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I worked at a grocery store once and had an old lady come in and throw an absolute tantrum because we were out of a certain cookie.
She literally stomped up and down like a toddler throwing a hissy fit and shouting "I WANT IT!" "I DROVE 30 MINUTES FOR THESE COOKIES!"
I think my manager just gave her some uncooked dough for free.
it's the lead
One old lady started coming in once a week or so to rant at me about all sorts of stuff happening in her life. Every single time I would nod along wordlessly until she wandered off. Every single time she would find my manager and file a complaint that I was swearing at her. My manager let two of the complaints stick so she could deny me raises, but would never file the third. It felt like a conspiracy sometimes, but it never happened to anyone else as far as I could tell and the lady never stopped coming in.
No it's actually the same old lady.
Doesn't sound like a bad premise for an SCP actually
One time my partner offered to drive this older lady who lived nearby to do some errands. Turns out her errands were basically going to a bunch of retail stores to complain at them about the silliest things, like how she let her store credit card expire or something like that. Shit they can't even really do anything about in the store. Partner didn't even know because they just sat in the car at first, but went inside and one of the workers explained the old lady does it a lot.
Sad, but also fuck her for manipulating my partner into helping her harass retail workers
You can't really say you worked retail until you've had to play Social Worker for 15-30 minutes and talked to an old person who has nobody to talk to.
If you're lucky the old rascal will tell you something unhinged but it'll be weirdly charming and not racist or sexist (it's a throw of the dice but that's life)
Customers are literally throwing a temper tantrum when you simply state "no, we can not do that/have not in stock, etc..." - people sometimes will just trauma dump randomly. It is a job that is requires skills found in social workers and therapists. It is exhausting. I remember the summer job, I had as a teen and oh god - never again.
You can't really say you worked retail until you've had to play Social Worker for 15-30 minutes and talked to an old person who has nobody to talk to.
people will still really call it "unskilled labor" when the percentage of the population that can gracefully deal with this is infinitesimal and you can't learn it from a bootcamp
And they generally have no context of personal space
I have literally taken a step back from a customer each time they took a step forward into my personal space and wound up half way down the aisle before they acknowledged that I was keeping polite distance while they were talking at me.
Oh aren't you a sweetheart! nudges you
my wife's got a weird old man - he doesn't have any friends or family, so he goes into every store downtown to talk at people. it's a bit sad (the consequences of not having third places, etc) but also he says some really weird shit so the goal is always to be kind but not so nice that he'll be weirder at you personally (which happens)
Some guy I was helping years ago went on a rant about how Japan secretly won WWII and now an order of samurai are running the US through the national parks service based out of Alcatraz.
Holy shit that sounds way more interesting than having to figure out what a customer is trying to ask when they say, "For coffee enemas, is one bean or two bean better?" All the while my face is 
national park samurai please take the wheel tbh
Monkey’s paw: They destroy both the US and China so that the Japanese emperor oak may reign for a thousand years
Honestly, I think a tree would do a much better job than anyone in the US government.
That would make for a hell of an alt-history Man In The High Castle sort of fiction
He kept telling me to google "radio towers in national parks"
I mean, yeah I assume most national parks have a couple radio towers in them.
That's all just a cover plot. Their real aim is to use the resources of the United States to develop time travel so they can help the samurai win the Boshin War
oh man, i would take that in a heartbeat over my usuals
Hot damn I would love to meet that guy.
Old folks will hang out for lengthy periods of time at the post office and chat endlessly with the guy who works there, who is also ready for retirement and constantly putting other people’s mail in our box.
Basically yes
I have worked retail for 20 years and I have known so many of these people lol
If these people aren't the ones coming in then they're the ones your working with
from long experience (unfortunately), yes
One of those old ladies came up to me the other day and was talking about how her landlord was bringing in Columbian drug dealers, but "Trump will fix it!"
Yes absolutely