A Cashier Watches A Customer’s Third Attempt To Pay And Realizes She Keeps Pressing Cancel, But The Woman Blames The Machine For Not Making It Clear That The Red X Doesn’t Mean Enter
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It’s easy to blame a machine when you don’t realize you’re the one causing the problem.
For one cashier, a customer’s repeated attempts to pay turned into a confusing few minutes at the register.
At first, everything seemed fine. The woman inserted her card and entered her PIN, but the transaction kept canceling.
After the second attempt, she started getting annoyed and insisted there was money on her card.
So, the cashier watched her try again and noticed she was pressing the red cancel button. But when he explained, she blamed the buttons for not having labels.
Read on to see exactly what happened.
…Do you understand how traffic lights work?
Card machines. I used to give customers about three tries to get it right. The failed tries would print on the receipt, so in lieu of a 5km receipt, I’d take over if they ****** it up that many times.
Lady comes up, I put her purchase through, she puts her card in the reader, chooses her account, and puts her PIN in. Yay, a customer who knows how to work things.
BOY, WAS I WRONG.
At first, she blamed the machine.
Puts in her PIN, presses a button. Canceled.
“Oh, I say, the machine must’ve stuffed up. Let’s try that again.”
It’s always a good idea to blame “the machine” in retail. It’s like the eternal, unfailing scapegoat.
Repeat process. Canceled.
Then, she starts getting a little more defensive.
Lady starts getting a bit annoyed. “I have money on this card. It worked before, yadda yadda yadda.”
“Third time’s the charm,” I say. “I’ll watch the screen this time. Maybe it’ll show a specific error message.” (Screen was pointed at the customer on an angle, so I’d have to swivel the machine if I wanted to see. Good privacy thing.)
Look away as customer puts in PIN. Look back.
Immediately, he saw what the problem was.
Customer presses the red button with an X on it. It is next to a small, small yellow button with a backspace arrow on it, which, in turn, is next to an ENORMOUS GREEN BUTTON WITH A BIG CIRCLE ON IT.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain that red, like in pretty much all contexts, means bad, negative, go back, stop.
“Oh,” I said, “you must’ve hit the red button. That means cancel.”
“I thought it was enter,” she replies disbelievingly. “How am I supposed to know? They’re not labeled!”
I worry that she drove here. I wonder how many pedestrians she hit.
Wow. How do people like this function in society, for real?
Let’s take a look at what the readers over at Reddit think about what happened.
Good point. Maybe that’s what she was thinking.
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This reader noticed something similar that customers have problems with.
Now, that’s funny.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cashier who got annoyed with a group of friends who insisted on returning their items separately.
Yes, it could also be this.
It seems like this was an honest mistake.
In fact, there are many reasons she could’ve been having issues.
For example, she could have bad eyesight, she may have been confused, or maybe she was colorblind.
Either way, these types of situations usually work best when everyone remains calm and respectful.
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