Adventures In Stupidland

The BBQ Pit
1

…I swear if I pitted somebody everytime I had wanted to…I’d be a millionaire. Er-I would have a lot more posts than I do now.

I work in a record store. Many stupid people shop at record stores. Oddly enough, the dumbest person I have had to deal with never even came into the store.

The first time this lady called, she was lucky enough to have my co-worker answer. Said co-worker is the most patient person on this earth. The woman could not figure out how to insert batteries into the portable cd player she just bought. Okay I can understand that (no I can’t). Some Discmen have strange battery…compartments (no they don’t). So afterwards, me and the co-worker have a laugh about how he just spent 15 minutes explaining how to insert (huh? whatter these?) batteries into a (errrr…whazzat?) Discman. We get plenty of dumb questions…so, we get back to work.

A half hour later the same lady calls back. I am stuck with her this time. She sounds absolutely distressed…Oh, and before I go on: this does not sound like an old lady at all. If she was old I would be able to understand better…maybe.

Lady: This is a silly question ( :eek:–Okay I will give her credit for knowing this was a stupid question)

Me: Okay…

Lady: How do I get the cd out?

Me: Out of where? The player? The case?

Lady: The case.

Me: Um…Oh! You want to know how to get it out of the cellophane? (we are constantly removing all packaging for our customers…it can be a headache if you don’t know the best way to do it…I understand)

Lady: ?? Oh, no there is no plastic on the outside.

Me: Um…

Lady: HOW DO I GET THIS THING OUT???

Me: Um…Oh! You want to know how to get that strip off of the top of the cd! (again a total pain in the ass…I know)

Lady: smart assed No that is not the problem.

Me: ???

Lady: HOW DO I GET THIS THING OUT???

Me: Okay…Oh! You want to know how to get the actual cd out of the case…well you push your thumb down on the holder thing while you remove the cd with your other fingers. (I have had people come back into the store…minutes after leaving…with a cd split in two. “It came this way!” No, it didn’t dumbass. But, yeah…they can be hard to get out the first time if you don’t do it correctly…I understand.)

Lady: NO I CAN’T SEE THE CD! HOW DO I GET THIS THING OUT???

Me: hold on a sec.

Okay…I spend a minute trying to figure out what this lady’s problem is. Surely she isn’t talking about the jewel case itself. How would someone not be able to open a fucking plastic case. She said she has never had a cd before. Okay…well, cassettes open that way too…FUCKING BOOKS OPEN THAT WAY! DOORS OPEN THAT WAY.

I think this is what her problem is.

Me: Hello? Okay are you not able to open the jewel case itself?

Lady: smart assed againNooooo.

Me: Well…you…uh…Hold on one more time.

I got my co-worker to help her again…he of astounding patience. I was at a loss as to how to explain this to her…over the phone. I thought about telling her “like a book” after I had given the phone up. At the time I was in shock. Yes, she needed another 10 minutes for this to be explained to her.

First, I thought she was screwing with us. Nobody can be this dense. The entire time, though, she was dead serious. If she was putting us on, I would kill to have a deadpan delivery that great.

A few days ago I opened a cd for another lady. She asked me how I did it. I told her to run it across the counter at an angle…this tears the cellophane. She responds: “Oh, so you melt the plastic.” Huh? She was so proud of herself when she said this.

2

Ah, captain, you silly person.

Do you not know that shouting the same incoherent sentence at a retail clerk, over and over, causes enhanced understanding of the situation at hand?

Plainly, the fault here is all yours. :rolleyes:

3

Master, that explains a helluva lot.

4

Customer: Have you got any breed?

Me: ‘breed’?

C: Yeah, Where’s the breed?

M: What’s ‘breed’?

C: Breed, you know, breed.

Colleague: She’s asking for bread [in an irish accent].

me: :smack: <embarrased>

(she must have thought I was mocking her accent. But I genuinely had no clue what she meant)

5

Just in case you haven’t made the connection, you would not have a job if it wasn’t for the support these ppl provide this store. Maybe your coworker has figured that out and that’s why he is patient with the customers. Were the questions and problems stupid? To most of us - yes. However, in the business world - 1 spurned customer can equal hundreds. Best advertising - word of mouth, worst advertising - word of mouth.

6

Hey, Flickster, I hear you.

I was actually very polite with this lady the entire time. I mentioned the patience of my co-worker because he spent a total of twenty five minutes with her. Considering she didn’t buy anything from us I think both of us went over and beyond the call of duty.

7

Hmmm… I’ve had some problems myself trying to figure out how to get some new DVDs out of these stupid, ever more complicated packages. Little tiny tabs to press all in different configurations- two on the sides, one in the middle, the entire middle piece. Or you just pry it out while hoping it doesn’t snap in two, and oh yeah, some of them don’t even have an indentation around the edge of the slot to get your fingertip under to be able to grasp the damn thing. Apparently you’re just supposed to grab it in midair when it pops up in response to the secret combo of tab releases. I kind of understand the frustration.

Also, I remember once being sent to Grandma’s house to help them because they couldn’t figure how to get those newfangled tape cases open. Eight year old to the rescue! [/showing my age]

Sorry she was all rude and frustrated with you, but older people + new technology = confusion is nothing new.

8

and you can go fuck yourself.

It’s not a mature person’s fault that these kids keep changing how their stupid little plastic things work. Why the holy hell do CDs have to come in this non-intuitive (left hand on top and bottom edge, right thumb on left edge, which isn’t part of the TOP for crissakes, and squeeze a little… dammit) when LPs and 45s did fine in PAPER SLEEVES and with those things it actually MATTERED if they got SCRATCHED but we knew enough to be CAREFUL with the damnfool things not like TODAY were the manufacturers HAVE EVERYTHING SET UP SO YOU CAN’T SMUDGE THEIR FUKKIN PRODUCT AND SUE THEM OR WHATEVER THESE NE’ER-DO-WELL CONSUMERS DO THESE DAYS…

um, sorry about that. I’ll just take my medications and go to bed now…

9

There, there. It’ll be alright. I was just sympathizing with the older person and you got confused. Thought I was a Communist or something.

::backs away slowly::

10

WTF! She didn’t buy anything? She must be a relative or something…
In that case, you displayed more patience than I would have :rolleyes: Did she just pick your store to call by random choice or is she a regular customer and just didn’t buy anything that day? Was it, “I think I’l call that nice young man down at the record store?”

I’ve been involved with B2B customer service for 20 years and continue to marvel at the BS retail ppl have to put up with (even though they sometimes bring it on themselves).

11

The difficulty with opening a jewelcase is that you can so easily be holding onto the parts that you are trying to flip open. It’s not intuitive to hold the sides while you grasp the top and bottom - you don’t need to do it in such an awkward way for a book or a cassette case.

Of course, most people learn these things from observation and patience, but there are a small few people who don’t have an opportunity to observe, or have the patience and intuition of a 3 month old child.

12

Kudos on the title. One of the most memorable I’ve seen in awhile.

I didn’t get from the OP that she didn’t buy anything. Why’s she calling you anyway? That’s a little bit weird.

13

I decided to go take a close look at a jewel case, visually there are no clues as to how to open it. It’s all clear plastic and ridges, there’s no easy way to distinguish the top from the sides from the back. The top and bottom sides are attached to the front of the case, the left and right are attached to the back, but you can’t tell that from looking.

Trying to open it like a book (thumbs in the middle of the right side) doesn’t work well, the top bends up but doesn’t easily release. It feels more like you’re breaking the case than opening the case. It seems obvious to you because you’ve been opening the dumb things up the correct way for 20 years, left hand above the case holding the top/bottom, right hand underneath the case holding right/left.

If you’ve never dealt with one before, jewel cases can be a mystery. DVD cases open up much more intuitively, even if the center buttons are fucked up.

14

Not directly related, but this did remind me of my days working for Camelot Music. My favorite incident was when a customer was looking for the soundtrack to a particular musical, although I don’t recall which one. We had two different versions. I showed her the one from the New York production, and then the one with the original London cast.

She thought about the latter for a moment, and then asked, “But will this one be in English?”

15

Not only that, but they get cracked way to easily. How can we figure out how to place music on a little disc that can be read by a laser and sound so good, yet we can’t make a decent package? How fucked up is that? And do we really need the pain in the ass tape strip thing? It’s a CD, not a bottle of tylenol for christsakes.

Now that I think of it captaindoesnotlikeyou, you’re lucky we aren’t all storming the castle.:wink:

Good thread title. Been there.

16

I didn’t know that you could still buy records.

17

You can. I’ve seen them in a few of the local stores.

18

Captain, you should come visit Customerssuck.com . You’ll find many folks who understand your pain there.

19

I don’t get it. Why is she the one who’s stupid? Why didn’t you just answer her question?

20

Well they say you learn something everyday, even in stupidland. I never knew they were called jewell cases. I have always called them the-plastic-case-thingy.

Ignorance is still being fought.