Tattling Customers

Customers are the best narcs on the planet. I love them sometimes. Whenever anyone is trying to rip us off, customers are there to see it and run up to us and tell us.

While many customers do this out of the goodness of their hearts, there are some that expect to be rewarded for their tattling. They want something like free cigarettes or even free gas for telling on another customer. I think that's bullshit. They are doing a good deed, they should be rewarded with a simple thank you. And really, that's all they usually get.

One time I had to yell at a regular customer because her husband decided to steal some food from the store. Now, if it was something like bread, milk or eggs, I would have let it go, but he was seen on camera opening packages of Doritos and eating from the the bag. We didn't get a chance to confront him because we didn't notice it until later, when we discovered two opened bags of Doritos around the store. So naturally we looked it up on tape and saw that this clown did it.

When I confronted the wife about it, she started crying. She is known as being a drama queen and currently has numerous lawsuits on all of her neighbors. Anyways, she started making a big deal out of this and ultimately ended up slapping her husband in the face in front of a bunch of people. Needless to say, the husband isn't allowed in the store anymore and I closely watch the wife whenever she is in the store. But I think she knows now that she wouldn't be able to get away with anything because of her husband.

But back to customers, we'll usually have a regular come up to us and whisper that they think the person in the back is stealing something. So that's when my favorite part of the job comes in to play. The part where I get to yell at someone and accuse them of stealing.

Some employees don't like to accuse anyone, but me? I don't care. I don't care how old you are, what color you are or how dumb you are. If you look guilty, you are going to get yelled at by me until I feel sufficient enough that you didn't steal from my store.

One time I was working night shift. This group of girls came in, three to be exact, and naturally headed for the back of the store, towards the beer. One of the girls was a regular, so I didn't really pay attention to them. They ended up going in and out of the store, not finding what they wanted. So I was ringing up a customer and happened to look on our camera that shows the back of the store. I saw one of the girls (she was by herself), trying to hide something in her pants. So I told the customer I was ringing up to hold on and I raced to the back of the store to confront her.

I asked her if she took anything and she said no. So I asked her what she put in her pants, and she stated it was 'just a drink'. So I made her take it out of her sweatpants and as I'm standing there, she pulls out a 40 oz bottle of Miller High Life from in between her legs. Without thinking, I grabbed it and escorted her to the door, taking note of the license plate of the car that she was in.

So later on, the car comes back into the parking lot and here I am, ready to call the cops because I think I'm going to have a situation. Well in comes the regular customer that was with the thief. She's by herself and almost crying, begging me not to call the cops with her license plate. She said that she didn't really know the girl that stole, she was a friend of a friend. So I scared her a little by saying I still may call the cops, but to never let that girl in the store again or she was going to get arrested.

All in a day's work, right?

What I didn't think about until later was the fact that I had touched that bottle of beer that had been in that girl's crotch. And I put it right back on the shelf. Hmm, I wonder if someone's beer tasted a little funny that night.