JEW Make the Call -- Shitty Target Cashier Edition

[Dan Druff]

I explained what happened to the manager.

Her first response was, "Oh! This is a very easy fix. Hang on..."

Within about 10 seconds, she adjusted the price to the one quoted in the Circle app.

"There, it's all fixed for you. Sorry for the trouble," she said apologetically.

I replied, "Thank you for fixing this. I knew it was easy to fix, which is why I didn't understand the reason that cashier was putting me through so much hassle about it. I've never had this happen before when a Circle deal didn't go through. They always just fix it for me."

"I apologize for that, he should have just fixed it right away. I'll talk to him about that," she answered.

"Can you please tell me your position here at the company?", I asked her.

"I'm the Team Shift Leader", she replied.

"Well once again I thank you for fixing this pricing issue, but as you see, this whole thing caused a big altercation, including with that psycho you just saw, who thought he was protecting your employee. I'd like to report this to the person who directly supervises this cashier. Is there a store manager present?", I inquired.

"Sorry, there are no managers right now. I'm tasked as the shift lead to manage the front end at the moment," she replied. I believed her, as it was reasonable that no real managers were present in the evening hours.

"Okay, no problem. Can I have the information for the store manager, so I can contact them tomorrow about this?", I asked.

"I'll let them know what happened, so they can take care of it," she replied.

"I'd prefer to tell them myself in my own words, if you don't mind," I answered. "Can you tell me how to get a hold of the manager?"

"I'm not sure. But I will tell the manager the entire story for you when I see him," she said.



This started to look like she was perhaps covering for the guy, and attempting to run interference.

"I'd really like to do it myself," I said back. "How can I reach the store manager tomorrow?"

"Well, the way you make a complaint is to go to the bottom of your receipt, go online, enter this survey code, and do the survey about your experience," she answered.




A fucking survey? Um.... big nope on that.

"I don't want to fill out national surveys. I'd like to speak to this cashier's direct manager, or the store manager. How do I get a hold of him?", I asked once again.

"Sorry, I don't know how to reach him," she replied.

"You don't know how to reach your own store's manager?", I asked.

"No, I can't think of what to give you for that," she answered.

"What if I call the store's main number between 8am and 5pm tomorrow, and ask for the store manager? Would that work?"

"Umm... yes, that might work," she said back meekly.

"Okay, that's what I'll do. Thank you", and I walked out.



Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

I reached the store manager at 9:30am the next day. This guy is the top level employee at the location.

I told him the entire story. He gave me some immediate feedback:

- Nobody had told him of anything that had happened the night before, but he hadn't seen either employee yet, as the cashier was coming in at 1pm, and the team shift leader was off that day.

- The Circle deals fail frequently, and it's a constant headache for the store. He was surprised this altercation occurred at all, as he had made it very clear to all front end employees to "immediately fix any Circle errors" without further question.

- The phone number does indeed trigger the Circle discounts, just as I thought. The barcode that the cashier was so obsessed with was redundant, and would not have solved the problem.

- The cashier violated company policy by repeatedly demanding I reset the password before helping me, and by remarking that he "has all day to wait", when I objected to the amount of time this would take. "We tell all employees to be respectful of customer's time and desire for easy transactions", he said. He could not understand why this guy was so obsessed with making me reset the password for the barcode, but said that even if that were the solution (which it wasn't), it was against company policy to demand that of me.

- The cashier should never have thanked the other customer for harassing and threatening me on his behalf. That was also a big violation of company policy.

- The cashier was the #2 guy in command of the front end when this occurred, only below the shift leader he called for me. He had been at the company for a long time, and seemed to know things well (apparently not!!) His main task was to help other cashiers having problems, and to answer questions for customers in that area.

- He could not figure out why the shift leader was directing me to take a survey about this, when I expressed the desire to reach the store manager, and why she denied knowing how to get a hold of him. "She knows exactly how to reach me. This really bothers me that she said this to you." I reiterated to him that she was nice and polite the entire way, AND fixed the issue, but that I did wonder if perhaps she was trying to avoid my reaching management to make a complaint. "Something was definitely wrong with how she handled that request, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it," he said.

The conversation was going relatively well. The manager basically agreed with all of my points, and did not seem to be just bullshitting me to make me go away. He offered that I could "get some gift cards for your hassle with all of this", which I politely declined and said I wasn't looking for any compensation here.

However, at first I wasn't thrilled with what he told me he was going to do about this.

"I'm going to call in that cashier, coach him about all the mistakes he made, and make sure none of this happens again."


Coaching? That wasn't what I was going for here. I preferred the guy get fired, but at minimum I wanted him facing some kind of workplace disciplinary action over this, especially given his encouragement of that customer's harassment of me.

"I appreciate you taking the time to look into this. But if you don't mind, I'd like you to focus mainly upon him thanking the customer for harassing and threatening me. The rest of the stuff was definitely mishandled and rude, but to be honest, that's run-of-the-mill stuff where an employee has the wrong information and ends up being difficult with the customer about it. But while I know you can't control when one customer harasses another, it was shocking to me to see one of your employees encouraging that behavior, and actually thanking the guy for doing it."

The manager paused for a second, and realized this definitely was the big issue here.

"Yes, I agree, this should be the main focus of investigating this matter. That's the way I'm going to proceed with this", he said.

"I don't know how clear your store's video is, but if it's good enough, look at just before the cashier walked to the employee area after calling the manager. You'll see him patting the guy on the shoulder and saying something to him, and the customer responding positively. That was the moment he thanked him. And that's what really fired the guy up even more, because he felt validated with what he was doing. But you can look at the video if there's any doubt about my story," I told him.

"I don't doubt any of your story," he said. "My belief right now is that it's all true. And I'll be talking with both employees involved. And I'll have all the security footage pulled."

He told me to give him a few days, and he'd get back to me. About a week later, I heard back from him.


Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

"I looked into everything, and I pulled all the footage. I want to tell you how sorry I am that all of this happened, and that I can assure you that nothing like this will ever happen to you again in this store," he told me.

I asked if the cashier admitted to demanding I reset the password, and that he refused to help me until I did so, regardless of how long it took.

"Yes, he did admit that," he said. "He was legitimately confused because he really did think the phone number didn't trigger the Circle deals, and that's the way it worked about a year ago, so I guess he never understood that things have changed. But I asked him regardless of that why he wouldn't help you, why he kept demanding to waste your time. He said he got caught up in the moment and made a mistake. I told him the fix just took a few seconds, and asked why he didn't just do that. He didn't really have an answer, but he knows never to do something like this again."

"He was refusing to help me on purpose. He was mad I wasn't doing things his way, and was going to punish me for it by refusing to help until I do things exactly as he said," I replied.

"Yes, that's what it looks like. I told him that this was a matter of $12, plus the customer had the deal right there to show him. I asked if he thought it was worth letting a customer walk out angry so he could protect $12 that the customer was entitled to anyway. He agreed that made no sense on his part."

"Okay, well as I said on the phone, the big deal to me was how he thanked that psychotic customer who was harassing and threatening me. That's what still stands out in my mind, after some time has passed. That was the worst part of this by far. Did he admit to this?", I asked.

"He actually did admit to thanking that customer, yes", the manager replied. "And that's what I took to HR. Without that aspect of it, there wouldn't have been HR involved. But I brought it to them, because Target has a strict no retaliation policy, and you were right, this was by far the most serious matter of the whole thing."

"Yeah, I was really shocked by that aspect. It's one thing for him to think in his head that he's happy some customer is harassing another customer he dislikes, but to outwardly thank and encourage the guy, I just couldn't believe that was happening", I replied.

"Yes, and there was a meeting about exactly that, with me, him, and HR. He's been made to understand that any further disciplinary action, and he won't be here anymore. HR told him that. And it doesn't have to rise to the level of something like this. Any further problem, big or small, with you or anyone else, and he won't be with the company anymore."

"Did you see on the video how that customer was right in my face on multiple occasions? Was the video good enough to see that? And the pat on the shoulder from him?", I inquired.

"Yes, I was able to see all of that. That's what I took to HR -- that and the fact that he admitted to doing it", replied the manager.


I then asked him about the shift leader's bizarre behavior with asking me to take surveys.

"She was off the day you called me, but when I saw her the next day, she came to me before I could bring her in. She apologized and said that a customer wanted a way to contact me, and that she froze up and didn't know what to say. She said that at first she really thought customers had to report everything through the survey, and then when you kept asking how to reach me, she wasn't sure if she was authorized to give it out. She kept apologizing and said she realized right after you walked out that she probably made a mistake, and it looked bad. So I told her there's no problem giving that info to customers, and she understands now."

"Did she describe everything else, including the matter with that other customer?", I asked.

"She did. It matched everything you said happened, and what the video showed. One thing that stood out to me was she said of [the other cashier], 'It was so fast to fix this. I just couldn't understand why he wouldn't just do it. It took me a few seconds!'"

I told the manager that I found her story "believable" and that I wasn't concerned about her anymore.

"I want to thank you for calling and telling me all of this," he said. "Most customers, they just walk out angrily when something like this happens, maybe they never come back. It helps so much when someone comes to me with issues like these. That's the only way we can do better, and I apologize again. This will never happen again, I assure you of that."

At that point, he offered me the gift cards again. I declined them again, saying that I "just wanted him to know all that had happened" and "wasn't looking for anything free."

He insisted I take them. "I know that's not what you were looking for. But I want you to have them, given all that happened here."

I agreed to take the gift cards, which totaled $50. I wasn't playing coy. I really had no plans to ask for anything, and I twice turned them down, because I didn't want him to think there was even a 1% chance I was just some opportunist looking to get free stuff from the store via complaints. After he insisted, I finally accepted them, and thanked him for it. He added them to my account on the spot.

Conclusions next post.

[hesterandeldridge]

jesus christ , did you not just win 64k ? i come to the forums for the first time and this is what i see.

you probably had such an anxiety attack figuring out what to tip on winning over 60000.

[Dan Druff]

jesus christ , did you not just win 64k ? i come to the forums for the first time and this is what i see.

you probably had such an anxiety attack figuring out what to tip on winning over 60000.

Great first post.

I'm sure you're totally new here, and totally not a dupe of any other account on this forum.

Points for the weird screen name referencing a lower east side old Jewish area of NYC, though.

[hesterandeldridge]

jesus christ , did you not just win 64k ? i come to the forums for the first time and this is what i see.

you probably had such an anxiety attack figuring out what to tip on winning over 60000.

Great first post.

I'm sure you're totally new here, and totally not a dupe of any other account on this forum.

Points for the weird screen name referencing a lower east side old Jewish area of NYC, though.

because thats where i grew up , they demolished my favorite rugulah spot years ago so yes ,my building had 3 nice ladies called Esther .

and yes my first time posting and its the first thing i see. a post where i had hava nagila in the back of my head by the third sentence.

[Dan Druff]

Comments from the dupe peanut gallery notwithstanding, here's my takeaway from all this...

- The cashier was a longtime employee tasked with "helping" other cashiers struggling to make everything work, and the position went to his head. He probably believed he was the all-knowing Target guru.

- He thought he was giving me the "fix" to my issue, and got insulted/angry when I wouldn't cooperate with his instructions. He did not stop to consider he might be incorrect, or how ridiculous his demands were. He just decided he would refuse to help me until I did what he said, as a passive-aggressive way to get back at me for not listening to him.

- The asshole other customer had seen one too many "Karen goes off on exasperated employee" videos on Facebook, and thought this was finally his moment to play hero.

- The cashier was elated to have this dude taking up for him, and taking on the difficult customer refusing to follow his instructions. He was so elated about this that he didn't realize what a major fuckup it was to thank one customer harassing another. In fact, I doubt he realized this until called in about it. I purposely did not remark about this at the time, because I didn't want him to prepare a lie about it before the manager confronted him.

- Manager was being legit with me, and not just telling me what I wanted to hear. The whole "taking it to HR" story was too detailed to have been made up, and wouldn't have been necessary if it were a lie. I didn't even know HR had to get involved at all, unless he were actually fired.

- I am satisfied that this cashier is now on super thin ice over this, and I think the manager basically presented the case to HR and asked whether they thought he should be fired. They probably suggested a last-chance probation type deal for him, given that he had been there a long time.


I do not feel the slightest bit bad for this employee getting disciplined over this, because what he did was egregious and disrespectful, especially thanking the dude harassing me. Also, I was right the entire way regarding the whole Circle thing, so this guy's "barcode solution" would have been a fail anyway -- something the manager verified.

That is all. Sorry for the long writeup, but you guys wanted to know the result and the rest of the story, and now you have it.

[Dan Druff]

Great first post.

I'm sure you're totally new here, and totally not a dupe of any other account on this forum.

Points for the weird screen name referencing a lower east side old Jewish area of NYC, though.

because thats where i grew up , they demolished my favorite rugulah spot years ago so yes ,my building had 3 nice ladies called Esther .

and yes my first time posting and its the first thing i see. a post where i had hava nagila in the back of my head by the third sentence.

If you're real and not fake (your IP is coming up as a VPN from my quick check on it, though your registration IP is legit), then you must be a radio listener, given your hava nagila reference.

If you do listen to radio, you must be well aware of my customer service stories by now, so I don't know what you expected to see on this forum.

[hesterandeldridge]

because thats where i grew up , they demolished my favorite rugulah spot years ago so yes ,my building had 3 nice ladies called Esther .

and yes my first time posting and its the first thing i see. a post where i had hava nagila in the back of my head by the third sentence.

If you're real and not fake (your IP is coming up as a VPN from my quick check on it, though your registration IP is legit), then you must be a radio listener, given your hava nagila reference.

If you do listen to radio, you must be well aware of my customer service stories by now, so I don't know what you expected to see on this forum.

well aware, and listen to all your broadcast , also not trying to hide who i am.

awesome radio show for the most oart

[GrenadaRoger]

Comments from the dupe peanut gallery notwithstanding, here's my takeaway from all this...

and here is the takeaway for the rest of us

"Don't line up behind Druff in any check out lane because you'll likely have a long long wait for service"




if i am ever so lucky to be ahead of Druff in line, I am going to tell the cashier all my retired guy stories PLUS show pictures of the grandkids

[Dan Druff]

Don’t line up behind me, but DO request the hotel room I just checked out of

[Texter]

In this case, Druff was totally right. Once the other customer got involved and the situation escalated to almost violence…kid is lucky he wasn’t canned.

[Dan Druff]

In this case, Druff was totally right. Once the other customer got involved and the situation escalated to almost violence…kid is lucky he wasn’t canned.

Thank you. I left out one small detail, which I want to share.

Right before that other customer got involved, I said to the cashier, "I'm about to ask for the manager, and I don't appreciate how you've been handling this, but if you fix it right now, I'll walk about and forget about this whole thing."

He responded again with, "I'm trying to fix it. You need to go into the app, bring up the barcode, reset the password..."



So the asshole had his chance to avoid this, and even when I said I'd go to the manager, he decided to still be a passive aggressive dick. I assume it's because there was no real manager at the time, and he didn't expect me to track down the real manager the next day.

I have no sympathy for employees like that.

[NickyPipes]

I can’t believe what I just read

Who do you think you are?

You should be ashamed, trying to get people fired like that

Acting like the regional manager of the store pushing people like that to investigate some small meaningless incident

Truly psychotic behavior

Embarrassing

[NickyPipes]

Your wife knows you do this type of behavior?

[Dan Druff]

I can’t believe what I just read

Who do you think you are?

You should be ashamed, trying to get people fired like that

Acting like the regional manager of the store pushing people like that to investigate some small meaningless incident

Truly psychotic behavior

Embarrassing

Aren't you the guy who hires cut-rate third world workers, in order to avoid giving jobs to unemployed people in your area?

[Dan Druff]

Makes me wonder if Nicky Pipes really has any employees, if he thinks it's a "minor incident" for an employee to encourage one customer to harass another, out of spite.

Actual employers will usually fire on the spot for shit like that. Fake internet businessmen, on the other hand, will take the employee's side.

[Dan Druff]

Also I can't "push" the Target manager to do anything. I give him the facts, and he looks into them. If I'm full of shit or making a mountain out of a molehill, he politely thanks me and does nothing.

When people actually get fired or disciplined, it's because I'm right, and the employee fucked up. No such thing as "getting someone fired" unless you lie about what happened. Otherwise it's the shit employee getting himself fired.

[hesterandeldridge]

Also I can't "push" the Target manager to do anything. I give him the facts, and he looks into them. If I'm full of shit or making a mountain out of a molehill, he politely thanks me and does nothing.

When people actually get fired or disciplined, it's because I'm right, and the employee fucked up. No such thing as "getting someone fired" unless you lie about what happened. Otherwise it's the shit employee getting himself fired.

you are fucking with people's livelyhood s though .

yes he is wrong , but making people lose their jobs over non super serious things is horrible and cowardly

[Dan Druff]

Also I can't "push" the Target manager to do anything. I give him the facts, and he looks into them. If I'm full of shit or making a mountain out of a molehill, he politely thanks me and does nothing.

When people actually get fired or disciplined, it's because I'm right, and the employee fucked up. No such thing as "getting someone fired" unless you lie about what happened. Otherwise it's the shit employee getting himself fired.

you are fucking with people's livelyhood s though .

yes he is wrong , but making people lose their jobs over non super serious things is horrible and cowardly

He's fucking with his own livelihood by knowingly and blatantly breaking company rules in order to mess with a customer he dislikes.

I am simply reporting the true and correct version of what happened, and his boss can take care of it.

I never report human mistakes which don't involve intentional shitty behavior by the employee. I think getting someone in trouble for that is an asshole thing to do.

But someone intentionally wasting my time because he doesn't like that I won't follow his (incorrect) advice, laughing at me, and then thanking another customer for threatening me?

Fuck that shit. That's his fault if he gets in trouble.