Why Do Customers Yell At Cashiers?

Question

Were you a cashier that was verbally abused by customers?
Or
Did you witness customers verbally abusing cashiers?
If so, share your stories. The world wants to know.

Answer 1

I have been a cashier in a supermarket, a clothing store, and at a coffee shop. By far the most evil of customers tends to be at the supermarkets.
I will say that people tend to be impatient (especially here in the Northeast), and they do not understand the problems that can occur while making a transaction. However, since cashiering tends to be minimum wage, the quality of employees are hires are worthless, and sometimes they deserve to get yelled at.
I recently starting working at a coffee shop again, and a customer yelled at one of my co-workers, stating for her to "hurry the **** up, I'm late for work". Like it was our fault for her being late.

Answer 2

I witnessed customers verbally abusing some cashiers because something of they did wrong and won't admit. Yesterday, some mean woman needed help finding her grandson. If she wanted help, she shouldn't have started swearing and getting all angry. Yes, if that was my kid I'd be upset but not be taking my anger on some cashier because it would be my own fault for losing him in the first place. Then the situation got funny when they found the kid hiding and then running away from them. Did she mistreat the kid in some way to make him hide from her? I say yes. That woman has problems from what I saw on my end.

Answer 3

Yep, I have been on both sides of the fence. Usualy when the customer yells at the cashier, it is for 1 of 2 reasons, 1 that the customer is in a bad mood and needs to vent to someone that they think is doing something wrong to them or they are just an a$$hole, or 2 the cashier has no clue what they are doing, so when they screw with my hard earned $, I have to yell at them.

Answer 4

Some cashiers need to be yelled at. I've experienced some serious rudeness lately and I can see why some of them get yelled at by customers. On the other hand, some customers are just rude and cranky and use any excuse to verbally abuse people. I don't see how some people stand it. If they're doing their jobs and being polite, there's no reason to act that way.

Answer 5

I'm a customer and i saw many abuses in supermarkets, clients are frustrated, have problems and the only way to yell without being called mad is at a cashier with a stupid excuse like why don't you have thatt product of that brand ...

it never happened to me to yell or make the cashier tha fault of any defect on products.

i think it's a stressing job to be cashier.

Answer 6

I've often wondered that myself. It's not like the cashier (in most cases) has any control over the problem. I guess people just feel the need to take their anger out on someone and the cashier is handy at the time. Sad, but true..

Answer 7

sometimes cashiers make u wait because they r finishing a phone converstion so u just burst
but at the same time, customers think because they r the one paying the $ so it is like if the cashier is working for them so they can treat him or her rudely
it is all up to a person's character whether he or she is the cashier or customer

Answer 8

The world wants to know?? Because customers know that usually the cashiers won't yell or talk back. I think it's some kind of power trip for cetain people.

Answer 9

The cashier is the representative of the store or business, so he/she gets the brunt of the abuse. Just like the food server gets yelled at if the steak is not cooked right, even though they didn't cook it. It's just human nature. We tend to project our anger onto the wrong people. I worked my way through pre med as a bartender. There is not enough space on the internet to tell you my stories.

Answer 10

No I've never been a cashier but the reason I think they do that is because they think the cashier is not trained enough nor do they have enough experience. And because sometimes they make careless or annoying mistakes that nobody could every make.