If you're in a store and you observe a customer being rude to the store worker, would you say something to the customer?

One of the local FB groups I’m in just had a post from a lady who said her son works at a grocery store, in Customer Service, and one of the customers got mad at him and started ranting and called him a moron.

Recently, I was in Florida at Costco (yes, I try to go to Costco when I’m on vacation haha), and there was a man in front of me on line. He wasn’t on his wife’s account, so they had to get permission from the Manager to let him use the card. He was saying please, I’ll pay cash (the membership card was also a credit card). Then they rang it up and it was a few hundred dollars, and he was getting huffy and saying “this is ridiculous” and stuff like that, as if the decision is made by the cashier. The cashier was telling him it’s not her decision, she has to get it approved by management. I was tempted to tell him to try to be nice, because it’s not the cashier’s fault, but I told myself to leave it alone.

Yesterday, I was at Costco at Customer Service, and there was a man inquiring about his refund check (when using the Costco credit card, you get cash back in the form of a check). He was saying “if they mailed it out in December, it’s lost.” The clerk told him she was trying to help him but she had to research it, she just couldn’t issue a new check without researching it. He was getting upset and waving his arms around. When I went up to another clerk to get help for my issue, I said I can’t believe how that guy is ranting and being nasty to the ladies, and the clerk told me that usually, customers won’t act that way toward the men, only toward the women. I had been tempted to tell the customer “can you try to be a little nicer?” but he wasn’t being totally nasty – probably not anywhere near the worst that the clerks have seen.

If you’re in a store and you observe a customer being rude to a store worker, would you say something?

I know if I was in the store when the customer told the teenager he’s a moron, I would have definitely said something.

A local Starbucks has reduced hours now because they can’t get help. People say it’s because the employees get treated so badly by customers, nobody wants to work there for the pay.