That reminds me of another Montgomery Ward Story. I was working in the tire department. A 16 year old kid came in for tires for his old Chevy. He wanted “The cheapest tire you have” Being the ace salesman that I am I managed to talk him out of the cheapest tire (which was pure crap) and into the next better tire (which was OK for around town stuff.). Kid pays tires get mounted, kid goes away.
The next day the mom comes in with one of the new tire flat. She is on her high horse and in full war mode. She wants a new tire. I explain that she got a flat, and we will gladly fix her flat for free if it is repairable, if not then we will get a new tire. This isn’t good enough for her highness. She wants to go straight to plan B the new tire. I explain agin, if it is fixable, we will fix it.
Then she says that her little darling came in to buy the best tire we had, and why did our best tire get a flat. I looked her straight in the eye and said "Mrs. Smith, I was the salesman that sold these tires yesterday, so I heard exactly what your son said. He came in and asked for our cheapest tire. Those are his exact words. I managed to talk him into one grade better tire. There are very far from our top of the line. You were not here, I was therefore I am the expert here on what was said during that transaction.
The flat was caused by a splinter of wood, about 1/2 the diameter of a pencil went through the tread. So then she comes back with these must be pretty shitty tires when a little tiny piece of wood would go through them. Holding up the wood, I said this is obviously a splinter, off of a larger piece, how big a log did this come off of?
She got very quiet.
We would have, but in the late '80s, early '90s, we just flat-out couldn’t find a list of her books anywhere, so getting and maintaining a list would’ve necessitated someone to watch her show every day to get “the book of the day”. Considering that there were usually only two of us in that department, and we were at work when that show was on, it was just logistically impossible to do it. We looked and asked around, too, but we couldn’t find a listing of “books featured on her show” anywhere.
Ours never asked for it by title, or could even describe them, though. I swear to you, this is the way they’d usually ask:
Customer: Do you have that book that was on Oprah the last time I watched it?
Me: I’m not sure, do you have a title, author, or description?
C: It was written by a woman. But it was on Oprah! Surely you remember the books that are on Oprah.
Me: No, in fact, I don’t watch it.
C: Oh. Well, it was on Oprah…um…sometime in January. I think.
Me: (NOT pointing out that it is now October, and that doesn’t really help much, does it, and if you had to have the book why didn’t you come in then?) Can you tell me what the book was about?
C: It was on Oprah!
Me: Yes, we’ve established that, she features a lot of books, do you even remember what it looked like? What color was it?
C: No. But it was on …
I think you got the smart ones…
Somewhere in the world right now, I like to think there is another message board, with a thread about bad customer service. It would go something like this:
I was trying to buy a biography of Oprah Winfrey once, and the clueless bookstore clerk just couldn’t grasp the English language.
Me: I’m looking for a book, it’s on Oprah Winfrey.
Clerk: Okay, what’s it about?
Me: It’s on Oprah.
C: Yes, but what’s it about?
When I was in high school, I worked at K-Mart for a period of two weeks during the pre-Christmas rush. I was desperate for Christmas present money, and I reluctantly threw myself into the adolescent self-esteem grinder that is minimum-wage department store retail sales.
One evening when the store was particularly crowded, the customer service desk line particularly serpentine, and the customers themselves particularly surly, I watched in dumbstruck awe a one-act play in theater of the absurd as a lunatic woman at the head of the “Returns” line pulled the world’s dumbest con on the store manager and actually got away with it.
Surly Woman: “I bought this lawnmower here over the summer, and I want to return it.” (Effortlessly hoists a lawnmower, still in its original packaging, onto the counter.)
Sales Associate: (Looks oddly at mower box…) “Ma’am, the package says that the mower is a Sears Craftsman. We don’t sell those here. Do you have a receipt?”
Surly Woman: “No, but I know I bought it here. Over the summer.”
Sales Associate: (Noticing that the customers in the rest of the line are beginning to get angry and impatient…) “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you can’t return the mower. Our return policy is 30 days. You said you purchased it over the summer. Besides, it’s a Sears Craftsman. We don’t even sell those here.”
Surly Woman: “I don’t care. The mower doesn’t work. It’s broken. I want a refund, or I’m never coming here again.”
Sales Associate: (Noticing that the customers in line are showing swollen facial blood vessels, and some are beginning to grunt…) “Let me get the manager.”
Assistant Manager: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, you can’t return that mower. First of all, it’s a Sears Craftsman. We don’t sell those here. Perhaps you bought it at the Sears Hardware down the road? Maybe they’ll take it back. Second, you indicated that you purchased it over the summer, and I notice that you don’t have a receipt. Our return policy, which is clearly indicated on the wall behind me, states that we can’t accept a return of any merchandise under those conditions.”
Surly Woman: (Yelling…) “I don’t FUCKING CARE. I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY BACK. I BOUGHT IT HERE.”
Assistant Manager: (Noticing that the customers in line are beginning to regress to more primitive evolutionary states, and that several are now hurling their own feces…) “Ma’am, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
Surly Woman: (Screaming at the top of her lungs…) “I’M NOT LEAVING UNTIL I GET MY MONEY. I BOUGHT THIS LAWNMOWER HERE AND NOW YOU’RE RIPPING ME OFF! SEE, EVERYONE, THIS IS WHAT K-MART DOES – THEY RIP PEOPLE OFF! I’M GONNA BOYCOTT THIS STORE! I’M GONNA TELL ALL MY FRIENDS! I’M GONNA HAVE YOUR ASS FIRED!
Several Regressed Primates in Line: Just give her the money! We’ve got places to go!
Several Other Feces-Laden, Fake-Coach-Purse-Carrying, Corpulent Bonobos: Just call security, dumbass!
Store Manager: (Arriving on scene, having overheard commotion…) “Ma’am, I’m Sloven McWitless, Store Manager of this K-Mart; will you come with me please so that these fine people behind you can be taken care of?
Surly Woman: Okay. I JUST WANT MY MONEY! I DON’T WANT THIS LAWNMOWER!
Having diffused the larger conflict, McWitless took Surly Woman to a far cash register, opened the drawer, and pulled out a stack of twenties.
About thirty minutes after the whole event, and about thirty minutes before I walked out of Kmart never to return, I talked to McWitless about his masterful handling of Surly Woman. His course of action had been the right one, he confidently explained, even if it had cost the store $300 in cash. He continued to speak, saying something about how the customer is always right, particularly if she has a bunch of angry customers behind her and is threatening to take her business elsewhere, and that I could learn a lot from him about how to handle situations like that – but I wasn’t listening. I’d already put the lawnmower in a shopping cart and begun to shuffle off toward the stockroom.Did you take it to the Sears down the street for a refund? 
No, it was shortly thereafter redistributed on five-finger discount to a entrepreneurial fellow employee.
I don’t work in retail anymore (Thank Og) but I’ve been yelled at by customers because there wasn’t an orange twist in their drink, and accused of apologizing just to save my tip.
I’ve had clothes thrown at me because I tried to enforce the 6 Pieces Max they could take back into the fitting room.
I’ve been yelled at on the phone because I didn’t know the phone number to the AMA (I was working at a TV station at a time.)
I’ve had people call up and think my voice mail was an answering machine, “Hello? I know you’re there, pick up!”
Not quite. Hopefully a Doper would word the request closer to “a biography about Oprah Winfrey” than “a book on Oprah.”
From what I understand, this is precisely how you’re supposed to run a low level con like this, for precisely the reasons you mentioned. Go up to a harried sales clerk who’s already got a lot of disgruntled customers to deal with, and make a stink. Supposedly, nine times out of ten you’ll get your refund/pass the bad twenty/steal that extra shirt, or whatever.
At least this is what I’m told by people who’ve regularly supplemented their income this way (to put it nicely).
Not a long story: A couple of days ago, a customer walked up to one of my fellow salesmen and asked him “Can you walk, talk and chew gum at the same time? I want to look at Class C motorhomes.”
I asked him upon his return why he even gave the guy the time of day instead of telling him what a fuckwit he is. His reply: “I’m too much of a whore.”
Truly sad.
I would have to say the worst customers are my wife’s cousin and her boyfriend.
They always complain.
Every time they go out to dinner, it’s too cold, or there’s a hair in it.
Every time they go to a movie, the complain that the theater was too cold.
Any place that has a “how did we do?” card, they fill it out as the worst.
They like getting free stuff.
We stopped going out to dinner with some former friends because they would embarrass us. They both thought that they could order something they’d never tried, and if they didn’t like it (purely a matter of taste - the dish would be prepared properly), it was appropriate to send it back and get something else, paying for only one meal of course.
In addition, the female half is allergic to everything under the sun, and would ask that something be modified extensively, removing all traces of aromatic vegetables, herbs, and spices, then send it back because “it didn’t taste right.”
When I worked at Coldwater Creek, some harpy threw an absolute fit because we didn’t want to give her our nice wooden hangers along with her clothes. Jesus, lady, you’re spending $50 for a pair of pants, can’t you afford some hangers at Target or something? Of course management caved. I wonder what they would have done if she demanded a display rack or a cash register.
I was working at a home improvement store in The Valley in the early 90’s, when I heard a “manager on duty” page over the intercom. I walked down to one of my best cashier’s checkout station, and had a lady practically scalp me because my horrible, awful cashier had refused to call someone to help her out to her car with her merchandise. I looked at what she had purchased, and paged someone from the paint department to carry out her two rolls of wallpaper. :rolleyes:
You know, with all these “awful customer” stories and “awful customer service” stories, it’s a wonder any business gets transacted at all.
Really the only one that sticks out in my memory is the guy who came up to my register with a coupon for the store brand water - free with some other purchase, I think it was. Unfortunately, we have a very small store and don’t carry a lot of things that other stores of the same chain carry, this water included. The policy, as I was told when I was training is, don’t take a coupon for something the store doesn’t carry (duh). I told him, sorry sir, we don’t have that item.
“Am I going to have to make some phone calls? Hm? Am I going to have to call <name I didn’t recognize>? HM?”
“Um… you can call whoever you want, I guess. We don’t have that kind of water.”
storms out, accompanied by much huffing
I found out later, it was the area manager he’d called (he used the long form of the name, and she goes by a nickname, which is why I didn’t recognize it). He’d called to tell her to fire me.
Burdines. Pompano Beach Mall. Circa 1983. Two days before Christmas. Yours truly - sick as the proverbial dog with a cold, but at work nonetheless because everyone knows that in retail - unless you’re actually in a coffin, you don’t call out sick that close to Christmas.
I’m stuck in ladies’ accessories - aka The Inner Ring of Hell. Don’t know what to get a female at the holiday? Leather goods! The place is a madhouse.
This is, I believe, the year that Gucci bags became really really hot (the first time). We had a nice inventory - all hooked together with those plastic rings that squeeze tight, but can’t unsqueeze. Ergo - if someone wanted to closely inspect a bag, you had to cut the ring, and then replace it.
Customers in question were the stereotypical disco sleazebag looking guy - gold chains, mirrored shades, shirt opened halfway to his navel. Bimbo girl friend looking like Pam Anderson playing Mrs. Wiggins. They want to see Gucci bags. I showed them. Every. Single. One. Cut the plastic rings on about 12 of them. Ms. Dimbulb decides on the one she wants. After shoving the rest of the bags in a drawer and locking it until I can come back and re-secure everything, I begin to ring up the purchase.
Burdines card - declined
VISA card #1 - declined
VISA card #2 - declined
Of course, this is entirely my fault, says he. I must be doing something wrong, says he. Finally, I get a card to go through. Meanwhile, I can feel my fever slowly climbing and my throat getting more raw by the second.
While Mr. Bag is signing the credit card slip, I carefully wrap the bag in tissue paper and place it gently in a large Burdines shopping bag. Mrs. Wiggins starts screeching like a banshee. “Don’tcha got any GUCCI shoppin’ bags?” “Yeah”, sez Mr. Bag - “we want a GUCCI shopping bag!”.
I calmly explain that it is approximately 36 hours until Christmas and we haven’t have any Gucci shopping bags since December 12th.
Bastards wouldn’t take the bag without an appropriately monogrammed and tattooed shopping bag.
I quit retail the next spring and got into the mortgage biz. I’ve never looked back.
VCNJ~
When I worked at the video store, I turned closing on time into an art form. At 9:59, the floor would be vaccuumed, the videos would be shelved, and the money would be counted. All I had to do was shut the door and turn out the lights, and I would be out by 10:00:03. The only thing that would fuck up my plan is if a customer walked in at the last minute. Even then, I had mastered the art of “Here, watch House of Games, you’ll love it, no charge, buh-bye.”
Until Greenpeace came in. Fucking Greenpeace. The very thought of them makes me want to drown a seal in motor oil.
Not that these people were rude. Just dumb as ferns. Lobotomized ferns.
Five of them came in at around 9:45. Naturally, they couldn’t agree on any movies to watch. All they could agree on was that they wanted 4 movies. No, 5. Wait, no, just 4. Or 5. Can we use your phone?
So I stood there and watched this moronicized greenery argue endlessly about every single film they wanted watch, but no, I’ve seen that, and that one doesn’t look very good, and on and on and on until the wee small hours of the morning. It was rather amazing to see snails racing up and down the sidewalk as these green fucks debated the merits of every single movie in the store. Twice.
FINALLY, these fine young tributes to indecision came to a tentative agreement and approached the counter. Then went back and looked at more movies. Then approached the counter again. Then off to the racks. Then back to the counter. By this time I had stabbed them with imaginary knives about a million times. Several civilizations rose and fell in that time. Species evolved then went extinct.
At long last, they were ready to begin the rental process. These 5 movies. Oh yeah, they’d need to rent a VCR as well, was that something we could do? Fuck! That’s kind of a long process. Made even longer by the fact that none of them had ever really seen a VCR before, so I had to instruct these mental colossi on the skills of plugging the damn thing in.
Worlds formed.
At long last, they were all set. Just ring them up, and they can ooze on out. “Account number?”, I inquired. In lovely dulcet tones, they answered my question with a question: “Oh, do we need an account to rent here?”
Goddam fuckity fuck fucksterino on a goddam son of a fuck! Starting a new account was a 15 minute process. Fuck!
At quarter past infinity, I finally got them all signed up and checked out. All I had to do was collect the money and then kick their sorry asses out the door. After all, I was getting mighty intrigued by the anti-gravity cars I was seeing passing by outside. What other technological wonders had I missed? Who was president? Had we colonized Jupiter yet?
My friends, let me tell you a little something about the kinds of people who work for Greenpeace. They aren’t in it for the money. They’re not rolling in cash. In fact, asking 5 of them to come up with $23.63 between them is a rather amusing thing. Crumpled ones, loose change, and buttons was what I saw the most. And even then, they were short by about $23.00.
“Uh, I think Bob back at the house has his mom’s credit card. Can we use your phone?”
So I killed them. All of them. Got arrested, was convicted of cruelty to morons, got life in prison. Died of old age before serving my first week.
Damn, that’s some brilliant cussing. I have a new catch-phrase. 
tdn, your description of civilizations rising and falling, and the anti-grav cars reminds me of the first episode of Futurama, when Fry is caught in the stasis, and we see aliens attacking, the rebuilding of the city, more aliens, more rebuilding, out the window.