Did I get angry for nothing?

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I'm probably missing a lot here, due to my severe deafness to the unsaid...?

I go to a store, ask the guy at the door where the shopping carts are, he answers:

"Outside, of course. And if there aren't any, then there aren't any!" in a sarcastic, hostile tone.

I complain about his unwelcoming behavior at the customers' desk, the lady just asks someone to try and get me a cart, no one gets me anything, I proceed to the dept. I want to buy my stuff in.

It's terribly crowded. I have 50 people before me and wait 1 full hour for my turn, only to see that they're not looking at the numbers, so anyone who jumps and says: "Here! That's my number!" gets served.

I complain, and the attendants ignore me. I ask an attendant for something, he says "Sure!" then does the opposite. When I ask him why, he starts arguing with me in a raised voice, but still refuses to say why he had lied to me that he could do what I requested. My turn comes but I get passed over, because the attendant is angry at me. The person who was 10 turns behind me is served instead and when I complain, the customer starts yelling and laughing that I got let out of the psychiatric ward. The attendant refuses to tell me his name and in the end gives me a false name.

I go back to the customer service desk, tell the full story to the lady, she lets me speak, in the end she says: "It's not me you have to talk to, it's the manager, over there." I tell the full story again to the manager, but she says she's too busy (the guy who was 10 turns behind me but got served before me is going through her cash desk and can't be kept waiting, although I explained to her that he was way behind me) and tells me to tell the story to her second-manager.

I complain that I'm being made to tell the story a 4th time and that I've been at the store for over an hour and still unable to make my purchase, and I'm a regular customer. They tell me that I'm being uncooperative and if I don't tell the story a 4th time, they won't help me get served. They also confirm that the attendant gave me a false name.

The sub-manager goes to the dept. with me and tells the attendant who offended and lied to me that everything is fine, and not to worry, and asks someone else to serve me, then tells me "Now all is Ok". I tell him I don't think anything is ok here, and leave. He yells at me that I only came to their store to make trouble and never meant to buy anything. The dept. attendants stay behind laughing that a customer was so upset by their behavior that she had to leave without buying anything and was admonished by the manager on top of it.

After 1:30 hours of this, I get back home empty-handed.

I hardly consider anger at a situation like that to be "over nothing"; I'm very surprised that the employees got away with treating you that way, frankly they ought to be fired. Given how atrociously the whole thing went, it sounds like you did a good job keeping it together. I wouldn't have put up with it and left long before you did, and a lot of other aspies would have melted down over it, so kudos for your maturity and self-control, even given a ridiculous situation. I would just refuse to shop there again, and go find one of those websites where you can review stores and other service places and tell your story there, hopefully discourage others from shopping there and simultaneously save them the trouble you went through, and show the store that they can't treat people the way they treated you and get away with it.

It sounds like a "fend for yourself" atmosphere. I try not to rely on clerks very much - they are generally overworked and underpaid, especially if it's busy. But civil behaviour does not seem too much to ask for.

I'm not sure I would have complained though. There's really not much that can be done about the things that happened. The cart guy was rude, but they are at the bottom of the ladder. I don't know how things are where you live, but here the cart guys are often disabled and can't offer much help.

And the incident waiting for your number to be called . . . I never would have made it that far. An hour to get served! Honestly! The line up sounds like a melee.

Can you shop at a less busy time . .. that would be my tactic.

The situation described in the OP is outside of my experience. The part about not using the numbers when there are 50 people suggests that there may be a workplace culture issue, or an event that caused the store to be overly packed that day.

Moondust, I'm sending a PM.

That sounds like a very poor experience.

On one hand the first guy you spoke to may have been having a bad day and that started the domino effect.

On the other hand, if the store was really busy then you may have become the point at which the staff directed their frustration. Poor conduct but possibly true as customer loyalty can mean little at a large store.

I attempted to make a return for a refund at a large swedish furniture store once. I did not know there was a number queue system and was derided by the staff and almost assaulted by one of the waiting customers who thought I was trying to jump the line.

If you really want to register a complaint write to the head office. Don't let them grind you down.

am sorry for not being able to grasp the overall story in this,but there is no such thing as getting angry for nothing, there is always a reason behind anger,whether the person understands what it is,or where its come from or not.

also,ignore that prat who went on about just getting out of a pyschiatric ward,they were being an ignorant fruitloop themselves and it also shows how pathetic their own mentality is if they think being in a pysch ward says something about a person other than they have had a acute illness which needed stabilizing [as any form of acute illness gets treated].

if there are any other supermarkets around and woud be willing to swap to them,how about it? its a way of telling shops where to stick their crap customer services, but before doing this make sure to send an email to whoevers in charge/customer complaints? to tell them all the bad points and why are changing stores,might kick them into action, and possibly earn some free vouchers to,mc donalds,subway and so on usualy do this when they get complaints.

I would be absolutely livid if that happened to me. I probably wouldn't have bothered to complain at customer service in the first place but if I did I'd be and was treated that way I'd definitely be angry.

I don't think you were overreacting at all.

That's exactly what I intend to do. I think it's the best. I'm looking for a forum on Facebook. Facebook is what currently stores most love and fear.