I don’t think of myself as easily irritated, but it almost hurts me on another level when I experience some random employee just doing their job over a screaming tyrant of a customer. The way they shout at the innocent cashier just trying to finish their eight-hour-long shift about a coupon that doesn’t do what they thought it did, though its functions are clearly printed on the back. The way they start yelping for the manager so they can somehow get some special treatment. 

The manager walks out and is already looking at the customer like they’re a deranged, petty, screeching animal. The cashier and the manager put in an extra quarter-hour of useless work just for the tyrant to say, “Forget it! Cancel the order, I’ll just go somewhere else.”

As if the loss of the customer’s business is going to make a dent in the company’s earnings. Can you just shut your mouth? The phrase plays on repeat in the cashier’s head. The collection of 13 coupons is only going to save up to five dollars tops while they’re holding up a line of six or more people that likely have somewhere to be. The coupons are trivial in comparison to the $400 order. The employee hopes he doesn’t need to bring up the email sign-up of the store’s rewards system or they just might boil over the top of their already boiling pot. 

Out of all of this, the cashier at least gets a laugh out of the experience and builds a stronger connection to his manager who had to sit through a list of better places to shop because they apparently hold a different brand of toilet paper. The cashier is thankful as he found this new function that makes everything in a transaction just that much smoother.