Jackass customer stories

The BBQ Pit
41

One day I was in the shop. I worked alone in the shop, which has it’s advantages and disadvantages. I get a phone call.
Me: “Hello.”
Phone Guys: “Do you sell blow-up dolls?”
Me: “Yes, we have several in stock.”
Phone Guy: “Can any of them take two cocks?”
Me: “Well, the all have several orifices you can use.”
Phone Guy: “No, I mean can the take two cocks at once?”
Me: “Well, as I have said they have several orifices you can use.”
Phone Guy: “I mean, can any of them take two cocks in the same hole?”
Errr, what???
Me: “I really couldn’t say, it’s not something that is specified on the box.”
Phone Guy: “It’s just that we’ve had some before and they’ve all split when we’ve tried it.”
Me: “As I’ve said it’s not something that is advertised on the box, you are welcome to come and have a look and see for yourself, but I can’t offer any guarantees.”
Phone Guy: “Ok, we’ll come down and have a look.”

Now, I am not an expert on blow-up dolls, but I’d have thought it was a solitary pastime. I just can’t imagine this conversation.

Guy1: “Guess what I got today?”
Guy2: “Dunno, tell us.”
Guy1: “A blow up doll.”
Guy2: “Hey, that’s cool.”
Guy1: “Lets go back to my place and try it out.”
Guy2: “Great. Has it got more than one hole?”
Guy1: “Yes, it has 3”
Guy2: “Brilliant, we can both do it at the same time.”
Guy1: “Hey, maybe we can both get in the same hole.”
Guy2: “Yeah, let’s try that.”

They never showed up to have a look.
About a week later, the phone rings.

Me: “Hello.”
Phone Guy: “Remember me? I was the guy who asked about the blow-up dolls taking too cocks.”
Me: “Oh, yes.” Oh yes
Phone Guy: “Any luck in finding out if they take two cocks in the same hole?”
Me: “As I said, it’s not something that I guess there has been a lot of call for so it’s not something they specify on the box.”
Phone Guy: “So, is it all right if we come down and have a look then?”
Me: “Yes, sure.”
Phone Guy: “Is it all right if we try one out?”
Me: “Well, I may be able to let you have a look at one, but not try it, no”
Phone Guy: “I mean we will buy it anyway.”
Me: “If you want to come and have a look, I can certainly sell you one.”
Phone Guy: “You have a back room there, don’t you?”
Me: “Err, we have an employees room, yes.”
Phone Guy: “If we come and buy a blow-up doll from you, can me and my friend perform with it in the back room for you?”
Me: “I don’t think that would be allowed, no.”
Phone Guy: “Ok.” Click.

I’ve always wondered how they would do it, a part of me regrets saying no somehow. A very large part of me says, no fucking way, ever!

42

There was a customer at the deli that I used to work for that always bitched about the selection and always bitched about the price and swore up and down that he was going to go to Wal Mart next time. He did this every week.

43

You know this one just made me think of a story my husband told me about his Master’s thesis. Two months before it was due, he went to the copy store to discuss all the things he needed to complete the project. Special papers, certain type of binding, etc…, all to meet the standards set up by the University. The woman explained everything to him and he thanked her. He then proceeded to some local stores to try and find all of these items at a cheaper cost. Most of them were not available in the local stores, so he returned to the copy store and, speaking to the same woman, he asked her if he could buy two reams of the special paper and 5 of the binders. The woman looked at him strangely and basically said, he will get those when he turns in his thesis for final printing. Well, my husband responded that he liked to plan ahead and you never know what was going to happen, so he would like to purchase them.

Oddly enough, the woman gave him some flak over this, insisting that he could not do this. My husband responded asking if it was a policy that they could not sell these items individually because they are clearly listed separetely on their pricing guide. He also assured her that he was not asking her to violate any policies so if that was the case, then he would move on. A Manager overheard and asked what the problem was. The woman turns snidely to him and explains the situation, sarcastically, referring to my husband as if he was mad. The Manager, looks at my husband, laughs and says “whatever, buy it if you want. I’m telling you it will be here when you turn the thesis in, we always order enough”.

2 months go by and my husband enters the copy store with his completed thesis on the final day it is due, just getting the last piece of information he needed two days earlier. He was ready to go get drunk after handing the thesis to the associate Dean that afternoon. The copy store is in an uproar. 20-30 grad students are in there, the people behind the counters are running around and my husbands number is finally called. Ironically, it is the same woman and he tells her he needs 5 copies of his thesis. She responds curtly, we don’t have the paper or the binders, we sent someone to (another city) and they should be back in 2-3 hours. Everyone else was waiting, but they could not guarantee they could get to his. My husband smiles, opens his bag, takes out his 5 binders and 2 reams of paper, and slides them across the desk. He says, paraphrased, I see your copiers are not running, you think you could run these off. The same Manager (it was a small town), says “yes sir” grabs them, runs off his copies and gets them back, bound in 15 minutes. My husband of course could not miss the opportunity to point this out to the clerk, who remembered him. To her credit, she smiled and laughed along with him when she admitted that he had indeed done the right thing and that she was happy that he had insisted.

As it turns out that quarter, the last minute did not work out for many grad students. The entire college town ran out of the supplies and when 4:00 p.m. arrived, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences closed his doors, over a dozen grad students did not have their thesis turned in. But Hubby did and he graduated. They, alas, did not.

Just a funny story, IMHO.

44

Hmm, I was thinking it was just one guy, and he’s in all the medical textbooks.

45

Shrug A lot of my reaction was my own personal baggage. I can see the point of exchanging a CD you received as a gift, or a CD that you mistakenly bought thinking it was something else, but it would never occur to me to ask someone to lose money to bail me out of my own bad choices.

46

I’ve never worked retail other than gas station/c-store retail, so I don’t know how it compares. However, I have been lucky and determined enough to always work at an independent station. The lack of any management higher than about one level above me is always nice. Another plus was the fact that both owners didn’t mind telling a customer to go to hell if the customer deserved it. So, anyway, a couple of times I’d wind up having a conversation go like this:

Pissed-off “customer” (always for some reason that involves me going against store policy and possibly putting myself into a financially-liable situation, such as turning on the pump without a prepay): Who’s your supervisor?
Me: <owner’s name>
POed “customer”: And who’s your manager?
Me: <owner’s name>
POed “customer” (now still enraged but also somewhat confused): Well, who’s the owner?
Me: <owner’s name> (You think this idiot has gotten the point yet?) He’ll be in tomorrow morning if you really want to talk to him.

I’d never see any of them again and the boss would never bring it up.

Other fun things are being yelled about over something I have no control over. For example, neither station that I’ve worked at does cash back on debit. That’s because the processors want to charge a big honking fee each month for the privilege of being able to cut into cash flow. Each station does have an independently-owned ATM (fees go to the store), so if getting your money right now is that much of a need, eat the fees and use the ATM. The register will not allow me to do cash back, no matter how loud you yell. Or that I cannot do a prepaid gas sale on debit. In this case, it really is bad programming. Both bosses tried it and found that it caused too many problems, so they got rid of that option. Or that I can’t split tender. Look, Big Bad Biker Guy, just because your most brilliant idea ever is that paying 28 cents in cash and 4 dollars on your credit card for your pack of cigarettes actually makes sense still doesn’t mean that I can do it. The boss disabled split tendering for whatever reason (I honestly don’t know this reason for this one) but if you have that much of a problem, come in the next morning when she’s in and see if she gives a shit. Five bucks says she’ll just kick you out of the store. The next customer in line actually made fun of the guy for that one.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that customers are apparently illiterate or just too fucking stupid to actually read. The prepay policy is clearly posted in two places on each pump, yet I still get bitched at at least once a week for not turning the pump on for a complete stranger.

47

This is why I’ll never work customer service again. At a job I held long ago, my manager told me my job was to give the customer anything they wanted. The only goal I needed to keep was to make sure the customer didn’t reach a secretary on the executive level.

Many of the customers were on early versions of the internet and various BBS boards and knew they could abuse the living daylights out of every representative which picked up the phone.

48

I used to work in a book store, and the holiday season was always a mad rush. We had two registers, and even with both of them going, there was generally a line of about eight to ten people. Everyone wanted their books gift-wrapped, so we had one person in the back doing all the gift-wrapping. We also had at least two people on the floor restocking and assisting customers.

So people are annoyed because they’ve had to wait in line to be rung up, and even more annoyed when they learned that they would have to wait for their free gift-wrapping. (What did they think we had, a can of Magic Gift Wrap that sprays a perfect holiday paper on their purchase?)

I’m ringing up on one register, and focused on my customer, so it took a minute for me to acknowledge the scene unfolding next to me at my co-worker’s register. A gentleman has brought an atlas up, but he wants a discount on it because it’s damaged. The back edge is folded a bit, so, he explained, he should get a discount.

My co-worker explained that store policy is that only the district manager can authorize discounts on damaged goods, and that rather than sell damaged goods, it’s our preference simply to pull them off the floor. So she cannot give him a discount, only the district manager can, and, as he’s the district manager (not the store manager), he isn’t currently in the store to authorize a discount.

He then began to berate her. How stupid is she?!?! Doesn’t she understand that this is the last copy, and he must have it, but he’s not willing to pay full price?!?!

She held her ground, but her voice began to quaver. Nevertheless, she didn’t break policy. She instead offered to order the book, or to call around to other stores to see if they have a copy.

No; he was adamant – he wanted that book, that copy, but with a discount. He finally realized he wasn’t going to get his discount, so he threw the book at her and told her to ring it up.

She began to sniffle, so I switched registers with her and completed the sale. I sent her onto the floor with instructions to send one of the people on the floor up to the registers. I think everyone in line didn’t mind an extra minute or two wait so that she could go compose herself.

So I rang the man up. As I was doing the credit card thing, a lovely woman in her sixties or so (I was a teenager at the time, so hard for me to judge, but I think she wasn’t that old) spoke up.

“Excuse me, young man.”

He turned to her: “yes?”

“How old are you?”

“I’m thirty.”

“Oh. Because you’re acting about four.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I thought I would draw blood. There were sniggers aplenty from the other customers in the line, and the man turned bright red. I gave him his bag and receipt, and he stalked out of there.

I gave the lady a discount on all her books that day. :slight_smile:

49

I will own up to being a jackass customer, although I will also point out right now that I was apologetic and I thanked the customer service assistant *profusely * for accomodating me.

I bought a faucet and shower set for my tub. Now, this is not an ordinary tub. No, my house is well over 100 years old and this tub is probably the original tub from when they got around to adding plumbing. This is a genuine old-style clawfoot tub, complete with genuine old-style non-standard holes for the faucet.

I did not fully understand this when I bought the place, so I did not understand why the previous owners had installed some butt-ugly utility faucet in the tub. I went to a nearby Menards, explained that I had this clawfoot tub with a butt-ugly faucet, and asked one of the floor staff if they had an appropriate replacement fixture to sell me. The gentleman directed me to what looked like the appropriate fixture. After gagging at the price, I bought it, and went home.

That was, um, two years ago. More that two years ago, actually. Rounding up to three years would be more accurate. Call it laziness, call it social phobia that kept me from calling a plumber, call it fear of getting water all over the place that kept me from installing the thing myself. Whatever excuse you choose, I didn’t install it, didn’t even really look at the fixture in the box, until about a month ago. Called a plumber about installing the fixture, and after talking to him on the phone I realized the new faucet (1) won’t meet code if installed in this tub, and (2) is configured for a modern tub with modern holes for the faucet. There is no way, legally or physically, that I could use this faucet.

Back to Menards. They do not sell an appropriate faucet. They do, however, still sell the exact same faucet that I bought, and which I still have, unused. I had my original receipt. Bless these people, they took back the faucet and refunded my original purchase price, no argument, no restocking fee, no hassle whatsoever. I thanked them with sincerity and apologized for being an idiot and a jerk.

Now I will argue that I have some things which redeem me from total jackassery: The product was unused, I was in the correct store, they still sell the identical product, and I buy a *lot * of stuff there. Still, if it were me on the other side of the counter I’d probably have gone home and told my family about the jackass who wanted to return some item he bought darn near three years ago.

50

Great story. The guy was a complete dick.

I realize that, given the store’s policy, there’s nothing that either the other salesperson or you could have done. But any bookstore chain that does not allow individual store managers or floor supervisors to make judgment calls about reasonable discounts for damaged goods is run by a bunch of tools, IMO.

51

I think it was a reaction to a rash of people who damaged the books themselves, to get a discount. We had signs up about the policy (“If a book is damaged, we cannot sell it at a discount” or some such.) Anyway, my suspicion about this fella was always that he had folded back the back cover himself so as to get a discount.

I see your point, though. In fairness, it was hardly the most idiotic policy this chain had. There were ones that were much, much worse.

52

See, i musn’t have a criminal mind, at least not where books are concerned. It would never even occur to me to do something like that. If people do indeed do that sort of thing, then i guess i can understand the need for the policy.

53

I’ve got a good’un! Just happened today.

Woman comes in, asking for Ralph Lauren sheets.

Woman: They’re a pin stripe.

Rilch: [leading customer towards RL display] Well, let’s see what we have here. Okay, you said pinstripe? Are they these? [points to red-striped sheets]

W: [talking over Rilch] They’re the ones you have on the bed.

R: You mean these?

W: No, not those. [ramble ramble yadda]

R: Are they these? [points to pink-and-orange striped sheets]

W: No.

R: Well, what color are they?

W: Blue-and-white. They’re a relatively new pattern. [more ramble]

R: Well, if they’re really new, we might not have them; we haven’t gotten anything new in a few [walks around to far side of display] weeks…Okay, here we—

W: There they are!

R: Okay, then! Great!

W: Now, wait a minute; I have to find the right size.

R: What size do you need?

W: King. Flat and fitted.

R: Well, let’s see. [looks through display] We have queen, queen…oh, here! Cal king fitted and king flat! [At this point, Rilch registers two other king flat sheets. But the request has been filled, so what of it?]

W: Now, do you have any other king flat sheets?

R: [does on-the-spot calculation, thinks WellthatwastheonlyCalkingfittedandwhatgoodisaflatsheetwithoutafittedsheetsonowedon’thaveanymoresetswhichisusuallythecustomer’sobjectivesononothingworthmentioning] No.

W: Yes you do! They’re right here!

R: :smack:

W: Why did you say no? I saw there were two other king flat sheets and you said no! Why did you say that?

R: [cringing] Ooooooooooooooo…

W: Do you want to keep your job?

R: :eek:

W: I mean it. You’re not going to work here very long if that’s the kind of service you give.

R: :eek: Are you a shopper?

W: I’m a customer.

R: I mean, am I being shopped?

W: You’re being told what it is to give good customer service. You should never say anything unless you’re absolutely sure it’s correct. You’re just talking to be saying something. And you need to know the inventory. When a customer asks for something, you should know exactly where it is.

R: Okay, but, I mean, are you one of those mystery shoppers? Do you work for [store]?

W: No, but I own my own business, and if you worked for me and you gave an answer like that, I would fire you on the spot! I’m just telling you how to do your job. You need to know this, and stop saying stupid things. You’re pretty enough [WTF?], but you won’t have a job very much longer if you don’t learn. I’m also a teacher, can you tell? [Double WTF?]

R: Okay. :confused:

W: Anyway, no one would tell you if they were a mystery shopper.

R: [thinks but doesn’t say] Right; like an undercover cop would never say “Yes, I’m a cop” when asked. But Og help Rilch if she said that!] Okay, so do you want these sheets?

W: First, do you have a duvet cover in this pattern?

R: …I don’t know.

W: See, you’re learning!..Now, is there anyone here who knows their job?

R: Yes, over here. [Rilch escorts woman to cashwrap and turns her over to Jack.]

Rilch assists other customer in finding pillows, then returns to cashwrap.

R: Is that bitch still here?

Jack: She’s going to get a few more things. [sees tears in Rilch’s eyes] Why, what’s wrong?

R: She’s going to complain against me, and now I’ll be fired, like Celine [long story]!

J: Why, what happened?

R: [tells anecdote, during which Manny returns from break and hears most of it.]

J: Oh, she had no right to say that.

Calvin, manager, trots up.

C: Listen, Rilch: don’t worry about that woman in orange. She got her stuff, and I told her I’d talk to you, and…I’m talking to you. Don’t worry about it.

R: Okay. Thanks!

Manny: What business does she own—a cathouse?

J: Anyway, you’d have to be Rainman to do what she said. You know what we have, but not down to exactly how many we have of everything in what sizes and colors at every given moment.

M: Just spoiling for a fight, sounds like.

Indeed.

54

…
… BWAHAHAHAHA :smiley:

55

As someone who scrounges to the back of the shelf to find a virgin copy that hasn’t even been flipped through, it would occur to me even less frequently than to yourself. Damage a book? But, that’s a sin!

56

Don’t ever, ever ask a bookstore employee about stripping, then. It will curl your hair. Or make you go bald. One or the other.

57

I guess every college copy shop sees those every couple of months. I always wanted to feel bad for the people who came in and said “Please make me five copies of my thesis and bind it. And can you do it by [ten minutes]?” But it was hard. If there were no other customers, no problem, and that wasn’t rare. But if all the students in a department had to turn in their papers on the same day? Not so much.
I think the worst thesis student I ever had came in one night, left the biggest pile of paper of any customer I’d seen, explained what he wanted, and walked away. Usually the first thing I’d do was ask “when do you want this?” so I could prioritize for the rest of my shift. He didn’t give me a chance, and when he came back 20 minutes later and it wasn’t done - other people came in - he was upset. I forget how long I told him it would take me to finish. Half an hour or an hour, I think, since I figured I would have other customers to deal with and wouldn’t be able to focus only on his thesis, which topped 500 pages and was supposed to be copied and bound five times.
He was unsatisfied with the guesstimate. He didn’t want to stay that late. “How about tomorrow?” I asked. He said he didn’t live in town and didn’t want to come back again just to pick up his order. Exactly what was I supposed to do? Suspend time and have 2500+ pages copied and bound in five minutes? In the end, the poor guy had to go get a coffee and wait. I had the thing done about two minutes after he returned to the store.

58

OK, i give up. What is stripping?

59

It’s sacrilege.

It’s where book-loving book store employees are made to shudder, rip the front cover off of paperback books and then, THROW THE REST OF THE BOOK AWAY. Ack!! It just feels sooo wrong! The bookstore sends the covers back to the publisher or distributer for the refund. Cheaper than shipping paperbacks I guess. If you look in the front (usually copyright) page in most modern paperbacks, it’ll say something like: “If you purchased this book without a cover, it has been stripped and selling it to you this way was illegal”.

60

I used to buy stripped books all the time as a kid down at the dent and salvage store attached to the supermarket. Usually bad thrillers or ghost stories for about a quarter each. When I figured out why they were stripped–after seeing a blurb like Moose described–I felt fabulously naughty every time I read one.

I had a customer throw a small knickknack at me once in an engraving store. There’s really no interesting or witty story to go along with it. She was just a mean, pissed off lady with low impulse control.