The Customer is Always Insane, Pt. II

I used to work at a coffee shop in college that was a couple of blocks away from a homeless shelter. That meant that at about 7 am, we’d have a whole mess of homeless people show up and buy a cup of coffee (free refills), and sit there ALL DAY AND NIGHT until we closed at 2 am, which made for some very stinky couches. On my very first day working there, I went to the register to help the first customer in line. He ordered a large coffee, and then asked me what my cup size was. I thought I must have misunderstood, so I asked him to repeat himself. He pointed at my boobs, leaving no room for doubt, and again asked me my cup size. I was only 18, and didn’t want to get fired for pissing off my first customer, so I just calmly walked over and informed the manager, who kicked him out. I mean, yes, I have big boobs, but not big enough that they should be the topic of conversation with total strangers!

We also had a customer there who must have had some kind of job, because he did have money to pay for his food and drinks, but he was there for about 8-10 hours a day playing counterstrike on the computers we had over in the corner. He was very friendly, but would never discuss anything about himself. Once, his car broke down, and I offered him a ride home. He would only give me a general sense of the area where he lived, and once I got to that area he told me to drop him off because he was going to walk the last mile or so. It was later explained to me by another customer that he was just government-conspiracy-tinfoil-hat crazy, and didn’t want anyone to know where he lived. That’s why he wouldn’t play counterstrike from home either.

That place was full of crazies though. We had a guy who called himself Cloud and would sing Stevie Nicks songs every time we had an open mic night. We had this old guy…don’t remember his name…who wore this crazy mountain man getup (leather fringed vest, black leather cowboy hat, feathers in his hair, Wyatt Earp mustache, huge carved walking stick) and told everyone he was a bounty hunter. He would work security at some of the bars around town, even though he was maybe 70 years old. That coffeeshop had some of the strangest people I have ever met, and it was completely awesome. It was like Starbucks’ evil twin. :smiley:

I also had a friend in high school who worked at a Radio Shack. This lady came in one day and was browsing around, and she had her young son with her (maybe 4-5 years old). She told my friend that her son needed to go to the bathroom. My friend informed her that their store had no bathroom, and that she’d have to take her kid down to the Publix that was about 4 stores down if he needed to use a bathroom. She got crazy angry and started yelling at him about how they had to have a bathroom for employees, and that they were evil for not letting her son use it. In fact, they didn’t have a bathroom and employees had to walk to Publix to go to the bathroom too. Anyway, she kept yelling, and they ask her to leave, so she tells her kid to pee on the floor. He whips his little willy out and does it! Pissed right on the carpet in the middle of Radio Shack. She then stormed out with her child, who will no doubt need years of therapy from growing up with a mother like that. It turned out not being so bad for my friend, because the whole place was carpeted with those stick-down carpet squares. They just peeled up the nasty square and put down a clean one. :slight_smile:

Shocked, shocked I say, that in this whole thread, Vinyl Turnip or BigT have not shown up to tell you all how incompetent you are for having issues with these people.

I split these posts off from this two-year-old zombie thread.

Zombies make terrible customers.

Oh, for fuck’s sake… :rolleyes:

Marley discriminates by reason of undead status!

never mind

I’m glad to hear that. I was reading the other thread, and when I got to the end, there were no posts more recent than 2007. This was a source of mild befuddlement.

But were you holding an empty coffee cup in front of you? Maybe he was just trying to decide whether to order a grande or a venti. :wink:

Kidding. Nicely dealt with.

DrTofu, I know where you worked, because I, too, know the Bounty Hunter. I want to say he’s still around, but when I think about it, it’s been years since I last saw him (probably out at the flea market or working as a bouncer at the Magic and Fun Shop around Halloween).

Hope other dopers have “local color” to share.
I have to live vicariously, because I sip with ordinary folk.

Oh, man, now my coffee joint seems so taaaaame … [pout]

[/pout]

That just proves you don’t get why we’re (well, I’m) upset at you. Sure, the customer screamed at them, but did anyone pick her up and shove her out the door?

Was there a customer who had a legitimate complaint but expressed it poorly and thus got the interaction terminated forcibly and then made fun of online?

And was there a “Woe is me, pitiful job I have. I have a right to be a jerk, headquarters says, and everyone who has a problem with the way I responded is a horrible person who just picks on people in my poor pitiful job”?

And is there any rubbing people’s face if someone disagreed that the situation was bad?

Heck, did he pop over into your thread and say bad things about people who disagreed with him in his?

Jesus people, take the snark to the pit, we’re supposed to be laughing at crazies!

Wait! There’s something wrong with this story!

DrTofu, I’mma have to see those boobies.

Too late they killed this thread for me.

I see why Tracy Lord left here. Sheesh.

When I was a manager at a Pizza Hut in college we had one guy who flipped out on me really bad. He paid the delivery driver with a check and when she got back to the store we saw that it was a temporary check and we weren’t allowed to take them. I looked up his number and called him to ask if he would please provide me with a credit card number and I would tear up the check but he said no, he would come to the store to straighten it out. About 10 minutes later his car came screeching up in front of the building and he stormed into the restaurant screaming at the top of his lungs about how I made him leave his sick infant at home alone. I tried to explain again that I can take information over the phone and that he did not need to leave his house but he didn’t care. He screamed at me, screamed at other customers, threw his credit card at me so hard that it sailed past me and into the kitchen. He repeated the phrase, “The customer is always right!” over and over again like a mantra while I ran his card. After he left I put a note on his account not to deliver to him again.

About 3 weeks later my supervisor overrode that instruction and sent another pizza out to him. He screamed at the delivery driver that he didn’t want an arab handling his food, threw the pizza at him, and then got in his car and followed him back to the restaurant to scream at him some more. After that they decided that this guy really did have serious problems and stopped delivering to him.

I dunno, sounds like it would have been more fun to start delivering pizza to him every hour, on the hour. :smiley:

Used to have a ‘colorful’ homeless person we’d see every day in downtown Minneapolis.

We called him “The Rock Star”.

Usually in a blue jogging outfit, all year round. Big wrap around sunglasses. Steel Wool Hair.
Major league Butt Bandit - meaning one of those people who goes from public ashtray to public ashtray picking out partially and mostly smoked cigarettes, occasionally off the sidewalk. (Major league EWWWW*)

Wierdest I ever say was an inoffensive looking fellow dressed in a business suit (but wearing sneakers) who ordered a grape drink at a local coffee place when I was sitting there.

He was perfectly polite, ordered his drink from the (attractive, female) server, received in promplty, paid for it, thanked her - then calmly took off the plastic over and tossed the drink all over her. Then he ran out as fast as he could.

The whole thing was so sudden and bizzare that no-one reacted for a second - then the server gave a sort of choked scream (thank goodness it was only cold pop and not hot coffee!). The guy was long gone before anyone thought to detain him. The manager called the cops, and got a description - the guy was a total stranger to the place - it wasn’t like he was getting revenge on the server, or on the shop; he just did it.