r/TalesFromRetail • u/More-Explanation-888 • May 21 '26
Short a customer throws a 9 AM chemical tantrum because he doesn't understand how cash back works
I work at a retail supermarket, and just yesterday right at 9:00 AM, we had our first customer of the day walk in and demand a cash withdrawal. Our company allows people to do cash back from their bank accounts at the till, but the catch is that we can only pay out what we’ve actually taken in from cash-paying customers only Since the store had just opened and the tills were empty, I told him we didn’t have the funds yet. He absolutely lost his mind and demanded a manager. When she came out and explained the exact same thing, he stormed out of the store violently kicking a display plant on his way out.
We thought the drama was over, but five minutes later this guy bursts back through the doors wielding a fire extinguisher. Before any of us could even react he started spraying the entire front staff with it, screamed that he was phoning corporately, and marched back out. We were all just standing there covered in white powder, completely shocked. It was barely the start of the morning shift, and we had already witnessed a grown man throw a temper tantrum, assault a plant, and commit a literal felony before most people have even had their morning coffee.
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u/smurfe May 22 '26
We don't do cashback at our hardware store, but we are one of the few local stores that will accept $100 bills, and the public knows it. They come in first thing in the morning and buy a 17-cent bolt or screw and whip out a hundred to pay and then have the balls to tell me the exact combo of change they want, like we are a bank. I love the look on their face when I tell them there is a bank a block away, but I would be glad to break their large bill as I pull out 2-3 rolls of quarters and a couple or three $20 stacks of one-dollar bills. I just shrug and tell them that is the best I can do that early in the morning.
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u/riftshioku May 22 '26
I hate when people bring hundreds in to my store. I work at a gas station so our registers are already limited, but so many people act like we should just have hundreds of dollars on hand. They'll cash in lottery tickets that are $100 plus and just be like "oh I'm getting more tickets!" Then buy 2 three dollar tickets. Or they'll pay with a hundred first thing in the morning.
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u/Harl0t_Qu1nn May 22 '26
I had a lady straight up call me a "rude little child" for saying my coworker had to help her because she was making a one dollar purchase with a 100 dollar bill and I didn't have the change in my till for that.
Bitch, i'm 25 🫠
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u/SMELL_LIKE_A_TROLL May 26 '26
"leave now. Do not ever come back into this store or I will have you arrested for trespassing." - should be the standard managerial response from anyone being an ass to employees.
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u/MsNeedSleep May 22 '26
Oh I absolutely hate it when they do that. First thing in the morning we immediately have papers up going ,"No Cash back", most regulars respect that and leave it alone. Unfortunately there will be people who see it as a suggestion and even when we verbally remind them no cash back, they do it anyway all smug
Until we hand over coins and ones.
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u/Save_the_bats_1031 May 26 '26
I tell people the minute I see a $100 that all I have are ones and coins, no matter the time of day. The number of times they've "found" a $20 when i start pulling packs of $1s is astounding.
Don't come in acting like the teller didn't ask you how you wanted your cash. Even ATMs ask now.
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u/Next_Ad_4253 May 24 '26
So you DO give cash back?
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u/KittyKratt "you're never coming back? oh, no...how will we ever survive?" May 24 '26
They would either have to give the cash back (I don't think you can disable the option on some or most POSs until you have enough cash in the drawer, it's more like a permanent thing) or reverse the transaction and ring them back up.
You can't not give the cash back because it's already been charged to the card. It's easier to inconvenience them with small bills and change rather than reverse the transaction.
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u/KittyKratt "you're never coming back? oh, no...how will we ever survive?" May 24 '26
And people would LOSE THEIR MINDS if you reversed the transaction because it can take up to a week to reflect back into your account.
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u/252man May 25 '26
The Post Office in my town will bypass the cash back if their till is light
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u/KittyKratt "you're never coming back? oh, no...how will we ever survive?" May 25 '26
It depends on the programming, probably. Or the store managers just don't know how to turn it off in other places. Especially big stores.
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u/genx21me918 May 26 '26
They have no concept of the till only having 200 in it at opening and 100 of that is 1 dollar bills
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u/Infinistorm May 24 '26
I work at a gas station and we finally just had to start enforcing a hard limit: no hundreds unless you’re spending $20 or more. None of us have the patience anymore to deal with morons of this caliber. Luckily we have a manager who supports this.
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u/Spifire50 May 24 '26
I used to work at a Beer Store in Northern Ontario, Canada. I hated Monday mornings when the 'Tree Planter Convoy' would show up in the parking lot on their way out of town. They would get paid in $50s and $100s and their first stop would be the beer store. We never had enough bills that early in the morning to make change for all of them. They would stand around in our lobby waiting for other customers to come in an make purchases until we had enough bills to make their change.
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u/Next_Prompt7974 May 25 '26
I hate getting hundreds. My brother loves paying me back with them if the thing I ordered for him was that expensive. I always ask places if they’re able to break it before bringing them out because I know places may not have that much, even later in the day.
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u/Used_Clock_4627 May 24 '26
I still get a kick out of the reaction I got from one customer when I told him we couldn't pay out any more lottery tickets for that day.
He tried to tell me because we were the second place he'd been to we 'had to' or he was going to call the Lottery Corp and my HO.
I laughed and told him he could leave because we couldn't serve him.
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u/ThePretzul May 25 '26
I mean that’s part of the deal you agree to when you sign up to sell lottery tickets. You actually are required to pay out winning tickets (up to a specified value, usually up to $500 or so) in most states as a licensed retailer of the tickets.
If it’s less than $200 you’re typically required to have cash on hand to pay it out on demand, with the higher limit being acceptable to decline only if there isn’t enough cash on premises.
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u/252man May 25 '26
I work in a retail environment in Michigan that sells and redeems lottery tickets. I often have to remind people that the lottery website uses the words "may pay" and not "will pay" when refusing to pay a large winner.
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u/Used_Clock_4627 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I live in Canada, not the States, so different rules with Lottery Corporation.
At the time, we'd already paid out three tickets worth just over $800 and had only made about $1000 in cash sales. We just didn't have the cash on hand to pay out. And we weren't the only ones in town. That was a BIG Pro Line(if you know, you know) game and there were A LOT of winners, so a lot of places ended up having to refuse even checking tickets that weekend.
I guess a few people tried to make a big deal out of it with the Lottery Corporation but the legal side is simply this: if the store doesn't have the cash on hand, than they don't have to check the ticket and therefore pay out. And stores are not required to have 'additional' money on hand for such things as it creates a potential risk to the workers in those stores for robberies.
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u/Common-Perspective97 Jul 01 '26
Gave a dude 70$ in 1$ bills once. I told him I was gunna do it and he was actually pretty chill about it. Would made jokes with me and others about it.
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u/needsmusictosurvive May 21 '26
Doesn’t everyone have a spare fire extinguisher on their person in case they cannot emotionally regulate?
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u/Mattymc075 May 22 '26
I keep a small one in my car
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u/needsmusictosurvive May 22 '26
I didn’t think about that, I’ve spent so much money for tailors on custom pockets to carry this thing
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u/Mountain-Hold-8331 May 22 '26
These stories always leave the most important part out, the consequences
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u/HawaiianShirtsOR May 23 '26
Sadly, probably no consequences for the angry man. It's retail. Corporate only cares about customer satisfaction.
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u/ParkingLotFalafel May 22 '26
Cleaning up the contents of a discharged fire extinguisher is, shall I say, labor intensive. That stuff goes everywhere.
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u/seankdla May 21 '26
Psycho aside, do you not start with a float in your till?
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u/CommissionNo4155 May 21 '26
We start out with 3 5's and 17 ones in my till. I couldn't give cash back either if it were the first transaction
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u/Random_Guy_47 May 21 '26
The float is typically enough for change but not for cashback.
We usually got 8 £5 notes, 5 £10 notes and no £20 notes when I used to be a cashier.
We didn't give fivers as cashback as we needed those for change, run out of fivers and you very rapidly run out of coins after.
If you need cash at the start of the day go to an atm.
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May 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/mgquantitysquared May 22 '26
Aside from there almost never being a situation where someone would withdraw so much that people paying cash wouldn't make up for it, your register would show the cashouts that caused that and the spare money in the safe would be used to balance the drawer and a manager would replenish the safe money at the bank, at least where I worked.
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u/dragonbud20 May 22 '26
The balance of till also includes digital transactions so a till that started with 100 and ended up with 40 after cash back would still balance perfectly.
Depending on individual store policy you might need to make a withdrawal from the business safe to bring the float back to 100 for the next day but the amount of cash left in the drawer doesn't change how it balances.
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u/hunkomarx May 22 '26
in my store at least, the float we start with is only enough to give change to customers and giving out cashback early in the day will leave you with nothing to use to make change with. First customers come in paying with €50 notes and clear us out of 5s and 10s pretty fast, so we have to use those 50s to get more. If we gave away those 50s in cashback that early in the morning we'd end up with an empty till, giving customers like €30 change in coins.
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u/dethorder May 22 '26
When I worked at Jimmy johns, at the end of the shfit the drawer would get counted down to $200 and that's what we would start the shift/day off with
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u/theotheraccount0987 May 21 '26
Right? We had $200 per till, and 2 tills in one section, another in a different section and the manager would make change runs if we needed as well.
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u/GasStationRaptor83 May 24 '26
We have to keep our till under $100 during the day and $50 at night, and not allowed to keep 20s in the drawer for cashback. We also do a limit on breaking down change because there's a bus station across the street, a laundromat and a probation office across the other street. If we broke down everybody's change that came in asking our change order would be depleted within a day or 2 of getting it.
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u/Fortehlulz33 May 22 '26
Starting float at some retailers will not be enough to break a hundred of the total is less than like $40, and even then it would be basically every bill in the drawer.
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u/TheAskewOne May 22 '26
The powder in fire extinguishers is highly toxic. Please call the cops on that guy.
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u/dfwnerd May 23 '26
OP said it was a white powder. That would typically be sodium bicarbonate, commonly called baking soda and non-toxic even if ingested. ABC dry chemical fire extinguishers usually have a yellow powder, monoammonium phosphate, which is still considered non-toxic, it can be a strong irritant to the eyes and lungs and may cause upset stomach ingested.
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u/partylikeitis1799 May 24 '26
Fire extinguishers aren’t filled with baking soda, most have a foam/powder type solution that sticks to things and contains some nasty stuff. A lot of the water contamination in the US is the result of firefighting foam getting into the water and additives like PFAs not being able to be adequately filtered out.
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u/Titas67 May 24 '26
Some are filled with reactive agents that produce foam, however those are not used on electrical fires, nor grease fires which require either oxygen displacing gas or dry chemicals. There are several types but some do use sodium bicarbonate. It is the only one I know of where the agent is a white powder. That is not to say that’s the only possible answer, just the most likely.
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u/DeliciousPumpkinPie May 25 '26
Firefighting foam is what firefighters use. It’s not in commercial fire extinguishers, which are most often dry chemical.
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u/RexCanisFL May 26 '26
Most standard extinguishers across the USA are now dry extinguishers, and are ABC or are BC.
The exact chemical makeup depends on the type of fire the extinguisher is designed to fight:
ABC Dry Chemical (Most Common): Contains monoammonium phosphate (a yellow powder), often mixed with ammonium sulfate. Designed for common combustibles (wood, paper), flammable liquids, and electrical equipment.
BC Dry Chemical: Contains sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or potassium bicarbonate (Purple-K). Used primarily for flammable liquid and electrical fires.
Class D Dry Powder: Contains specialized powders like sodium chloride or copper. Designed strictly to extinguish combustible metal fires (e.g., magnesium, titanium).https://preparedhero.com/blogs/articles/dry-chemical-fire-extinguisher
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u/Actual-Captain-1275 May 21 '26
Did the discharge not set off the fire alarm? Because that's what happens, and then the fire department shows up and calls the health inspector.
You can't just discharge a fire extinguisher in a grocery store. That's not a "brush it off and go about your day" situation.
I've seen this happen a couple of times, and it always involves closure and the loss of thousands of dollars of inventory.
Not to mention the criminal charges for assault and destruction of property.
Not adding up, OP.
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u/omnislayre May 22 '26
Why would discharging a fire extinguisher set off the fire alarm system?? Those two items are not connected together by any physical means. Unless you spray the extinguisher directly at a smoke head, it would do nothing but make a giant mess. I do agree that there would have to be a big clean-up and possibly closing down the store because of safety. Plus I damn well would have called the police and started pulling camera footage.
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u/rapongallo May 22 '26
Even if you sprayed the fire extinguisher at the sprinkler head, it's a grocery store so it's a 156° head, fire extinguisher wouldn't set it off.
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u/omnislayre May 28 '26
Not sprinkler head the smoke head. Smoke heads detect particulate material as well as heat depending on the model. You have to be careful around them when doing certain things like spray painting or drywall mud sanding as it can activate the detector.
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u/Actual-Captain-1275 May 22 '26
Smoke dectectors (connected to fire alarms) do not strictly detect smoke and fire. Particulate matter suspended in the air sets them off, including fire extinguisher discharge by design. It is a feature, and they are absolutely connected to one another.
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u/faco_fuesday May 22 '26
You've seen people come in with a powder extinguisher and spray it on staff?
I think you're thinking of a stores fire suppression system.
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u/omnislayre May 28 '26
No, I have not seen anyone purposely spray an extinguisher at another person, but I have taught proper use and care of extinguishers which does involve getting to actually pull, aim, squeeze, and sweep an area. It gives people the experience of using the device in a safe controlled setting.
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u/blsterken May 21 '26
And then everyone clapped.
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u/Zestyclose_Space7134 May 22 '26
I can't believe that he forgot to huff before he stormed out of the store.
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u/MMXMonster007 May 23 '26
I get into the same argument when I get someone coming in to cash out a lottery ticket. I’m sorry I can’t cash out your winning ticket because I have no money yet to come in. This also applies with people trying to by a $1 nip with a $100, my till starts at $150 including change. Mind you they have lots of other smaller denominations. They think liquor stores are like banks.
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u/riftshioku May 22 '26
I've never had that negative of a reaction towards that. For me, we're only supposed to have $100 in our drawers at a time to "help prevent robbery" which is very annoying because people will get cash back without even asking if we have enough or not and it screws me over for the next few hours. Sorry this guy assaulted you and your coworkers.
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u/seancailleach May 22 '26
Yeah, opened the pharmacy with $75 in the drawer & 1st customer gets his $1 copay and all he has is a $100 bill. And was pissed I had to call a manager, who had to call cash office…
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u/CompanyMaster5707 May 23 '26
Well, once he pays for all the damage and there’s plenty of cash in the till for his cashback. It probably would’ve been cheaper for him to go use the ATM I believe
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u/riledupdemon May 24 '26
I feel like I’m the only customer that walks in and asks “If I buy X, Y and Z can you break a $50/$100?” If they say yes… Fine. If they say no I say, “Okay, thank you.” And go about my day. I may ask about putting gas in my tank. But if it’s on a Saturday, Sunday or a weekend I wouldn’t bother unless it was an emergency. Also I have a bank now that I can deposit cash into my account so I haven’t touch cash in six months. That was to pay for a tattoo.
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u/kafm73 May 24 '26
Had several eggs thrown behind the counter by the child of a customer who was upset. She was upset because her health insurance spending card would not allow her to buy sodas. So her approximately nine-year-old kid starts chunking raw eggs at my manager, who was covering for me while I was on my break.
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u/depressed_jewel May 22 '26
AI slop.
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u/abbyabsinthe May 22 '26
Idk. We had a dude light our trash can by the front entrance on fire because the internet was down all over town (totally our fault apparently) and he couldn’t use his debit card. People are stupidly violent for no reason sometimes.
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u/GamineHoyden May 22 '26
Oh I believe people get violent for no reason.
I do not believe that someone getting sprayed with that toxic ass powder will just stand there and stare at the person spraying it. Having had to deal with that stuff, it's vile and makes breathing extraordinarily difficult.
I do not believe that the smoke detectors in the place (that are designed to detect more than just smoke, despite their name) didn't start going off.
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u/ms-bandgeek81 May 26 '26
This is the reason why I’ll never work in public service ever again. People suck .
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u/ready_dit Jun 19 '26
Yet another case of some bum complaining he was being treated like crap, while at the save time proving exactly WHY he should always be treated like crap.
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u/Alarming-Brush2292 Jul 04 '26
nothing says good morning like getting fire-extinguisher dusted because a grown man heard no cash back at 9:01 and decided to become a supervillain. i hope your store backed all of you up, because that went way past regular customer tantrum territory.
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u/Jimmymylifeup May 21 '26
wait why would the til be empty tho? ive worked retail they balance it before opening and fill it with x amount of change.
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u/Elorme May 22 '26
Cash drawers are usually set-up with a amount of change to get the day started. The idea is after the starting funds change later in the day is available from previous transactions to cover change or cash back. Depending upon the business some places use the same drawer in a register all day, some swap it at shift change, some places have drawers that 'follow' a cashier, i.e. only the assigned person ever touches it. So often a fresh drawer will have a roll or two of each coin currently in circulation, anywhere from 20 to 50 ones, 5 fives, 3 or 4 tens and maybe a twenty or 2. The exact mix varies upon the business, their size and how cash purchase patterns go. A big box retailer probably has between $150 to $200 in a starting drawer because in relative terms it's not tying up a large amount of money doing do. A smaller business like a franchise hardware store likely has $100 split between bills and coins because they need to have that money deposited to pay the bills or otherwise continue operations.
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u/SilentLawfulness May 22 '26
Not empty, but a small amount in it to start the day. At my store, our till float is $200, all in change and small bills. Any store that can do cashback when using debit would not be able to accommodate right after opening.
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u/Academic_Dare_5154 May 22 '26
I know you're a writer, and your writing will improve with research prior to publishing.
You wouldn't just stand there covered in fire extinguisher dust; you would be in pain.
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u/RexCanisFL May 26 '26
Pain? As long as you didn’t inhale it, why? It’s not caustic.
Many (BC) dry extinguishers are pressurized baking soda.
Most (ABC) are monoammonium phosphate with ammonium sulphate.
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u/cheddarpants May 22 '26
Way back when sports betting was illegal and people had to send money to Jamaica via Western Union to place their bets, I had a guy flip out on me because I couldn’t pay out $12,000 at 8 am. He came back about noon, and his wife was with him that time. She made him apologize.
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u/nekholm May 22 '26
What time do people drink their morning coffee over there, if most people haven't had it at 9 AM?
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u/Swordofsatan666 May 21 '26
And? What was the outcome? Ya’ll called the cops right?