Some people think they’re better than everyone else, and those people suck.

But the people who actually act like they’re better than everyone else?

Those people are the worst.

For the checkout operator in this story, being friendly to customers – no matter who they were – was just part of the job.

But the response from one older customer stayed with her.

Read on to find out why.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize being friendly was so gauche.

In my seven years in retail, I was called many different things.

These ranged from the traditional monosyllabic go-to slurs to the more unusual “sugar britches,” and many other entries in the long list of slights and insults in the English language.

For the most part, after a year or so it stopped bothering me.

But this one lady was rude to me in a way that utterly floored me.

Let’s see what caused the woman to speak to her so rudely.

Now, one of the things we were required to do by company policy was to “engage the customer in light, pleasant conversation” when they came up to the register.

On this particular day we were expecting a visit from Corporate (they came around about twice a year for “inspections”), so we were being super-vigilant about sticking to policy.

So this lady enters my checkstand; older, but not elderly, dressed very well.

I greet her: she doesn’t respond. I ask if she found everything she was looking for: no response. I start ringing up her groceries and try once or twice more to get a conversation going.

Then, after the third time of trying, the woman spoke.

Finally, the lady sighs heavily, raises her eyes to the ceiling, and says: “You know, there was a time when the help were well-trained enough to know not to talk to their betters.”

I swallowed all the things I wanted to say to her; instead I smiled and said, in the mostly annoyingly bright and chipper tone I could muster, “Well, ma’am, we here at Hypermarket are supposed to talk to you! Our bosses want to make sure that you feel welcome and appreciated when you come in!”

She glowered and refused to say another word for the rest of the transaction, which was fine with me.

I’d had plenty of people make it obvious through their attitude that they thought I was beneath them while I was in retail, but that was the only time a person stated it out loud. “Their betters.” If you have to say stuff like that, you are obviously not better than anyone.

Yikes! This old lady’s attitude was astounding.

You’d think that people would welcome someone being nice to them, not talk down to them like this.

If you think you’re too good to be spoken to by Hypermarket staff, you probably shouldn’t be shopping there at all.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

Many people were staggered by the woman’s rudeness.

While others suggested appropriate responses.

Meanwhile, this Redditor took issue with the policy itself.

It’s absolutely the case that some customers might not feel super comfortable with an upbeat chat with a stranger, but that doesn’t warrant the way this rude older lady spoke to the checkout operator.

This reeks of entitlement and an unwarranted superiority complex.

Because sure she might be rich or have status, but there is no way she’s the better person.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.