When you work at a grocery store curbside pickup area, things can get really busy and backed up.

What would you do if a customer was tired of waiting for his order, so he snuck into the employee area and demanded that you give him the packages immediately?

That is what happened to the team in this story, so after trying to calm him down and get him out of there, they figured out that he was next in line anyway, so they gave him his package. It took him significantly longer to get because of his behavior than it would have if he just waited in the car.

People like this have anger issues, and it hurts them and everyone around them. Read through the full story here.

“You’re gonna give me my bag NOW”

I work at a large warehouse-style store, specifically in the curbside pickup department.

They keep very busy.

Customers place their order on their app, select a pickup window, and we load it all into their car.

It’s a very fast, high-stress, labor-intensive position and we (like everyone else) don’t always have enough staff to keep the flow within the company’s parameters for how long it takes an order to be taken to a customer after they arrive.

People have to understand that they have to wait sometimes.

We aim for 5 minutes, but when 10+ people all arrive at once and we have 2 employees doing it all, we can sometimes get up to 30 minutes wait time.

It’s annoying, we hate making people wait, but we work as fast as we can. Sometimes people get mad waiting for so long, and I understand. I always apologize and thank people for their patience, and 8 times out of 10 they’re cool.

Someone is not happy about having to wait, but they need to be patient.

This dude was Not. I had just finished my 30 min break, walked back through the store and entered the curbside area.

There was this random, very large, very angry man standing in the center of the area.

He isn’t even supposed to be back there.

Now… you can only get into this area through the corner I entered from, which is usually taped off and surrounded by employees, and the exit door we use to go out to the parking lot, which is off the side of the building and auto-locks with RFID tag entry.

This man had followed an employee up to the door, grabbed the door before it shut, let himself in the back, and was now trying to hold the entire curbside team hostage.

There is no placating some people.

He was hollerin “give me my bag NOW, I’m gonna ******* beat ALL yall ***!”. There were about 7 of us who had accumulated throughout the ordeal, and one coworker had taken the lead and was trying to de-escalate the situation.

He was speaking calmly, saying things like “I’m sorry for your wait sir, we have a procedure we must follow. We are doing our best, it’s incredibly busy. You need to go back outside right now. You can’t be in here. Please just leave.”, and as expected this man was Not Having That.

They might want to call the police.

He kept insisting we were going to give in IMMEDIATELY or he was going to attack us. No team leads or supervisors jumped in to help. We have no security.

So, the one coworker tried a different approach. He asked the man for his name and said we would prioritize his order, but he HAD to LEAVE.

He is only making everyone have to wait even longer.

Turns out, homie was quite literally the next guy in our queue for his order, and his tantrum had added about 5 minutes to the wait time of every single one of the 12 people out there, including himself.

My coworker told him that, “sir your order is next up right here, just go to your car and we’ve got it.”.

I hope they ban him from ever shopping there again.

Eventually, we get him out the door most of the way. He sticks his hand in the door opening to prevent it from locking so he can stay right there where we have to exit and enter, still threatening violence.

A different coworker retrieves his order and walks it over to him… because again, we had no help from higher-ups and no security. What else were we supposed to do? Guy rips the bag out of his hands, says something, and leaves.

People like this are just crazy.

Turns out his big important order… from the warehouse store where you buy in bulk… was one. Single. Pound. Of generic ground beef. That was the whole order.

That was what was so important that he was threatening to beat and kill minimum wage employees over it. The police were called and a manager took statements… three hours after it happened.

Revoking his membership is the least that should happen.

Idk what action was or wasn’t taken in the end, but customers need a paid membership to shop here, so I hope at the very least that membership was revoked.

They’ve revoked them for less.

People like this do not make good customers, and it is best to ban them from the store entirely.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation, though.

Many stores don’t have enough staff, but that isn’t the fault of the people who do the work.

They need to report the issue to corporate, though. Their management knows, but they aren’t doing anything.

Here is someone else who works in a similar store, but his management is supportive.

Yup, this is the way it should be.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who won’t answer calls after hours since he was switched from salary to hourly pay.

This commenter is absolutely correct.

They should have gotten the police to arrest this man immediately. The fact that the managers didn’t step in and get rid of the guy immediately is unacceptable.

Nobody should be permitted to threaten violence in the workplace and get away with it.