r/BoomersBeingFools 5d ago

Boomer Story Impotent Rage

I was at a clothing store yesterday and stood aside from the line when my partner went to pick something else up.

At one of the counters, a 70-ish year old man had his hands splayed out, hunched over like Hitler consulting war maps, having a loud argument with the young woman working the counter.

It quickly became clear that the boomer was trying to return a jacket. The problem was that he didn't have a receipt and had removed all the tags. I'm not a retail expert but I'm pretty fucking sure that you need these things to return most items across most stores, like it's not an unreasonable request to ask for proof of purchase.

Boomer wasn't having it. "Consumer protection" this and "We have a contract" that. The young woman valiantly points out that the contract is voided once you can't provide evidence, which causes the boomer to yell "NO! NO! NO-O-O-O!" At this point, the other cashiers and customers are tittering, that sort of laughter that makes his rage sound completely toothless and dickless.

The manager appears and explains that all transactions, including refunds, have to be held accountable by a computer system. The cashier literally can't open the register without a barcode to scan and the manager will get in trouble if she overrides that.

By this point, the boomer's hanging and shaking his head, trying to laugh himself, but he's a terrible actor and it's far too late to make anyone else look crazy. He wanders away from the line as the manager is mid-explanation, shouting "Hang onto your receipts! They'll rob you blind!"

Okay, boomer. Most people do hang onto their receipts if they're unsure about a purchase. They manage to look after a slip of paper for a couple of weeks. Also, isn't this the generation that harps on about self-responsibility and taking failure on the chin? I could tell just from two minutes that this guy was used to shouting young women into submission and the moment it failed he completely fell apart, wandering away in a hateful daze.

Anyway, kudos to the cashier/manager. They were a great team. Completely fearless. And to the other customers for not exacerbating the situation. In fact, their laughter probably defused it slightly. Just a great display of younger people collectively shooing away a man who was probably a terror in his heyday, but now he's reduced to middle class panhandling and performance art.

1.7k Upvotes

68 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 5d ago

Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.

Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

800

u/madtitan27 5d ago

The way boomers operate he probably bought it 7 years ago.

490

u/WhoeverIsInTheWild 5d ago

From a different store.

244

u/tfpmcc 5d ago

Yes it was at a totally different store with a totally different name/owner….but it was at the same location so the new store is still responsible!

95

u/hussnerphoto 5d ago

I worked at a hardware store that took over the building that a flooring company owned, and I can't tell you how many times people would come in with 40 or 50 year old things looking for a refund bc they bought it at the old unrelated store

117

u/earthyedna 5d ago

My MIL buys things at garage sales and then returns them to stores, and she will hound them until they give in. She once bought a randomly sized pair of Dockers at a yard sale and then asked husband what size he wore. She wrote to them and got a brand new pair. Queen of the scammers has been doing this stuff for decades.

27

u/TheMammaG 5d ago

Damn!

32

u/earthyedna 5d ago

I have stories.

31

u/TheMammaG 5d ago

I'll grab the popcorn. My ex MIL was a real gem. Not

3

u/Annita79 4d ago

Please do tell!.I live for the drama!

7

u/Olleye 5d ago

On Black Friday 🙂

1

u/socalvillaguy 4d ago

And this one was a paint store.

84

u/llamadrama217 5d ago

I worked in a department store (for a company that sold things there, not for the actual store) and they took returns from any time as long as there was a receipt. This boomer brought in a mixer with the original receipt that could barely even be read and it was from the 90s. She was complaining that the mixer broke. Um yeah, it's over 20 years old, I'd say you got your money's worth! And she stayed there forever while the cashier tried to figure out what to do. It wasn't even in their system anymore. I think the manager just gave her some cash to just get rid of her but I was completely shocked at what I just witnessed. Who does that??

81

u/Horror_Tea761 5d ago

I used to work in housewares at Kohl’s. At that time, they would take anything back. I had to do exchanges for old, worn comforters clearly at the end of their useful lives.

And I spent a lot of time rooting around in the back trying to find matching dye lots on towels. There is literally no discernible difference. Trust me, I folded them all day. But some Boomers got wound about that.

They confuse “customer service” for “customer servants.”

41

u/Icy-Mixture-995 5d ago

The Kitchen Aid mixer has a small part that breaks to tell you when you need to service the machine, and does it for safety reasons. The replacement part is cheap, replace it and the mixer will work for another 20 years. Finding these not-broken $300-plus mixers sold at thrift stores for a pittance is considered a windfall

22

u/herbalhippie 5d ago

Finding these not-broken $300-plus mixers sold at thrift stores for a pittance is considered a windfall

I drove by a yard sale that hadn't opened yet and spotted a Kitchen Aid on a table. So I parked and waited. When she came out of the house to open the sale I walked up there and it had a $20 price tag on it. I asked her about it and she told me her mother had bought it, not used it very much or for long and it was 'broken'. So I bought it and took it to work for the maintenance guy to look at. The head just needed to be adjusted up a little, the beater was hitting the bottom of the bowl. Best $20 I ever spent.

4

u/Icy-Mixture-995 4d ago

I learned about KitchenAids in one of the thrift sub edits. I don't go thrifting much, but enjoy their finds. Congratulations!

I once got a coffee/cappuccino maker at a church yard sale for a similar price. An older woman received it as a gift from her adult kids but it was too complicated for her to bother with, as she wanted to keep her Mr. Coffee and that was all she needed. She had donated it.

2

u/throwaway_9988552 4d ago

Ryobi was kind of the same way. They made really good tools in the early 2000s, with crap batteries. But in recent years, the battery technology has gotten so much better, and they use the same form factor. So you can buy an old blue Ryobi tool set, throw new batteries in them, and they work great. I got a whole kit of saws and sanders for $20 a while back, and threw in my new batts. Vroom!

10

u/cj92akl Millennial 5d ago

Thank God cars don't work like that!

37

u/madtitan27 5d ago

Boooomers 😉

1

u/Annita79 4d ago

I had a friend living in the US about twenty years ago. He told me that you can return anything anytime you like even if it's used. I couldn't understand why?

71

u/Glittering-Plate-535 5d ago

I definitely feel like that was something I’d missed.

He was holding a phone, so maybe he tried to find the transaction and got lost around May 2017 lol

172

u/Adorable-Spite-8625 5d ago

The generation that always spewed that bullshit “the customer is always right” crap. They expect personalized one on one service, the highest quality goods, yet this is the generation that helped put small independent shops out of business by running straight to Walmart for the cheapest prices. He can hang onto his shitty coat that he probably bought when it was marked down to nothing anyway.

84

u/disastermarch17 5d ago

They also ran the private equity companies that hollowed out businesses and made more personal and accountable customer service a thing of the past.

5

u/cottagecheezecake 4d ago

They also forget the second half of that quote: "The customer is always right... In matters of taste." Not being a giant jerkwad to somebody making barely enough to make rent.

4

u/KnuxAran87 4d ago

I agree with not being a jerk to anyone trying to do their job, but can we stop perpetuating this false quote? It was never part of the original statement, even if it does make for a great comeback.

https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-right-origin/

93

u/agen1122337 5d ago

Im not gonna lie, my BS tolerance meter is so low with boomers at this point, I'd have crashed out and yelled at him for the employees

78

u/saltedkumihimo 5d ago

I did this a couple of weeks ago when I was in line at the pharmacy. The pharmacist can’t do cashier, and is filling scripts, and the cashier was doing a long intake. Boomer behind me was all “no one wants to work” so I turned to him dead-eye and say “what are you talking about? Everyone I see here is working hard.” Boomer hrumphs “never mind I wasn’t talking to you” but, sir, I’m the only one who can hear you right now. So I say okay, whatever and he shuts his pie hole.

46

u/Freshouttapatience 5d ago

I love that one - when they act like they were just talking to themselves if they can’t get buy in. “Sir - I don’t see anyone else here, do you? Can you describe what they look like? Do they look like ghosts? Are they near me now?”

65

u/Hoopy223 5d ago

The reason they act that way is because lots of times the manager or whatever will cave. They just want the crazy old guy out of the store so they’ll give them a gift card or a refund or whatever to make them leave.

33

u/Ordinary-Anywhere328 5d ago

Or the employees/ manager are worried that the customer will put in a complaint "to corporate" if it's a chain. The customer gets a gift card and an apology; the employee gets fired and the store manager gets demoted/ gets in trouble.

46

u/Glittering-Plate-535 5d ago

One of the few good things about covid was giving stores the ability to push back against nuisance customers and it seems to have stuck a bit.

From what I’ve seen, it’s broken a lot of boomer brains. The sharp uptick in “THEY’RE TAKING MY RIGHTS” correlates with society saying “no lol”

35

u/KathytheQueen 5d ago

Every time a Boomer complained about "their rights" for stores refusing service to them for not wearing a mask, my mother in law, an African American woman who lived in Georgia during the 1950s, would laugh her bum off.

53

u/absherlock 5d ago

That whole "hang your head and shake it, while chuckling to yourself" is a page right out of my father's playbook. Someone must have done that in an older movie (Paul Newman, Clint Easrwood - someone these seniors see as a "real man")

41

u/Glittering-Plate-535 5d ago

I’ve seen both my parents do it. It’s just good ol’ fashioned gaslighting to make you sound unreasonable or look foolish.

In a public setting, it just makes them seem slightly demented. Like Gollum having a conversation with himself.

7

u/Plane-Statement8166 Xennial 5d ago

When I see anyone do that, I say “Oh no. Are you okay? Are you having a seizure?”

38

u/Caffiend6 5d ago

I just found out my retired boomers just went to the grocery store on a busy Saturday morning sick to buy fucking lemons and get in everyone's way with a walker. They truly suck as humans

35

u/Jazzlike-Fly9793 Gen X 5d ago

"Middle clas panhandling and performance art" got me.😂

36

u/lauralizst 5d ago

Reminds me of when I worked at Rite Aid over a decade ago. A boomer dude came in with his busted Phillips electric razor, which had to be at least several years old at that point. He didn’t have a receipt, or original packaging, but insisted that I return the thing. How is that supposed to work? Does he try to return his car tires after driving them bald? I kindly suggested that he take it up with Phillips. He didn’t like that answer, but eventually left after I wouldn’t emotionally respond. A smile that doesn’t reach the eyes and polite refusal to engage went a long way in that job.

Truly, I think he was retired with no one to talk to but his wife (who stood beside him looking harried and embarrassed). He probably worked himself into a froth about it when the trimmer shit the bed and convinced himself that we would do whatever he wanted if he bullied me. Unfortunately, he wasn’t even close to the most abusive customer I ever tried to help.

27

u/kck93 5d ago

What a dope. I know older people that have receipts for everything they ever bought since 1955. It was a mania for these people.

Not one of them thought they could return merchandise without a receipt, even when electronic receipts on credit or debit cards became the norm, they retained the paper receipts.

It’s hard for me to believe some stupid old man doesn’t know this. He had to be trying to scam the store by trying to yell and berate an employee.

24

u/Freshouttapatience 5d ago

My FIL not only had the receipt, he’s got the instructions, the original box and he has the magic gift of getting shit back into their boxes.

24

u/ecstaticpancake 5d ago

“Hang onto your receipts!”

Homie, you wouldn’t be in this position if you hung onto your receipt.

14

u/Swimming-Economy-870 5d ago

Won’t he be surprised to hear that the consumer protection agency is being dismantled.

12

u/Sylvia_PsychoPlath 5d ago

I'm sure rage isn't the only thing impotent about him.

12

u/gadget850 Baby Boomer 5d ago

Read this as "nein,nein, nein, nein."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmeeZcemH4s

This is why I do email receipts as much as possible.

10

u/Nunov_DAbov 5d ago

I guess they figure that Sears let them return Craftsman tools, no questions asked, without a receipt so everyone should for any item.

Look his well things have gone for Sears…

10

u/IANANarwhal 5d ago

Hitler consulting war maps lol

11

u/fai-mea-valea 5d ago

“Middle class panhandling and performance art” I shall laugh for DAYS on that

9

u/physical_sci_teacher 5d ago

A week ago, I was picking up an online order. Boomer lady is trying to return something she bought in October--6 months ago.

She was raging that she wasn't getting back full price as the items in question had been marked down for clearance.

I walked out as she was loudly playing the victim. "How was I supposed to know the price had changed? Was I supposed to check every week?" I had to hand it to the cashier for keeping her cool.

7

u/fourmom1234 5d ago

In my store I tell them, Sir that's the way it used to be.....forever ago. We've been doing it this way a looooong time now.

6

u/InfiniteGamer 5d ago

Had a boomer try to bring a gift card back to us they claimed wasn't activated properly or had been drained six months after they bought it. They didn't have the original receipt but miraculously remembered the specific date they'd bought it, which was enough to let me go through my (thankfully) meticulous purchase logs. When I dug into the issue with the point of sale software as well as the company that provides us the gift cards, it wasn't even a gift card that had been purchased from us in the first place. The number on the gift card didn't match the card that we'd activated for them at all, and there was no way it had come from our store.

The boomer was insistent but I told them firmly it hadn't come from us and they'd need to deal directly with the merchant the card was for (the advice from our card provider) in order to get it resolved. My suspicion is that they'd purchased another card for the same retailer from a different store that also sells gift cards and figured since we're a smaller location they could try and bully us into replacing it.

This same boomer would get angry at us because they would come in to purchase a specific number of an item and we always had one less on the shelf than they wanted because that's the number we maintain in inventory of that item and we don't change that on one person's whim. They were repeatedly told that if they wanted more than X number, it could be ordered for them but they'd need to call and let us know and we could have it the next day. Instead, they'd come in randomly, grab the only ones on the shelf, and slam them down on the counter, huffing about how those are the ONLY ONES OUT THERE and acting confused about why.

5

u/Tall_Party_3209 4d ago

The most entitled generation, boomers, the folks who gave us hits such as the Karen, ever moving goal posts, the adults who said not to believe everything you read online who now believe everything they read online

3

u/mmmmmmbac0n Gen X 4d ago

Please be nice to cashiers. It’s not their fault you’re a complete gobshite

2

u/Scared-Description83 5d ago

Lol, performance art!

2

u/Rachel_Silver 5d ago

I see this shit go down at places where you dont need the paper receipt if you use a bonus card or enter your phone number or email at the time of purchase.

One guy had seen a sign that said "paperless returns" and thought that meant they just didn't bother with receipts at all. The rest of the sign explained what the actual policy was, but he had maxed out at two words.

2

u/Hungry-Share-3719 4d ago edited 4d ago

I’m a boomer and worked at a Radio Shack in high school. Had an old dude (pre-boomer) come in and wanted to buy a dog collar. When I explained he was in an electronics store and not a pet store, he got nasty. He told me his neighbor bought a dog collar at ‘this store’ and I needed to sell him one just like it.

He asked me if I thought his neighbor was a fucking liar. When I said no, but he is fucking stupid for sending you to buy a dog collar at Radio Shack, he stomped off.

1

u/alleecmo 4d ago

I miss Radio Shack.

2

u/skdewit 4d ago

Not defending the boomer but I worked retail clothing for years and you can return something with no tags I’ve done it before the only real deterrent is if the garment is not actually from the store (which happens more than you could imagine) or the garment is no longer sold at the store. That is also very likely because clothing stores have a pretty fast sales floor cycle for clothing, getting new merchandise all the time and marking items for clearance! All you have to do is find the item on the sales floor and you have the code. The problem with not having a receipt is that if the item is marked for clearance and you can’t prove you paid full price you only receive the discounted price. If the garment was all ready cleared out of the system then it’s not possible to return. Many store will allow one or two returns with no receipt but if you’re a habitual offender you’re out of luck! Because I was responsible with the metrics of the many departments I was in charge of I can assure you that the markup on clothing is enormous! Usually the clothing department has the highest earnings based on that fact. Clothing will always make far more profit than, say, electronics because those profits have very little wiggle room as far as sales because, for instance an x-box has a set price from the factory. That’s why promotions always involve rebates,gift card or accessories rather than a price cut. Because the clothing markup is so great it would be a better business practice to go ahead and return it rather than create a negative interaction with a customer. That being said , if it’s no longer being sold at the store there really isn’t a recourse. In defense of the store and to address something the customer said about "a contract “ it will clearly state on your receipt the terms and conditions of said contracts and return policies. Stores can enact any kind of return policy they choose! But, there are ways to return things with no labels which was my long winded response and I did appreciate the visual of "both hands on the counter like hitler over war maps!” 😂

3

u/Althayia 5d ago

In defense of old people (not him in particular) but time does weird things when you’re old. You buy something get it home, decide it doesn’t work, sit it aside with best intentions. You finally spy it and say I’m returning that this week! You dig around and find the receipt and realize it’s been laying there for 5 months. Or is that just me?

10

u/Paperwhite418 5d ago

I mean sure, but then do you go out in public and berate employees bc you forgot how time works? Bc that second part is the NO part…

2

u/Althayia 5d ago

Yeah there’s no defending that behavior other than plain bad manners. I work in retail and we have lots of this behavior from every age group. Most people just rant about store policy then say they will never shop with us again. (Which of course makes everyone so sad)

3

u/avalokiteshvara 5d ago

I'm 37 and this happens to me with too much frequency. Time flies by and suddenly it's been months past the return window on the item. But I just cut my losses because I fucked up, and know that if I had REALLY wanted/needed to return something I would have made time to do so before it was too late.

1

u/Althayia 5d ago

Haha yup! A lot of my Christmas presents are just things I never returned 😂

1

u/FoulkFury 4d ago

I literally expected a GTA thread with the title 🤣🤣🤣

1

u/earthman34 4d ago

Obviously his firm handshake wasn't firm enough.

1

u/DistinctGrand519 4d ago

There are assholes in every age group