When you work in a grocery store, there are certain things that have very strict rules, including what you can do when accepting payment via government programs like WIC.

What would you do if a customer was trying to buy bread with her WIC, but she said you were out of the kind approved for that program?

That is what happened to the cashier in this story, so he told her that there was nothing they could do. Then, the customer asked for the manager.

Let’s read the whole story.

The day my manager stood up for me.

Years ago, when living in South Carolina, I worked at a chain grocery store mostly located in the southeast.

Our store honored WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), the supplemental food program to help people feed their children.

For those of you who don’t know, every person in the program receives a certain number of vouchers that are only valid for the month on the voucher, and only valid for EXACTLY what is written on the voucher.

Yes, this is an important program that needs to be followed strictly.

From what I was told as a cashier, failure to follow the rules could result in invalidating the entire voucher, which could mean they don’t get anything with it, or could mean the store would be penalized.

One night, I’m working and it’s almost closing time. My closing manager had just helped me bag a large order just to speed things along and get the last few customers out the door.

She must have grabbed the wrong type of bread.

A lady comes up with (it’s been a while) two jugs of juice and a loaf of bread. She gives me the voucher to begin the transaction and I get it started.

I scan the juice, no problem. I scan the bread, “Item not WIC approved.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you need to grab the bread that has the WIC sticker underneath it,” I tell her. “I can help you find the right one.”

Unfortunately, there isn’t much they can do.

“Oh, you’re out of that one. Can’t you just substitute it?”

“No, I’m sorry. They’re very strict with the program and they don’t allow substitutions.”

“Can’t you ask the manager?”

This is out of their hands.

My manager, still standing at the end of my register, speaks up and says, “He’s right, they have a very strict set of rules and we can’t ring up anything that’s different.”

She’s not happy, tries to argue the point, but eventually accepts that we can’t do anything besides allow her to get her juice, and she leaves.

On a side note, we got our bread delivered in the morning, and she would have been able to come back in 10 hours and get her voucher filled.

After she had gone, I commented on how the rules were ridiculously strict to my manager.

This is just too funny.

He replies, “Oh, I really don’t know anything about WIC. I was just trusting what you said.”

I know, it’s a short and kind of stupid story, but that meant a lot to me that he trusted me enough to have my back.

Good job to the manager for backing her up, but I hope that lady and her kids didn’t go hungry because of this.

Check out the top comments on this story on Reddit below.

She has a good manager, that’s for sure.

I was thinking the same thing as this commenter.

Yeah, this is unfortunate.

It seems like the rules are very strict.

Well this is just silly.

That is a good manager, but I do feel bad for the customer.

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.