Happy Holidays! It’s that time of year again! Where the lights go up and the snow comes down. Everyone puts on their sweaters and some holiday music, excited for the season of giving and receiving…

…well…

…unless you work in retail.

With holidays comes holiday shopping. And holiday shopping means spending money, an idea that isn’t so jolly for some shoppers. Stress is high and patience isn’t easy to find, thus creating a group of shoppers I like to call “the scrooge shoppers”.

1. They never return the pleasantries.

If I had a dollar for every time I asked a customer how they were doing and received “just looking” as a response, I wouldn’t have to work customer service ever again. It doesn’t matter if I say a simple “hello” or a “how’s it going?”. The scrooge shoppers’ favorite answer is “just looking”, even though that isn’t even a valid answer for what I asked. Occasionally, they’ll take it a step further and just flat out ignore you, which is sometimes the less irritating answer.

2. They hate the prices.

“It’s too expensive” “I could make something for cheaper” “I’d never pay that much for something like that!”

You know it’s coming. The price complaints. It usually all starts when they ask you how much an item costs when it’s clearly on the price tag in their hand. If it matches the price on the tag (which is almost always the case), then be ready for an earful. And when they’re done insulting the price, they’ll ask for a discount— as if you have the ability to change the prices just for them.

3. They hate the sale.

Ah the famous select BOGOs. Unless the entire store is on sale, they have no desire to hear the sale. And when they do hear the sale, they’re angry. Why? Because the very thing they want is not part of the sale and it is all your fault

4. They don’t want your help.

A little over half of the scrooge shoppers are this way. They would rather shop alone and not be bothered by any employee in the store. Now there is nothing wrong with the independent shopper. I can be an independent shopper myself. However, if I walk into a store, know nothing about the products or sales, refuse any and all help, and then get mad about not knowing the sales, not understanding sizes, or not understanding how a product works— I have now become a scrooge shopper.

5. They want you to only help them.

The rest of the scrooge shoppers fall into this category— the needy shopper. While our job is to help them in ANY way we can, we must also be sure to assist all of the other customers in the store. It’s as if they feel they are entitled to our complete and total attention. Try leaving their side to greet another customer and you may get yelled at for not paying attention to a customer. Try it again and they may threaten to leave and find the attention somewhere else. With these customers, you can’t win. You either occasionally leave their side to help others, causing them to become angry and leave, or you stay with them the entire time they are in the store and lose other customers. Either way, someone seems to leave unhappy, and it is always your fault.

6. The turn the fitting room into a clothing disposal.

For those who work in clothing retail, you are all familiar with the post-customer fitting rooms. I’m not talking about the customers who put the clothes they didn’t want on a hanger or the ones that folded them nicely on the chair. I’m talking about the shoppers that try on 20 pairs of jean, 8 shirts, and 3 pairs of shoes, decide to get nothing, and then leave everything inside out, bunched up, and in the corner of the fitting room floor. Sometimes we all just want to know why. Do they not think the customer should have to pick up after themselves? Do they think this is part of our job description? Do they only have time to try on the 30 items they brought in with them but not clean it up? Is this how they live at home? The fact that some scrooge shoppers think it’s okay to leave their unwanted items in a messy pile on the floor will forever stump me.

7. They don’t want to sign up for rewards programs…

Don’t want the rewards program that gives you plenty of coupons and freebies? Totally fine. Just don’t do this…

8. …but they also complain that we never have coupons.

You literally just told them how to get coupons, but now they’re complaining that they never receive coupons from us. Mention the rewards again and now you’re being “pushy”. The is another situation where you lose either way. At this point, it’s best to just let them complain.

9. Technology issues are our fault.

It’s the busiest time of year, which is usually when the worst thing that could possibly happen actually happens— the registers go down. Some shoppers are patient and understanding, especially because a free coupon might be coming their way for their patience. The scrooge shoppers however, don’t seem to understand that retail workers aren’t in control of the internet nor are they in charge of the company’s technology. And let’s not forget the new chip readers. Change the way people use their credit cards and you may start a war. But retail workers get all the blame simply because we’ve asked you to put you card into the chip reader. We promise that we are just as upset about the slow registers and pin pad changes as the customers are. We hate resetting the registers and we loathe the angry beeping sound the new pin pad makes (we hear it at least 50 times a day). But scrooge shoppers only seem to be concerned about how it affects them and how us retail workers must be behind the technology issues since we use the technology every day. If I knew that much about computers and technology, I guarantee you I would not be working in retail.

10. Coupon expiration dates are our fault.

Unless you work for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, coupon expiration dates are permanently engraved into your brain. This is because there will always be at least a handful of customers that will arrive with the expired coupon and try to use it. The expiration date is literally on the coupon, but the scrooge shoppers will still argue. They demand that we still use it and insist that we try plugging in the coupon code into our register even though we already know it won’t work. And when it doesn’t work, the customer hands over the items they were going to get and walks straight out the door.

11. The Sales are our fault.

We set the sale but we certainly don’t create it. If we did, we would make the entire store on sale forever just so we didn’t have to hear the scrooge shoppers complain about the select sales. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a customer come up and tell me “I hate this sale”. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond to that so I usually offer an apology and tell them when our next sale change will be, even though I’m sure they will complain about that sale too.

12. Return policies are the devil.

Some stores are extremely lucky in that there are no return policies. It’s great for both the customer and the workers. Other stores usually have a 60 to 90-day return policy with individual policies regarding form of payments, product type, and the condition of the returned product. There’s also policies on returning with the tag and the receipt as well. For those that work in stores with return policies, they know the scrooge shopper all too well. The items were worn/used, the tag and receipt are missing, the item is from last year, and the customer wants to return it at full price. At this point, most retail workers know that there is going to be a solid 10 minutes of yelling, cursing, and demanding until one of three things happen. 1) The customer gives up, claims they are never returning, and leave, 2) the employee gives up and just returns it so they don’t lose their hearing, or 3) the store calls security. In the end, someone ends up unhappy.

So to all my fellow retail workers out there, carry on and keep your head up. Remember the good customers and shrug off the scrooges. And try your very best to have a happy holidays!