"I'M NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN"
"Oh thank gods, I thought you'd never take a hint. You are objectively an awful person and no amount of spending on your part was ever going to make dealing with you worthwhile. Yes, PLEASE leave and never show your face here again."
"Sir/mam, this is a Walmart. Your loss of business is literally a rounding error in pur profits."
"...Also all the other local stores were run out of business so there's no where else to shop."
"Those side road weeds sure look tasty."
As someone who worked retail for a long time, I relished these moments... Their righteous indignation would snap me out of my ennui, and I'd love watching their face when I'd respond, "OK, bye", or give them no reaction whatsoever.
You have to appreciate those moments in retail because the rest of the time is pretty awful.
25 years ago I worked the registers at Target. One day at the back end of a pre-christmas lunchtime rush, this woman snidely remarks that I should be scanning faster. I bluntly told her that if she wasn't happy she could simply shop elsewhere. Shocked she threatened to complain to my manager, I simply pointed to thr front dedk and said "go ahead".
I still have my written warning in a box somewhere. Completely worth it lol
I honestly do wonder where the average person thinks the customer service workers have some kind of stake in the company or something. Getting fired from a job like that is only a minor inconvenience, and the odds of their complaint being anywhere near a firable offense is usually laughable (and half the time the opposite as usually it's wanting the employee to break store policy).
I can tell you what it was for my mother. To her it was a "cheat code" to talk to a manager and get free shit or a discount.
Which is actually valid, pushing up the chain can get you stuff. So many people just hang on to the minimum wage grunt and expect that to accomplish anything besides making both their days worse.
Thing is, if you have a valid problem, you can do that politely, not even waste any time with the peon, just say, "Hi, I have a problem that's going to require a manager, will you please call them for me?"
If you're just bitching in search of freebies, you should just not.
Yeah. And not only does the person behind the register not give a shit about losing your patronage, if you come out of the gate acting like an asshole, many of them will 100% make your life more difficult just to fuck with you because they're bored.
It's amazing how far common courtesy can go in situations like this.
I feel like everyone should be required to work like a year in retail or something, so they know how to behave
I mean it's by design. Megacorporations put retail workers and customer service on the front lines to bear the brunt of the anger at their shitty policies. People who have no power to change anything.
Companies I boycott:
Bank of America
5/3 Bank
Wells Fargo
McDonald's
Walmart
That corner gas station that never paid their invoice
Planet Fitness
John Deere
Verizon
AT&T
Number of store employees I've told that I'm never coming back:
0
Trader Joe's for being fascist union busters. Amazon for being fascist union busters. Target for being fascist hypocrites. Chick-fil-A for being homophobic fascists. Google for being fascists. Microsoft for being fascists.
Target was the hardest one for us. Went from spending hundreds per month (they were also our grocery) to zero. Fuck them for dropping DEI and bending the knee.
You and me both. Giving Target the finger a few months ago stung because Amazon and Walmart were already longtime members of the blacklist. Costco is getting my money now. I also didn't tell anyone except the stupid online form that asked why I was canceling my 20 year Red Card membership.
I could go on and on...
Huh. I never really thought about what you wrote about airbnb, but it hit me hard now. My partner actually works for an Airbnb and they have an enormous amount of property and apartments in rural areas which could've housed families. And to think there are many more of these businesses doing the same thing.
I rarely use airbnbs, I prefer hotels, so I haven't done a lot of contribution there but still, this has convinced me to never use one. Unless, the stay is in their house, or in a small house in their garden etc, which I actually have been in some years ago.
And they'll all be back next week, simply because it's the most convenient for them to drive to.
This, 100%. Their lack of shame is almost envious to those of us with anxiety. Some anxious people would avoid a place for months after an ok-conversation with an employee, because they overthink the interaction and become convinced that they fucked up royally. Meanwhile, the employee never thought anything was offensive at all, and in fact forgot the entire interaction by the time they rang up the next customer.
Then there’s people like in the OP who throw a dramatic fit about how much they hate a place, sometimes even screaming at managers, then they show up the very next day pretending nothing ever happened. The audacity is mind-blowing.
On the other hand, I did just tell a bunch of local places I will no longer be a customer because they advertise on PublicSquare.
So I guess I'm those people now.
What's PublicSquare?
A list of MAGA affiliated business. Created by them. Which the businesses sign up to voluntarily.
I see, that makes sense.
Yeah and we should be glad they're so dumb: It has a nice little "in your area" feature where you can see all the ones who signed up near you(no need to give them location data, you can specify the area and check several to hide your real one).
They of course made it so magas could show support. But in reality it's literally a perfect way to find local business to boycoytt that you might not otherwise know was supporting evil.
It's a little different when it's a local place, because your business might actually matter, and the person working the register might have a personal stake in it.
But when its a chain, LO- fucking L. Good luck getting the cashier that makes minimum wage to give a single shit about your complaint.
Even the tiniest semblance of power can go to a person’s head. You had $25 worth of merchandise in your hands, Karen. The store will be okay without you.
See, what you gotta do is threaten them with absurdity.
Don't say "I'm never coming back". Instead, walk across the street to the bus stop. Wait for them to come out to their car. Memorize it.
Now come back to the parking lot every day for a week. Wait for them to leave their car, and go inside. Once they're inside, you walk over to their car, and write down their liscense plate number.
Now go home, and use public records to do a search to find their name and address.
Now go back to the store, and take a picture of them with your cell phone.
Now, sit across the street from a police department, and watch for a cop arriving to work. Take note of his liscense plate, and search his name/address.
Now write a letter to the clerk, threatening to wait outside his work with a giraffe. Tell him "Giraffes have 15 inch tongues, thick as a beer can. I've trained this one to stick their tongues into your butthole, and grab your waist with their teeth. You'll be 19 feet in the air, getting tongue fucked by a giraffe. If you try to escape, you fall. See ya at Costco, Gary!"
And you use the cops name/address as the return address. Now if he tries to go to the cops, they'll protect their own, and find something to arrest him with.
Checkmate, Gary!
Username checks out, I guess?
"And I'm not paid enough TO care."
This is a bit of a grey area because there are some asshole companies and asshole employees
I'd recently had an experience with a racist aldi employee only bag checking my mother because we where not one of the white people in line and that same aldi employee happened to lie about bag checking the white people ahead that we visibly saw her not check
This happened in Australia, but we live in one of the towns in Queensland not known for progresiveness
I'm planning to move to Brisbane or Melbourne once I am able too just to get away from all of the non progressive people here in my hometown
The comic isn't about boycotting locations as a whole, It's just done through a lens of someone working a minimum wage job who has to deal with people yelling at them. Especially about issues they're having and saying they're never going to shop there again. It doesn't impact them personally and getting angry at them personally won't help.
An interaction I had when I was in my final days of my fast food "career":
Karen: "The service here is terrible I'm NEVER eating here again if you don't fix this RIGHT NOW"
Me (actually said to them): "Oh no, please don't, the giant multinational corporation with billions in revenue that is [Big burger fast food joint] will notice and cry"
Karen: "I..yea...well!" Storms off
I've stopped going to businesses for various reasons over the years but I've never annouced the reason(s). I just stop going because I don't care about it enough. I'm not a feedback kind of guy.
Honestly they are just doing us a favor. I really don't want to see them again either.
I’ve definitely boycotted companies, but try to make sure my reasoning is sent as high as it can, and even then try to direct it to the company itself rather than whoever I have on the phone.
I'm a big fan of leaving accurate Google maps reviews. Then it actually hurts their business.
My absolute favorite response to these types of people is "can I get that in writing?"
The thing is, either workers are powerless to change things, or just don’t care enough to be bothered by that threat.
Which is why I usually just smile and lodge formal complaints with the company as well as any regulatory body if the situation calls for it. Much more effective when it’s an actual punishment rather than an empty threat. I’ve gotten companies actual fines that way.
I’ll admit it; I want to say things like those customers in the comic. Sometimes I do. But I also understand and appreciate that the person I’m talking to both doesn’t care, and can’t do anything about it. So when possible, I try to take some marriage advice I saw somewhere online:
Never say the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t even say the second thing. Say the third thing.
This works really well in emails or online forums, where you can revise many times until you hit send or post.
And for anybody who has read any of my past replies and feel inclined to point out that I still say stupid shit: just know that those stupid shit were the third things that came to mind. 😊
today a customer thought I was laughing at them. I just had a mouthful of water I was desperately trying not to choke on 🥲😭
thankfully my manager didn't believe them
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