A Cold Stuff Iced cream manager figured out that the customer is not always right. He started his business in August and after dealing with customers for months he finally posted what he was thinking and it is something corporate managers should pay attention to.

Coldstuff Ice Cream, owned by brothers Dave and Kevin Miller, just opened in August. But they told WBZ-TV they had enough after a customer was unkind and disrespectful to a 16-year-old worker over a 25-cent price discrepancy.

Dave and Kevin took to Facebook after an incident over 25 cents took place. Given that it was 25 cents you could of asked nicely and got an answer and instead this person likely took offence and yelled at a high schooler over a quarter.

More than 275,000 people have liked the post as of Wednesday morning and it’s been shared over 8,000 times. “This can all be fixed with a smile and a positive attitude. It’s ice cream for crying out loud. Grow up and act your age,” the shop wrote, adding in the comments, “And NOBODY gives a s— if you don’t come back. We’d prefer it that way.”

Dave and Kev have a point here, for decades there has been one mantra in businesses that has been a major loss leader for businesses and common decency.

The customer is always right! Which if that were the case no store would ever be able to stay open but corporate stores even went as far as having actors that could be fired at will, Marshall Fields had professional “fired men” to which the manager would berate and fire them for a lack of care and send the man packing, meanwhile in the back he would just go back out and do his thing and be fired again when the next loud customer came through.

The brothers were worried about backlash at first, but they’ve received thousands of supportive comments and even a bump in business. “I wish I had a boss that had my back when I was a screw up of a teenager at my first job,” one person wrote. “Looks like a trip to Massachusetts for some ice cream is in order,” another said.

If you really think about it, you are not just costing the store money by being loud and yelling until you get your way, the cost is kind of astounding to be honest. If we assign a value to time such as the Massachusetts Min wage and use that for our baseline. You spend 10 minutes yelling at some poor 16 year old trying his or her hand at their first job, The 10 minutes over 25 cents costed you an astounding $2.51 if you are a family of 4 you are Now up to $10.04 for your ten minutes, if you gets get stressed out and they go to bed an hour later add another 60$ to that, If you go to bed later than that add another 30$. for your ten minutes it just had a cost of $100.04, You go to bed and 3 of you wake up an hour late the next morning add another 45$, we are barely 12 hours past the inception of yelling over a quarter and you are up to $145.04 in personal costs.

You next in a bad mood decide to rush through your work that day and you don’t know that your district manager is there you end up costing yourself a possible premotion. The domino for a single quarter is astounding when you start thinking if you just simply took two minutes to ask “hey the price is off by a quarter, what is up with that?” .

Business owners should have a sign that says “if you have a bad attitude or generally act entitled we reserve the right to ask you to leave” . it would solve so much bullshit. Dave and Kevin deserve a medal here, Backing your employees who are entering the workforce will have lasting effects on these kids. Customers can make or break a first time worker in retail because of how much that customers are willing to yell and berate people.

If I had a store, I’d have a fee to file a complaint at Min Wage with a sign that says “money for complaint fees are used in worker training”. I bet the store would have next to zero complaints and it would give a solid rebuttal on review sites. Customer: Rant! Business: This person never let us know they had a problem and here is the video of the incident. I would make sure the customer got a receipt and have the worker have a tick box that asked do you understand the policy on the wall on the window and would you like a 1 time compliance or a 1 year compliance with our policies. Given that over register cameras have facial recognition it would show that the person agreed and you would have almost Zero PII to get hacked other than a face No card, No id’s needed, just a Face to go with the complaint.

While stores are always going to have problems, save the complaints for when they are valid, being served a coffee with soured milk for example, I have gotten a few of them in my life and its gross. But when it comes to small problems being proportional to the issue goes far. While I was not civilized when I got my 5th soured Milk coffee over 2 months from a business and they said it was not their problem I ended to being a bit uncivilized. I ended up throwing the coffee opened on the outside window of the establishment not to break the window but as a show of if you are going to be a jerk I can be a jerk. the payload of my coffee was a brownish window with white chunky bits all over the window after it being claimed it was my issue that the coffee was bad. This was before the time of Major on line review sites, But boy did it gain the managers attention when it was realized what I was served and it was slowly slipping down the window. The manager wholeheartedly apologized and I did as well… in the end the manager gave me a gift card and I helped clean down his window.

When the retail space is mobbed with adults screaming over fractional things, real health hazards like spoiled milk get brushed off as ‘not our problem.’ A functional store helps a customer actually has curdled chunks in their cup, both sides can fix it, clean the glass, and move on.

CBS news – Massachusetts ice cream shop goes viral for profane Facebook post defending teen employees