It’s been decades, but I enjoy not giving them what they want. Unfortunately, management usually caves. If they are nice, I DGAF and will do whatever I can.

People suck and retail isn’t worth getting too worked up about, unless you desperately need the job.

Meh, shoulda called him a “Cunt”. That’s not an ok word with Americans.

j/k: not worth the trouble.

I think the bag fee is stupid. Give them the bag to be done with it, tell your boss you were avoiding a confrontation, be glad your interaction with them was only a few seconds.

We had bouncers dealing with them when I worked as a cook in Amsterdam at a grand cafe also selling hash and weed. If anyone was rude or entitled, mostly American or British tourist, they got dealt with pretty quick. I remember Americans going ballistic over orders, like “who put fucking tomato on my fucking BLT?!”, I could hear this woman screaming from th kitchen. Got launched by a knee from a bouncer, don’t be rude.

Some people cause a scene to bully you into breaking the rules and get free stuff. In most cases I just become super nice (like syrupy, sickly sweet) and pretend I’m on their side (bag fees are dumb), and let them know you don’t want to lose your job for giving away free merchandise (so sorry, did you still want to buy a bag?). If they are super toxic, you call a manager and make them deal with it, that’s what they get paid for.

I would refuse my services to them and leave. Losing an individual customer here and there doesn’t affect my business in any way.

I’m working in customer service and we sometimes have people who don’t want to pay for a service we offer (fixing their stuff in IT). There are two options:
You tell me what you did when and ask nicely if we can fix it for free? You just did half of my work, of course I will make an exception for you.

You blame everything on us and want the service for free as a compensation? Bet I will invest more time to prove why it’s your fault and therefore you’ll have to pay for it.

For a plastic bag? Give it to them, it costs nothing and it’s not worth your time and effort.

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Used to work a chain coffee shop. Had a closing shift by myself, but would randomly get slammed with large groups of people. On occasion when customers were rude to me while I was trying to do everything on my own, I just snapped and swore at them and gave them the finger. I thought I was going to get fired when word got back to my manager, but all I ever got were raises and eventually promoted to assistant manager.

Stick to policy and let the manager be the one who breaks the rules.

If you do it, then you can be punished.

Its been a few years since i worked in fast food/drive thru. But the highlight of my time there was when a car refused to take thier receipt. Literally threw it back at me when i gave them thier drink + reciept. (reciepts are given to all cars incase of an order mix up)

Walked over to the other window, and put the reciept in the bag with thier food.

Generally, if no one is going to account for it, just cave. They’re one asshole out of tens of not hundreds of customers you will help today. The time it takes to enforce the policy is probably not worth the cost of whatever they are bitching about. Worse comes to worse, check with your manager, they are paid to deal with jackasses, and have the authority to override charges or deny transaction and eject the customer from premises.

Source : Worked Front end sales, Floor sales, Sales management and Ops Management for a Big Box retail store for 4 years.

your only loyalty to the company is to the paycheck and that bag ain’t coming out of your paycheck (no matter how much your manager whines about it) – put on your best dead face (maybe mix in a little of “did you just shit your pants?” revulsion) as you hand over a bag and get him out of the store and out of your life as fast as possible – life is too short to give his ego anything other than apathy and disdain

I’ve been in customer service in various roles for over twenty years. I’ve spent the last six in different positions in animal shelters, veterinary clinics, and am currently at a pet food manufacturer. Anything involving people’s pets leads to highly emotional situations, especially when things don’t go the way pet owners are hoping. I’ve dealt with people on some of the worst days of their lives. This leads to a lot of heated interactions.

You’re absolutely right, your coworker’s choice to give in to this man’s tantrum is not how that should have been handled. It rewards Karen’s nasty behavior, and it sends the wrong message to other customers. Staying calm, explaining policies simply, and not becoming defensive or arguing points that don’t matter is important. My golden rule is to avoid letting a customer get a reaction out of me by all means necessary. I usually tire them out with calm kindness and repetition, because they’re used to making people uncomfortable to get their way. I’ve got all day, Karen. At least I’m getting paid for this, while they’re wasting their own time.

It doesn’t apply in your case, but I had a customer on the phone, ranting and rambling, and after a while I asked him if he had a problem I could help him with. That derailed his train of thoughts for long enough to end the call, wishing him a nice day.