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Friday night retail was already understaffed.

Then one impatient shopper started applauding the slow checkout line.

Two employees kept ringing.

His comedy routine kept bombing.

Check out how it all went down.

Customer caused a scene over the line being slow

I work at a popular retail chain in the mall.

Yesterday we had multiple people call out, so we were a bit understaffed for the evening.

The remaining employees were doing the best they could.

When this happened, it was only me and one of my managers ringing up customers, as the other associate working upstairs (where the registers are) was on break, and most of the other associates who were ringing had already left.

It was a Friday, so as you could imagine, it was pretty busy. It was hard to cut down the line with just the two of us ringing.

But that wasn’t enough for one impatient customer.

At one point, a customer in the middle of the line starts clapping, saying “Let’s go! The line needs to get going,” and the customer my manager is ringing tells him, “Sir, that’s uncalled for,” and he responds, “You need to calm down.”

My manager responded to him by saying, “There’s only two of us ringing, and we’re doing the best we can.”

One customer showed they understood, which made all the difference.

The customer I was helping was sympathetic towards my manager and me, as she was saying he’s the one who needs to calm down—he was causing a scene and there’s only two of us ringing.

I really appreciated the customers who sympathized with us, as customers who get it are the best.

But the problematic customer continued to cause trouble.

The customer who caused a scene was rung up by my manager, and I heard him say he was just joking when he was clapping and trying to rush the line—but no one was laughing except for him.

Apparently, he also told my manager, “This is the slowest [store name].”

Obviously, the overworked employees didn’t find it funny.

I remember after my manager dealt with that customer, she vented to another manager who was covering downstairs about what happened, and she made it clear she didn’t appreciate him trying to rush us, and that it wasn’t funny.

I agreed with my manager, and I told her she should’ve handed him an application to work here if he’s going to tell us how to run our store.

They knew they weren’t operating at 100 percent, but there was nothing they could do about that.

I can admit the line was moving slow, but unfortunately when there’s only two of us ringing, it’s going to take a bit to get the line down.

I remember a former coworker came in yesterday too, and she fell out of line because it was getting too long.

If you can’t wait a bit to be rung up, just fall out of line rather than giving the people on the register crap.

Seems like this customer could have kept his mouth shut.

What did Reddit think?

If it was this commenter, they would try and provoke the customer.

You want to make the line move faster? Go ahead and clock in!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an accountant who sticks to 40-hour weeks after overtime guidance, and finds he likes it.

This customer doesn’t even realize how good he has it.

With only two registers operating, an impatient customer clapped and shouted for employees to move faster, then claimed he was only joking.

The manager defended her overwhelmed team, while other shoppers openly reminded him that his behavior was the real problem.

If you want express checkout that badly, grab an application.