Just because I work retail doesn't mean I'm an idiot!

[EmilyRose1982]

I'm so tired of customers talking down to me and treating me like I'm an idiot just because of where I work. Here's the latest exchange:

(In drive thru)
Me: Hi welcome to Caribou, what can I get for you today?
SC:....yes....I would like....a....Large....Chocolate...cooler...
Me: Okay--
SC: No whip......decaf........that's a Large decaf....chocolate cooler...no whip....
Me: Okayyyyy can I get you anything else?
SC:...................no.
Me: *reads total, etc*

I open the window and greet the old bag whom I'd just spoken with. She says nothing, and makes a half-assed attempt to hold her money out to me. I had to lean WAY out the window to grab it. The whole time she was giving me this...this look, like I'm such a pathetic little plebeian. She did say thanks when I handed her drink out, but she still had that "holier-than-thou" look on her crusty mug.

So let's hear it my fellow retail workers! What have you encountered in this realm?

[Morningchaser]

Holy crap! Basically the same story, just different lingo and a different way of handling it.

SC: I want a mocha....cafe.....grande.....latte...NO WHIP!
Me: *as fast and flat as I can manage while still being understood* Okay, grande no whip mocha what else?
SC: And and cheese.....danish.
Me: Anything else?
SC: No
Me: Alright, that'll be *obscene amount* at the window.

Whenever they talk down to me I usually speed up my speech and take great pains to correct them in any way I can (we have a very specific way we have to call our drinks and I'm one of the few in the store who has it hammered into thier brain. I even correct my manager, much to my sadistic glee when our DM is around :laugh. Then, and this may seem kinda' minimal or petty, I don't give the final 'thank you.' May seem like a small thing to most people, but I"m generally an overly polite kinda guy, so not saying thank you is the biggest snub I can give without physically touching the creeps.

[Anakah]

plebeian LMAO. I am watching that anime too! And yeah that chick was a moron not an aristocrat

[edible_hat]

Happens all the time with people who are too stupid to read the pump numbers properly. If it's too busy I just quickly correct them, if not I pretend to be as stupid as they think I am, which is still smarter than them.

for example:

quick correction:
SC: Pump 12.
Me: Pump 1, $5.
SC: (cat butt face)

playing dumb:
SC: Pump 12.
Me: $200.
SC: No it's $5.
Me: Pump 12 is $200.
SC: No it's $5.
Me: Pump 12, up the back there? $5
SC: No pump 12 at the front!
Me: Oh, pump ONE! $5.

Our pumps are in pairs with one number on each side. The above most often happens with pumps 1 and 2, but people have also claimed to be on pumps 34, 56, 78 and 910. We only have 20 pumps.

[guitardude1987]

I get it every once in a while, but when I had long hair, I got it all the damn time. In addition to being an idiot, I must be a stoner as well.

Mostly, I just get people who tell me how to count back change. As if I don't do that 100+ times a day.

Or, sometimes I get people who order very, very, VERY slowly. Then repeat it. Very. VERY. Slowly.

An old lady once told my pregnant co-worker (who was about to graduate with a degree in business management) that she was so very sorry that she had to drop out of high school because she got pregnant.

People are also amazed by the answer I give when asked if I'm going to school.

Me: "Yes, I'm going to *Local University*. I'm majoring in English with a minor in German. I'm all ready fluent in German, but I just thought it would look nicer on a resume when I go to submit it to the first law firms I apply at after graduating with my JD from *Not-So-Local Law School I Want To Attend*."

[Rubystars]

I was once tired and made a small math mistake, forget exactly what it was, but that's not important. They asked me if I knew how to do math. I said yes, I did, and I had actually passed a calculus class (I really did, by the way). The customer with a smug, superior look said "What is that, Kindergarten Calculus?" I really wanted to hurt him, but I wanted to keep my job.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Our pumps are in pairs with one number on each side. The above most often happens with pumps 1 and 2, but people have also claimed to be on pumps 34, 56, 78 and 910. We only have 20 pumps.

I get that too; we have twelve pumps, and they're numbered the same way. People often mistake pumps 11 for 1 and 12 for 2. It's great fun to point it out.

Oh, and I never address customers as "sir" or "madam". I'm friendly and polite, but I draw the line at bowing and scraping. -.- I serve, but I'm not a servant.

[RayvenQ]

I don't like getting called sir by anyone who I'm buying something from, just feels so unnatural to me xD Afterall, we're both normal people.

Of course, even if unfamiliar with them I have a tendancy to call other blokes "mate" and women "luv" not that I conciously do it, it just seems to pretty much be the way of things up north I've found.

[Food Lady]

I was once tired and made a small math mistake, forget exactly what it was, but that's not important. They asked me if I knew how to do math. I said yes, I did, and I had actually passed a calculus class (I really did, by the way). The customer with a smug, superior look said "What is that, Kindergarten Calculus?" I really wanted to hurt him, but I wanted to keep my job.

I would have asked, with a look of childlike wonderment, "They have calculus in kindergarten now? Wow, things sure have changed!"

[mikoyan29]

I didn't get that so much when I worked in the grocery store but then again, it was a college town and many of the people working in the grocery stores and what not are people trying to pay their way through school.

[rerant]

What do I do?
Well, depending on the degree of rudeness I either do nothing (meaning I refuse to help them, make myself invisible, etc.) or, if they're being serious jerks I tell them to leave.

One of the first things I was told by both the manager and owner at my new job is, "We don't pay you to take shit from assholes."

[Pagan]

I've gotten the college students that seem to think I was too stupid to go to college and that's why I work where I do.

Hello? One, I'm old enough to be you mother so shush. Two, I've got a BA and a BS in addition to being a certified pharmacy tech. Go away.

[chocoBug]

well apparently i "wouldnt know anything she just works in a shop". I politely told the stuck up bitch and her daft husband that I'm about to graduate with a degree in a software engineering and that my starting salary starts at 22k. I doubt either of them made that when they were 20.

so stuck up. . no need to get personal and insult our intelligence