At the same time as starting uni, I started a job in retail. While being at this job, I have seen a wide range of customers, varying between the nicest people you will ever meet and complete and utter idiots, the type where you wonder how they manage to dress themselves. The latter customers are often comprised with people who will scream at you because of their ignorance, but they are everywhere. No, the story I am going to share with you is of a prize idiot who even made my managers crack up laughing and look more than a little horrified.

The "hero" of our story, a middle aged man, balding, fat decided to approach the registers where I was covering the long suffering register girls break. This "casanova" decided he was most certainly a gift from the gods to woman kind and could charm me enough to gain something. This is more than a little horrifying when you realise that most of my coworkers and the customers think I'm still in high school..........

Idiot customer: Hi
Me: Hi.
IC: I'd like to buy this. (holds up plastic containers)
Me: Sure. (Scans item) That's $24.95
IC: There's a sign just over there for $9.95
Me: (sighs on the inside and looks over the counter at the sign) Sir, I'm afraid that that's for the other item, right next to where you picked this up from. It clearly states its for a 3 piece set by X brand while this is by Y brand and is 10 pieces.
IC: Oh. (Begins to attempt to flirt with me, leaning provocatively against the counter, trying what I assumed was a sexy face while sliding over a $10 note)
Me: Do you still want this?
IC: Yes. (Pushes the money closer)
Me: This is $10. The item costs $24.95.
IC: I'm sure that you could do this for me, just once. Say you scanned the wrong item.
Me: Uhm, no. I can't.
IC: Sure you can.
Me: I'm afraid I can't do that.
IC: It's just a few dollars. Just change the price. I know you can. (Starts to bat his eyelids)
Me: (holding back vomit) I don't have the codes (I would have said this even if I did, but not having them just meant I had plausible deniability). I would have to call over my manager.
IC: No you don't. You can do this.
Me: (debating how long it would take for me to dive to the phone and what words I could say to make the acting manager run like the wind towards the tils) I. Do. Not. Have. The. Codes. I'm sorry, but I would need to call my manager.
IC: Come on. Everyone steals from their workplace. Everyone does it. It's just a few dollars and they wont even notice.
Me: (blinks wide in surprise. Inside thinks, WTF??????!!!!!!!!!?????????? he so didn't just say that) I'm sorry. I'm not going to change the price without my manager. I can't change the price. He is the only one with the codes. I can call him if you want.
IC: (looks at the line mounting behind him with other customers looking at him like he's a freak) No. I won't take this.
Me: Who's next. (idiot scurries away)

As soon as I was relieved I told one manager what had happened and how the idiot told me to just "steal from my workplace 'coz everyone does it". She cracked up laughing and rushed me over to the other manager telling him he just had to hear it. His look of utter horror amongst his laughter said the real story. If it had been someone on the tils who was less experienced than me and faaaaaaaar less cynical and stubborn, then a deal could have been made which could have resulted in a poor young register girl loosing her job for stealing because some idiot sweet talked her into giving him a lower price. It horrified me that this man thought he could get away with it, and that batting his eyes and leaning suggestively would "blow my mind" enough for him to gain things for far less.

When you receive crap customer service, or think that the girls behind the til are bitching away for no reason whatsoever, remember the idiot customer. While hes the first person to tell me to steal from my shop (My job supplies me money, which secures me shelter and food. I ain't blowing that for some douche to get a few dollars off a crappy set of plastic containers, even if he was the living embodiment of sex, which as a fat, balding middle aged man he clearly wasn't), I have to deal with so many idiot customers a day, all of which are snipping at me, pointing at me and telling their children to stay in school or this is where they'd end up (I'M AT UNI! I have a higher education than the morons pointing and staring. I'm doing this so that I can afford my degree, because unlike the idiot pointing I'm not just dropping a kid for centrelink cheques). This makes me crabby, cynical and hate before I've even met you or heard your latest complaint about how you can't read a sign or about how the guy down in electrical didn't bend over and allow you to spank him. And to be truly honest, I don't care. With a passion.

I have a million more stories, most of which would horrify you. Remember, the holidays are coming up. If you annoy me at the start of a 12 hour shift, well, that's 11 hours of you getting ignored and told that "I refuse to do that". If you want customer assistance these holidays, remember the long suffering university students, the high school graduates waiting for a better job and the wise workers who have been working in retail so long they don't remember not being in a shop. These people have to deal with everyone's crap, and listen to seriously horrible Christmas carol tapes while they're at it.

Don't screw with me these holidays. I will not stand it.