Communication can get tricky when there’s a language barrier, but sometimes the rules are the rules, no matter how you try to explain them.

So, what would you do if two customers tried to buy cigarettes using Google Translate, then handed you an ID you couldn’t even read?

Would you risk your job and sell to them? Or would you stick to the policy and refuse?

In the following story, a grocery store employee finds herself facing this exact decision and chooses the latter.

Here’s what happened.

Arguing is a universal language

At the grocery store I work at, our policy is to have an ID for all purchases of cigarettes. We can refuse the sale if their ID isn’t valid.

On this day, I’m up at the desk when two guys come up to the desk, speaking another language (for the sake of the story, since I’m not entirely sure what language it was, I’m saying Russian).

One of them talks into their phone and then hands it over to me. On the phone is Google Translate from Russian to English, asking me for cigarettes.

At this point, it’s clear to me these guys can’t actually carry out a conversation with me without Google Translate.

I talk back into the phone, asking what kind of cigarettes they want. The guy says back into Translate that he wants tall cigarettes.

I ask him what kind of tall cigarettes he wants.

After solving one problem, she encounters another.

What followed was a few moments of non-translated pointing and yelling while I was trying to figure out what kind they wanted.

Eventually, I managed to figure out what kind of cigarettes they want. I scan them on the register and ask for their ID.

Either they didn’t hear me or they didn’t understand me because they pulled out their credit card.

I ask them again for their ID, this time they understand me, and pull out their drivers license.

There’s just one problem: Other than the words “driver’s license,” the entire thing is in Russian.

Unsurprisingly, being able to read Russian is not part of my job description. Since I can’t read it, I can’t take it.

The men were upset, but eventually left.

I tell them I can’t take it, to which the guy hands over his phone again, and I have to speak on the phone again to tell him I can’t take it.

(By this point, I’m thinking this whole transaction is completely absurd.)

Both of them are clearly annoyed by the fact that I’m not selling to them without ID. The one guy offers a picture of his passport, but I tell him no because I need the physical ID.

The guy yells something in Russian and then speaks into the phone again. This time, he tells me that he’s 34 and I should just give them to him.

Now I’m done trying to do the whole thing via Translate, and I just shake my head no. The two give up and walk out, leaving me to tell my coworkers the story.

They all found it hilarious.

Wow! That must’ve been the highlight of her day.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about this story.

This reader thinks she could’ve tried harder.

Maybe they didn’t know this.

Now, this is hilarious.

Good point.

Surely, there was another way to help these guys, because it seems she took the easy way out.

Do your job!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.