[QUOTE=Cardinal]
Ok, I was the dumb customer the other day. I spent some time on the phone with a woman from the local community college, but she couldn’t find any record of my application. I was talking to San Jacinto College in Houston, TX, not Mount San Jacinto Community College in Temecula, CA.
[/QUOTE]
Are they pronounced the same? In Austin, we have a street by that name and even the resident Hispanics pronounce it “juh-SINT-tow”
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
That makes you sound like your crazy to me, and not the guy. Don’t bother explaining it any better for me either.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but you didn’t sit down at a real-money table and start playing, either. He did, and he should know the rules.
[QUOTE=Koxinga]
Are they pronounced the same? In Austin, we have a street by that name and even the resident Hispanics pronounce it “juh-SINT-tow”
[/QUOTE]
Oh, that’s how we say it out here, pretty much: “Hah-SINT-owe”. I don’t remember how she pronounced it, but I probably would have written it off as the $9/hr hire recently moved from out of state, even if I thought she said it weirdly.
[QUOTE=jtgain]
Why would a clerk in a paint store know the answer to that question? Nothing against paint stores clerks at all, but does she think Lowes requires a Biology class before selling paint?
[/QUOTE]
For real! Full disclosure: Admittedly, the company I work for is not a big box - we make our own brand of paint, and many customers understand that we are rigorously trained to know how our paint works, we’re regularly “tested”, we do hands on projects to learn how/why one product works better/worse/equal to another, and for the most part, we’re pretty well educated about our own products. We’re an ESOP company, and it pays to know our stuff. I can stand there and explain to customers about resins, titanium content, glycols, light reflectance values, and explain exactly why that red colour you just adore is going to take several coats and be tacky for several weeks until the cows come home… but the anti-microbials? I’ll have to send them to our chemists.
So while I somewhat understand she felt she could ask a more in depth question, well, that was still a little much to expect, I think. You guys are right on the money: co-worker gave the best answer he could. He’s an Art student, for chrissake! :smack: All that means is we give him most of the matches. 
Thankfully, most of our customer stories, while mildly amusing, are never much more than simple, understandable ignorance of the subject. Hell, when I started, I thought you just handed people a bucket of paint and a brush and sent them on their merry way. So I can’t blame them for not knowing why something requires a white base or neutral base, or why you shouldn’t simply buy flat white paint to slap over your unprimed dark blue bathroom walls, or why that throwaway chip brush is not going to give you as good a coat as say, a Purdy brush.
Ultimately, I suppose I should be happy a microbiologist came to us for such enlightenment. I should learn from this. I ought to give the chemists a call and ask them about anti-microbials. The next microbiologist who comes in will absolutely plotz. 
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
Yeah, they’re all up in the panhandle. I understand the keys have gnomes, though…
[/QUOTE]
Aw, now they’ve gone and done it! There’s nothing worse than giving the gnomes the keys!
[QUOTE=Jayn_Newell]
I was thinking the same thing, and there’s two things wrong here. One is the question–“How does it work?” is more likely to get the answer she wants that “what does it do?” Two, the salesperson probably isn’t the person to be asking about what mechanism it uses. A better person to ask might be a, oh I dunno, a microbiologist
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that would probably have been my answer to her. But then, I’m snotty!
[QUOTE=glee]
She says that’s what she has to say because the computer says so, and won’t look at me.**The extension is refused. 
I ask her why, but she says she doesn’t know. She says she can appeal, but I will have to fill in forms and answer questions about my health etc.
[/QUOTE]
Presumably after that exchange she coughed in your face …?
[QUOTE=Koxinga]
Are they pronounced the same? In Austin, we have a street by that name and even the resident Hispanics pronounce it “juh-SINT-tow”
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Cardinal]
Oh, that’s how we say it out here, pretty much: “Hah-SINT-owe”.
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s not the same. In Texas, “San Jacinto” is invariably pronounced with a “j” sound instead of an “h” sound.
Because, natch, the Texians won the Battle of San Jacinto. If they’d lost, it might be pronounced differently.
How many of those stories at the site in the OP are for real? I mean, throwing an ice cream at a clerk? I’ve never seen that before, and I have both worked in retail and shopped in retail.
Still, the stories were entertaining, and I’ve signed up for the new daily ones!
[QUOTE=Sternvogel]
I’ve seen boneless T-bone steaks for sale at the grocery store, and this Utah restaurant features “savory” ones.
How would you have felt if the hotshot had retorted: “Actually, it’s an adjective when used to describe a car”?
[/QUOTE]
Still would have thought that it shouldn’t have had a capital letter.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
How many of those stories at the site in the OP are for real? I mean, throwing an ice cream at a clerk? I’ve never seen that before, and I have both worked in retail and shopped in retail.
Still, the stories were entertaining, and I’ve signed up for the new daily ones!
[/QUOTE]
I had a guy throw a meatball sandwich at me once. It shocked the hell out of me…but when I really think about it, not really.
(His complaint was that it was awful because it “tasted too tomato-ey.” Well, yeah, it’s a meatball marinara sandwich.)
[QUOTE=Cardinal]
2. (I call back after not finding it)
Me: Are you on the east or west side of McKinley?
Her: The north side
Me: McKinley runs north-south
Her: Right.
[/QUOTE]
You know, I can actually understand this one, assuming that McKinley is a long street. You were asking what side of the street the store was located on, and she was telling you at which end of the street they were.
And I’m guessing that everyone here came to the same conclusion, but I’m assuming that Vinegar Boy thought he was buying malt liquor instead of malt vinegar.
[QUOTE=Plynck]
And I’m guessing that everyone here came to the same conclusion, but I’m assuming that Vinegar Boy thought he was buying malt liquor instead of malt vinegar.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but that was only the start of the horror.
ivylass I’ve heard similar stories on customerssuck.com, so I’m guessing, all of them are real. Yes, some people really are that stupid, mean, and stupid.
Hell, I could swear I read a story here about a customer throwing doughnuts at someone.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
How many of those stories at the site in the OP are for real? I mean, throwing an ice cream at a clerk? I’ve never seen that before, and I have both worked in retail and shopped in retail.
[/QUOTE]
When I was a grocery cashier, I had a woman throw frozen orange juice concentrate at me, though it didn’t hit me. She was far and away the worst customer I ever served, though. Nothing at that level happened before or after, and I worked off and on at retail jobs for six years.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
How many of those stories at the site in the OP are for real? I mean, throwing an ice cream at a clerk? I’ve never seen that before, and I have both worked in retail and shopped in retail.
Still, the stories were entertaining, and I’ve signed up for the new daily ones!
[/QUOTE]
I am a librarian with a masters’ degree and have had a stapler thrown at me.
I’ve had a video tape (in hard plastic storage box) thrown at me, an ice cream sundae, more fries than I can count (children’s birthday parties - ugh!), a few golf clubs (miniature golf, thank goodness) and, on one memorable occasion, an infant (not mine). Luckily, I *caught *that last one.
[QUOTE=Plynck]
You know, I can actually understand this one, assuming that McKinley is a long street. You were asking what side of the street the store was located on, and she was telling you at which end of the street they were.
[/QUOTE]
You’re too understanding. And unfortunately wrong.
Using GoogleMaps, I see McKinley has a southern end, but no northern end at all (running off west and changing names). What she meant was the store was north of the highway. So once again she didn’t actually process the question, she just blurted the answer that immediately came to mind when the jumble of my words went through her mind.
It was on the east side. Oh, and her first attempt to prompt my memory was “next to the fabric store.” Her store sold really girly things like fishing rods and guns, so I’m not sure why she thought her male clientel was likely to have mentally logged the fabric store. I finally got it when she mentioned the big Mexican restaurant.
[QUOTE=Kat]
Hell, I could swear I read a story here about a customer throwing doughnuts at someone.
[/QUOTE]
I went to a restaurant in Prague where you could buy the bowl of day-old doughnuts and start a food fight (seriously, it was on the menu), and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it at least once around here.
Couldn’t all those people throwing things at employees be arrested for assault?