I think most of us can agree that when we go to the store, we don’t really want to be bothered. We want to come, get what we came for, pay and leave the shop in peace and definitely not listen to other customers’ life stories.

Speaking about that, one Reddit user shared their story online after a woman in a bookstore kept telling her life story; he simply said that he’s not her therapist and she should stop interrupting him checking out at the store.

More info: Reddit

It’s a rare situation that strangers in a shop would enjoy listening to somebody’s life story and issues

Image credits: Hanson Lu (not the actual photo)

This man started his story by sharing that in a bookstore, he was waiting by the register when an employee approached him with another customer who kept chatting 

Image credits: Ketut Sudiyanto (not the actual photo)

He added that the customer kept talking about her cancer diagnosis and treatments and just went silent when she noticed that employee was focused on transactions

Image credits: Jack Sparrow (not the actual photo)

However, she still had stories to tell, so she turned to the man and started giving the same story, while he tried to be sympathetic and said he was sorry to hear it

Image credits: u/Reasonable-Count-251

She kept talking and the man had finally had enough – he said they were not her therapists and she needed to back up, at which point the customer finally went silent 

A few days ago, a Reddit user took his story online, asking community members if he was being a jerk for telling a stranger who kept talking to him that he was not her therapist and she needed to stop interrupting him while he was trying to check out. The post caught a lot of attention and collected over 9.1K upvotes and 1.1K comments.

The original poster (OP) shares that the whole situation started when he went to the register and a employee came with another customer, who got in the line behind him but kept chatting. OP adds that it wasn’t hard to notice that the employee didn’t really enjoy the conversation, but the customer kept talking about how she had been diagnosed with cancer, sharing details about treatments and so on.

“Finally, she was quiet when it was clear the employee was focused on my transaction,” OP noted, though it didn’t last for very long. She turned to him and started sharing the same story, and while he tried to be sympathetic and feel for her, he couldn’t take it anymore. He told her to back up and stop interrupting the conversation.

The customer said that she needed to vent, but the man reminded her that she was not talking to a therapist. OP added that his wife said it was rude, but as a former retail worker, he pointed out that the customer was clearly making the employee uncomfortable.

The community members backed up the OP in this situation and gave him the ‘Not the A-hole’ badge. “As a cashier for 25 years all I gotta say is THANK YOU. There are so many times this has been done to me but I wasn’t allowed to tell them to back off,” one user shared. “NTA. Cashiers WISH for a customer like you when we get a customer like her,” another added.

Image credits: Aleksandar Pasaric (not the actual image)

As it is visible from most of the comments, employees also prefer to avoid small talk and especially hearing customers’ whole life stories and problems. Looks like the self checkout machines are the perfect solution, right? Well, turns out that this is not the case.

The Eater notes that the US is currently experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, which is actually made worse by self-checkout kiosks. However, despite that, according to the Los Angeles Times, self-service kiosks are preferred over human-run checkout lanes by 66% of respondents, who frequently cited speed and a desire to avoid social interaction. 

However, there was a clear generational divide: Baby boomers preferred self-checkouts at a rate of 46%, compared to 84% of Gen Z-ers. 

But having these “warm, low-stakes” interactions, such as the one between a customer and a cashier, are actually a critical tool for maintaining emotional well-being later in life as social circles shrink, shared Toni Antonucci, a professor at the University of Michigan.

So while most of us are happy to avoid small talk, for some people, interactions with humans, even in the shop, are important. Well, maybe there is no need to vent about all your problems, but small talk won’t hurt. What do you think about this situation? Was the man being rude? Share your thoughts below!

Redditors backed the author up and discussed that he did the right thing by telling her

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