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- Some T.J. Maxx customers can get aggressive with employees and other shoppers.
- A leaked internal document provides a de-escalation protocol for employees.
- It uses Rae Dunn shoppers as an example of customers who can get defensive and physically violent.
Maxxinistas can become so attached to their finds, they may just go rogue.
In fact, the off-price retailer T.J. Maxx sends its store managers a de-escalation document outlining how to handle customers if they become verbally or physically aggressive.
The document was posted in a Reddit thread. Insider verified its legitimacy with a T.J. Maxx employee. T.J. Maxx did not respond to a request for comment.
The document uses the wildly popular Rae Dunn ceramics as an example of a product that can get shoppers especially worked up. Rae Dunn home-decor items, such as mugs, bowls, and pillows, are often adorned with cheerful messages like, "Good morning," and, "Follow your own path." Rae Dunn collectors, or "Dunn hunters," as The Washington Post calls them, are known to line up outside T.J. Maxx stores before opening and fight over merchandise.
"We have had a customer snatch a Rae Dunn vase out of an elderly customer's hands before," the Reddit-post author wrote. "And one regular is constantly harassing us on truck day to find certain items for her." The poster did not respond to a request for comment or to independently verify their employment.
Insider spoke with two current T.J. Maxx employees who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. Insider has verified their identities and employment.
The document breaks down customer behaviors into three categories: anxious, defensive, and physically violent.
The protocols cover situations such as if a customer enters the backroom looking for merchandise, yells at an associate, or pushes another customer — both employees told Insider these scenarios had happened.
"If it's not there, they'll peek in our backroom doors," an employee speaking with Insider said. "I have had a lady physically stand by the backroom door until the person clocked on to their shift and brought out that gondola and taken every single one of that same item and put it in her cart." A gondola is a fixture used in retail stores to organize merchandise.
The Washington Post
Sometimes customers throw things, an employee said.
"I have seen physical fights gone down in my store because, of course, somebody's taken more than one item and not left anything for any other shopper, and they're throwing cookie jars at each other," the employee told Insider.
But it's not only the Dunners, as the shoppers are sometimes called on TikTok, who can get out of pocket. The employees said that T.J. Maxx sent the document out whenever there was an increased risk of escalated customer interactions, particularly around the holidays or a product recall substituting Rae Dunn for a different product. Hello Kitty and Squishmallows are also popular brands among shoppers.
Customers have lashed out for many other reasons, from a mispriced item to being asked whether they want to open a store card. Even simple things, such as the store running out of paper bags, can turn into "a fight with grown adults refusing to leave the store until we give them a bag," an employee said, adding: "The fights aren't so much over the products. It's become more personal."
Over the past few years, hostile customers have become a more common issue for people working retail jobs. Violence toward retail workers increased during the early days of the pandemic. The ethos "the customer is always right" seems to have created a sense of entitlement and aggression among shoppers.
In the document, T.J. Maxx suggests several ways for employees to engage customers to temper their frustration. For example, if a customer is angry that the checkout line is slow, employees can ask, "Have you found everything you're looking for?" and ensure all their items have price tags to speed up the process.
If a customer yells at an associate or uses profanity, the paper suggests the employee politely ask them to lower their voice and say, "We are committed to fostering an environment of mutual respect between our associates and customers and do not condone any type of aggressiveness in our stores."
If customers get physically violent, store leaders are instructed to ask them to leave, call the police, and then contact a district manager or district loss-prevention manager.
But the company's de-escalation tactics aren't always effective, one employee said.
"When someone is screaming at somebody else in a T.J. Maxx, you've kind of gone beyond logic," they said. "You're just left sort of reading off a script to someone who's getting increasingly off script."
If you are a T.J. Maxx employee and would like to share your experience, please email this reporter at jortakales@insider.com or text (646) 768-4742 using the Signal app.