One morning, an oh-so-important asshat pulls his BMW into the fire lane out front of the store, although perfectly good empty spaces were perhaps 15 feet away. The boss and I exchange ‘what’s his friggin problem?’ glances. OSIA needs to pick up the stereo we’ve repaired for him. I advise him that he’s illegally parked, and that it will take a few minutes to find his equipment, so he should use that time to move his vehicle. OSIA goes batshit. The boss smiles, picks up the repair ticket and heads into the back while the rant continues. He called the police, and since two of them worked part-time in our store, they were all too happy to stroll in while we were finishing OSIA’s transaction. Ticketage and further ranting ensued. 
A couple from many many years ago when I worked at Montgomery Ward.
I was running the home improvement department. One night a gentleman comes in and starts to give me shit because his water did not get installed that day. (we sold water heaters both installed, and over the counter). I search my files, can’t find a salescheck for him, go to the clerk’s desk where that should be recorded, no record. This is wierd beyond belief, because the one thing that worked in that store was water heater installations, we had a great installer, and everything went like clockwork every time. Anyway after about 20 minutes of searching / getting shit from customer, I was at my wits end.
Me: I’m sorry sir, I can’t find a record of your salescheck anywhere, do you have a copy?
Him: This is bullshit, I would have never bought a water heater from Sears if I knew you were going to fuck up so bad.
Me: Exzcuse me sir, did you say Sears?
Him: Yes how could Sears fuck this up so badly?
Me: Beats the shit out of me sir, perhaps you should go to the Sears store and ask them, you are in Montgomerey Wards. I don’t keep records of Sears installations
Him: :eek: :smack:
Me:
Or my buddy who ran Sporting goods had this favorite running bit
Customer: How much is that bike, and what colors does it come in? ::: Point in the vague direction of the bike rack which holds 30 bikes:::
Employee: Which one?
C: That red one
E: The red one marked $29.95?
C: Yes
E: It’s $29.95
C: What colors does it come in?
E: Red
C: Thank you
Heh heh. I have the same story. Just replace stores with banks, and lost ticket with lost savings account.
Once when I was a teller, a customer came in and asked to make a withdrawl. I ID’d him OK, but I didn’t know his account number. He told me to just look it up on the computer. I told him the computer was offline, and asked him for his bank card. He said that he didn’t have his bank card. I asked him if he was sure, and to please check his pockets again. His response was along the lines of “I don’t have my fucking card, you fucking moron, it’s sitting on my kitchen table at home, so don’t be a lazy fucking idiot and just look me up on your computer, you little liar!” I continued to insist that the computers were down, he insisted that they were not, and he described in great detail how his bank card was in a specific place in his home.
Finally a manager walked by and wanted to know what the problem was. When it was explained to him, he told the customer that if he couldn’t produce his bank card, he would have to leave. Frustrated beyond all hope, the enraged customer reached into his wallet and pulled out his bank card.
Hi,
I manage a veterinary hospital and walked into the middle of a confused receptionist and a pretty angry guy who was there picking up his prescription. His friend, who called in the medication that morning was also there. The receptionist couldn’t find the prescription or the dog’s record in the computer but did find the client’s name in the computer with different animals. It was an old account that had not been active for about 4 years. I asked him if they accidently called the clinic down the street that has a very similar name- the friend admitted it could be so. But the angry client demanded to know why his dog’s name wasn’t in the computer because “this is where he gets his medication!!”. Finally, I did an inventory report that would show everyone within the last 6 months that bought that same medication- no dice. I told him he must be taking his dog elsewhere- the inventory report was infallible. I don’t think he ever believed me, but his friend did :).
I’ve had people call to check on their pets and been screamed at because "YOU DON"T KNOW WHO MY DOG IS??? before they figure out its the wrong place. I also once had a client threaten to “do violence on you” (exact words) because there was entry on his credit report that he suspected was from us (it wasn’t). When he figured out it wasn’t us, he asked if he could make an appointment… ummm…no.
I used to work at a big B&N. One night, we had some dude pull his minivan up directly in front of the doors, and try to sell candy out the back of it.
We were right next to a movie theater, and oftentimes clueless parents would use us as a faux babysitting service while they saw a film. One time, a couple failed to notice that we closed early on Sunday nights. Our assistant manager had to sit in the vestibule with a frightened young boy for two hours after we closed, waiting for his parents to come back from movie/after movie drinks. (She had a local policeman waiting with her, too. I hope the lesson sank in.)
I once had to deal with a customer who just couldn’t believe that we didn’t order the “Easy Reader Series books 1-4” as a set all of the time, and because we had book 1 in stock, we OBVIOUSLY had the others hidden in the back. She had already driven another employee to tears when she got to me, and no matter how many times I explained it to her, she refused to believe me. She finally said, “You obviously don’t want to help me. I want to talk to someone who can get the books from in back, RIGHT NOW!!!”
My response: “Are you saying that I’m lying to you, ma’am?”
Her: “YES!”
I actually stepped back and threw my hands up in the air. Fortunately, I didn’t blow up (but I was sorely tempted). I just turned to the manager, who was standing next to me. “Joe, this woman would like to talk to you.”
“I’m looking for this book, I don’t remember the title, you had it on display on this table a few months ago, no, I don’t remember who wrote it, but it had a blue cover.”
“Sir, we’d appreciate it if you didn’t sit on the stacks of books on that shelf. We’re trying to sell those.”
We had a used book section in our store. Behind the registers, we had a display of rare and first editions. (I think there was a 2nd printing of “Gone With The Wind” up there.) So this young guy comes in and asks, “Why are those so expensive?”
“Well, they’re rare copies of first editions, so their value has gone up over the years.” After a brief explanation of what that meant, he wandered off. Later he came up with a copy of some James Bond novel (one of the newer ones NOT by Ian Fleming), and says, “I’d like a first edition of this, please.”
“Um, well, seeing how that book was first published a couple of years ago, we’re not gonna have a first edition of that here.”
“Okay, I’d like to special order a first edition of this, please.”
“…Let me explain it to you again…”
“Sir, these tables and chairs belong in the cafe. We’d appreciate it if you didn’t drag them halfway across the store.”
Customer and friends look up from where they’ve spread out a bunch of books to research from.“But there’s no place left to sit!”
“Sir, we are not a public library.”
At which point you should have said “Sorry, ma’am, you’re right. I am lying to you. I’ll go in the back right now and get that for you.” Then you should have gone in the back…
Then out the back door and home for the rest of the day.
Ok… I just re-read this five times trying to make sense of it before I figured out that it said “…mall both…” and not “…moth ball…”
Oh good gravy, I think we had the same customers. Only mine would ask for “that book that was on Oprah once.” No, they didn’t know what book, or who wrote it, what it looked like, or even when it was on. Just that they were sure that it was on Oprah once. I finally got so pissed off at one customer, who started swearing at me because I didn’t know what books were featured on Oprah, that I said, “Lady, look. You may have all the time in the world to watch trashy daytime TV, but I have a job, which coincidentally schedules me to work while your shows are on. Not only do I not know what books are featured on Oprah, I also truly do not care.” That one did get me a reprimand, but at that point I just didn’t care.
Then I had the customer who decided she needed immediate attention, marched right up to me, snapped her fingers in my face and said, “You. GIRL. I want to buy something.” I just looked at her, and went back to what I was doing, which was fixing a display.
<snap> <snap> “YO! GIRL! I’m TALKIN to you!”
I continued to work, and ignored her.
<STOMP> <STOMP> <STOMP> “YO! GIRL! What’s WRONG with you? I want to talk to your manager NOW!”
Finally I stopped what I was doing and said, “If you’d been polite the first time around, you would’ve been helped and out of here now. I’m not your dog, that you can snap your fingers and I’ll jump to attention, I’m a human being. As such, I do require a minimum of courtesy. ‘Excuse me, miss, I’d like to buy something’ or even just a ‘do you work here? I’d like to pay for something’ would’ve worked, but you decided to be a jerk about it.
And as far as talking to my department manager goes, she’s not here today, but I’m sure our store manager will be happy to discuss this with you. He’s standing right over there, and he saw the whole thing. I suggest you go complain to him about what a horrible, horrible employee I am.”
Funny, she decided it “wasn’t worth it.”
We also had the woman who’d buy a book, take it home & read it, then return it. Repeatedly. When she got a return refused by one store, she’d go to another one of our stores and try to return it there. We’d call ahead and say, “Hey, the lady who thinks we’re a library is headed your way.”
<warning: majorly departing from the thread intent. You can stop reading now if you want to just get the customers suck parts of my post.>
I did help make a mom’s day once, though. She was doing some Christmas shopping, and we had a deal that if you bought $50 worth of stuff in one day, you could buy a SantaBear for something like $19.95 instead of the usual $50 or $75 or whatever they were.
The Christmas Shop was right across from my department (books). She had the most well-behaved little 4-year-old boy with her. Evidently he’d been promised a SantaBear if he behaved, because he ran over with his choice of bear. I rang it up, and, according to policy, started to put it in the Official SantaBear Bag, which happened to be plastic. He said, “Oh, please don’t put my bear in that bag; he won’t be able to breathe and he’ll die before we get home!” Mom gave me a look of desperation - she knew darn well we had a LOT of shoplifters trying to take the bears, and they’d probably get a little extra hassle by security if they left without the bag. So, I got eye-to-eye with the kid, and I said, very seriously, “No he won’t - you see, SantaBears are magic, and they can breathe, even in plastic bags. Little boys can’t do that, and I see you’ve already been told that, so you have to be very careful with this bag, but your SantaBear will be just fine.”
After that, he was all smiles at the thought that not only would his SantaBear be OK, but that it was magic, so he left proudly carrying his magic bear.
Where I worked, we kept a several-month list of all the books that were mentioned on Oprah, with photocopied covers. I was almost appauled at how often I had to drag it out.
Awwwww! 
I managed a Blockbuster Video for seven years…need I go on?
I could handle being screeched at for late fees which where obviously legit.
I could handle being screamed at for long lines during the holidays when every register WAS open and I even had my CSR’s cut out the suggestive selling spiels to hurry things up (which got me written up by my District Manager).
I was a little put out with the CONSTANT masturbators in the Drama section.
I was a bit miffed at the woman who instructed her six year old to whip out his penis and pee all over my carpet and Hunchback of Notre Dame display (which took me 6 hours to put together - damn Disney POP!) because the bathroom was under construction. (Yes, even for employees. The nice folks at Subway let me run over there and pee.)
But I think the most WTF moment was the psychotic housewife who walked in the door shrieking that this was just the dumbest movie she’d ever seen and how could we even carry somthing this stupid and what the hell was wrong with me that I hadn’t warned her about the idoicy of this dumb movie?! She then threw the box at my head, hit me in the eye with a corner and stormed out without apologizing. I turned the box over and read the spine through my tears.
The move was Dumb and Dumber. And it was two weeks late. :dubious:
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
I managed a Blockbuster Video for seven years…need I go on?
I could handle being screeched at for late fees which where obviously legit. >>
I worked at a video store also and a whole book could be written about late fee complainers (and our late fees were CHEAP!! like 1 buck!!).
The worst was a guy, a local politician no less, who told my fellow employee that we were “raping” him with our late charges. She didn’t find it very amusing, she had been a victim of actual rape when in high school…
More on that, please. There has to be a story or two here.
When I was in HS, I worked at a branch of our local bank that was in a Safeway. We had a man come in, let’s call him Danglin’ Dan: mid-40s, long hair, jean shorts with huge rips in the crotch and ass… and no underwear.
The other three tellers ran into the back room to giggle, so I was left to help him. While he was filling out his deposit slip, the blessed man who managed the Safeway came up to him and asked him to go and put on a decent pair of pants.
Danglin’ Dan immediately started to shout about what a crap store it was and how he would never shop here again.
The Blessed Manager’s response? That’s perfectly fine.
Danglin’ Dan declared that none of his friends would ever shop there again either!
Blessed Manager: If they dress like you, that’s just fine, too.
Did I mention how much I loved that man?
Yeah, but they’re all pretty much the same. And so cliche it’s hard to go back there. You know, trench coat, furtive looks around, scaring the young women who worked for me. sigh You seen one shifty wanker wanking to the Skinemax coverboxes, you’ve seen 'em all. I just called the cops and let them sort it out. (No, I’m not a prude, but there’s a time and a place, man!)
Though I always wondered why they didn’t go to the mom ‘n’ pop down the street with a perfectly good porn selection.
Masturbation- a fun activity you can enjoy at home
I had a client a few weeks ago, Asian guy, didn’t speak enough English to tell me whether he wanted a Swedish or deep tissue massage, but he filled out the intake form, so, I went ahead and worked on him.
He seemed kind of twitchy, at one point his hips went up in the air while I was working on his legs, but really, that’s nothing unusual. Some people have sensitive spots, you hit them and the whole body will twitch. He pointed at his butt a couple of times, again, nothing unusual, people with low back or hip pain often have tight glutes that need to be worked out, and with his poor English skills, I figured the best he could do was point to where he needed to be worked on. He wasn’t grinding on my sheets or anything. Got him supine, he pointed at his quadriceps, again nothing unusual, they were tight, and it wasn’t like he was trying to get me to spend an inordinate amount of time working his inner thigh.
After he paid for his massage, I went back into the room to change my sheets and found a big ol’ honkin’ spooje stain.
I made a call to the owner, who gave his blessing to ban the guy permanently.
And there is a massage parlor just down the block on the other side of the street that does the “full service” massage. Why he didn’t just go there and point to what he really wanted worked on. Hell, it’s an Asian place, so there was a decent chance that he would find a masseuse who spoke his language and he could tell in graphic detail exactly what he wanted.
Asbestos, you have every right to ban anyone you want, and to feel safe doing your job.
But.
I just feel the need to point out that it’s not uncommon for men to become erect or ejaculate during massage. Sometimes that ejaculation is not even accompanied by a climax. It’s a weird sort of reflex thing that trigger point therapy and deep tissue especially hit hard.
We all have our personal limits to what we’re willing to do with regards to massage and client propriety. Me, I feel like as long as I’m not asked to touch genitalia, subjected to (sexual) moaning or disgusting comments or questions…well…I can be pretty sure my massage was really, really good. He may not have come in looking for “release,” and may be really damn embarrassed that it happened. Swab down the table and get the room ready for the next client.
But, again, that’s me. That’s me, not you, and you have every right to only work with people you’re comfortable with. Totally and completely, not arguing that at all.
WhyNot, I am well aware of the reactions that the body can have on the table, up to and including ejaculation (one of my coworkers told the story of a guy who ejaculated when she released a trigger point in his shoulder- I can’t imagine how embarrassed the poor guy must have been). I deal with erections on a daily basis- by tossing a pillowcase over the hips and then ignoring the whole thing. I’ve had a couple of guys start wriggling on the table and let it pass because I realized that they just had really reactive bodies- they weren’t grinding. But, retrospectively, the fact that he seemed most interested in having those areas worked (actually had me skip his arms to go back to the quads, which I had already thorougly worked), plus the fact (which I should have mentioned in the prior post, sorry) that he spent an inordinate amount of time “getting dressed” after the massage makes me think that he was there to get his rocks off.
I worked for a tropical fish store. Thursdays were the manager’s day off and the owner worked from 12-4 and then came in to close the shop at 8.
This particular day, I was in charage, with one other guy working with me. A customer comes in interested in a salt water angel. he told me he already had a salt water angel of a different species. I told him he shouldn’t get it because different angels have a tendency to fight. He asked me if they definitely would, I said there’s no way to know for sure, but it’s a good possibility. The other guy agreed with me. The customer decided he wanted it anyway.
He calls about a half hour later.
“My fish is attacking this new one!”
I told him that I couldn’t do anything about it but if he wanted to bring it back, he could bring it back at 8 and talk to the owner.
“Well will he definitely give my my money back?”
“No, I can’t say for sure, but I know I don’t have the authority to do that”
“Well I don’t want to drive all the way down there for nothing”
So he calls at 8 and talks to the owner. The owner asks what happened and I explained to him how both of us told him he shouldn’t get it, but he insisted. He tell the manager that I should have forbade him to buy it.
So the owner decides to give him his money back, as long as the fish is undamaged. However, we were closed and he had to wait until the next day. I didn’t work the next day so I didn’t ahve to deal with him.
And, this happened to a friend, more funny than anything.
I worked at AAA of Michigan and I had a friend who worked in the call center in the insurance angency.
She gets a call from an old lady who had booked a trip through AAA travel (note, not even the right department to start with) and neeeded some help. She had bought some traveler’s checks from her bank and they gave her the wrong change and she didn’t realize it until she got home.
paraphrased conversation
Friend: Excuse me, did you say you got them at AAA travel or your bank?
Customer: My bank
Friend: Well then you should probably call your bank
Customer: Well this is the only 800 number I have and I didn’t want to pay for the call, can you call them for me?
Ahh, working in a video store… One incident still makes my blood boil and it was over 15 years ago…
I was working at a West Coast Video and the policy was to always ask for the last two digits of the phone number when the customer gave us their membership card when renting movies. (for their protection, to ensure their card hadn’t been stolen)
This teenager (16 maybe) came up one evening to rent a couple films and handed me a membership card. Bringing up the account, I asked for the end of the phone number, as usual. The numbers he gave me did not match.
I said they were wrong, perhaps it was a different phone? He tried again, and was wrong again.
I asked for his ID, so that I could check that it was his account. He took it out of his wallet and held it up. I took it from his hand, and compared it to the account. … The account was in a womans name, and although she had authorized someone with a mans name to rent on her account, that name did not match the kid in front of me.
I told him I was sorry, but he was not authorized to rent on that account. If the person who opened the account wanted to come in and authorize him to use it, we’d be happy to rent to him in the future. … He frowned and walked out.
I figured I’d caught a kid trying to rent on a stolen card (something that happened from time to time) and didn’t think anything more about it for the next half hour… Until…
This <checking that we’re in the Pit> loud screeching obnoxious harridan comes storming through the front doors, the kid slinking along in her wake. She made sure every person in the store knew how horrible and rude we’d been to her grandson.
My boss, the store manager dealt with her… by caving in like a sandcastle caught in high tide.
She harped for 15 minutes straight at the top of her lungs, regaling everyone with her version of how I insulted her precious grandson, snatched his ID from his grasp, called him a liar, and threw him out of the store. She said that I was an example of how poor customer service was at our store. That the store should be packed with customers at that time of night but instead there was only a handful of people in the store. (It was 9 PM on a Wednesday night. The 6 customers we had was normal for our slowest night of the week, only an hour before we closed.)
The entire time she ranted and raved, my boss kept nodding like a bobble head doll. He completely ignored the fact that the other customers in the store were disturbed by her lunacy, and most wound up leaving rather than listen to her verbal vomit.
He certainly ignored the fact that I had followed our policies to the letter and that other clerks at the counter spoke up for my version of what happened. He wound up giving her a dozen rentals for free (despite the fact that she had rented barely two dozen movies in the last year), adding her grandson to her account at the same time. (The next day he actually wanted me to write her a letter apologizing for my behavior! I flatly refused, so he wrote one himself instead.)
And the entire time the kid just stood in the background behind the harpy and smirked with a big shit eating grin on his face.
Regarding books on Oprah (or any show; if an author was interviewed on a local radio show or something, the same thing would happen) - if some book was featured, I’d usually have a number of requests for it within a couple days, and quickly figured out why. We’d order in a dozen copies (lots more if it was Oprah’s Book Club book). Maybe I’m just extra smart, but I could usually remember these titles even a couple months later. It’s been four years since I worked in the bookstore, but if someone came up to me today and asked me what that green book with the dark red letters that was on Oprah was, I’d say “Ahh, Drowning Ruth.”