are just rude. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why. And, I can never think of a good zinger when I need one.
At the checkout today, I’m chatting up the very nice teen who helped me find the sunscreen, actually left his perch to show me the correct aisle, when barreling up comes an unusually irate woman. She totally interrupts us and starts berating the poor kid about how the flip-flops she bought were supposed to be marked down to $4.99 and they rang up at $5.99. Her very embarrassed teenage daughter is trying to placate her and tells her that these weren’t the ones on sale, and attempts to guide this crazy woman away from the bewildered check-out boy. He finally gets a word in to direct her to customer service, while I just stand there, agape during the entire interaction.
I wish I would have just handed the woman a dollar and said, “Here have a dollar, and next time, please don’t interrupt. It’s rude.”
By the way, she must have been wrong about the dollar, because she left the store right in front of me, even more in a huff.
What would you have said?
When in a similar situation I have actually said to a person or 2, “How would you feel if someone talked to your daughter/son/mother that way?” Who knows if they have the ability to empathize but if they do, maybe they’ll think twice the next time they feel the urge to berate some poor soul.
I get people being rude to me all the time. Unfortunately it is the beast of retail. The crazy thing is, for the most part it is the “elderly” crowd that is the most likely to be rude. And the same crowd that thinks Gen X’rs have no manners.