Look around a store, and you might catch a fellow shopper make a silly mistake, like dropping a product or tripping on their feet. But Redditor u/Dead---inside asked people, "What's the dumbest thing you've seen someone do at a store?" And people answered with stories that go beyond simple human error. From bumbling thieves to bloody accidents, here are the best of the stories they shared.
10. They sent this thief packing
"My friend had someone purchase a suitcase. When she opened it as a matter of standard practice at check out, the rookie shoplifter had filled it with clothes. They just stammered that they didn't know any of that was in there. So she pulled it all out and put it to the side, at which point the cutomer decided they didn't want to buy the suitcase after all."
9. That mom should be more worried
Giphy"I watched a toddler drink nail polish. His mom didn't do anything besides take the bottle and do the weird violent angry whisper thing."
8. Those doors are tricky
"A guy stopped mid-cycle in the revolving door to pick up something he dropped on the floor and got whacked hard in the rear when another customer entered."
7. He looked like a fool
"Worked at a pet store and watched a guy try and shove a huge aquarium filter in his hoodie. Then he had the balls to approach the counter with this protruding abnormally from his belly and tried to buy something.
I laughed and told him to return it or I'd call the cops, he looked shook up, waddled back to the aisle and put it on the shelf. Told him on the way out to never return."
6. This woman didn't want milk in her milkshake
Giphy"Okay so I was at work in an ice cream shop. A lady comes in and orders a vanilla milkshake. She gets this nasty look on her face when I add the milk, but shrugs it off when I ask her about it. So I'm ringing her out, and she pays, and then goes right to my owner and complains about the service. 'I'd like to let you know that the 'boy' who just served me (I'm 19) was very rude to me.' 'What'd he do ma'am.' 'He made my milkshake with milk in it and I'm lactose intolerant. I demand a refund and for him to be fired.' I'm just sitting here dumbfounded how anyone could be so stupid. Ice cream, by it's very nature, Has milk."
5. Where do watermelons come from?
"The woman who was arguing with me (i was working in the produce dept of a grocery store) about how she didn't like how one side of the watermelon was flatter, paler, and a little dirty. I said, 'That's just how they get when they are on the ground.'
'What do you mean, 'when they are on the ground'?'
she thought watermelons grew on trees."
4. The rudest shoppers
"As someone who worked in retail, people who get things, put it in their cart, walk around the store, then realize they don't want it and plop it where they currently are.
Extra hate if it is a cold/hot item."
3. There are better solutions, sir.
"Not a store but restaurant. I had a gentlemen specifically request pecans on the side of his salad. When I arrived with his request he was very upset that they weren't far away enough....he was allergic. Didn't want them in the first place."
2. I'm glad this employee refused this dumb request
"I worked at a home improvement retailer. One guy wanted to buy an attic ladder; there's a display, but the actual product is stored in the overhead. So I got a lift truck and got one down for him. Dude wants to look at it; again, there's a display, but whatever, I open the box up so he can look at it. He decides yeah, that's what he wants.
M-Fer demands that I get another one down for him. His reason? 'The box is open on this one'.
(I refused)"
1. Think before you pull a trigger
"Years ago my Mom rented a large staple gun to upholster some chairs but it kept jamming.
Off we go to the rental place, the guy says 'Jamming, let's just see' and............................................... places it over the palm of his hand and pulls the trigger twice.
Blood everywhere, two large staples in his palm. Good thinking Bob!"
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
Definitely a rodeo clown.
Customer service desk at an insurance company. Basically just rerouting incoming calls to the relevant claims handler. 18(ish)yo lad comes from a temp agency. Seemed a bit dippy but should have been able to manage this easy job.
After a couple of hours he'd secured his headset to his head by wrapping scotch taped around his head and face several times. Weird but...ok. Checked on him again 15 minutes later and he'd also scotch taped his telephone handset (each workstation had both) to his head in the same manner. Not only that but he'd scotch taped his whole head to his monitor and was just sitting there going "I don't quite know what to do about this" while the call queue stacked up.
I know no one can be quite that inept and it's most likely he was either trying to be funny or he just decided he didn't like the job and wanted out, but I prefer to think he was absolutely mental, and imagine that he's now a stuntman or a rodeo clown or something.
How did she not know what she did wrong?
GiphyI was assistant manager at Subway. I usually liked to give people time. It's a tougher job than it seems from the outside, everyone sucks at first, and taking someone's livelihood away is not a decision to be made lightly.
But I had one lady who only lasted 3 hours. She was perfectly fine for the first couple minutes, while the store manager was there. But she had a doctor's appointment, so she introduced us and told the new employee I was in charge when she wasn't there. As soon as my boss left, this lady just flatly ignored me when I asked her to do stuff like food prep or dishes. So I was already pretty pissed but trying to be patient. When we got busy, I stationed her putting veggies on sandwiches. She said a few things to customers that annoyed me, but nothing too bad at first. Then one guy asked for extra olives and she told him no. He was a bit offended and asked again, and she practically shouts, "you don't need any more olives, you have plenty!" So I tell her to give him the olives he's asking for.
Then she starts shouting at me about Subway standard veggie portions like I wasn't the one who taught her 45 minutes ago. I tried a little to explain that it's a default amount but customers can get extra, no big deal. She wasn't having it, so I stepped away from my station, gave the poor guy his olives, and apologized. That's when she lost it and started screaming that I was undermining her. I told her to go do dishes and I'd cover her station. She went storming off, thank God.
I was already planning on talking to the store manager about it, because holy sh*t. But as luck would have it, the franchise owner dropped in for something or other. As soon as new girl realized who he was, she started ranting about how I didn't control my veggie portions or some sh*t and I should be fired. When the franchise owner took my side, obviously, she shouted at him too. That was that, except that she called the store manager later, in tears, begging to know what she'd done wrong, and made it sound like she didn't realize I was her boss or that shouting at the owner about how he doesn't know how to run a business is inappropriate.
A big no-no.
The guy signed a non disclosure as we were working around movie sets and production offices. Throughout the day he continuously asked if he could take photographs. Finally, I realized that his employment was not worth risking my own employment or the production companies information. He was relocated elsewhere but, he did not last long from what I hear.
'Cause that makes sense....
She just left, I couldn't find her anywhere. Called her later at her parent's home and fired her. Mom was pissed... at me.
"I'm sorry ma'am but I'm not in the business of employing people that don't work for me."
"Just a child".
Giphy"I know my application said I can work any time but really I can't work nights and weekends." She was hired for nights and weekends.
Used to work in IT support at an airline, which meant shifts and being on call 24/7.
We once had a guy whose mom would call and complain about her boy being forced to do the graveyard shift, because "He's just a child, he shouldn't be treated like this."
Our shift supervisor just told her that we all take turns to do the graveyard shift, and that your boy is a grown man in his 20s, so he should learn to act like one.
That sounds very dangerous.
Guy lied about knowing how to drive forklift. Drove into support beam.
To Europeans: there's no such thing as a forklift license in the US. When you go to a new job you have to redo the exam again. There's also no official exam so every place does it their own way.
How misleading.
He interviewed really well, seemed excited to be a part of, kept mentioning his mom (in a "what a nice boy" way). He even brought his mom in after we hired him, she seemed really nice too. It's not so weird when you consider how small town is.
His first day? He showed up like a space cadet. Seemed to barely understand English, wasn't making eye contact with anyone but staring off into the distance like crazy, asking if he could take an early lunch 45 min into his shift. Dude was high off his gourd and we politely told him it wasn't gonna work out two hours into the day.
That's rude.
GiphyGirl snorted in disgust when I asked her to clear a table in her section. Wouldn't be shown how to set a table, and snapped at another manager.
"Do you even want to be here?" I asked.
"Not really."
"OK, grab your stuff, good luck to you."
Good luck with that.
Hired a guy on the recommendation of another employee. He no-call no-showed the first day. Second day he no-call no-showed, but halfway through the day called to tell me that his kid was sick (which I'm sympathetic for because I have kids too), but I had to tell him we couldn't use him.
Then waves of abusive texts and phone messages from him and his wife. His final text was super-long and explained how I'd just made it an enemy for life and that he was going to get even by starting up a rival business and putting me out of business. If only he'd put that much energy into showing up.
Crazy sh*t goes down in pubs.
Pub & bar manager here. This happened at my previous pub.
New guy's first shift and he was constantly on his phone and going for cigarette breaks without permission. 2 hours into his shift his mates came in and he gave them all free drinks, shots and snacks, a few of them were under 18. Fired him on the spot and he had the audacity to appeal, despite overwhelming evidence against him including 5 witness statements and cctv, not to mention the stock count deficit.
Edit: just to clarify I'm from the UK, England.
Unfortunately for people in that world, it's existentially just as infuriating as a housefly. Except its a housefly that controls your ability to pay rent and provide healthcare for your family.
It's no surprise that people have *colorful* things to say about the corporate world.
The common theme here? Good, focused, hard work is the last thing that matters.
u/Namaeslay asked, "What is the biggest lesson you learnt in the corporate world?"What is the biggest lesson you learnt in the corporate world?"
You'll Want to Steer Clear of Blatant Violence
How to scream silently and not throw my boss through a window.
GiphyHonestly, Horrifying
If it's not documented, it doesn't exist and/or never happened.
Keep On Keepin' On
You can carve out a pretty long career by being just mediocre enough at your job to essentially be ignored.
GiphyEyes on the Prize
Whenever someone you work with leaves for another company, be friendly with them in their last weeks and stay in touch.
Your network is how you get new jobs, and new jobs are how you get promotions and raises.
Trust the Paradox
Train your replacement. You won't be able to get a promotion if there's no one else to take your job.
It's All About Laying Low
Nobody will tell you the best trick of sales is knowing when you're not needed.
If you're not talking in a meeting you're called into, ALWAYS have yourself on mute.
GiphyIdiots. Idiots Everywhere.
A very significant number of people are absolutely winging it and have no idea what they're doing.
The corporate world is not a meritocracy – you will encounter incompetent people at every level of hierarchy.
High School Never Ends
There's no avoiding office politics. Either you'll get pulled into it directly, or your mentors or friends will be/get embroiled in them and expect you to support them.
GiphyBein' Bold
If you want something then ask for it. Do you wanna sit in on discussions about things that are relevant to your job? Ask. Do you wanna build experience in a certain technology that's not directly related to your job? Ask for it.
If you have a good manager that cares about improving people's careers, they will more than likely accommodate you.
Closed Circuit.
GiphyWhen my boss started loading large Tv's into his car and told us to grab what we can. I worked at circuit city. toastingz
I sure wish that happened at my store. The liquidators were toxic as hell. Made a show out of walking people out the door to set examples. SkydroLnMEyeball
Discovery.
I worked at the Discovery Channel store in a mall around 2007. Had huge 30-40k sales days during the holidays, then come January some days were less than $500. I read an article that the then new CEO of Discovery communications was considering ending retail sales.
Found an new job shortly thereafter, and about a month later heard from some co workers that they were shutting down. It was a fun place to work, and they had a few cool products, but most was overpriced garbage, and certainly not a sustainable business. eelzeBob44
Comped.
Former CompUSA employee. The speed at which they started changing the slogan increased, they introduced and rescinded a rewards/loyalty program inside of six months, and they started pushing bait and switch selling tactics in our monthly store meetings. I handed in my resignation the day before they announced the company closing. instantrice
The Last 10.
Worked at a Hollywood video. when there was a solid week with less than 10 customers, I knew it wasn't going to last. luckily it was just my job for while I was in college. Makabajones
Hollywood video may have fallen to time and progress but nothing will ever match the high that I would get coming out of that place as a kid on a Friday night with two movies and a pack of Twizzlers. ilovegaming10
Walden....
GiphyWaldenbooks. When one of two registers caught fire. The fire department put it out but rather than pay to haul it away the company left it, a hulk of melted plastic where it was at the checkout. The store closed two weeks later. renwoman1127
Bye bye Videos....
I worked at Blockbuster. I was there when they started Blockbuster Total access to compete with Netflix. You add movies to your account, they mail the DVDs to you. You can return the DVDs to any blockbuster, as soon as they scan them in you'll get the next movies on your list sent out so you didn't have to wait as long for turnaround. Even better, you were able to rent a movie at the Blockbuster for free that you turned it in at.
It was actually a great service, you could get tons of movies and it was really easy to get people interested in signing up for it. Foot traffic in stores increases, the amount of candy and snacks we sold increased, we even had an uptick in paid movie rentals for non-new releases cause parents would exchange their movie for a new release and get a couple for the kids as well.
Then they started to change it. Restricted the amount of movies you can exchange each month. Different plans had different restrictions on what movies you could get, how many new releases, etc. It became really difficult to explain to customers because there were so many restrictions in place. After a bit you couldn't exchange a movie in store at all. Foot traffic died again and the chain along with it. Bunnyhat
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...'restructuring'
I worked for Borders from 2000-2008. When I was laid off I was working what had originally been 3 job descriptions. They decided to eliminate that position too and dump all the work on my already overworked boss. Called it 'restructuring' and other corporate weasel-words, but I could see the ship was sinking. Still miss that place. Gloria-to-Nowhere
Oh Baby.
I worked at Babies R Us for 3 years. For part-timers, our hours would fluctuate based on sales from the previous weeks. If we had a bad week, as much as 75% of us would get called off future shifts. It was so random. I could have 10 hours one week and 34 hours the next. It felt like the employees were not the only ones living paycheck to paycheck. sweets7887
Running on Empty....
I worked in the warehouse at Sears in college until 2007 when I graduated. We were regularly running out of inventory and everything seemed like it had to be ordered in on a case by case basis. I was the person in the back that loaded the tool boxes, treadmills, snowblowers, etc into vehicles.
When you're running out constantly of your top revenue generating pieces, something isn't right. Also, they didn't even bother updating inventory. I had a friend there that walked off with a couple of big screens and nobody ever even noticed. TheOfficialNSA
Spruce it Up.
GiphyWorked at Best Buy for a while, got fired and then went to work at Circuit City. I knew it the second I walked into that store. 6 months later we were told it was closing.
Best Buy constantly updated fixtures and layouts/designs. Everything was bright and new. I imagine that Circuit City looked exactly like it did when it first opened. MSport
This guy is a 27-year-old gas station employee and he's at the end of his rope.
He reached out to Reddit for some advice in navigating the sensitive workplace moment.
As he says in his post, he works in one of those gas station/Subway sandwich shop combinations. Between the gas station and the Subway, we're talking a staff of 18 people.
One staff member—the guy's assistant manager—has cancer and shaved her head when chemo began. Not uncommonly, employees decided to shave their own heads to express support and solidarity.
What is less common is that EVERYONE did it.
Everyone at work shaved their head except this one guy.
Now Randomname9991 is public enemy #1 at work. He's getting eye rolls, snide comments, passive-aggression, all of it.
Some Redditors weighed in on whether he's in the wrong and offered some real advice alongside the moral judgment.
"Instead maybe make a donation, or give blood, or volunteer. And if they bug you again, say 'I'm not shaving my head but instead I donated in honor of [name].' Donations go farther in cancer research than cutting one's hair, anyway." u/discombobubolated
"I'd even argue that shaving your head in solidarity is the laziest way to support someone with cancer. Give them a ride home from chemo or offer to cook/clean/etc for them some time." u/TwoSoxxx
"Cancer survivor here and my kid also has cancer. You don't need to shave your head to show support. I see so many videos of people shaving their hair off to raise 'awareness.' I'm pretty sure everyone is aware that cancer exists now."
"Someone mention blood donation which is way more needed for cancer patients or just needed in general." u/HappySam89
"This 'fully committed' crap is laughable - if they were so fully committed to supporting the co-worker, they'd pay all her bills so she didn't have to work while dealing with cancer." u/dischdunk
The comments pretty clearly hit on a debated issue: how can people be truly supportive in the fight against cancer?
6 ways to support loved ones and friends with cancer | Ilonka Meier | TEDxJIS youtu.be
Most of these Redditors, and plenty of other sources, agree that simply looking like the person enduring cancer only serves to pat oneself on the back.
Some have even called the gesture offensive, as it constantly reminds the person of their struggle.
When Life Throws You Cancer: The Patient is Still a Person youtu.be
Many advocate for small, direct favors that offer one's time or finances.
Things like doing the grocery shopping or accompanying the person to the park. Truly, shaving one's head only begins to be a pragmatic benefit if it's long enough to be donated for wig-making.
This usually means 8-14 inches, according to Cancer.net.
Surprisingly, plenty of the hair that doesn't make the cut for wigs ends up cleaning oil spills.
There's no telling if Randomname9991 ended up caving to pressure and shaving those flowing locks—which he regrettably didn't include a picture of—but it's clear he has plenty of options.