It’s always funny when someone talks behind a person’s back without realizing they’re talking to that person.

This employee worked at a small pool and hot tub business and often handled just about everything in the store alone, from the register to the phones.

One day, a customer brought up a few expired coupons during checkout.

The employee politely explained that management wouldn’t allow staff to accept those particular coupons after they expired. The customer seemed completely understanding and even decided to wait for another sale before making a purchase.

The interaction couldn’t have ended on a better note.

But then, the store phone rang about ten minutes later. And suddenly the customer had a very different opinion of the cashier.

Read on to see how their conversation went.

Two-faced customer furiously complains about the cashier to me over the phone. I’m the cashier.

I worked summers at a super small pool and hot tub construction business in my hometown that also tested pool water and sold chemicals.

On slow days, I’d work the lab, the retail floor, the cash register, and the phones all by myself.

So a woman comes in to purchase some chemicals and at the register, she pulls out a few coupons worth about $10 total.

Unfortunately, there was an issue with her coupons.

All of the coupons expired a week ago, which normally I would accept, but for this particular promotion, management had instructed me to not accept any expired ones. I very politely and apologetically explained to this to her.

She told me that she totally understood and that it was no problem at all, but that she’d rather wait until she had a discount to buy products. This isn’t uncommon for customers to do because pools are incredibly expensive to maintain, so we have frequent seasonal sales.

So I take her items, wish her a lovely day, and she goes on her merry way.

Then, the phone rings.

About ten minutes later, I receive a call on the main line and answer it:

Me: “Good afternoon, _____ Pools and Spas, my name is _____ how may I help you today?”

Woman: “Hi… I was in your store earlier and I wanted to complain that your cashier very rudely refused to accept my coupons. I spend a lot of ******* money here, and I feel like they should’ve been honored.”

She offers the woman the best response.

At this point, I’m completely taken aback, realizing that she doesn’t know I also answer the phones and also that we don’t have name tags, so there’s no way she knows it’s me.

I say, “I’m so sorry to hear that ma’am. Unfortunately our cashier doesn’t have the authority to accept expired coupons. My manager is currently on a call, but if you give me your name and number, she can call you back in a few minutes to discuss this if you’d like.”

Woman: “You know, your hours are terribly inconvenient for people who work full-time. I couldn’t even get here until now. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here ever again. You’ve just lost a customer.”

And she abruptly hangs up.

Wow! It sounds like she just wanted a reason to be rude.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a hardware store employee who lost his cool with customers wandering around after closing time.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit think about her behavior.

For this customer, it’s always good to lose a customer like this.

Their faces must’ve been funny.

Ooh… burn!

Yet another reader who thinks losing rude customers is a good thing.

The whole thing just makes no sense.

If the customer was upset, she had every opportunity to say so while she was standing right there.

Instead, she waited until she got home and acted as if the cashier had been rude to her the entire time.

What’s always strange about situations like this is how some people completely change their personality depending on who they think is listening.

Either way, the fact that she had no idea she was talking to the cashier was actually pretty priceless.