Some folks just can’t get out of their own way…

And you’ve definitely met people like this before!

They make things harder than they need to be for everyone, including themselves.

And sometimes they need to be put in their places.

The person who wrote this Reddit story explained that they worked in retail when it all went down.

You want “this” price? You got it.

“Years ago, I worked as an assistant manager for a retail store in art supplies.

My store was in a fairly affluent area, and we got lots of bored housewives who’d drop $500 because they wanted a hobby. So one year, the company offered a 1-day-only coupon for Black Friday. The store was swamped.

Saturday was swamped. Sunday was swamped.

A customer turned out to be a big problem.

I am running a register and trying to get people through as rapidly as I can, when SHE arrives. We’ll call her Debbie (D)

D: *throwing three bags full of merchandise on my counter “I want to return all of this stuff and rebuy it.”

Me: “okay. Can I ask why?” (People sometimes did this because they’d used the wrong payment method or somethin, but I needed to verify)

The customer explained her position.

D: “I bought all of this stuff on Friday at [store 1500 miles away] and their tax rate is higher. So I want to return all of it and buy it here, to pay lower taxes. Now hurry up. I’ve been driving all day, and I’m tired.”

This is going to be a pain, on a very busy day, over what comes out to about $2.50. I confirm with the other manager, who agrees this is ridiculous, but we just need to do it.

So I start her return. But the totals don’t match up.

So I have to call and talk to the on-call support rep. He tells me I can only refund my state’s tax, and not the other amount.

The solution is to manually adjust prices until the tax and totals match.

This was taking a while…

As I’m doing this, Debbie is complaining about how she’s tired from driving, I’m taking too long, her dog, her feet, her back, whatever. But eventually I get everything balanced and process her return.

“Ok, the return has been processed.”

“It’s about time. You’d be done already if you weren’t so stupid. Now I want to buy it all again.”

Now it was time to get even with this woman.

Cue malicious compliance part 1.

The thing about art supplies, is they can be small, and in multitudes. And that’s what she’d purchased. Individual pencils, brushes, pastels, sheets of paper, etc.

“Sure thing ma’am. But I want to be absolutely certain I ring everything up right. Since I’m dumb.”

Okay!

So, with a sweet smile, I take everything out of the bags, and ring them up one by one. Of course, some stuff doesn’t scan, so it has to be looked up. As I go along, she is getting more and more agitated. The insults get more frequent, and now everyone in the other lines are glaring at her. At last, everything is rung up, and I give her the total.

Cue malicious compliance part 2.

This worker had an ace up their sleeve!

Remember that coupon from the beginning of the story?

The code has been pulled from the system.

So her new total, with the reduced tax rate, is significantly higher than the old one.

Debbie loses it, and starts screeching, it’s not even words at this point, only noise

Uh oh!

“Sorry ma’am. But it looks like you used our exclusive coupon on Friday. Unfortunately, that coupon is no longer valid. You’re new total will be [total]”

She kept screaming, but eventually paid, snatched her items, and left.

It was a good day to be retail.”

Check out how folks responded.

This person shared a story about an interesting customer.

Another Reddit user has a whole family of annoying shoppers where they live.

Another individual tried to talk to their friend about losing money…

This Reddit user had an interesting comparison.

And this reader offered some advice everyone should listen to.

I bet this customer regrets ever opening their mouth.

That’ll show ’em!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.