[T_red7882]

While I did not witness the event, i am just trying to give benderfreak some insight as to what might have gone down in the mind of the clerk and what why vague answers might have been given. Being as how i routinely get to be on both sides (as an employee and a regular shopper at stores), i see how rudely people treat checkers. i see it all the time. yesterday i saw an 80 year old man screaming at a pharmacist, calling him incompetent for making him wait in line for 15 minutes.

As for my workplace, problems don't occur when people's cards don't work, problems occur when people start screaming at us for their cards not working. These are the people we feel we can do without. Most people accept that we have no idea why their card won't work, thank us for trying and come back later having fixed the problem. granted, i've only worked there for 3 years, but the general consensus is rude people are told to leave and not come back after situations with cards go south. Because we have a very good business, we have the liberty to tell people not to come back. But in this economy , many other places will take any and all business they can get and this means the same rude people will come back and be rude to all empoyees at a Target for instance. thats not what the employees need or want to deal with, but they have no choice.

thankfully, running a register is only something I do only a quarter of my time at work. I feel for the people who have to do it 8 hrs a day. Customers get flustered, embarassed and unreasonable when anything unexpected happens. Don't get me started on the reactions that occur when you have to tell people you are out of a certain product..." I drove 20 miles here and you don't have it!? What do you mean you don't have it?" as if there couldn't be a more clear description of the situation at hand.

Often times you have to just laugh, but there are more than a few people out there wo make it their business to create quite a stink over matters out of the hands of the business. Bent, i know you said you had to take a credit card one time, i commend you for being a brave man. In 1992 a guy at our place was instructed to seize the card by the computer, and all he got was a black eye. suffice to say, we don't try and take their cards anymore.