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In the following story, the customer and employee both have good reasons to be annoyed. The store is short staffed which makes life more difficult for both of them. The customer is impatient, and the employee is overworked and unable to help.

The potential problem, and the real question of the story is if the employee handled the situation well or not. Instead of keeping a friendly customer service smile throughout the situation, the employee argued with the customer.

Keep reading to see if you think the employee should’ve handled this situation differently or not.

AITA for arguing with a supervisor and customer at work?

I (30+F) work in a wholesalers on the reception so I check in customers, put out messages across the tannoy and deal with most customer service related issues.

Some back story- On this day the main colleague for the tobacco department was on holiday. When this happens most other colleagues don’t want to cover his department and will all make an excuse as to why they can’t go.

However on this day we were short staffed and two colleagues had gone on break leaving only 3 other colleagues who were busy at the checkouts.

A customer was pretty frustrated.

A customer came over and asked for a colleague to go to the tobacco room- it’s kept locked if the attendant leaves to prevent theft etc-

So I called over the tannoy system…barely two minutes pass and the customer comes over all huffy asking why no one has turned up.

I explain they are at the checkouts, so it will be whomever becomes available. I call again so it looks like I’ve taken him seriously.

He goes and stands in the area facing the checkouts watching who is free and I then don’t see him.

The customer was even more frustrated.

He storms back after less than 5 minutes and demands to know why he hasn’t been served.

I explain. as he saw the other colleagues are busy, two are on break and I do not have the power to make someone go over there if they are all busy. If he has an issue go take it up with a supervisor, who at the time was by the checkout.

He demanded the number for head office, due to ‘always’ having issues with our branch.

So I said he can easily google it.

The customer is not giving up that easily.

He got huffy and stormed away to another colleague who was going home.

She told him the same thing…to google the number as she was leaving and it wasn’t her issue.

He interrupted another supervisor-thinking he was the manager, as he was in the managers office at the time.

And the supervisor has a go at me! Saying I should have informed my line manager that a customer was waiting.

OP is wondering if she messed up.

She was over by the checkout area at the time and had spoken to the customer already.

I told the supervisor she was over there and would have sent someone over, but with 3 members of staff there wasn’t anyone free at the time.

He went over to discuss the issue with her and I’m guessing she told him noone was free as he came and took the keys and went to serve the customer himself.

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AITA for loosing my cool and arguing with them both?

The problem here is that the store is short staffed. I’d probably be annoyed if I were the customer too. How long is he supposed to wait around? But it really wasn’t possible for OP to make someone appear like magic to help the customer.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person doesn’t think OP handled the situation well.

But this person thinks the customer is the problem.

Like I said at the beginning, this was a frustrating situation for both the employee and the customer. Neither of them really handled it well. But they shouldn’t even have to be in this situation. The customer is not wrong to expect someone to help him. The employee is not wrong for being frustrated that the customer is impatient and there’s nothing she can really do to help.

Hire more employees. That’s the solution.

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Author

Jayne Elliott

Jayne Elliott | Contributing Writer, Life & Drama

Jayne Elliott is a contributing writer and editor for TwistedSifter specializing in human interest stories, internet culture, and family dynamics. With over 12 years of editorial experience in digital publishing, Jayne excels at analyzing complex online communities and transforming viral social debates into thoughtful, highly engaging narratives.

Rather than simply aggregating internet drama, Jayne brings a sharp, empathetic editorial eye to everyday dilemmas. She has a unique talent for unpacking the nuances of pop culture and online conflicts, providing readers with relatable, well-researched commentary.

Based in California, Jayne spends her free time outside the newsroom exploring theme parks with her family or beach-combing along the coast.

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