u/Izzy-of-Albion

This was in a videogame / PC hardware shop in the UK in the 2000s.

We hired this young Brazilian guy. He'd only been in the country a couple of months. He had just enough English to do the job, with a strong accent. But he'd worked retail and knew games.

But we had no idea until after we'd hired him that he was incredibly blunt, downright rude in fact, with customers. Every customer that wasn't making a straightforward purchase was fair game.

I remember on his first day, a customer asking where something was:

"Is over there". He said, vaguely waving towards one corner of the shop.

"Um, whereabouts?"

"On the fucking shelf! Stupid!" Luckily they laughed that off. But they still couldn't find it.

"I can't see it."

"IS THERE!!" Pointing angrily at it.

"I still can't see it."

He came out from behind the counter, marched up to the game they wanted, plucked it off the shelf, and practically rubbed it in their face. "Is here! You blind or something?"

Our hearts would stop every time he spoke to a customer like that, (especially if they hadn't earned such treatment), but he came good when we had a really difficult or rude customer, because he'd give them a taste of their own medicine, with interest. He spoke to them like we wished we had the guts to, so we kinda lived vicariously through him, and it was thrilling.

The funniest thing about it was, he'd told us that he was born "on the edge of the rainforest". So every time we had to apologise to a customer for his attitude (and we often did), we'd use that. For anyone who's seen (classic British sitcom) Fawlty Towers, a bit like Basil apologising for Manuel by explaining "He's from Barcelona".

We'd say "Sorry about him, he's from the edge of the rainforest." Amusingly, that'd often be enough to placate them, or perhaps confuse them enough that they'd forget about it. 😅

But his attitude got worse. He'd get ruder and ruder as the frustration of the job grew over time. We started just saying "Sorry about him, he was born IN the rainforest." and then "...He was born in the rainforest, he's not used to civilised society".

By the end of his time, it was "Sorry about him, he was born in the RAINFOREST CANOPY. He's not used to human contact." 🤣

We never told upper management about his ways because we found the whole thing so funny. He left of his own accord eventually.

Haven't posted here in a long, long time. I hope I haven't told this one before. Apologies for verbosity as always.

I worked in retail in the late 90s and early 00s, mostly music retail. One of the week's new albums was a compilation called "The Best Air Guitar Album in the World Ever". The tracklisting wasn't bad, but one thing made my heart sink:

There was a label on it that said "Free Air Guitar!"

Now I don't need to tell the witty people of Reddit that this is a joke. Within moments of pressing play, you find an air guitar in your hands right?

But I also needn't explain to retail workers that any offer of something for free is asking for trouble when it comes to eagle-eyed and avaricious customers. I considered picking the labels off but they were stuck fast.

Well they went on sale like that, and sure enough, by mid afternoon I was called downstairs (I was the manager, doing manager things in the office), to deal with a customer "in a rage".

There I found a classic Karen complete with ultimate Karen haircut, fuming and ready for fight. Dialogue as best as I can recall it, or in the spirit of it where I can't:

"Your employee is trying to rip me off!"

"I'm sorry, what's the problem madam?"

"This "girl" won't give me the guitar I'm owed!"

I sighed. "Right I see. I thought this might happen. I'm afraid there is no guitar."

"That's what she tried to tell me too. What nonsense. How can you have run out already? It only came out today! You're trying to rip the customers off!"

"No madam, it's a joke. It says free AIR guitar. Do you know what an air guitar is?"

"Of course I do! And I'm not leaving without one!"

"Ok."

My next action was ill-judged in the moment. I mimed handing her a guitar. If looks could kill, her eyes were miniguns ripping me to shreds.

"Is this a joke to you?" She screamed. "Let me speak to your superior!" She looked performatively over my shoulder for a non-existant "superior". There was clearly nothing but a wall six feet behind me.

"Madam, I am the manager. Look, this sticker is a joke. An air guitar is when you love the music so much, you can't help but pretend to play the guitar. That's what it means. It's not a real guitar."

"Well you'd better make it real, because I won't leave this shop until I get one."

I stared at her blankly with silent derision for a moment. "Madam, I'm just going to give you a refund."

"I don't want a refund. I want my guitar."

"THERE IS NO GUITAR."

"Well until there is, I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm sorry madam, I'm going to have to get security to remove you. You can have a refund or not, it's up to you, but you're going. I've tried to explain your misunderstanding and you won't listen. I can't waste any more time on this."

I picked up the phone to call security, and that was enough to make her storm off in a huff, but she stopped to stand at the entrance and announced very loudly that she was going to call our head office to tell them that we were stealing from the customers and that she would see us all fired. But we never heard another thing about it.

It was only after she left that we theorised that she probably thought the "air guitar" in question was an inflatable. I spent the next half hour laboriously picking off every one of those stickers. 😅