Blackeyes: every customer thread needs a link to the Gord. Have you seen his new update (well, pretty new anyway)?
I always loved the “I’m not renting here anymore!” followed by “Suits me just fine. Door’s to your left.”
Still. I’d be very surprised if that was the first time the receptionist had seen a pregnant woman go off.
I know. It’s a great story guys, so just go on telling yourself it’s true if adds something to it for you.
:rolleyes:
Well, I personally have told off customers, in great length and detail. I brought the fuckers mother and father in to the pile of insults I piled on this poor poor moron who made the mistake of pissing me off one time to many. 10 years later my customers who were there still tell me what a beautiful display I put on that day,
I never heard from asshole customer again and his 3 dollars a week were certanly not missed.
Hey now, we have cats with thumbs that can beat you up, so watch it.
Did you c&p that in and out of spellcheck, or where did all the funky charachters come from?
I’ll also third Gord. Good stuff, except the parts where he’s beating people up.
Continiuing the offshoot thread
But she IS saying that an employee who responds in kind is MORE deserving of contemp that the bozo that started the shit in the 1st place. Because, in her words, that makes the employee the asshole.
Now I am not one to bark at people. But if they bark at me, I will use phrases like “I will not allow you to speak to me that way”
We had a guy who used to call us every night, and he was insulting to whoever picked up the phone. We complained to our manager (we were as polite as we could be), and our manager complained to HIS manager. Do you think this made the asshole more polite? In short, it did not. he continued being an asshole to us. Maybe if we responded in kind, mirroring his behaviour, we could have resolved the problem. Courtesy failed miserably.
My worst story in a store: I went into NYC on a bitterly cold winter day. How cold was it? 5 degrees when I woke up. I was wearing my usual weird outfit, made worst by the weird jacket and coat I was wearing.
I was in the Barnes & Nobel on 18th Street and some homeless person left their shopping cart in the vestible of the store. Some guy comes up to me and says “I’m the store manager. You can’t leave YOUR cart there.” I looked at him and said softly “That is not my cart.” I was annoyed.
Five minutes later he comes up to me and says “I told you, you cannot leave YOUR cart there.” Then I went off, talking very loudly “Look, you idiot, I told you that isn’t my cart. Don’t you understand English. Why would you even think it is. Why didn’t you at least ask me if it was, and take my word when I said it wasn’t.” Another guy came over and said “Store security. Is there a problem?” to the first guy.
I screamed “You bet there’s a problem. This idiot thinks I’m the homeless person who left the cart in the vestible, and is harassing me about it. I am not homeless, and I probably make more than the two of you put together. And I’m damned if I will EVER come into this store again.” Then I stomped out.
Never been back there either.
I was also once at the Wiz trying to buy a rare out of print 2CD xdg but the clerk wouldn’t sell it to me cause there was no price on it. Finally I demanded to see the manager, who repeated the line. I said “Look, this is a store, and I’m buying this CD, so I suggest you give me a price.” She looked at me and I said in a very soft voice “Boy, am I having fun on the Internet tonight.” She literally JUMPED when I said that, and sold me the rare 2CD for $20!
Richaim,
Maybe I would have been a bitch back just because I was eight and a half months pregnant and retaining water like a sponge.
And maybe the bitchy woman in the OP actually was two months pregnant as well - hormones were way worse early and very late than at five months. Or had PMS, or was on fertility drugs (oh… my…god…PMS on Steroids - I thought my husband was going to abandon me for my irrational bitchiness).
But us girls need to learn to try and control these irrational hormonal surges and stay polite, irregardless. At least to people who aren’t our husbands or boyfriends 
Its one of the foundations of a polite society…
The other is being bitchy back.
OK, I will agree that there must be a certain amount of decorum. But there has to be a point where it’s OK for the gloves to come off.
Rilchiam, I agree it would be a great world where everyone had an overabundance of patience and tolerance, or at the very least, those that don’t do not work in retail. I bet in that great world there would be dragons being fought by knights on flying steeds also.
Your husband appears to be one with an overabundance of patience. This may come as a surprise to you, but not everyone is like that. And sometimes, even patient people have bad days where all it takes is one ass to light a fuse. Should these people call in sick on those days? Do you not go to work when your not in a good mood? Or do you try to make it through the day and hope no one goes out of their way to set you off? Or, as a customer, do you not shop on those days so you don’t run into a pissy clerk?
Clerks and customers are human beings, with a whole array of emotions and responses. Not everyone will turn the other cheek every time.
So did you pocket the money, or leave it with the store? I understand how annoying the customer could be, but stealing from her? That goes beyond being a jerk, imho.
Literally!
Don’t mind me. I’m just amusing myself.
If rudeness is moddycoddled then the person wil l most likely continue to be rude. In another thread, Feynn wrote about confronting a rude patron in Safeway and was congratulated for it while WSLer is being jumped on here. Why? WSLer was acting as an employee while Feynn was not. I have not spent much time working retail but I part-timed at a grocery store one winter. New Year’s Eve was so busy that people were waiting in line to get a shopping cart. During the six months I worked at that store I had people complain that I was making too much noise with the carts and one jerk tried to pick a fight with me while I was doing my job (he was behind me and I hit him with my elbow while picking up a customer’s grocerey bags). Did I tell them off? No, I was the lowest rung on the ladder and probably would have been fired. As a manager, WSLer had the right to refuse to serve the unwanted customer. He also did the one thing guaranteed to give a rude person pause: he publicly called attention to her rudeness. Will she continue to be rude? Possibly, but probably not in that store, which is good for the other customers and the work atmosphere. I’m sure the store won’t miss one customer (or two had Beastal been there).
I beg to differ. I have heard announcements similar to what WSLer related.
And people wonder why I was so miserable at Kmart…
You know, an approach I try with pissed off people-really sickly sweet, super smiley sugary smiles and impossibly perky friendliness. That REALLY pisses them off, but what can they do? Call the manager and complain that I was too nice?
What is your problem with his story?
I have also done things like this and confronted customers in a way to embarass them because polite and civil were not effective.
Case in point:
I was working at a Circle K(horrors). At the hot dog area, frat boys were prone to making a mess just so we’d have to clean it up.
One Friday night during a very busy period, I saw four frat brats crowded around the hot dog island making a mega mess and laughing about it. One of them had the gall to take a ketchup packet, put it on the ground, and he stomped on it.
That is when I walked over to them and said: “DO I LOOK LIKE YOUR MOTHER? I am not paid to look after you, I am not paid to clean up after you, and I am not here to take your crap. What you have done is vandalism. You have made it so not only do I have to spend time cleaning, others will be inconvienienced because of the mess you have created. Put down the hot dogs, do not come back, AND GET OUT OF THIS STORE.”
They thought I was kidding until I walked to the phone and began dialing the police to have them removed.
While they had the balls to call me bitch and faggot as they left, they did not return, the store remained cleaner, and no one tried to do what they did.
I believe there is NO EXCUSE to be rude – regardless of whether or not you are the customer or the store employee.
A good percentage of the population are a-holes. During my high school and college years, when I worked retail, I saw countless rude, pushy, sarcastic and downright mean customers. It is amazing how one bad person can ruin your whole day.
I am not in retail anymore – and I can see that there are problems on the other side as well. A nice rip to the mall with your family can be ruined by a bad sales staff. I am one of those people that, if I feel slighted, will NEVER return to that store again.
My point is, there are a-holes in both camps – which is really saying that there are a-holes in the human race. The older I get, the less I fight with a-holes. It NEVER gets anywhere and I am never satisfied. I have never once convinced an a-hole that they where an a-hole and that they where totaly wrong – it only ends up in a screaming match.
In the Op’s case, that woman was an a-hole and I agree he should not have served her because she demanded it. Sounds like she is a miserable SOB – can you imagine looking at life through thoses miserable colored glasses?
But getting on the intercom and saying embarassing things – well, that is wrong too.
Here is what I mean:
If I was standing in line and this a-hole of a woman cut me, I would be pissed. Then the clerk gets on the intercom and says something off-color. Now I am really pissed. Here I am, probably happy because I am buying books (which I love to do!) and I am forced to watch the battle of these two mental giants ruin the positive energy in the room – thus ruining my shopping experience.
sigh. . .
Which wouldn’t necessarily fall under the category of being rude. I support your right to do that.
Sure, at some point. If some psycho decides to assault you physically, I’d support your right to respond in kind, at least as far as it goes to protect yourself. But in the normal run of things, there’s no call to abandon a professional manner.
I have an actual bachelors degree, thank you very much. In history no less.
Mental giants my ass.
Sheesh.:rolleyes:
Now, I told the woman that I would get on the intercom and embarrass her. After I said that I waited a good 45 seconds for her to make a move towards retrieving her books, but she did nothing.
Fine by me----silence=aquiessence in my book.
Also, when I was on the intercom, embarassing her I said NOTHING off-color.
tell me, if she had cut in fornt of you, would you have confronted her?
What would you have said?
Would you have taken any action, ie, moving up to the counter an putting your books up to be rung up, thereby displacing her?
I love the notion that there is “positive energy” in a room full of people waiting in line to pay for Christmas presents. Yeah, right. Especially in Washington DC and environs.
I also love the idea that holding an idiot up to public ridicule for their idiotic behavior is wrong. I believe just the opposite is true; I think that all of society would be enriched if people were called on their assholishness more often. The less people get away with, the better. Maybe, just maybe, the more egregious idiots among us will eventually fall off of their high horses and learn how to temper themselves.
I agree. I think some people choose to be assholes because it works for them and nobody calls them on it.