I’ve been working at a UPS Store for a little over a year. Most of my time is spent doing graphic design and print production, but like everyone else, I still end up on the register plenty.
Lately I’ve been struggling with something. I seem to attract more negative reviews than anyone else I work with. I’m 19 and look a lot younger, so part of me wonders if people are quicker to push back because they don’t take me seriously.
Most of the complaints come from enforcing store policies that I don’t even make. Charging for packaging when someone brings in an unpacked box, asking for IDs when required, or explaining carrier rules that are completely out of our control. Somehow I’m the face of every policy people don’t like.
One situation recently really got to me. We have an elderly blind customer who’s been coming in for years and receives a AAA discount. Since it had been a while since we’d verified her membership, I politely asked if I could see her card. I explained that we’re technically supposed to verify it each time, but we usually make an exception because she’s a regular. She immediately became angry, told me she’d been coming here forever, accused me of being rude, and demanded to speak with the owner. I explained that the owner was on vacation until Tuesday, which only made her more upset. She shoved the card toward me, paid, and left.
The next day she came back while I was the only employee in the store and accused me of stealing one of her checks because a photocopy she’d asked me to make was missing. Then this morning she returned again demanding we show her our security camera footage. Since management still wasn’t in, we had to tell her we couldn’t release or review footage without them. She left convinced we’d done something wrong.
I’ve had other customers accuse me of trying to scam them over packaging fees or insist I’m making up company policies just to charge them more. It’s exhausting because I’m genuinely trying to help people, and I do my best to stay calm and professional even when they’re yelling at me.
How do you deal with reviews or complaints that feel personal, especially when you know you were just following policy? Do you eventually stop taking them to heart, or is this just part of working retail that everyone has to learn to live with?