If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m so creative when it comes to naming my regulars. So creative. Minivan Moron (drives a minivan and is a moron), Big Boss (always calls me “Big Boss”), Broseph McMoron (always calls me “bro” and is a moron). Yeah, super creative.

Anyway, meet Hasty McTweed.

He rushes me, and he always wears a tweed sport coat. Really thought outside the box on this one.

Hasty has been around the shop for almost two years. I remember when he first came in. Short, grinning, curly-headed, he was pleasant enough at first, but he quickly cemented himself on the wrong side of the ledger.

There are many things that a Shopper can do to irk a retail associate, such as making us repeat ourselves, asking our advice and ignoring it, trying to pay for a small total of items with a $100 bill. You get the idea. These are relatively small things, but what makes them irritating is that they are common sense/courtesy lapses. If you’re at a small business, don’t use a $100 bill for a $5 purchase; it wrecks our cash reserves. If you don’t really care which product we think is the best for your money, don’t ask us. If you ask us a question, listen to our answer; it’s discourteous to make us repeat our answer to your question because you suddenly had an A.D.D. flareup.

Hasty’s sin was rushing me. He would place two or three items on the counter, and then immediately, before I even had a chance to pick up my scanner, he would ask for his total. Chill. Out. Seriously, just wait a few seconds for me to do my actual job before hassling me.

This was not an isolated incident, either. This happened every single time. It still happens to this day. The only difference is about six or eight months ago, he traded in his blazer for a hoodie. And it wasn’t as though he was even in that big of a rush really. I don’t know why he does it, but my goodness is it ever annoying. I’m not going to leave you hanging without telling you the total. I’m not going do anything mean to you. I might slow down a little bit, though (and I absolutely do).

This is right up there with the flight students who when buying a single item always question if I gave them their 10% discount. Simple math there, kiddo. If your total is less than the item’s price, yeah, I gave you your discount. Equally as annoying are the flight students who come in wearing a flight school polo and/or hat and tell me they’re a flight student. I know you are. You’re the only ones who wear that.

Yes, my list of grievances is long, but really, it’s not difficult to stay away from that list. We are all guilty of some infraction on that list from time to time. Hell, I have my own oopsies from time to time, but I’ll admit it when they happen and move on from there. My customers don’t, and that’s why they live forever in infamy in my mind and in comic form.

Remember to explain things slowly to a Shopper. It gives you a higher percentage chance of any minuscule amount of comprehension.

By the way, that actually happened.

-The Retail Explorer