Stocking a shelf at work. The shelf has slots for each item and a retracting panel behind the items to automatically push them forward. They require minimal effort to push back and put an item in, but some customers refuse to do the absolute bare minimum and if the item doesn't magically push in with so little force you couldn't even knock over an empty tin can, they give up entirely.

  
A woman takes an item, taps it against the shelf with no effort, and puts it down on the shelf below, where it does not belong. I take it and put it back on the shelf.  


I step away to stock something else, and I come back. She has another variety of the same item, taps it against the shelf with no effort again, and sets it down on the shelf.  


Normally this shit really aggravates me because it's unacceptable laziness on the shopper's part and I consider it incredibly rude to just throw things wherever you like. Especially if I'm standing right there, trying to make the shelf look nice. Just ask if you need help, or put in the effort to put it back.  


But I'm trying lately to be more verbal with customers, I don't usually try to talk to them. A coworker "messes with" customers and they usually really go for it. These people seemed nice, so when I put the second one back, I said "oh, you missed twice! :P", ribbing the woman for not putting the item on the shelf, twice, and me catching her and correcting her, twice. I say this as I'm taking things to the back.

She responds "Yep! \*\*Twice!\*\*" in a very fierce way, and I was not looking at her but I imagine she said it with an angry stepford smile and wide eyes. Her husband immediately states behind me "If you don't like your job, work a different one, asshole!" which I go wide-eyed at but completely ignore and go hide in the back.

  
I think I mistook what was really "I have no respect for other people and don't clean up after myself" for "oh gosh I can't get it back on the shelf, silly me" (even though she clearly wasn't trying), and that's why they got so upset. They were being defensive.   


It's kind of eating at me, though. :( Is it really me who is the asshole to call someone out- even jokingly- on making the store a messier place? I mean, who does that? Just leaves things wherever they want? Do good people do that? I think it's a fair assumption that people who do that so flippantly- as to do it \*twice\*, in front of an employee, after already being caught doing it- are not good people, but I figured ribbing them for it might make them laugh and reconsider their behavior. Guess not...