Hilariously stupid customer stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
That makes you sound like your crazy to me, and not the guy.
[/quote]

If you play Texas Hold’em, which as others have said has shared cards in the middle (here the two jacks count for everybody), it’s perfectly clear.
Think about it - where did the complaining guy see his 3 jacks? Two in the middle, one in his hand.

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]

Don’t bother explaining it any better for me either.
[/QUOTE]

:confused:
Our motto here is to fight ignorance.
Note that with eleven players around a Texas Hold’em table, and four jacks turn up in the middle, then all eleven players have 4 jacks.

82

[QUOTE=Chimera]
I once returned a 5 day rental to my local store and forgot about it. A week later I got a bill for it in the mail. I drove down to the store and told them that I had dropped it in the bin on such-and-such day. It being a slow period, the person working went and checked.

Sure as shit, it was sitting on the shelf with the rest of the movies. Some dumbass hadn’t checked it in before restocking it.
[/QUOTE]

Yep, it happens. In fact, everyday, we sent* an employee out with a list of every movie more than 3 days late and had them manually check the shelves for it (no one likes this job so it’s often skipped or done haphazardly, as you found out). But how likely do you think it is that one employee is checking in an FOS (Found On Shelf) barcode from something you returned 3 days ago within 5 seconds of another employee scanning the rest of your videotapes that you returned today? Not at all bloody likely, I’ll tell you. That’s the sort of customer lie even sven’s talking about. Just balls out lying, trying to exploit a weakness in the system to avoid $2.50 in legitimate late fees.

Yes, employees make mistakes. But man, if I stacked up all my employees’ mistakes in this pile and all the customers’ lies and confusions in that pile, there’s just no comparison.
*I [del]escaped[/del] stopped working at Blockbuster in 2000, so my information is accurate as of then, I don’t know if it’s still true.

83

[QUOTE=Rick]
In the common cards* in the center of the table there are 2 jacks.
ETA: *No clue if my terminology is correct
[/QUOTE]

Close. Community cards.

I had a customer earlier today who didn’t know what “Tuesday” was. He knew what “Monday,” “Wednesday” and “Friday” were, but not “Tuesday.”

I didn’t ask about the rest of the week.

84

:smack: :smack: :smack:

85

[QUOTE=Chimera]

Sure as shit, it was sitting on the shelf with the rest of the movies. Some dumbass hadn’t checked it in before restocking it.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it happens. There are systems in place to catch it, but they aren’t perfect. Employees have a good idea of what it looks like when this does happen and won’t charge you for it unless they have a very good reason to be suspicious.

Another example. Woman has late fee for turning in her movie a day late- the 18th. Swears up and down she brought it back on the 17th. Goes to her BMW to get her teenage daughter, who tells this whole story about how she distinctly remembers turning it in on the way to school on the 17th, and how she’d remember that because she had a history project due that day or something.

I pointed out the 17th was a Sunday.

The woman rather sheepishly paid her bill. Way to teach your teenager to lie over three bucks, woman!

86

[QUOTE=glee]
If you play Texas Hold’em, which as others have said has shared cards in the middle (here the two jacks count for everybody), it’s perfectly clear.
Think about it - where did the complaining guy see his 3 jacks? Two in the middle, one in his hand.

:confused:
Our motto here is to fight ignorance.
Note that with eleven players around a Texas Hold’em table, and four jacks turn up in the middle, then all eleven players have 4 jacks.
[/QUOTE]

I couldn’t have understood some detailed card rules, so i was saving you the trouble. I didn’t know there were shared cards in any poker, so you can see where things didn’t add up.

87

I worked for a time in Classified Advertising at the newspaper. One of the hotshot reporters came down to place an ad for his car – it was a VW something, not a Bug. He breathed down my neck the whole time, and watched every keystroke. It must have taken a half hour to place, but he was completely satisfied. The ad was to run for the longest period available, I think it was 10 days or two weeks. After a week or so he came down, guns blazing, demanding satisfaction because of the terrible error in his ad that was causing him to get no calls.

The error? The word “yellow” was not capitalized. The word “yellow” that he had watched me type, the word that had appeared in the middle of a sentence, as in “'96 VW GTI, yellow.” The word “yellow,” that, as I explained to him, was an adverb, not a proper noun, and therefore should not have been capitalized, and if he had wanted it capitalized, he should have told me when he placed the ad, and if he wanted me to call up to the copy desk to get a confirmation that it should have a lower-case “y,” I would be happy to do so."

I thought he was going to have a stroke right there at my desk. That asshole prima donna not only demanded the full price of his ad refunded (less his employee discount) but wanted his ad extended a full week after that because I, who could write and edit rings around his untalented ass, had not capitalized “yellow.” AND HE GOT IT. Fucker.

Later, when I started writing a column, he totally forgot it ever happened. He greets me as cordially as if I’m an old school chum. Fucker.

There’s a local doctor whose name is Mary-Alice or Mary-Theresa or some damn thing who placed a help-wanted ad to the tune of $300+, and this was in the '80s. She let the ad run a week or so before calling to complain that the ad rep had left the hyphen out of her first name and therefore her professional reputation was destroyed, and anyone who might have wanted to apply to her prestigious practice would not have known about her wonderful perks and benefits and therefore her money was all wasted. So of course she could not in conscience pay the bill and wouldn’t we run her ad at no charge for an additional week so she could get the response she had been expecting? Of course we would.

Her office is still a couple of blocks from me and every time I drive past I flip her the bird.

88

[QUOTE=Sigmagirl]
There’s a local doctor whose name is Mary-Alice or Mary-Theresa or some damn thing who placed a help-wanted ad to the tune of $300+, and this was in the '80s… Her office is still a couple of blocks from me and every time I drive past I flip her the bird.
[/QUOTE]
Holy crap! You’ve been flipping off Mary Alice or Mary Theresa for the past twenty years?!

89

Well, she’s right there. It’s like saluting the flag.

ETA: And it’s Mary**-Alice or Mary-**Theresa. Don’t forget the HYPHEN, I’m telling you.

90

[QUOTE=even sven]
Others would tell us the whole movie rental business was a conspiracy to create late fees. Blockbuster even got sued once- they moved the time their rentals were due UP by 12 hours. It changed from midnight to 12:00 noon the next day because people wanted to turn their movies in on the way to work. People got angry and said that adding 12 hours was done to make them confused and rack up more late fees. Every day I heard about how the 12 hour extension was proof that Blockbuster was pure evil.
[/QUOTE]
I firmly believe that Blockbuster managed to increase their late fee income by changing the return time. I know that in my case they did.

After almost a decade of regular movie rentals that were due either by closing or midnight on the due date, I had firmly internalized the habit of returning movies late at night. When Blockbuster changed their policy, the guy handing the movies would tell you the day and time, but while I’d remember the day, I’d often not think about the movie until it was too late. My habits and mental accounting system were very resistant to change.

Now, I don’t think there was a conspiracy involved. How could there be? There was just a smart guy at Blockbuster headquarters who figured out that they could make a small policy change that would be good for advertising, make a subset of their customers happy, and increase the bottom line.

I stopped renting from Blockbuster not long after that. Not because I thought they were evil, but because it was no longer worth it to me, given the late fees I ended up with. I supposed I could be upset with myself for not being able to remember something simple, but what’s the point in that? I didn’t remember. And I bet lots of other people also didn’t, and I really believe that the change was one calculated to have that effect.

91

[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=]
And I bet lots of other people also didn’t, and I really believe that the change was one calculated to have that effect.
[/QUOTE]

headdesk

No, really it wasn’t. It was “calculated” to keep the customers happy so they wouldn’t go to Netflix. There were endless complaints and market research groups where customers suggested it as a solution to their problem. “Can’t I just return it in the morning on my way to work?” “But you close at midnight, right? So if I return it at 8 AM before you open, what’s the difference? You can’t rent it out again when you’re closed!” “But I was at a party at midnight and returned it on my way home!” “But the box says 2 nights! It’s Friday now, so Friday and Saturday are two nights, and I should return it Sunday morning!”

Working at Blockbuster convinced me that people don’t know what they want. They may tell you very clearly what they want, but when you give it to them, they complain about that.

92

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
headdesk

No, really it wasn’t. It was “calculated” to keep the customers happy so they wouldn’t go to Netflix. There were endless complaints and market research groups where customers suggested it as a solution to their problem. “Can’t I just return it in the morning on my way to work?” “But you close at midnight, right? So if I return it at 8 AM before you open, what’s the difference? You can’t rent it out again when you’re closed!” “But I was at a party at midnight and returned it on my way home!” “But the box says 2 nights! It’s Friday now, so Friday and Saturday are two nights, and I should return it Sunday morning!”

Working at Blockbuster convinced me that people don’t know what they want. They may tell you very clearly what they want, but when you give it to them, they complain about that.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not arguing with any of that.

I am not saying that people didn’t ask for a bit of a grace period. I don’t recall ever being asked, but if I had been asked prior to the change, I probably would have said that a longer rental period would be better. How could it not be, right?

You’re right: people don’t know what they want. What they really wanted was more convenience and fewer late fees. They thought that an extra 12 hours would make things easier. But what if it turned out that it didn’t. What if, in fact, Blockbuster knew that it would lead to more late fees, probably as a result of using a few stores as a testbed for the new policy. Is that really so far-fetched?

In the last five minutes I’ve thought of several things that Blockbuster could have done that would have solved the problem and not adversely affected others. Forgive 1 late fee per month for customers. Allow people to opt in or out of the new 12-noon deadline. Forgive late fees as long as there is a copy of the movie in stock at all times. etc. Those all solve many of the problems of people who want more time without causing the extra late fees that many people claim were Blockbuster’s incentive to implement this policy.

I don’t want to hijack this thread further, so I’ll let you (or whoever) have the last word on this here if you want. I’m happy to continue in another thread, though.

93

[QUOTE=Sigmagirl]
Well, she’s right there. It’s like saluting the flag.

ETA: And it’s Mary**-Alice or Mary-**Theresa. Don’t forget the HYPHEN, I’m telling you.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t ever cross Sigmagirl. She’ll continue to flip you off for 20 years!

94

[QUOTE=Otto]
I had a customer earlier today who didn’t know what “Tuesday” was. He knew what “Monday,” “Wednesday” and “Friday” were, but not “Tuesday.”

I didn’t ask about the rest of the week.
[/QUOTE]

Otto, I’m dying hear the rest of this story. Please?

95

Only if you’re on my way to the grocery store. I won’t go out of my way to flip you off.

96

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Ditto. I think it might be because he (like I) was unfamiliar with how casino poker works, not because he’s stupid.

I think employees in all fields sometimes fall into the Specialized Knowledge trap - assuming our customers know what we know because we’ve been doing it so long it feels like Common Knowledge. When they don’t know what’s so obvious to us, we think they’re stupid, when they’re merely ignorant (in the most innocent sense of the word).
[/QUOTE]
While you may be right in principle, I don’t think it applies here. If a person doesn’t know how to play hold 'em, and thus doesn’t understand the scenario as described, it really is stupid of him to go into a casino and sit down at a table and throw away money.

Also, as someone else noted, you only have two cards in your hand, so how do YOU have three jacks, before you wonder about how you and someone else has three jacks?

97

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Why? See post #2. Most people that the gatekeeper deals with in any one day are stupid and/or lying when they say “they did that already”. It’s cheaper for the company to hire 10 Meatbots at minimum wage and 2 Level 2 Technicians at a living wage than to hire 12 Level 2 Technicians.
[/QUOTE]

When I had problems with my ISP, I was pleased to find that they had replaced their meatbots with a real bot! Their automated phone system is connected to their diagnostic system, so it can do things like attempt to ping my modem. At one point, it even said something like, “If we had a technician available, he’d be asking you to follow these same steps.”

98

There seems to have been a lot of confusion on the poker post above. I’ve been playing poker for 30 years, and I have to admit I was confused until about halfway through. Here’s the reason:

[QUOTE=Cyberhwk]
We were playing poker and this poor older guy had absolutely NO CLUE what the hell was going on.
[/QUOTE]
Cyberhwk never mentioned that the game was Texas Hold’em. The post says “playing poker.” Since I never even heard of Hold’em until I’d been playing for over 10 years, “poker” to me encompasses five-card stud, five-card draw, seven-card stud, Omaha, and dozens of other games. You can’t just say “poker” and assume that everyone reading the post knows which game you’re talking about.

99

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
T
Since I never even heard of Hold’em until I’d been playing for over 10 years, “poker” to me encompasses five-card stud, five-card draw, seven-card stud, Omaha, and dozens of other games.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but I find it amusing that you “internalize” Omaha, a Hold’em variant, as poker, but not Hold’em itself. :slight_smile:

Besides which, when you’re talking about a casino, extremely few that I know of play anything but Texas Hold’em. If the discussion was about a home game, I’d understand it more, but casinos are pretty uniform; they know what makes money.

100

[QUOTE=Leaper]
Sorry, but I find it amusing that you “internalize” Omaha, a Hold’em variant, as poker, but not Hold’em itself. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]
I’m not quite sure how you pulled that out of my post, but it’s not true. I absolutely consider Texas hold’em to be a form of poker (one of the “dozens of other games” I referred to in the post you quoted).

[QUOTE=Leaper]
Besides which, when you’re talking about a casino, extremely few that I know of play anything but Texas Hold’em. If the discussion was about a home game, I’d understand it more, but casinos are pretty uniform; they know what makes money.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve never played anything but blackjack and video poker in a casino. Last time I went to one (about four years ago), there were dozens and dozens of blackjack tables, hundreds of video poker machines, and only a handful of hold’em tables.

I find it amusing that you “internalize” Hold’em as the one and only version of poker, but not straight poker, stud poker, draw poker, video poker, blackjack, baccarat, royal hold’em, lowball, or whatever.

There are many, many people who play poker that have never set foot in a casino, and don’t know what variants are played there.