Millennial woman steps in to protect Gen Z cashier left in tears by a rude customer

Sometimes customers forget that the staff in the grocery store or the restaurant are trying their best to do their jobs and are only human. The internet recently came together to back the girl who stood up for a teenage worker after a middle-aged woman criticized her till she was in tears. The woman known on Reddit as u/Anno_Pri24 later asked the platform if she was at fault for standing up for the teenage girl. "So, this happened yesterday, and I’m still wondering if I overreacted," she writes. "I (35F) was doing my usual weekly grocery shopping at a local supermarket. It was a busy afternoon, and the line at the checkout was pretty long. I was waiting patiently when I noticed the woman in front of me (probably mid-50s) becoming increasingly agitated as the teenage cashier, who couldn’t have been older than 17 was scanning her items," the woman added.

She then said how the cashier looked a bit "flustered" and how she could tell that she was probably new to the store. "[She was] making a few mistakes here and there, but nothing serious," the post read. The post then talks about how the older woman was simply "not having it" and started muttering under her breath, rolled her eyes, and started tapping her foot." Finally, when the cashier accidentally scanned an item twice and needed to call for a supervisor to void it, the woman lost it," the post read.

The woman then shares how the old woman then said, "How hard can it be to do this job? You can't even do basic tasks, You're wasting people's time," adding that she simply kept going on and on. "The more she yelled, the more flustered the cashier got until she started tearing up." The woman stood there for a second before stepping in after seeing their cashier in tears. "I said to her, 'You don’t have the right to treat someone like that. She’s doing her best, and it’s just a mistake. If you’re so unhappy, maybe you should try working like her for a day and see how easy it is,'" she writes.

The statement from the woman stunned the older woman who then asked her to mind her own business, to which she replied, "It is my business when you’re making a kid cry over something as stupid as groceries." At this point, the supervisor had already arrived and stepped in to handle the situation. After failing to stand her ground, the old woman then stormed off still muttering and cursing. "After she left, the cashier thanked me with teary eyes, but a couple of people behind me in line gave me looks like I was the one who had done something wrong. Now I’m second-guessing myself," the post read.

Many took to the comment section and talked about how she was not at fault for doing what she did. "If I were that cashier, I'd have been so grateful for you. I worked retail for way too long and the abuse we get is terrible," writes u/SteampunkHarley. Others complained about the working conditions for retail workers. "It was bad enough when I worked retail in the 80s. I can't imagine what it's like now," read one comment by/2PlasticLobsters."

I've been that teenage cashier who's had some lady make her cry over nothing. I'd have been very thankful for this lady then," added u/JennyTheSheWolf.