I had a GREAT learning lesson today.
I had to go to Western Union earlier this afternoon. I just found out a friend had been robbed and I wanted to transfer some money to him.
When I got there, the lady running the counter didn’t know exactly what she was doing. She was flipping around her screen and asking ME what she should type in for different things that I had no idea about.
I gave her my best guesses, and it seemed to work…. but when I went to pay with my PayPal card, it came up declined.
I KNEW I had money in there, and even double checked my balance on my cell phone to make sure.
The lady told me my PayPal card was a “pay as you go” card, so it wouldn’t work.
I told her (in a VERY nice way) that the card works as a debit all the time, and asked if she could please try again.
She became very agitated and told me, “Ugh, fine”.
When she did it, it came up denied again.
At this point she became VERY hostile with me and rude. I told her I was concerned because I had no other debit card, reminded her that my friend was robbed, and told her I was just trying to think of something because he had no money. I was still VERY nice about it.
Maybe she wrote me off because she thought I didn’t have funds or something, but she was so rude. She basically told me I was out of luck, reiterated that PayPal will never work because it’s “pay as you go”, walked away from me, and was really unfriendly.
When I left, I was pretty mad. I don’t know if I’m explaining well enough how rude she was, but she was extremely nasty for no reason.
I left the building seething, thinking about how I would go to another store, have it work, and then have my assistant call Western Union and the Safeway she worked at to tell them how rude and unhelpful she was.
(I NEVER complain about people, especially since people have bad days and I’ve worked retail, but she was so mean!)
I went to Fred Meyer, another grocery store, and as I figured, the PayPal card worked fine. The cashier at Safeway did something wrong.
Something in me decided to call the first cashier and tell her what happened.
When I called her, I was very nice about it. I said, “Hey, this is Rachel. You were just helping me with my Western Union. I went to Fred Meyer and it worked. I think what happened was that the other cashier put in my friend’s middle name, just so you know for next time!”
She was VERY nice and sincerely thanked me for helping her.
What did I learn out of this?
1. After I called her, I felt like the situation was resolved. Any residue of anger I had just dissipated. It was magical.
2. I stood up for myself in a “confrontational” yet kind way, which felt nice. (Normally I’d probably do nothing and just “eat” the anger, which would never REALLY go away….)
3. I actually got to help that cashier! She seemed very grateful for me telling her what happened.
All in all, it was a great learning lesson. I’m really proud to have stood up for myself and to lift the situation to something where we both left much happier.