few items that were taken out of their packaging and could not be sold to her.

From what I understand the moment she got to the cash registers they were telling her she wasn’t going to be able to pay for the items she wanted and the woman started screaming at the cashiers but stormed out pretty quickly when she realized she wasn’t going to get her way.

In the end I gave her what she wanted. I bet she’s never been told no as quickly as she was that day. I was just glad I could help her speed up the process.

If items aren’t sold individually, they’re not sold individually. How hard is that to understand?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s another way he could’ve handled it.

This is what I was thinking!

Sometimes, customers do eventually get the rules to change.

Based on the title, I think what she got that she wanted was not wasting her time.

The customer is not always right.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.