From  Dianchie, Tales From Retail:

I used to work in a shoe store and after a particularly bad Black Friday weekend at my current workplace, it reminded me of one when I worked in my old store.

To give some background, we were running two separate promos that could not be combined. One half of the store was BOGO where items were get one at its discounted price and you could get another from that side at an additional 50% off. All the shoes on that side were crap but it was nice sometimes getting a $30 or $40 pair of shoes.

The other side was full price items and we had a coupon on that if you bought 2 pairs of full price shoes you'd get $20 off, 3 pairs was $30, 4 pairs was $40, and you get the picture. The store was packed with people going crazy for ugly BOGO shoes when Crazy Shoe Lady (CSL) comes to the till. I will be Me.

Me: Hello, did you find everything alright?

CSL: Yup! These are some great deals!

Me: I'm glad you found what you were looking for!

CSL: Your co-worker gave me this slip of paper and said I was supposed to hand it to you.

Normally we worked on commission but because BF Weekend is so crazy, staff on the floor got special slips of paper where they filled out the names of the shoes and their staff number so they'd get commission. The two staff on the till were paid an extra $2 or $3 more per hour for the weekend so it evened it out.

I start entering the information into the till and write down my co-workers number so that she could get credit for the sale. There is a screen that faces the customers so they can see the prices and any discounts for their purchases. CSL sees that one shoes is the regular discount price and the other is an extra 50% off. She leans over and breathes her awful onion breath in my face.

CSL: They're both supposed to be 50% off.

Me: Only the shoe that is of equal or lesser value gets a discount.

CSL: You can do it for me right?

Me: Do what?

CSL: Make them both 50% off

Me: Unfortunately, I cannot change the terms of the sale.

CSL: Can you combine sales?

Me: If you wanted to get the shoes from the BOGO side, they are their own sale. The full price side is its own sale but I can do it all in one transaction.

CSL: Hold on a minute then!

CSL goes over to the full price side and is getting fitted. Her other shoes are on the counter with the slip for my coworker and I spend the next 20mins helping other customers. CSL comes back with two shoe boxes of full price shoes and puts them on the counter and hands me another commission slip.

CSL: Okay so we can do it this way!

Me: What do you mean?

CSL: Charge me the full price for these two shoes and then I get 50% on each of my originals.

I notice that the two full price shoes are cheaper than than the BOGO shoes and my brain begins to liquefy from this logic.

Me: The two shoes from the full price side get a $20 discount coupon. The BOGO shoes are going to be BOGO.

CSL: Why don't you understand that the customer is always right!

Me: Ma'am, I cannot change the terms of the sale.

CSL: You can do it for me right?

Me: I can only follow instructions from head office.

CSL proceeds to grab her boxes from the counter and throw them onto the ground and start stomping on them, saying that she deserves to get her way. We had to call security on her and she was banned from the store. It also cost us 4 shoes that we could no longer sell because of damage.

-- Dianchie