Argent Silvermage
First Post
Bad double p[ost. No desert for you.
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Holiday Customer Service Hell.
- Thread starter Argent Silvermage
- Start date
Argent Silvermage
First Post
die_kluge said:
That reminds me of some of the idiot "discussions" I have had with people.
1) Everyone knows that Wendy's only has Chocolate Frostys. I had a woman insist that she eat at the store all the time and she always got a Big Mac and a strawberry frosty. I looked at her and said Lady you go to McDonalds but Wendy's we don't have either of those things.
2) this lady insisted I give her 2 chicken breast and insisted they be only white meat. Now I should have not said anything but I said to her Breasts are always white meat (i even explained to her about chicken parts.) she insisted that this one place she goes to offers both dark and white meat breasts. I picked up a thigh and asked her "Is this a dark meat Breast?" she said yes. I quit that day.
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And then there are those of us that work at convenience stores. Shemmy and the rest of my Sunday group know what I'm talking about.
My store has a lot of Hispanic customers--some documented, some not, all very interesting people. One rather interesting guy in particular is somebody that we at my store refer to as "The Man Who Busted Himself".
Dude comes in and goes to the cooler. He gets out a 12-pack of Corona, and is holding it so that the top comes open while he's bringing it to the counter (i.e. he was trying to carry it from the front rather than using the hand-holds built into the sides of the box).
Herewith ensues the following conversation:
(I attempt to check the contents of the box to make sure no bottles were broken in the fall)
Customer: "No man, is cool, is just chillin'!" (repeated over and over as he tries to keep me from checking the box)
Me: "Just making sure no bottles broke."
Customer: "No man, is okay man, yeah, is just chillin'," ad infinitum (and yes, kids, he was flashing gang signs at me and acting like he was Straight Outta Compton<tm>.)
(I explain to the guy in my broken Spanglish that I was making sure no bottles were broken (because the box fell to the hard floor), and that if any were broken I'd have gotten him a new box of Coronas. Customer finally accepts this explanation, but a little man pops up over his head and starts waving red flags.)
Me: (raising an eyebrow) "You have ID?"
Customer: "Oh, yeah." (Customer produces an ID with a picture on it that kinda resembles him and has a birthdate of 7-22-81) "Is my brother ID, I buy him..."
Me: (as alarm bells ring, making me look at the ID carefully and then back and forth between him and the ID repeatedly) "Your brother's ID? Sorry, no beer."
Customer: "No, is my ID. Yeah, is mine. See? Is me? My name Edgar." (Yes the name on the ID was Edgar--but I doubt it was this dude)
Me: "You told me it was your brother's."
Customer: (In the midst of lots of "No man, is just chillin' man, come on, yeah, is okay man"s) "No, is mine! See? Looks like me!" (No, on closer inspection it didn't)
Me: "OK, so it's your ID or it's your brother's ID. Which one is it?"
(Two more customers wait patiently by the counter, grinning at the scene)
Customer: "No, is my. See? I tell you is birthday 22 de...."
Me: "Right. Sorry, no beer for you. Leave and no come back, or I call la policia and they call INS."
(Guy freaks, grabs ID, and RUNS out the store.)
We also lock our doors on third shift, because we've been robbed several times. So we do everything through our service window from 11 PM until around 5:00 AM or so. This is always interesting, because we get people that either 1) refuse to read the WINDOW ONLY sign on the front door and attempt to yank the doors open, 2) refuse to read the sign and attempt to yank the doors open, and then come to the window and yell at me because our doors are locked, or 3) decide to run me all over the store with constantly-changing orders, just to punish me for having the doors locked as an anti-robbery measure.
PAR EXAMPLE:
This guy came up one night. He first tries to wrench the front door open, even though he is 1) English-speaking (and, presumably, literate in English as well and can read the WINDOW ONLY sign) and 2) seeing that the doors are indeed locked.
So he comes to the window and demands that I let him in, because he wants to buy some beer. The following conversation ensues:
Me: "I can't let you in. If you tell me what you want I can--"
Guy: "I want you to let me in, b!tch!"
Me: "Please leave my lot, sir."
Guy: "Fsck you, you fscking fatass!"
Me: "I'm sorry sir, but you do not sexually excite me." Love the Gord, Fear the Gord.
<b>I pick up the phone and start dialing.</b>
Guy: "Get off the fscking phone and let me in!"
Me: "One minute, sir--I need to finish asking the Raleigh PD to come take you down to City and County on trespassing charges."
So the guy starts screaming at me and tried to rip the drawer out, leaving only when he sees that I was indeed talking to the RPD--2 cars come, one of the officers goes walking around the store with his maglite while I give a statement to the other officer, they didn't find the guy. But I had a cop in the lot off and on for the rest of the night, which was nice of them.
I've also had people attempt to actually break in to the store while I'm back in cooler restocking after 2 AM (when the alcohol sales stop in this state)--for this reason, we have a "panic button" pager that I (and whoever else works third shift) carry with me when I'm back in the cooler and not near the phone or our main alarm button (which is behind the counter).
And then there are the Rich Soccer Moms<tm> that I get to deal with whenever I work at one of our stores in Cary (the "nouveau riche" town just outside of Raleigh). A couple of times I had a Rich Soccer Mom come in to the store and proceed to jump all over me about the price of--get this--the bottled water.
1 liter of Dasani, Aquafina, or Deer Park water costs about the same as a 20-ounce bottle of Mt. Dew--which is to say, $1.27 after tax. That's pretty cheap, yo. And yet Rich Soccer Mom, whose left hand is weighted down by a huge rock and who drives a Mercedes SUV, is bitching about it? There were two of them--RSM1 and RSM2, we'll call them. RSM1 shut up when I pointed out that it's probably cheaper to get her bottled water at the store I was working at than it is to get it at the Harris Teeter about 120 yards away--but only after she went and checked to make sure I wasn't lying to her. RSM2, OTOH, was a screaming bitch who did her level best to make me feel like I was somehow lower than dog mess because I'm one of the proletariat--that, of course, was entirely the WRONG thing to do. I very quietly let her expend her energy bitching about how everything was overpriced, and then I gave her Intro to Economics 101:
"Madame, I do not set the prices in this store or any other $CHAIN store--I only collect the money and make sure that no freelance socialists abscond with the merchandise or drive off without paying for their gas. If you find our prices so onerous, you are quite free to spend your money elsewhere."
Then she threatened to have me fired--to which I threw out Standard Response #121:
"Ma'am, I have lived through every natural disaster except tsunami. I have survived poisonings, shootings, knifings, beatings, the Bubonic Plague, bacterial meningitis, automobile accidents, and a whole raft of other things that should have sent me to an early grave. If you wish to scare me, you'll have to try a lot harder than that."
Imagine that delivered with a cheerful voice, and you can imagine why she just sorta looked at me blankly and left without saying anything (and leaving the water on the counter).
And then there are the people that can't figure out how to use our pumps. One woman pulled up and tried to Pay At Pump, but couldn't figure out that you have to leave the nozzle on the hook until it gives you the "remove nozzle and select grade" message (we actually had directions on the pump that flatly said this). So she came in twice--both times while I had customers at the counter.
First time:
Lady: "Could you please reset the pump out there?"
Me: (after checking the POS screen to make sure that the pump was reset) "It reset itself, ma'am."
Second time:
Lady: *barges in front of the 5 guys at the counter and shoves her card at me* "That pump isn't accepting my card! It keeps telling me to come inside, and I have to be at Court in half an hour!"
Me: "Give me about 30 seconds, guys." *customers--all regulars--nod. A couple of them smile at the show that is forthcoming* "Let me see if I can give that pump an attitude adjustment for you, ma'am."
So I walk outside with this pushy-ass bizatch, very politely ask her for her card, and--when I get to the pump--reach over and flip up the "on-hook" indicator so that the pump thinks the nozzle has been replaced. Then I slide the card, hand it back to her, let her enter her PIN, and then the pump says "please remove nozzle and select grade".
Oh MAN was she pissed off! And I just smiled, apologized for the crabbiness of our pumps, and went back inside--blithely ignoring the dirty look and the nasty comments she hurled after me--to help the customers that had so patiently waited for me at the counter.
And then there's the story that Shemmy has been telling me that I NEED to post in this thread:
Two cars pull into my lot at about 3:45 AM or so and park in the "employee parking" spaces--an SUV (if you can call a Toyota 4Runner an SUV) and some little dink-ass hatchback. Driver of the hatchback gets out and gets in the back of the 4Runner. Driver of the 4Runner runs over to the window and buys a box of condoms. I ring him up, he thanks me, and hies off to his 4Runner....and gets in the back seat. After a few moments I see the 4Runner start shaking--not violently, but enough so that an observer would know that there was something going on back there.
Yeah, that.
So 25 minutes go by, and the shaking stops. This is about the time that I decided to go out and have a smoke--because, of course, a post-coital smoke is very satisfying. I have that on good authority, anyway.
I go out, locking the door behind me of course, and get out my tin of Camel Izmir Stingers. I take one out, light 'er up, and take a deep drag or two from it. This is about the time the driver of the hatchback gets out and comes over to bum a smoke. I give him one, give him a light, and he says "So...."
My reply: "If you have to ask, it wasn't."
The look on his face, kids--I wish I'd had my camera with me to capture it, because it was fraggin' priceless. He and I laughed about it for a moment, and then he left.
You think I should have told him about the RPD cruiser that came through the lot, slowed down while the officer gawked at the shaking 4Runner, and then drove on up Western Boulevard?
Naaaaah.
My store has a lot of Hispanic customers--some documented, some not, all very interesting people. One rather interesting guy in particular is somebody that we at my store refer to as "The Man Who Busted Himself".
Dude comes in and goes to the cooler. He gets out a 12-pack of Corona, and is holding it so that the top comes open while he's bringing it to the counter (i.e. he was trying to carry it from the front rather than using the hand-holds built into the sides of the box).
Herewith ensues the following conversation:
(I attempt to check the contents of the box to make sure no bottles were broken in the fall)
Customer: "No man, is cool, is just chillin'!" (repeated over and over as he tries to keep me from checking the box)
Me: "Just making sure no bottles broke."
Customer: "No man, is okay man, yeah, is just chillin'," ad infinitum (and yes, kids, he was flashing gang signs at me and acting like he was Straight Outta Compton<tm>.)
(I explain to the guy in my broken Spanglish that I was making sure no bottles were broken (because the box fell to the hard floor), and that if any were broken I'd have gotten him a new box of Coronas. Customer finally accepts this explanation, but a little man pops up over his head and starts waving red flags.)
Me: (raising an eyebrow) "You have ID?"
Customer: "Oh, yeah." (Customer produces an ID with a picture on it that kinda resembles him and has a birthdate of 7-22-81) "Is my brother ID, I buy him..."
Me: (as alarm bells ring, making me look at the ID carefully and then back and forth between him and the ID repeatedly) "Your brother's ID? Sorry, no beer."
Customer: "No, is my ID. Yeah, is mine. See? Is me? My name Edgar." (Yes the name on the ID was Edgar--but I doubt it was this dude)
Me: "You told me it was your brother's."
Customer: (In the midst of lots of "No man, is just chillin' man, come on, yeah, is okay man"s) "No, is mine! See? Looks like me!" (No, on closer inspection it didn't)
Me: "OK, so it's your ID or it's your brother's ID. Which one is it?"
(Two more customers wait patiently by the counter, grinning at the scene)
Customer: "No, is my. See? I tell you is birthday 22 de...."
Me: "Right. Sorry, no beer for you. Leave and no come back, or I call la policia and they call INS."
(Guy freaks, grabs ID, and RUNS out the store.)
We also lock our doors on third shift, because we've been robbed several times. So we do everything through our service window from 11 PM until around 5:00 AM or so. This is always interesting, because we get people that either 1) refuse to read the WINDOW ONLY sign on the front door and attempt to yank the doors open, 2) refuse to read the sign and attempt to yank the doors open, and then come to the window and yell at me because our doors are locked, or 3) decide to run me all over the store with constantly-changing orders, just to punish me for having the doors locked as an anti-robbery measure.
PAR EXAMPLE:
This guy came up one night. He first tries to wrench the front door open, even though he is 1) English-speaking (and, presumably, literate in English as well and can read the WINDOW ONLY sign) and 2) seeing that the doors are indeed locked.
So he comes to the window and demands that I let him in, because he wants to buy some beer. The following conversation ensues:
Me: "I can't let you in. If you tell me what you want I can--"
Guy: "I want you to let me in, b!tch!"
Me: "Please leave my lot, sir."
Guy: "Fsck you, you fscking fatass!"
Me: "I'm sorry sir, but you do not sexually excite me." Love the Gord, Fear the Gord.
<b>I pick up the phone and start dialing.</b>
Guy: "Get off the fscking phone and let me in!"
Me: "One minute, sir--I need to finish asking the Raleigh PD to come take you down to City and County on trespassing charges."
So the guy starts screaming at me and tried to rip the drawer out, leaving only when he sees that I was indeed talking to the RPD--2 cars come, one of the officers goes walking around the store with his maglite while I give a statement to the other officer, they didn't find the guy. But I had a cop in the lot off and on for the rest of the night, which was nice of them.
I've also had people attempt to actually break in to the store while I'm back in cooler restocking after 2 AM (when the alcohol sales stop in this state)--for this reason, we have a "panic button" pager that I (and whoever else works third shift) carry with me when I'm back in the cooler and not near the phone or our main alarm button (which is behind the counter).
And then there are the Rich Soccer Moms<tm> that I get to deal with whenever I work at one of our stores in Cary (the "nouveau riche" town just outside of Raleigh). A couple of times I had a Rich Soccer Mom come in to the store and proceed to jump all over me about the price of--get this--the bottled water.
1 liter of Dasani, Aquafina, or Deer Park water costs about the same as a 20-ounce bottle of Mt. Dew--which is to say, $1.27 after tax. That's pretty cheap, yo. And yet Rich Soccer Mom, whose left hand is weighted down by a huge rock and who drives a Mercedes SUV, is bitching about it? There were two of them--RSM1 and RSM2, we'll call them. RSM1 shut up when I pointed out that it's probably cheaper to get her bottled water at the store I was working at than it is to get it at the Harris Teeter about 120 yards away--but only after she went and checked to make sure I wasn't lying to her. RSM2, OTOH, was a screaming bitch who did her level best to make me feel like I was somehow lower than dog mess because I'm one of the proletariat--that, of course, was entirely the WRONG thing to do. I very quietly let her expend her energy bitching about how everything was overpriced, and then I gave her Intro to Economics 101:
"Madame, I do not set the prices in this store or any other $CHAIN store--I only collect the money and make sure that no freelance socialists abscond with the merchandise or drive off without paying for their gas. If you find our prices so onerous, you are quite free to spend your money elsewhere."
Then she threatened to have me fired--to which I threw out Standard Response #121:
"Ma'am, I have lived through every natural disaster except tsunami. I have survived poisonings, shootings, knifings, beatings, the Bubonic Plague, bacterial meningitis, automobile accidents, and a whole raft of other things that should have sent me to an early grave. If you wish to scare me, you'll have to try a lot harder than that."
Imagine that delivered with a cheerful voice, and you can imagine why she just sorta looked at me blankly and left without saying anything (and leaving the water on the counter).
And then there are the people that can't figure out how to use our pumps. One woman pulled up and tried to Pay At Pump, but couldn't figure out that you have to leave the nozzle on the hook until it gives you the "remove nozzle and select grade" message (we actually had directions on the pump that flatly said this). So she came in twice--both times while I had customers at the counter.
First time:
Lady: "Could you please reset the pump out there?"
Me: (after checking the POS screen to make sure that the pump was reset) "It reset itself, ma'am."
Second time:
Lady: *barges in front of the 5 guys at the counter and shoves her card at me* "That pump isn't accepting my card! It keeps telling me to come inside, and I have to be at Court in half an hour!"
Me: "Give me about 30 seconds, guys." *customers--all regulars--nod. A couple of them smile at the show that is forthcoming* "Let me see if I can give that pump an attitude adjustment for you, ma'am."
So I walk outside with this pushy-ass bizatch, very politely ask her for her card, and--when I get to the pump--reach over and flip up the "on-hook" indicator so that the pump thinks the nozzle has been replaced. Then I slide the card, hand it back to her, let her enter her PIN, and then the pump says "please remove nozzle and select grade".
Oh MAN was she pissed off! And I just smiled, apologized for the crabbiness of our pumps, and went back inside--blithely ignoring the dirty look and the nasty comments she hurled after me--to help the customers that had so patiently waited for me at the counter.
And then there's the story that Shemmy has been telling me that I NEED to post in this thread:
Two cars pull into my lot at about 3:45 AM or so and park in the "employee parking" spaces--an SUV (if you can call a Toyota 4Runner an SUV) and some little dink-ass hatchback. Driver of the hatchback gets out and gets in the back of the 4Runner. Driver of the 4Runner runs over to the window and buys a box of condoms. I ring him up, he thanks me, and hies off to his 4Runner....and gets in the back seat. After a few moments I see the 4Runner start shaking--not violently, but enough so that an observer would know that there was something going on back there.
Yeah, that.
So 25 minutes go by, and the shaking stops. This is about the time that I decided to go out and have a smoke--because, of course, a post-coital smoke is very satisfying. I have that on good authority, anyway.
I go out, locking the door behind me of course, and get out my tin of Camel Izmir Stingers. I take one out, light 'er up, and take a deep drag or two from it. This is about the time the driver of the hatchback gets out and comes over to bum a smoke. I give him one, give him a light, and he says "So...."
My reply: "If you have to ask, it wasn't."
The look on his face, kids--I wish I'd had my camera with me to capture it, because it was fraggin' priceless. He and I laughed about it for a moment, and then he left.
You think I should have told him about the RPD cruiser that came through the lot, slowed down while the officer gawked at the shaking 4Runner, and then drove on up Western Boulevard?
Naaaaah.
Argent Silvermage
First Post
LOL! Florian that was great. I caught my boss and his wife in the meat locker in the Wendys I used to night manage. They even used the frosty machhine greese for lube. UGH!
cignus_pfaccari
First Post
DungeonmasterCal said:
Oh...this reminds me of a story.
So, I used to run a patient assistance program that had thousands of patients enrolled (while I've given over the day-to-day stuff to my padawan learner, I still do the hard stuff, like crunching numbers). I primarily kept up the provider prescription forms, which, when the doctor or other prescribing professional signs them, become prescriptions for this drug. We then send them to the pharmacy that ships drug for us, and we keep copies in case the pharmacy drops the ball and loses the stuff.
Well, this doctor's office calls, SCREAMING, that they never prescribed [drugname] for this patient because she hasn't been to see them in almost a year, and how dare we ship drug to this patient, etc. I go and look at the copies of the forms that I keep, and, yep, there's a signature of this doctor's name on it. As it was surprisingly legible for a doctor's signature, I went and found another patient of this doctor's, and, lo and behold, the signatures matched.
I go back to the doctor, and tell her this. She goes all quiet, and then says, oh, I must have thought it was for someone else, can I fax those copies to be sure? Okey, fax them, but she wants to withdraw her prescription for the patient. Okey.
The reason this has stuck out in my mind is because the doctor had no idea she'd signed a prescription form for a patient that, effectively, gave the patient about $10k worth of free medication. Just think about the level of attention that demonstrates.
Brad
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Jesus_marley
First Post
Florian, you reminded me of a similar experience I had several years ago.
I was working as night security at the time in a very large complex that used to be a brewery. Part of my duties was to ensure that the rear parking lot remained empty and any vehicles there were to be towed.
One night, while on an external patrol, I saw a lone vehicle parked near the entrance to the lot. As I approached the vehicle to gather the relevant information, I noticed that it was moving (but not going anywhere, if you get my meaning).
I get up to the vehicle and see an attractive young lady (early to mid 20's) naked as a jaybird straddling the driver in the front seat, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. ( a proper assumption considering neither of them noticed my direct approach to the car)
I can say that they did notice when I knocked on the window, however. They stopped and an obviously embarassed young man rolled down the window.
Trying desperately to hold back my hysterical laughter and thus destroy my intimidating demeanor, I explained to the nice couple that "You can't park here and you will have to move your vehicle."
I did have sympathy for them though. When he asked, I agreed to give them five more minutes. They were gone in three.
I was working as night security at the time in a very large complex that used to be a brewery. Part of my duties was to ensure that the rear parking lot remained empty and any vehicles there were to be towed.
One night, while on an external patrol, I saw a lone vehicle parked near the entrance to the lot. As I approached the vehicle to gather the relevant information, I noticed that it was moving (but not going anywhere, if you get my meaning).
I get up to the vehicle and see an attractive young lady (early to mid 20's) naked as a jaybird straddling the driver in the front seat, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. ( a proper assumption considering neither of them noticed my direct approach to the car)
I can say that they did notice when I knocked on the window, however. They stopped and an obviously embarassed young man rolled down the window.
Trying desperately to hold back my hysterical laughter and thus destroy my intimidating demeanor, I explained to the nice couple that "You can't park here and you will have to move your vehicle."
I did have sympathy for them though. When he asked, I agreed to give them five more minutes. They were gone in three.
DungeonmasterCal
First Post
ASH said:
When I was managing the video store, we had customers who'd come in that truly reeked. Filthy clothes and unwashed bodies...I mean c'mon. If you can afford to spend 50 dollars a week renting the latest releases, you can afford a bar of soap for you and your kids.
Panthanas
Explorer
ASH said:
I used to be a manager at an EB Games. The particular store that I worked at had a good number of regular customers who must have thought that personal hygiene took up too much time from their gaming. I always thought it interesting that these people could drop $100.00 or more on games but seemed unable to purchase a $1.00 bar of soap.
I'm drawing a blank right now on the all of the "good" customer stories I have unfortunately lived though...probably because I'm trying to burn the memories of EB from my mind...
Anyway, if I happen to remember any I'll post 'em. I also offer my sympathies to everyone that is working customer service and retail this holiday season. Also, these stories are great...reminds me why I ran screaming from retail!
eabha
First Post
This is a great thread! I shall make a meagre contribution...
I used to work the night shift at a small town gas bar/convenience store. I once had a guy come in asking for a rag; he had spilled gas down the side of his leg. I turned to grab a jay cloth from the counter behind me and when I turned back to him, he had his lighter out...yeah, he went and lit his leg on fire. No serious injuries.
Same small town, same midnight shift, just up the road at Tim Hortons (for those who don't know, Tims is classic Canadiana...coffee and doughnuts). I got a call at 2:00am from an irate man who wanted to speak to the police. I said that he had dialed the wrong number but he insisted that he had already tried the right number. I reminded him that after midnight, he needed to call a special number but he started screaming "Cut the $&@%! I know they're there! Put one of them on the line NOW!"
Of course, had he called at 2:30, he'd indeed have caught all eight of the night duty officers in the area, coming in for their nightly break...
I used to work the night shift at a small town gas bar/convenience store. I once had a guy come in asking for a rag; he had spilled gas down the side of his leg. I turned to grab a jay cloth from the counter behind me and when I turned back to him, he had his lighter out...yeah, he went and lit his leg on fire. No serious injuries.
Same small town, same midnight shift, just up the road at Tim Hortons (for those who don't know, Tims is classic Canadiana...coffee and doughnuts). I got a call at 2:00am from an irate man who wanted to speak to the police. I said that he had dialed the wrong number but he insisted that he had already tried the right number. I reminded him that after midnight, he needed to call a special number but he started screaming "Cut the $&@%! I know they're there! Put one of them on the line NOW!"
Of course, had he called at 2:30, he'd indeed have caught all eight of the night duty officers in the area, coming in for their nightly break...
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