Cashier praised for giving 'awkward excuse' when customers tell her to smile

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People working in hospitality and customer-facing roles sympathised with the woman
People working in hospitality and customer-facing roles sympathised with the woman's pain (stock photo) (Image: Getty Images)

Women will know the pain of walking down the street or minding their business in a public place and hearing the familiar refrain (usually from men, let’s be honest) of “Cheer up, luv!” or “Smile, it might never happen”. It’s annoying, it’s outdated and can be damaging to someone’s self-esteem.

In a bid to counter requests to smile more from customers, one woman has revealed how she came up with a rather morbid lie to shock them into silence. Wondering if she had gone too far with her fib she shared the situation on social media asking for feedback. She explained: “I'm tired of being told to smile by random customers, so I've started telling them my dad died. I work at CVS, and I have a problem with how frequently customers make unsolicited comments.

“I may be representing the company as far as what goods and services we provide, and I'm a friendly person, but I was taught at a very young age that an employee ought to be friendly and not familiar as it's poor manners. I personally think this goes both ways and has nothing to do with the quality of the service provided; it's simply common sense.

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“When customers (usually older men) tell me to smile, I keep a blank demeanor and tell them my dad died a few days ago. Thankfully, I haven't had to do it more than twice at my current location. However, the man I encountered yesterday seemed thoroughly put off by my response, but he didn't even have the human decency to offer his condolences. Honestly, he seemed inconvenienced when his ‘joke’ fell flat and just walked away without acknowledging me any further. What makes this more frustrating is that I'm a pretty outgoing person, but when an older man tells me to smile, all I hear is, ‘Dance, monkey! Dance!’ Am I the a**hole?”

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Despite the extreme nature of the lie, people reading the Reddit post were firmly on her side and rushed to share their own stories. One person replied: “Damn girl, I only ever killed off my non-existent dog. You killed off an entire parent! You roll hard.” Someone else wrote: “A guy at a sandwich place told me to smile and I said ‘say something funny’ and he just froze and it’s one of my favorite memories.”

Eve Wagstaff

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