It can be very frustrating when a customer makes a mistake and decides it’s all the cashier’s fault.

That’s what happened to one retail worker who was busy helping a customer while another woman waited in line.

Rather than wait her turn, the woman walked over to an empty register and started scanning her own items.

But when she asked how to pay, the cashier explained that they no longer had self-checkout.

Rather than laughing off the mix-up, the customer accused the cashier of purposely not saying anything sooner.

Read on to see what happened next.

Working at retail store with no self-checkout but customer angry for trying to scan items at counter with no cashier by themselves

On this day, I was the only cashier at the front, and I was currently checking out an older lady who was already giving me a hard time, so I was super focused on this transaction.

Well, this woman in her mid-20s who was waiting in line eventually left the line because she decided to use one of the scanners on our other registers at the front and started scanning her items. This led to the customer behind her taking her place.

Mind you, there is no sign that says “self-checkout,” but back then, we used to have self-checkout systems that had clear signs and screens showing that were crystal clear.

There were people in line, so she was just trying to do her job.

At this point, I didn’t see/hear her scanning at all because I was ringing up a bunch of items for the current older lady and stressing already.

Shortly after, I was checking out the next guest, who was the customer who originally stood behind the woman in line.

While I was scanning, the scanning woman asked me, “So how do I pay from here?”

Then, she realized what the lady had been doing.

And so I simply stated, “We don’t have self-checkouts,” and continued ringing up my current customer.

After I finished that customer, the scanning woman comes up to me and puts down her items. I say, “Hi, sorry, we don’t have self-checkouts anymore, haha,” and she has a straight face and says, “I would’ve appreciated it if you had told me that earlier.”

I was shocked because I genuinely didn’t know she was even doing that. I thought she was looking at the gums/candy at the front, which is near the other register, so I said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were trying to scan earlier.”

Upset, the woman accused the cashier of seeing the whole thing.

And she said, “You saw me scanning earlier. I let the woman you just checked out cut in front of me, thinking I could do self-checkout.”

So I said, “I realy didn’t see u earlier. I would’ve told you. Was there a sign that says ‘Self-Checkout’?”

And she said, “There’s a sign that says ‘Card Only,’ so I thought it was self-checkout.”

At this point, all she could do was try to reason with her.

She continued looking annoyed, so I said, “I can tell you’re feeling upset right now because of the no self-checkouts, but unfortunately, we don’t have self-checkouts anymore because customers use them wrong,” and then continued ringing up her items.

Eventually, she sighed till the very end, and when I asked if she wanted a receipt, she said, “No, I’m good,” and sighed again and walked away.

Idk why, but this ****** me off because I was trying my best to be professional and not take it personally, but her making accusations made my blood boil. But I still tried to put a smile on my face and make her calm down.

Yikes. It’s easy to see both sides of this, but it’s usually best to just let it go when the conversation isn’t going your way.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit would’ve done in her shoes.

That’s a good point.

This is just crazy!

Now, that’s funny!

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People can be very tiring.

The woman could’ve just asked.

After all, it didn’t seem like she had a problem speaking up after the fact.

At any rate, there’s no doubt it was pretty embarrassing, but there are better ways to handle it.

Next time, it would be easier to just own up to the mistake and move on.