I Have a Weird Sense of Humor
When putting myself through school, years ago, I supported myself by working various retail jobs. I quite enjoyed retail...liked working with people, helping people find what they were looking for. Christmas, however, was not the most enjoyable time of year while working in a mall.
One very crazy Christmas season, I was working a Saturday afternoon (after a full 42 hours of school that week) and was getting run off my feet. I was a great salesperson so they liked me on the floor helping customers but I was also careful and accurate with the til, so they also liked to have on cash. I was pulled in both directions until I almost dropped. We had a really nasty assistant manager I'll call Cindy, for the sake calling her something. Cindy had been having a long week too and on that particular Saturday she was in a foul mood...even for her. She was mad at the part-timers who messed up the stock looking for stuff in the back, mad at the customers who didn't know what they wanted, mad at the staff for having the gall to request a break....mad at me, just for kicks. She blew up at the girl on cash for not being fast enough and, from across the store, I hear "WHYM! Get OVER HERE!" so, I made my way to her. She threw me on cash and stood behind me tapping her feet impatiently as I rang the next customer through. This is where it all got too funny for me to stand.
The woman was buying a lot of stuff and had asked for boxes. We had nice boxes, with tissue paper, and had been trained to take great care in wrapping up our customers purchases. Well, there was just no time for Cindy, who started to grab the stuff and launch it into boxes without folding, slamming boxes into bags...lol..omg, you should have seen the customer's face. Anyway...we had these 'discount' cards that we were forced to try to sell at the cash with every purchase...you know the ones...10% of your purchase, blah blah blah. Well she had one. She handed it to me to get her discount, but sadly, the card was expired. She said "oh well" and handed me her credit card. I set the two cards down on top of my register to fix up the bags Cindy had packed, and Cindy FLIPPED out and said "OMG WHYM! Are you stupid!!? You KNOW we have to cut these discount cards up when they are expired and here you are letting it sit right there where anyone could walk up and steal it!" I opened my mouth to respond to Cindy, in not my usual easygoing way, when I realized that she was standing there, glaring at me, holding the customers CREDIT CARD in her fingers with scissors poised. I had a two second debate with myself and decided to be the better person. "Cindy...no!" I began...and....snnnnnnip! The credit card fell to the floor in two pieces in front of me. (Did I mention this was three days before Christmas?!). I took one look at the customer, said "Oh, I'm so sorry for what's about to happen" and then I literally fell to my knees laughing so hard I almost peed myself. Cindy had not yet moved...stood frozen in tableau...scissors dangling.
I kind of lurched out of sight and into the back room where I tried very hard to stop laughing before the customer had me fired. It was just.....I don't know...karma in action, watching that happen.
In the end, the customer was very angry...but, hilariously, not with me. She reported to my company how terrible Cindy was to the employees, and commented on how I was only trying to fix up Cindy's mistakes. Cindy's last day was boxingday....she didn't go near the cash.
