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Retail employees are still paying customers when they shop at their own workplace, but some people seem to forget that the moment they want something.
Imagine buying the last strawberry plants in stock and having another customer insist they still belong to the store – would you surrender your purchase, or keep explaining that your personal property is not for sale?
That strange argument unfolds in this story when one garden center employee refuses to hand over plants they already bought, leaving the customer convinced that working there somehow changes the rules of ownership.
Can they make her understand something that should have been obvious?
I’m not the store, you can’t buy things I own.
This story happened a few months ago (late May), and I work at a pretty popular garden center.
I don’t really know why, but this garden center had a heck of a time trying to keep strawberry plants in stock.
We would always sell out within 48 hours of any shipments.
But, one particular day, this worker struck gold.
One day, we got like 80 six-pack strawberry plants, and they were 4.99. Which is crazy cheap, and we’d never had them before and, of course, we literally sold out in hours, but not before I grabbed three of them, bought them, and stashed them behind my register.
It was later that same day, and a customer was buying some single plant strawberry plants from the same shipment, which were 3.99 each but much bigger than each little plant in the six-pack.
She started complaining about how expensive these were per plant and points to the six-packs on a shelf behind me. She asks if we have any left.
So, the cashier answered honestly.
“No, we sold out of those.”
“Well, are those for another customer?”
“Yes, I bought them.” (Probably a mistake to say, but I wasn’t expecting crazy.)
“YOU bought them?”
“Yes.”
The customer had the strangest assumption.
“So I can still buy them!”
“No…”
“Why not? If you’re the one who bought them, you work here, I can still buy them, it’s not like another customer bought them.”
So, the Redditor had to explain why this wasn’t a possibility.
“Ma’am, I am an employee but I’m also a paying customer of this store. Things I buy from here are my property, and you could buy them from me, but I’m not selling them.”
“I don’t understand. You’re a part of this store. Please, just give them to me, don’t be difficult.”
Now, this is where things really get wild.
“They’re my property.”
“But you work for this store, so the store still owns them.”
“Look, I’m not giving them to you. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be sending in a complaint. You can’t lie about things being out of stock!”
Thankfully, the woman was all talk — but the boss found it all very funny.
She, luckily, didn’t ask to speak to my manager, but my manager later thought this was hilarious.
I don’t know what she was thinking, that the store literally owns me or I literally own the store, so the money goes right back in my pocket?
It just doesn’t make sense.
Does Reddit think this customer’s logic makes sense? Let’s read the comments below to see what everyone is saying.
Redditors were unanimously on the side of the OP.
They even dug into the ridiculousness of this customer’s mindset.
And some reminded the OP that no information is the best policy.
Finally, one reader recommended the cashier sell the plants — for a hefty price.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a researcher who complained about being excluded from a trip only to watch the university cancel the whole thing.
Ultimately, this story shows how easily some shoppers stop seeing retail workers as ordinary people with boundaries of their own.
Had the customer simply accepted that the plants were already sold, she could have finished her shopping without turning a minor disappointment into a ridiculous argument.
Something tells me the threatened complaint did not teach her much, although the manager at least recognized how absurd the entire exchange had become.
I would take those strawberry plants home and enjoy them even more knowing I had refused to reward that level of entitlement.