I wish I had lost control this time

I'm not a violent person, but last night's customer would have persuaded St. Francis of Assisi to throw blows. How I escorted this woman to the door without putting her on the tile, I'll never know.

Without going into specifics, the photo department, me, a CSM all told her the same thing: If the deal is online, buy it online. The brick and mortar stores don't get the same deals. But she's already spent $3,000+ in our photo department (in the last week, last month, last year or her lifetime, she didn't say), and she expects she'll get what she wants.

When she doesn't, she resorts to a 4-year-old's tactics. She calls names. My CSM was the target. The name -- doesn't belong in a family blog. His verbal reaction and my facial expression matched. I could not believe this woman would drop to this unbelievably rude level. Then she repeated it, with a description. I finished her order -- +$700, and I would have liked to cancel it, tell her we didn't need her business again and tell her to go buy her camera, groceries and grill somewhere else. But her husband conveniently had started walking out the door with the cart. Probably knew what was going to happen and didn't want to be near her.

My CSM handled it better than I did -- he walked away. I finished the transaction and walked her to the door while she continued to berate our staff. I hope she never does shop here again. But I've checked her out dozens of times -- she will be back within the week -- probably tonight. Too bad the trash doesn't blow away.