I work at Target and I was on a check lane today today. A man roles a woman up in a wheelchair (I presume they are in a romantic relationship). I say hello and the woman raises her shampoos with a smile, okay, fine enough. I ring everything up, and she shows her phone in a kind of confusing angle but somewhat in my direction. Her husband’s not even looking at the phone. Now, at Target, we scan barcodes on phones almost all the time. Sometimes the phone screen times out and we just tap it for it to come back on.
Now normally if I’m touching the phone extensively, like if the guest needs help with the app, I ask if I can see it and the guests are usually more than happy to let me have it. I didn’t ask here because it was just a phone screen timeout m, it was completely blank and I’m thinking she’s trying to show it to me so I can scan it. So I just tap the phone so it can come on, and immediately she retracts it, holding it close to her heart and says that it wasn’t for me, what did was very rude, raising her voice and to never ever touch a guests phone without permission. I apologize and she continues on her tirade, and her husband does not even take a gander toward her or I. She then explains that she was trying to show her husband something but I "messed it up" and now she can’t show it to him, even though it was off. All the whole her husband is looking solemnly to the ground. She then wheelchairs off in a huff and the husband just pays for the things and leaves. I explain the situation to my team lead and he agrees he wouldve made the same assumption (just tap the screen) and that was weird, but to always just ask if I can touch it going forward. I say ok and that was that. Am I the asshole for tapping her phone though?
YTA although not a big one. You should ask for permission or ask her to tap it herself. Some people don’t like their things touched.
Your manager agrees, it’s normal for employees to tap a customer phone to prevent it from sleeping.
You’re fine. NTA
A gentle YTA. You meant no harm, but probably best to ask in the future
I agree with this, thankyou.
ESH. I get that you meant to be helpful and thought she was showing you the phone, but you do need to ask before you touch somebody else’s phone. Not for nothing, people with physical disabilities often have to deal with others touching them and their stuff without asking or acknowledging that they’re doing it, when I think we can all agree that you’d never walk up to somebody who seemed to be able-bodied and touch them or their stuff without a word. I’m honestly not even sure why you told us she was in a wheelchair; did something about her being wheelchair-bound remove your ability to say “hey your phone screen turned off, can you turn your brightness up?”
Obviously, her reaction was OTT and she should not have yelled at you. It wasn’t *that* big of a deal.
NAH. You made a small extremely understandable mistake, from her pov a stranger randomly touched her stuff (still a bit of an overreaction).
I think the customer is a bigger AH for flying off the handle after you apologized.
Careful touching people’s phones unless you use hand sanitizer regularly while you work….phones are disgusting dirty and as we found out 6 years ago… a lot of people don’t wash their hands!!!
I give you credit for working with the public- people have gone bat$?;! crazy!!!
I sanitize regularly because I am a bit of a hypochondriac myself.
NTA.
Take a hint from the husband – he has dealt with her tirades many times before and he was embarrassed to be seen with her.
NTA. I’ve had cashiers do that before or zoom in on the barcode. They only ever ask if they have to pick it up or want to click through the app for some reason
NTA but your team lead gave you good advice that you should follow going forward.
NTA. You should tell everyone you can’t touch their phone from now on. They are gross AF. I’ve seen things I can’t unseen in people’s phones that I was trying to help. I have the rule now that I don’t touch other people’s phone at work. Grosssssssssssss
NTA. Anyone saying anything else doesn’t work retail.
ESH you shouldn’t touch people’s phones without their permission.