Rude customers, employees and day laborers

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A customer asked me to load her merchandise. Told her that I have a doctor's note. She had the nerve to tell me "I don't care about the doctors note. Put it in the car"

Touching me

Laughing at me

Calling me "Chino", like it's my name

Saying "huh" and "what" instead of "excuse me "

Loudly screaming at me because they want a cart. But there are plenty of carts up front

A customer asked if I had a knife and I said no. "f**k you", the lil dipshit had the nerve to bark at me

Almost hitting me with cars

Laughing when I almost got hit by a car

A day laborer had the nerve to reach under the litterbox door and stomp on my foot. He did that five separate days

A day laborer had the nerve to feign a kick at me, while I was bent over trying to pick up the shopping cart that he had been sitting on

Coworkers mispronouncing my name

Coworkers screaming at me

(Plenty more that I don't remember right now. In the future, they will do plenty of worse things.)

Home Depot appears to attract the worst of the worst, customers, employees and day laborers. The store I work in is in the middle of a homeless encampment.

Plenty of precious lil "people" have:

Felony convictions
Mental illness
Sex with the boss
Logical fallacies
Unrealistic expectations
Drunk
Stoned

Nothing to lose


Subconscious biases
Entitled and impatient
Self righteous and self important

Most of the customers at the grocery store I work at seem at least to not go out of their way to cause problems, but my gosh, yeah, retail is loathed for a reason. I have many times had to call for manager assistance with difficult customers.

For minor stuff, they want us to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. For example, if the customer is upset that we don't do half-off on one of a BOGO (buy 1 get 1) item, we give it to them at half price to avoid greater complaints.

There is stuff we can't bend on, like we only cash certain types of checks, and we can refuse if we are unsure about it. Have also busted customers trying to return stolen items for a "refund", and usually need manager backup on those. Oh so lovely to be cussed out by a scammer, but I guess that's all they can do if we refuse to accommodate their scamming.

Also get those customers that will tell a baldfaced lie, like for example when the service desk was closed the other day, I told them "sorry, service desk doesn't open until 9 am". They were like "but I just called and y'all said y'all was open!!"
I was the one manning the phone and had gotten no such call, so I just gave them a look.

Also have had some slick people pull stuff like taking a meal from the deli and telling me "this meal is cuz they made my order wrong, I already paid for it" to get a free meal. My fault, I guess, for not asking for a receipt.

Collie

The training videos at work say that if a customer is rude get a manager.

However sometimes there's only one manager in the entire large building and by the time you find the manager, the rude customer has already left the building. The manager could be on the phone, dealing with customers, or doing something that could not be interrupted. Everyone has subconscious biases. Maybe the manager is having sex with the rude customer. The manager could make my worthless corpse redundant. ("At will" employer). Home Depot can do anything it wants, legal or illegal, and the only way to stop them is to win a civil lawsuit. The customer might tell the manager anything.

The best thing that the manager could do is ban the rude customer, but I don't think they are going to do that. However even if they did ban the customer, there's no way to enforce it. There are three entrances and sometimes there are only cashiers guarding the entrance. It's not like an office where everyone in the building works there.



Home Depot is a disaster waiting to keep happening

Oh, that sucks. Some stores are better than others about handling these things, and yeah, sometimes a manager may not be immediately available.

I am convinced I would not survive as an employee at most stores tbh. I'm too sensitive, in many senses of the word.

Oops, there's nothing I can do

Something to keep in mind is that rude-ass customers are not a reflection on you, typically. It usually means they have issues, be that a bad day causing a bad attitude or projecting their own issues onto you.

There are days where I am at work and I am extremely angry, due to sensory overload or just being overwhelmed socially. I try my best to still treat customers well, but there are times that the best I can manage is to appear apathetic and unenthusiastic.
At least I can say that I've never cussed a customer out or been outright rude to them.

One time a customer was being a dick, he was making fun of my stutter. The bagger, at least, had my back and told the guy he was an as*hole.

___________________

"Customer always right"

It always scares me that a customer might tell the manager I did something wrong and the manager will make me redundant

The customer could be mistaken, exaggerating, lying, speaking figuratively, or purposely trying to get me fired

The customer has nothing to lose.

I could lose a job. And it might take a long time to the next job. And $$$ will already have run out by that time. And the next job will just be McDonald's or it's competitors. Minimum wage, dealing with the public, customer service.

Maybe the punishment I got for failure to get a STEM degree, is working at home Depot

The customer is always right in matters of taste. People always forget the second half of the saying.

Why would the manager do the extra work of firing you when they can deal with the butthurt customer, maybe look at you sternly like you'll hear about it later and move on with their day?

The customer has nothing to lose, but nothing to gain. How does hurting you make their life better? It doesn't. They have zero incentive. That's not to say bad people don't exist, but usually they need a motive to expend the effort.



Also, I'd try to work on getting over this bothering you because it's 100% normal. You're choosing to swim against a very strong current. It's like getting angry people say 'hey' instead of 'hello'.

How is management at your job, generally? If they're good management, they will take whatever the customer says about you with a huge grain of salt. And hopefully would ban exceptionally rude customers.

Most managers were entry level staff at one point, so they should understand unless they were just given a management position without on-the-floor experience.

Collie

There is no objective method to determine the quality of the management at home Depot. However, anecdotally, some of the managers have made actions and statements, that made me think that they were not that competent or their critical thinking skills were not that great.
For example, last year, Assistant Manager One waved me over and told me to remove a barbeque and lock it up. After removing the barbeque, I could not find the key. Saw Assistant Manager two. Waved him over. He acted like I lost the key. He ended up seeing the key on the ground, but if he were not to have found the key, he might have written me up. He just assumed that I lost the key. Not to mention that the first ASM didn't even give me the key. That whole situation showed both assistant managers' poor critical thinking skills, carelessness and subconscious biases.

Also, some of the managers appear to have large subconscious biases, when it comes to employees. Some employees get away with being on the phone half their shift.

The training videos say that only salaried managers have the right to ban customers. But home Depot has three customer entrances. There is no way for home Depot to enforce the ban. Sometimes there is only one manager and that one could be anywhere in the building. Or on the phone with a customer and can't be bothered.

Besides plenty of customers are rude and home Depot can't afford to ban them all

And the manager might get tired of being bothered by me and then take the customers side.

There is no way to know what the managers reaction will be. But "at will" employer

Being adaptable to the situation is a good thing. It is true that I am not adaptable. However, I have been feeling that way about "huh" and "what", since age 15. Now 40. I don't overreact when someone has the nerve to say "what?" instead of "excuse me". Everyone has freedom of speech, but not everyone is having sex with the boss. Instead I just suppress my reaction. It is a natural reaction. Not everyone has the same pet peeves. Not everyone defines and measures "respect" the same way.

The solar system contains more defendants convicted of felonies, than winners of Nobel Prize. Thus, felony convictions are more "normal" than Pulitzer prizes. The activity with more participants, not always morally superior to the activity with fewer participants.

However "actions speak louder than words".

Usually when someone says "what?", they didn't seem to be listening carefully. When they say "excuse me?" they seemed to be listening carefully. However, things are not always the way they appear. Maybe the ones that said "excuse me" were not listening carefully either. Besides plenty of precious lil"people " are hard of hearing. They act like every thought and emotion that goes through their heads is the latest greatest scientific invention. Then when I try to say the slightest thing, they half listen and grunt"huh" and "what, like they are the etiquette equivalent of "excuse me". I am not telepathic and don't know what is going on in someone else's head.

Besides I don't go around micromanaging precious lil "people's" speech patterns. And I don't sit around arguing with them over their etiquette either. Plenty of precious lil "people" have felony conversations, mental illness, weapons, short tempers, and bad manners, drug addiction. Plenty of precious lil "people", are not worth the energy it takes to interact with them. Maybe I should just be grateful that the precious lil "people" did not just exterminate my worthless corpse. There is only one "reality", but there are an infinite number of ways to phrase "reality" with words, and an infinite number of perspectives.

For some "friends" and "family", I asked them to say "excuse me?" instead of "what?". However, I also try to explain "why". And, if they have the nerve to refuse or ignore my request, I think "pick your battles". And I just try to ignore my own emotions. Thus far, only four people have complied with my request, and three of them were mental health counselors. (Maybe the counselors don't count).

A couple of years ago, former "friends" Dena, Anthony and Cory, had the nerve to tell me "I am not gonna do that". So, I didn't ask them again. However, later, they stopped being my "friends" (for different reasons). And then, it just seemed, (hindsight bias), that they already showed me that they were not my real "friends" long before the ultimate falling out. If I am honest, it is important (to me only) that someone says "excuse me" instead of "what?". Every time I have to hear "what?", especially from "friends and family", I feel like they don't really "care" about me, and that there is no limit to the number of things that they will also refuse to do for me.

2012, former "friend" Amy, had the nerve to tell me that she would tell me when I did something she didn't "like", and she expected me to change, immediately permanently drastically and cheerfully. So I asked her, what if she did something I didn't like? That "friend" had the nerve to tell me, to tell her, and she would "try to stop". "Try"? Like there is some large barrier to change? Sometimes here are barriers to change, but the things that I wanted her to change, didn't have that many barriers. For example, she often cancelled on me with two hours notice or no notice at all. When the slightest thing happened like she was "tired" "a lot of homework" or "her dad's birthday is next week".(rolls eyes). Which I don't think are good excuses. A good excuse is that she got in a car crash. And Amy knew I was afraid of dogs, but then she arranged to dogsit someone else's dogs, after we had agreed that I was coming over to her apartment. Amy often had the nerve to interrupt me to ask what i was going to say. Amy was too emotional and talked too much. At the time, she was my only "friend". So I was afraid to even *ask* her to say "excuse me" instead of "what?", because there was no way she would consent. But whatever, she's not my "friend" anymore, and I don't think she ever was my "friend" before anyways.

My "parents" had the nerve to outright laugh at me, over and over, when I asked them to say "excuse me" instead of "ha?". "Pick your battles" is good advice, but some precious lil "people", pick *all* the battles. So, as usual, I tried to ignore my emotions and just "get along", but that wasn't happening. Even my own "parents", over and over, had the nerve to micromanage every slightest thing. Even when they didn't like my facial expressions, or my haircut, or anything like that.

My "parents" have been dead for years and I have *yet* to forgive them. They never bothered apologizing for all the things that they did wrong, according to my standards. But when they thought I did something wrong, it was like "smoke and mirrors".

When someone doesn't appear to be listening to what I said, I don't feel like saying anything. I feel like that's rude and disrespectful of them to be so calloused, and I find it hard to imagine, that anyone that has the nerve to grunt "huh" or "what" at me, could ever be my "friend", except under extreme exceptions. Plenty of precious lil "people" act like they are exceptional but there are not that many exceptions.