confrontation station

Ok so I know I haven’t blogged in ages, this is purely down to my day job taking up my whole life.  As I’ve previously mentioned, I work as a retail manager full time and also run a market stall selling vintage clothing every Tuesday.  Due to this I spend a LOT of time interacting with the public and one thing I have noticed is how quickly people will turn when they don’t get their own way.  I don’t know if it’s the colder weather or the approaching threat of Christmas that has made people so confrontational, but yesterday I had a man literally shout in my face and punch over two displays because I wouldn’t give him student discount without seeing his student card.  Before this he had been perfectly nice, we had chatted as I showed him through our range of new stock, we had joked when I tripped over trying to carry him 8 pairs of jeans, we had bonded over our dislike of stale coffee, in fact by the time it got to the payment I was pretty sure I had made a new best friend.  As I was putting the transaction through he noticed the sign saying “20% student discount with valid student ID” (please note the part about a valid student ID) and so he asked “can I have the student discount?” “of course” I replied, “can I just see your student card” that was my fatal mistake.  How could I possibly have the audacity to request some form of proof that he was in fact a student? Why on earth would I need to see that he had just told me that he was a student, why would he ask for the 20% discount otherwise?  What sort of moron was I? What was I thinking!? This torrent of abuse came so suddenly that I was actually too shocked to speak for a second and as I was recovering myself he then demanded to see the manager.  To this I replied I was the manager and I would need to see some sort of ID card with an expiry date to prove that he was studying.  Well, not only did he not believe that I was the manager, he also started shouting “don’t shop here! They rip you off!” great.  Anyway, security were called, he shouted and swore some more, punched two innocent bystanders (my display racks) and was dragged out.  When security asked me how this came about all I could say was that I honestly didn’t know and that I had just asked for a student card.  They laughed and just said “its crazy what people will do for some money off” I can honestly say I have never caused such a scene and cant imagine a situation that would compel me to do so.  Yet people do.  They shout at cashiers when they cant give them a refund, they bitch at bus drivers for getting stuck in traffic and they look down on hairdressers for providing a service.  Once a customer randomly asked me what 30% off £67 was and when I couldn’t answer straight away they laughed, patted me on the arm and said “never mind sweetheart, at least you’re good at folding jeans” I could never bring myself to treat another person like that and so I ask again, is it the cold weather or the approaching threat of Christmas that has made people so confrontational? Whatever it is, next time somebody asks for student discount, I’m getting security in just in case.