Grocery Worker Gets Revenge On Petty Customer By Allowing Him To Use The Broken Scanner

Customer service applies to all customers, I guess — even the ones who are rude and presumptuous.

Read how one Redditor manages to give excellent service while one man makes a fool of himself.

I promise it’s super satisfying.

You Go First

What’s up, party people. OP here.

When I’m not “molding minds” (ew, almost as gross a teacher cliche as “the honeymoon’s over”) I’m at your friendly neighborhood grocer, running the 1s and 2s.

DJ U-Scan in the house!!!

When I’m running U-Scan, overseeing customers scanning their own groceries, I tend to stand at the entrance or exit of the section of self scanners.

Being ex-military, I tend to be in the habit of standing at the entrance, so I can face the doors to the store.

It just feels wrong not to, even if I am a measly cashier tonight.

I’m noticing that the first U scanner has been acting up, and I was about to walk toward it to shut it down.

When it acts up, it takes a long time to fix, and the customers get very frustrated with it.

Oh, I’ve been there. Those things can be such a pain.

It’s just easier to shut it down than to have customers follow a reading comprehension assignment that, if they fail, they restart.

It’s a five-minute process.

So anyway, as I’m walking toward this scanner, a man all but elbows me out of the way and then jumps back exaggeratedly, saying “Oh no, I guess YOU were here first, right big guy??? I wasn’t standing there waiting or anything, by all means. No, I GO FIRST! I’VE BEEN WAITING!!”

Then he jumps back in front of me.

I swear it was like he was doing the Hokey Pokey, or he was one of The Temptations leaning in with his shoulder, then leaning back , then forward again — only thing he was missing was the little shimmy.

Oh my god, this is so dramatic it’s funny.

Let you go first?! By all means.

Enter MC by OP, approved by the CDC.

I, Lumiere style, extend my arm, exaggeratedly flowy, my freshly pedicured hands pointing to the scanner saying “Be my guest.”

The funny thing is that there were like three customers behind this guy who had already checked out without incident before he even tried to start scanning.

I bet those people were just so confused by his behavior.

It takes even longer than I hoped it would, as this guy looks up his prickly pear cactus, looks around for help, swears about the fact that there’s never anybody around who works here.

He even looked back at me and scoffed at me for staring.

He finally angrily grabs his items and gets back in line again, picking up items he drops one at a time like a Charlie Chaplin routine.

Every time he bends over to pick one thing up he drops another. The more we all try to help, the angrier he gets, so I just keep looking at him.

How did no one start cracking up?!

As I walk toward the register, “Oh, you’re gonna cut her now too?!”

Finally the lady in line steals mine, “He furking works here; he’s trying to help,” just as I shut down the scanner for a reset.

FINALLY, someone said it!

The man shook his head but I could tell how his head hung lower that he felt bad. I’ll take it.

You know the crazy thing? This man’s a regular. I see him like every day.

He’s not old or chronically stupid, just ignorant I guess, I don’t know.

If I were that man, I would quite literally never shop there again out of humiliation.

I even have a nickname for him: Shirley Temple.

He’s usually the guy with his hands on his hips (Shirley Temple) waiting for help. Then he was the Genie 🧞‍♂️ with his arms folded high.

Then he is Lucille Ball tapping his foot along with the folded hands.

Sounds like this weird man is good at being a character all around.

Like this guy should know me by now. Looks like he’s never ever ever gonna know me. Oooooh oooooooh ooooooooooh

Sounds like an exciting day at work. What do Redditors think of this grocery store high drama?

Readers couldn’t ignore this Redditor’s…unique…writing style.

Some even noted their concern for the questionable grammar.

While others were irked by the writing style, they let the story really do the talking.

Another commenter stated the obvious — if no one is at the register, it’s broken.

Finally, a Redditor gave credit where credit is due — this is a fun read.

Sometimes, the argument isn’t worth it — but the malicious compliance is.

This stubborn customer got exactly what he deserved.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.