Home Depot employees share their most hated customer habits, they happen every day
NEXT time you pay a visit to your local Home Depot, be aware: the employees are keeping an eye on you.
That's because many shoppers have terrible habits that drive staff up the wall, and could put workers and customers alike at serious risk.
Employees of the hardware chain commiserate about bad days and celebrate their victories on a Reddit forum That includes venting about customer behaviors.
The team at Yahoo! News collected and commonplace bad habits shoppers exhibit.
One infuriating practice: insisting employees check "in the back" for an item after being told it was out of stock.
"Sometimes I'll say I'll check in the back, leave for 2 minutes, then come back saying we're sold out, just to humor them," a Reddit user wrote.
"Other times they'll tell me, 'It says you have it in this store, I checked online,'" the user added. "I ask them to show me on their phone, but it's always at a completely different store. Every. Time."
Grumpy customers will also threaten to take their business to a different store if the item they want isn't in stock, and then get angry when Home Depot employees don't do more to stop them.
"Our Lowe's is about 1/2 mile down the road," an employee said on Reddit. "I usually just tell customers 'okay' when they tell me they will go there. Often we get people who left Lowes upset with them and came to us in retaliation."
"I told a guy who did this once, 'Okay, see you in 30 minutes to an hour,'" another employee wrote.
Most read in Fabulous
The customer had insisted on the store associate cutting his lumber in a way that wasn't offered, but didn't listen when the employee warned him the local Lowe's had no stock of the product, plus a broken saw.
"He came back around 45 minutes later and grabbed his cart I left loaded for him," the employee recalled. "I just waved at him on his way out since I was busy with another customer by then."
Meanwhile, in the home fixtures department, Home Depot staff are often left cleaning up after inattentive shoppers.
A Reddit user shared the messy mistake a customer had made: thinking a display sink was connected to the store's plumbing, they dumped their coffee down the drain.
A fellow employee said their store keeps gallon buckets under every sink display because of the common behavior.
"If you think this is bad, stay away from the toilet aisle today," a different Home Depot employee joked.
Not all shoppers' bad behaviors are merely annoying. Some are dangerous.
For example, if an employee is operating a forklift in-store, the area should be fenced off...and you shouldn't hop or move a barrier to try and get the staff member's attention.
"The worst is when you are working with the forklift and they breach the Zone of Safety to ask you where air filters are," an employee griped.
"Or walk right into the aisle you’re working in while you’ve got a pallet on your forks in the air," another agreed. "I had one guy do that while holding his kid and I couldn’t believe he’d not only put himself but his child in danger like that."
And even when you've bought a massive supply haul at the store, employees beg that you please keep their safety and comfort in mind when it comes to loading your car.
"I love the rain and love when it's raining buckets outside, but customers shouldn't expect associates to load anything for them in the rain," one employee wrote. That's especially true if the outdoor garden center is shut down due to inclement weather.
When you're buying especially heavy items, like bags of concrete, always be willing to pull your vehicle to the front if you've asked employees for help loading up.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Read More On The Sun
Don't try to come up with an excuse about why you can't load your own vehicle. Dozens of employees said customers fib about "recent back surgery" when buying heavy items.
"I’ll respect you if you say 'I’m too lazy to do it myself,'" one employee confessed. "I appreciate honesty."