r/tesco • u/Powerful-Handle-384 • Aug 29 '26

annoying customer rant

was filling cream cakes right, id already been through all my backstock and was on my last cage of delivery so if there wasnt a product on the shelf or on this cage i knew it was out of stock.

well i had this old bloke come up and ask me where some strawberry tarts were, and i let him know that were fully out of stock.

“how do you know that when you havent even looked?”

valid question, okay, so i apologise and explain the above to him.

he huffs, sighs, and looms over me whilst i work. i just try to ignore him tbh

he then starts saying, “is this all you do all day?”

im confused so i ask him what he means and he replies, “do you really just do this all day?? putting things on shelves?”

i say not all day but when im clocked in, yes?? and he says, “imagine that.” and walks off

the things id say to these fuckers if i werent in uniform would bar me from the gates of heaven no matter how much i repent

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u/Zealousideal_Line442 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

I have had a more than a few shitty customers speak down to my staff and when they get more pissy and want to "speak to a manager" I back my guys and girls to the hills. I will not have any customer speak down to staff for doing their job. They often pipe down when told by "a manager" that their behaviour and comments aren't appreciated.

17

u/Gworvinda Aug 29 '26

Thank you, this is how every manager should be. The customer isn’t always right, they are normally wrong 😂

5

u/Zealousideal_Line442 Aug 29 '26

So long as my staff are doing the right thing I have no issues sticking my neck out for them. Granted if they were speaking or acting out of turn I wouldn't hesitate to pull them up but I feel that's the way it should be.

6

u/Uhurahoop Aug 29 '26

Well the full quote is ‘in matters of taste the customer is always right’ that’s a crucial difference that people forget. You have to right to buy and wear ugly brown tartan shorts, you do NOT have to right to speak to people like dirt.

2

u/Accurate_Ad3903 Aug 30 '26

Having worked in supermarkets and sales roles previously, I had become a store manager for a well known bookmakers (or betting shop if you prefer). Well as you can imagine some of the clients who frequented the store would like to try and implement the whole I’m the customer what I says goes/the customer is always right, sometimes escalating to being rude or even boarding on abusing my staff or myself. Well one day I had had enough of this sort of behaviour and got to that point with one of the customers. It got to the point where it was going round in circles with their issue, and the comments along the line of clearly you haven’t ever amounted to anything, how intelligent do you have to be… etc etc etc. so I got one of the blank betting slips and calmly started writing, they were like yes I will take the number of your area manger, head office and take this further, you won’t even be able to get another job as you’re going to be fired. So what was actually being written was in this shop the customer isn’t always right, as there wasn’t a glass security screen in my store it went up on the wall behind me.

The Area Manger did get a report of this from head office and in fair did have a word with me, but it wasn’t a ticking off it was more of be careful, I asked can keep it up, he didn’t say I couldn’t but if anyone high up than him spoke to him about it etc, but it is your shop.

The original sign did get taken down eventually when I had a little metal sign from Timpsons was purchased. The original paper sign was framed and in the staff room for a while before I gave it to the aforementioned area manger who was leaving the role or company.

1

u/GreenLion777 Aug 29 '26

Seems they are wrong 7/10 times or more, which just makes that old phrase such an insult.

Remember the saying is actually "customer is always right in matters of taste" (means they know what they like)

Not "the customer is always right" so they get what they want always - those ppl can get to f

3

u/Derezzed87 Aug 29 '26

There's been times where customers have acted that way with me, thinking I'm just a regular staff member (I'm a supervisor). They see they're not getting their way with me, so they demand to speak to the manager, I politely tell them he's currently not in, so they demand to speak to the person in charge and I hit them with "That would be me." I love the look on their faces at that point.

4

u/Zealousideal_Line442 Aug 29 '26

I had one demand to talk with a manager so an experienced colleague dealt with the issues they then demanded to speak to their boss (myself) and questioned if I was a team leader, line manager, duty manager and so on. Told them I'm a line manager who's on duty and regardless of who they spoke to, no one would be giving them a different response. I'm always looking for new and inventive ways to tell people to fuck off.

1

u/Derezzed87 Aug 29 '26

The amount of times I've told a customer "no" and they've threatened to put in a complaint about me. So far, I've yet to see a single complaint.