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Basic courtesy costs nothing, but some customers still manage to make an ordinary transaction offensively personal.

What would you do if someone threw away a receipt, only to suddenly discover they desperately needed it?

That small display of disrespect handed one hardware-store cashier the perfect opportunity to provide some beautifully literal customer service.

Let’s see where the receipt landed.

Throw your receipt at me? Have fun picking it up from the trash.

I worked at a hardware store about 7 years ago

. We sold big gas bottles (11kg or 24 in feedom units of LPG), and if you brought in an empty bottle, we would give you a filled one in exchange for a price.

It worked as follows: The customer came to the checkout, expressed their wishes on what kind of bottle they needed, and paid.

The gas bottles were then given to them outside the store at a loading station for bigger goods.

The checkout machine would print automatically two receipts: one normal receipt and one that the customer would hand over to a worker in the loading station outside the store as proof they paid for the gas.

This man didn’t need a receipt.

By law, we had to always verbally offer a receipt to every customer. This is to prevent selling things under the table, and a cashier could get fined if they didn’t offer a receipt.

So, many customers automatically deny having the receipt and just tell you, “No receipt, thanks,” before you even open your mouth. Some take the receipt but just drop it directly in the trash bins right after checkout.

In comes the villain, a middle-aged man who wants to exchange his empty bottle for a filled one.

He’s being a generic ******* and barely acknowledged me, the cashier in my mid-twenties. He pays and takes the receipts.

He crumbles them up and throws them at me! He said he didn’t need a receipt.

It didn’t take long for him to notice his mistake.

Working in customer service was not a peak career point, and as every sane person knows, customers are often wrong.

However, I have never been disrespected so much that someone would throw a piece of trash at me!

In kicks the malicious compliance. I knew the dude needed the receipt to get what he paid for.

So I took the receipt ball he had made, dropped it quietly into the big trash bin next to me, and started helping the next customer in line.

The disrespectful man took a few steps away, realized his mistake, and said he actually needed the receipt back.

His attitude changed pretty quickly.

I was busy already with the next customer, so with the brightest smile and happy tone, I said, “Sure! It’s in here!” and handed the trash bin to him.

Divine justice also arranged it so that we had cleaned the checkout floors quite recently and emptied the dust into the trash bin.

He had to hand-pick his receipt ball from the middle of gray dust, old chewing gum, and whatever yucky stuff had ended up in the huge bin.

I’m glad to say he turned a lot nicer and lost his demeaning attitude as he was shuffling through the trash.

Wow! Some people have so much nerve.

Let’s check out how the folks over at Reddit relate to this story.

This person realized their mistake after being called out.

Now, this must’ve been entertaining to watch.

Wouldn’t want to be this lady.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was denied a raise for “not being dedicated enough,” but then went on to discover what was really going on behind the scenes.

Talk about a costly mistake.

OP quietly dropped the receipt into the trash and continued working until the rude customer returned moments later asking for it back.

They cheerfully handed him the entire bin, forcing him to search through dust, chewing gum, and assorted grime for his gas-bottle receipt.

He tossed his dignity at the cashier, then spent several minutes mining a miniature landfill for the only document standing between him and propane.