Customers at Market Basket

As the title explains, I would like to discuss customers at Market Basket. I work at Market Basket 5 days a week, all closing shifts. I see the people who get of from their work shifts and are seemingly done with their days already. Most of the people that I encounter are very nice and I help them out as best as I can. I work in the grocery department so I am in the aisles for the entire night. People ask me where things are and I help them out. However, not every customer is as nice as these ones.

There are some customers who could not possibly care any less about me or what I do and they think that they completely own the entire store. They will leave their cart sideways in the middle of the aisle and make it very difficult for anybody to get past them. Then when I ask them to politely move their cart out of the way so that another person can get through, they get pissed at me and give me a death stare. That's the oblivious customer.

Another type is the type that thinks they know how food stores work and that they know what we have in the backroom. If there is something that is empty on the shelf, then we most likely 98% of the time do not have any more out in the back. But of course, this customer knows better than I do and they insist that we must have more in the back. So of course, I try to convince them that three people have already asked me if we have any out back and that I have already checked and seen that there are none there. But this customer does not care. They practically force me to go out back. So, I walk through the back doors then turn right back around and tell them that I looked and couldn't find any. I tell them that we will be getting more tomorrow and they say that it was specifically or their dinner tonight and that they cannot have it any other night. I'm sorry that we are out but that's just how it is. You're here one one of the busiest days of the week and you expect that we just have unlimited amounts of everything; because that makes sense. That's the "know it all" customer.

One final customer I would like to discuss is the "can I see your manager" customer. This person has no respect for anybody besides the manager and even in some cases not for the manager either. We ran out of a vendor product one day; meaning that the vendor that comes to the store did not fill enough and we sold out. This customer walked up to me with the assumption that I would not be able to help her. She waited about 10 seconds of me explaining to her to interrupt and demand to see a manager. As I offer to take her to my manager she says "no thanks I'll find her myself." I take her to my manager and the customer rants to her that I know nothing about this store and that I should be fired or re-trained. This lady was certifiably insane and should not be allowed in the store without some sort of supervision in my opinion.

I hope that this post has given you some insight into some of the types of customers that I have to encounter everyday I work. Granted, most customers are really cool but some just need to leave.