Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: This may seem like a dumb post, but the way the cashier reacted made me feel like crap and I haven’t worked in retail, so I’m not sure if I violated some unwritten rule. 

I buy my dogs higher end food that I normally have to get through specialty stores, as big chains like PetCo don’t carry the brand. The store I go to I believe is a locally owned business with only two locations. Everything is eligible for return (including food), but they only offer exchanges or store credit on a gift card, no cash back. 

I recently went to look for a head collar for my dog. They didn’t have the brand I wanted so I bought another one assuming that they’re generally all the same, and I’d seen good reviews on this brand as well. I asked a manager to reassure me that if it didn’t fit, I could return it, and he said that as long as it wasn’t damaged and returned in the packaging, I could return it, no questions asked. 

Ended up not liking the head collar. It didn’t fit quite right on my dog and I believed would have caused him some pain if he were to pull while wearing it, which is the exact opposite of what I want. I went to return and there were 2 cashiers in the store, both super friendly throughout the whole process. I explained it just didn’t fit, and when they asked if I wanted to exchange it for a different size, I mentioned that I preferred a different brand and they said they didn’t carry those, so they just put the return on a gift card. I went to see if maybe there was another option, but it turns out, they only had the one brand I didn’t like. Not a big deal, my dogs were running low on food anyways, so I figured I’d pick them up a bag while I was there. 

When I went to check out, the cashier asked me if I’d like to pay with debit or credit card. I said I wanted to use the gift card and pay the rest with cash. My cashier looked at the other one and scoffed and was suddenly not friendly to me at all. As soon as I was done paying, there was no “thank you, have a nice day”. Just an eye roll and they both promptly walked away towards the back. I could hear them both whispering as they walked away. Normally they offer to help carry large purchases to your car as well, but I wasn’t offered help. 

I didn’t think that if I got a gift card from a return, it would have to be used for a similar product, especially when they only offer one brand. It’s essentially still my money since I paid for the original product, correct? Everything was fine up until that point so I don’t know if there’s some unwritten rule against what I did (like when I was a barista, we’d get annoyed at customers who would order 5 blended drinks 2 minutes before we closed because we’d already cleaned the blenders). 

This is the second time this has happened (I once returned a bag of food because I didn’t realize there was a hole in it and they’d just put tape on it. I didn’t want to risk feeding it to my dogs. Returned it, used the store credit and bought some treats and toys) where everyone is super friendly, greets me on the way in, super helpful with the return, then gets irritated when I use the store credit for something unrelated. 

Am I an asshole? Or are they just being judgmental?

returning an item and using the store credit to buy something unrelated