Old guy at the grocery store made me rethink my whole 'the customer is always right' attitude

I had this dude come up to my register at Kroger last Tuesday and he was clearly frustrated about a price error. I started giving him the standard corporate spiel about policies, but then he just looked at me and said 'I know it's not your fault, I'm just tired of fighting machines all day.' That hit different. Made me realize most people aren't actually mad at us, they're just sick of dealing with broken systems and feel helpless. Now I actually listen instead of defending the company. Anybody else have a customer that changed how you see your job?

2 comments

2 Comments

oscarthompson13h ago

Not really buying it. That whole "fighting machines all day" thing sounds like a cop out to me. People have been complaining about prices and policies long before self checkout existed. I've worked retail for 8 years and the ones who are "sick of fighting machines" are the same ones who yelled at me for a coupon that expired in 1997. It's not about broken systems, it's about people thinking they deserve special treatment and needing someone to take it out on. The customer is still wrong most of the time, they just got better at making excuses. Glad you had a nice moment with that guy but don't let one decent person fool you into thinking the rest of them aren't still jerks.

sams255h ago

You mentioned the coupon that expired in 1997. That kind of stuck with me. I actually saw a study a few months back that said something like 70% of retail workers deal with aggressive customers at least once a week, and it's usually about stuff like expired coupons or policy changes. So it's not just one bad apple, it's kind of everywhere now. I get wanting to believe people are just frustrated with machines, but yeah, the math doesn't really add up.