Well said Len but you never had me for a customer. One heavily & brightly tattooed Woolworths check out chick of about 40 once told me that her mate in another store envied her having me for a customer.
Sadly some check out chicks equally fall into the categories listed by you describing customers. I've even had some report me to management for being pleasant and one decidedto use me to get her 130kg 6'4" 30 years younger oaf of a submanager boyfriend jealous so he bailed me up against my car on night whilst in shop uniform & in another store car park threatening me with gbh for having said to her "if your interested in poetry I run a local appreciation group, give me a phone call". The local police dropped the case after they shopped dealers in their supermarket car park!
The oaf was eventually moved to another store & town after threatening the check out chick who had had enough of him. She disappeared also.

Reminds me of the Catholic church & its molesting priests.

@FrayedBear Jeeze! Where do you people live? I'm 77 years old and been retired from the Post Office of a small town in western Kentucky for some 22 years now, and I worked the front window most of those years and I can remember only TWO occasions in 32 years of work when I experienced anything similar to what you guys have described. Perhaps citizens in small, rural towns of 15 to 20,000 are much more plesant and friendly than in larger cities or perhaps times and attitudes have changed greatly in the last 22 years since my retirement. Either way, my years of service helping the people in my community was always plesant and enjoyable and I can only imagine what it must have been like to go to work each day only to face the situations you have described. Thanks for the insight, but it makes me glad I lived my working years in a small village. Larry in western Kentucky

@Justme43 I live in a godbothering rural town of some 12000 or so inhabitants in a country once described by a senior minister as "a large island on the arse end of the world". It was a colonial prison and the uncommon saying is "you recognise an Australian by his well balance stance - s/he has a chip on each shoulder"! Currently about 1/25 of the population live outside the country. A further 10% of people living here are not Australian citizens.

@Justme43 MY first retail job was as a part timer in the late 1970s, I worked in high class departments stores, corner shops, off licences and newsagents until finally getting out in my late thirties to take over n a passive fire protection company and turn it in to a multinational concern in five years. I retired early eleven years ago to care for sick family members and help raise my grandchildren. In all that time I can honestly count the amount of pleasant and respectful regular customers on the fingers of both hands. Indifference is the best to be hoped for, the worst is the utter bastard who comes in to deliberately provoke your temper with utter bad manners and unfulfillable demands so they can demand your dismissal and a ten percent discount on an off the peg £40 crimplene suit.

@FrayedBear Dang! Definitely not my impression of you guys over there. Of course, I really know nothing about Australia nor its people, but I always pictured it as a "laid back" country sort of place where people were independent and tended to their own business and left others alone. I guess different areas of the world have various types of individuals -- the same here in the US. Some small towns here get the reputation of having "nosey" people while others go about their lives privately. We had approximately 800 Post Office Boxes in the Lobby which were mostly rented by businesses and were visited on a daily basis, which gave those of us working the windows the opportunity to interact with those people daily. We knew most of them by name and/or by face at least. It really was a plesant experience all those years. There really are lots of great, compassionate people in this world. I guess you just sometimes have to sort them out. Larry in western Kentucky

@FrayedBear, @LenHazell53 Sounds like you had an exciting, successful life. Those are days you can look back on with pride knowing you took an unplesant situation and turned it into a successful career! Larry in western Kentucky

@Justme43 Thanks Larry but from my perspectve it is more a case of "I laugh that I do not cry!".
Without knowing Len very well I suspect that it has frequently been the same for him.

My first retailing was mid 60's as a boy in a butcher's shop mainly serving hard bitten boarding housekeepers. It was managed by a big dour angry backroom Scotsman who had a flirty blousy blonde past her prime wife who worked the front of shop.
Few if any of the women gave grief if you were polite to them & gave correct charge & change. Equally I do not remember any apart from the one wanting t bones for the embryonic Rolling Stones.

@FrayedBear I was raised on a farm in western Kentucky, (b 1943) where we raised tobacco, corn, cotton, popcorn, hogs, cows, and worked mules, milked cows (for our own use), killed the hogs each year for meat, we had chickens for eggs and fryers, cats, dogs, and I guess that's about all. Work was hard and there was always work to be done. My first real job was selling books and bibles in South Carolina before entering the University. While attending college I worked as a janitor in the admin building and also the student union rec room (pool room). Those were not really enjoyable jobs but at least it helped with college expenses. Later I worked for the Kentucky Parks Department at a local camping area on Kentucky Lake State Park and then at the Park's Kenlake Hotel as Desk Clerk and then as Reservations Clerk. Those were enjoyable positions but paid little. After marrying, I worked two "miserable" years (midnights) at an auto/truck tire building plant. At age 23 I was employed by the US Postal Service where I spent the next 32 years. So, all in all, it wasn't a terrible life. I've enjoyed the last 22 years except for health issues the last 14 years, with two major pancreatic surgeries, hernias, and symptoms similar to IBS. Of course my world came crushing down on me in Dec 2018 when I lost my wife of 55 years to cancer. Since then, life has little meaning to me. I just mainly exist with no purpose or future in sight. OK, that's my life story in 250 words or less. Larry in western Kentucky.

@Justme43 Larry, yours is a wonderful life & part of the great People's Long Memory. Do you have children & grandchildren? Do they know your "long Memory"? Please do not deny them the opportunity to benefit from it. Have a listen to all of the wonderful community radio programmes "Loafer's Glory" made by Utah Phillips and put up by his largely unfathered son for the world to share and listen to - [thelongmemory.com]
If after three times listening to each of the 100 available episodes you are not still discovering things about yourself and your world then I will be very surprised.

My brother & I were like cat & dog, it was always my hope that one day we would actually be able to have a normal brotherly relationship. That will never happen as he was almost instantly killed in a road accident that should never have occurred more than 20 years ago. About the only thing however that he said that has stayed with me over the years is his saying "the day that you stop learning is the day you die!"

I don't think that you have got anywhere near the point where you will stop learning, growing and developing.

@Justme43 sent you a message.