We had an area for that. We didn’t care if a person sat and read a book in-store. Those patrons generally spent money in our coffee shop.
“Hi, Handsome…Dan…”
Back in the 1980s my family was a frequent visitor to Dairy Queen and my mother would order the Hawaiian Blizzard. Fast forward to 2020 when Dairy Queen opened in Bryant, Arkansas and I took my mother there for the first time in a little over 30 years and the Hawaiian Blizzard was no longer on the menu. My mother questioned the poor girl at the drive thru window asking her why the Hawaiian Blizzard was discontinued, when it was discontinued, etc., etc. I find that my mother often times has odd expectations for what she expects employees to know. This kid was 19 or 20 at most and it’s entirely possible they discontinued the Hawaiian Blizzard before she was even born.
Hawaiian Blizzard
The Hawaiian Blizzard was discontinued from DQ a while back, but you can still order it at most locations! This secret menu item is a simple blend of vanilla soft serve, coconut, pineapple, and banana.
My nephew had a job in a 99 cent store about 20 years ago when they actually just did carry items that cost 99 cents.
He told about a conversation with a customer that went like this:
“How much is this?”
“99 cents”
“Oh. How much is this?”
“99 cents”
“Oh, how much is this?”
“Lady, it’s a 99 cent store! Everything costs 99 cents!”
Admittedly, my nephew wasn’t wound too tight.
I can’t tell you how often I get off the phone and say, usually out loud to whoever’s within earshot. “OMG, ask the question you want the answer to”, I don’t know why people insist in beating around the bush.
For example
Customer on the phone: Do you have any [product]?
Me: Let me go check, hold on.
Me: Yes, we do.
Customer: How much are they
Me: Let me go check, hold on.
Me: They’re 2.99 each
Customer: Do you have a lot of them?
Me: How many is “a lot” to you?
Customer: I need a dozen of them?
Me: Let me go check.
and so on.
All they had to say is “Do you have 12 [product] on hand and can you tell me how much they are?” I can go check all of that at once.
Similarly, and this is just a pet peeve of mine, but it drives me nuts when someone asks me a question and then immediately guesses at the answer (or gives examples of possible answers).
One I just got last night “I bought some of your shrimp salad, could you tell me what the base is? [I take a breath to answer but before I start…] like is it Mayo or sour cream or miracle whip or…”
I had to cut her off to answer her question, which was just “Uh, I can go check, but it should say right on the ingredient list on the label”
Seriously, you asked me a question, just let me answer. That’s right up there with people that call and when I answer, they’re clearly not ready to talk. I can hear them talking to someone else. Which, sometimes overlaps with me answering the phone “Good morning [store name]” to which at least a quarter of the time they say “Is this [store name]?” The fuck did I just say? Don’t start dialing until you’re ready to start listening.
I give people 2 ‘hellos’ before I hang up and let them call back when they’re ready.
In the late late 70s and in to mid 1980 I was a gas station attendant at a large family owned filling station/repair garage. During this time the price of gasoline really shot up; to the extent the old rotating digit gas pumps were not set up to display of price per gallon in more than two digits, so we had to double the amount the pump read. I’ve had accusations from angry motorists suggesting that I tampered with the pump just to rip them off.
As I’ve said, the price per gallon really spiked…as in damn near tripled and motorists were clearly not happy. I distinctly remember one middle aged woman looked me right in the eye and asked: “Does that sign say a dollar thirty eight a gallon?”. I replied, “I’m afraid so”. She jutted her finger at me and angrily scolded me: “Well you’ve got a lot of nerve young man!”
They never bitched at the owners, just us gas attendant schnooks.
For a while I worked in typography. A customer would come in with copy for, say, a menu or an invitation. They say something like “I don’t know anything about fonts or design. Just give me whatever you think looks nice.”
100% guarantee that they will not like what you give them.
Or, “I like this font, but could you remove the serifs?”
Me: “Actually, that typeface is available in a sans serif version.”
Them: “No, I don’t want a sans serif font, just the serif font with the serifs removed.”
And then there was the guy who liked the font he got, but wanted me to lower the dots on the i’s and j’s. (There’s actually a way to do that, but it would be hella expensive for a large block of text.)
Years ago I got a call from someone that wanted to speak to the cashier. Now, if this were a parent or something along those lines, I assume they would have identified themselves as such. However, as a policy, I don’t hand over phone calls for people asking to speak to the cashier because in the overwhelming majority of cases, they need to talk to me. When I asked if there was something I could help her with, she said “I was there a while ago and I demand to know why the cashier declined my credit card”. I had to explain to this irate customer that the cashier doesn’t make the decision about whether or not a card is declined, they have to call the number on the card and ask them. We just swipe the card and get an accepted or declined, that’s it.
I had another customer get worked up to the point where we had to ask her to leave when she yelled across this store ‘I’m never coming back to this fucking place again’. The short story is that she swiped her debit card a good 6 or 7 times using the wrong PIN and when the her account locked the card, she seemed to be under the impression that it was our store policy to lock her account. I could not get her to wrap her head around the fact that her bank locked her card for using the wrong PIN so many times in a row. She’ll go to her grave thinking we did it.
And, to make it a bit more amusing, each time she insisted she typed in the PIN correctly even though A)It said ‘incorrect PIN’ and B)multiple times I heard the cashier say ‘uh, that’s only three numbers, you have to use 4’. Whatever she was typing wasn’t her PIN.
Here’s one I get on a near daily basis.
Do you have chicken salad in larger containers?
No, but you could grab two of the small ones and it’ll work out the same (it’s all sold by the pound)
Nevermind then, I’ll check next time (when we still won’t because we don’t sell it like that, just take two).
The bank’s going to croak her next time?
Never.
Every time someone complained to me (a lowly eligibility worker) about food stamp policy or office placement/hours/wait time I would always offer them contact information for the governor and the head of the food stamp program for AZ. Nobody ever took the info, but a lot of them would just tell me to tell them.
Sure, I’ll remember to bring it up when we have our weekly meeting, OK.
Fix them up with the Times New Bastard font.
I𝐭’𝐬 𝐓𝐢m𝐞𝐬 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 b𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞r𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞n𝐭𝐡 𝐥𝐞𝐭t𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 j𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠l𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐬-𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐟
I could let you use my avatar, I guess.
This one happened again yesterday. I talk to a fair number of people on the phone at work and often need to followup with an email.
Me: Alright, go ahead with the address.
Cust: jsmith at hybrid synergy dot com.
Me: Ok, let me read that back to you. reads
C: The first part is right but it’s spelled hybredcinergy .com
…like anyone is ever going to guess their weird spelling.
Another are bad phonetics.
“S as in seal, m as in meal, e as in…uhh… eel…”
It only works if the words dom’t rhyme!
A man can dream, can’t he?
One of my favorites is way back when Radio Shack was profitable. My manager, who was actually a sharp, competent guy had a customer who got a metal detector from our “free to rent” section. That’s the stuff nobody actually wants to own, so they buy one, use it for a few days then bring it back for a full refund. It was mostly metal detectors and radar detectors.
So, she brings the thing back for a refund to my manager and he asks “Why are you returning this fine item?” She says “I bought it to find a lost ring, and couldn’t find it.” He replies back to her “So, if you found the ring, you would have kept the metal detector?” I don’t think she appreciated his comment, but didn’t complain since she got her money back.
I witnessed a similar conversation at a Dollar Tree store once. The elderly gentleman in front of me kept asking the cashier how much each item costs despite being told several times that every item in the store cost exactly one dollar. Next it was my turn and I only had one item. Being the smart aleck that I am, I could not help but ask how much it cost. The cashier replied, “For you sir it’ll be five dollars.”
I know someone who used to work at a Dollar Tree. People would ask about things like VCRs and Nike shoes.
The book mentioned in the OP has some examples I like better than the site.
- “Do you have a book of careers? I want to give my daughter some inspiration.”
- “Is she applying to university?”
- “No. (A four year old walks over). There you are. We’re going to find a book to make you a doctor or a scientist.”
- “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
- “… A bumblebee.”
- “Excellent.”
- “These books are stupid, aren’t they?”
- “Which ones?”
- “You know, the ones where animals like cats and mice are best friends.”
- “I suppose they’re not realistic. Writers use that type of thing to teach kids about accepting people different to themselves. You know?”
- “Yeah, well books shouldn’t pretend different people get along like that and everything is ‘la de da’ and wonderful. Kids should learn that life’s a bitch, and the sooner the better.”
- “I’d like to return this book, please.”
- “Certainly. Do you have the receipt? Hmm… you bought this book at Coles.”
- “Yes.”
- “We’re an independent bookshop, not part of the Coles chain. Put it this way. You wouldn’t buy clothes at H&M and take them back to Zara, would you?”
- “Well no. They’re different shops.”
- “Exactly!”
- “… I’d like to talk to your manager.”
From the other end of the spectrum, I had a male customer who was, shall we say, “escalated” threaten to come to my work and kick my ass. I gently reminded him that he knew nothing about me but my first name whereas I was sitting with his customer record open on my computer screen and it contained his name, address and SSN so the information differential was pretty striking, ass-kicking wise. Not to mention QA had him recorded threatening me and it would be trivially easy to pursue with his local law enforcement. He shut up right quick. People are so weird. I mean, dude, it’s just a billing question, y’know?
I honestly thought you were going to say you had several Mixed Martial Arts championships and told the guy to come on over and ended up kicking his ass.