“City Central Library, this is Momblink, how can I help you?”
“Hello, is this the library?”
“Yes it is.”
“Do you have books?”
Sampiro,
That was awesome. 
wmulax93 thank you.
Every time a dumb customer wins, an angel loses its wings.
Ah, the memories…
“Can you recommend a gift for a nine-year-old boy?”
“Sure, what sort of kid is he?”
“I told you. A boy.”
“Yes, but what are his interests? What does he like to do?”
“You know … boy things.”
“Which of these Beanie Babies is the most valuable?”
“Well, the new ones on the counter sell for $7, and the others are $6.”
“No, I mean which one is going to be worth the most in ten years?”
(Dunno, lady, do I look psychic?)
“I want to know where the Legos are --”
“Sure, they’re over --”
“Uh-uh-uh, I don’t want you to tell me where they are, I’ll just wander around the store and you can say ‘warmer’ and ‘colder’.”
“Um … colder. Warmer. Colder. Look, this is stupid. They’re down the second aisle to the right.”
“Well, you’re no fun. Why are you working in a toy store if you don’t like to play games?”
Ya know what’s funny? Well, no, not really. Actually, it’s not funny at all, it’s very depressing.
I STILL work in retail. So while this stuff is bad memories for you guys, it’s a preview of tomorrow afternoon for me. 
THANK YOU, GusNSpot. I can’t count the number of times I have wanted to kill a customer just cause they needed killing… on Thursday night. Yeah, I lose count of the number in one night. Our customers are that bad.
To top it off, I work in a drug store, so many of our customers are either medicated, or are supposed to be and are babbling at me while they wait for their prescription for 5000 mg of “anti-whatever-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-this-idiot”. :mad:
ijustdontcare, I feel your pain. I worked at a drugstore all through high school and college and met the same people. Are you a pharmacist or an assitant?
The odd thing I noticed while working there was that the folks who had the most obivous reasons to be cranky were usually the most polite. The guy who’d come in for the pain medication for his literally shattered arm was one of our nicest customers. Most of the others who were in bad shape would just wait quietly or browse around while their scripts were being filled.
If you wanted to see a full meltdown shitfit, otoh, just tell someone who’d come in for his smokes that we’d run out of Marlboro ultra-light, filter-tip, Menthol 100’s soft pack and only had Marlboro ultra-light, filter-tip, Menthol 100’s hard pack available. Or for an even bigger blow-up, inform them that the lottery deadline has passed and the main office’s server is no longer selling tickets for tonight.
On the good side, it’s left me with a better sense of perspective for when things go wrong.
I’ve had people do the phone thing to me.
“(Store) Hardware, this is (me) speaking, how can I help you?”
“Is the the hardware section?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you sell tools there?”
sigh
I’ve had customers call me on the phone and expect me to shop for them.
“Thank you for calling (store), this is (me), how can I help you?”
“Is this (store)?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you sell file folders?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“By Brand C?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In yellow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“With five tabs?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How much are they?”
“$X for twenty, ma’am.”
“Do you have any in stock?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I want you to go look for me and make sure.”
“I just put three of them back on the shelf this morning, ma’am.”
“I want you to go look for me and make sure.”
“Ok, please hold.”
I put the phone on hold and decide that hey, maybe somebody bought one of 'em, I’ll check. I trek to the back of Aisle 2 and locate them, and then return to the phone.
“Yes, ma’am, we have them in stock.”
“How many?”
“At least four boxes.”
“How many, exactly?”
“I’d have to go back and count them.”
“Do that.”
“Ok, please hold.”
Big sigh. I trek back to the aisle and count, then return to the front.
“Ma’am? We have six boxes.”
“I want five of them.”
“OK, ma’am, if you’ll give me your name I can put them on hold for you at the Customer Service desk, and you can pick them up today or tomorrow.”
“Do you have filing cabinets, too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Four drawer vertical files made of tan metal?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How much are they?”
“The locking ones are 26” wide and cost $Y. There are also 26" non-locking ones for $Z, and 28" non-locking for $Q."
“I want the locking one. Do you have that in stock?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go look and find out.”
“Ok, please hold.”
I put her on hold, put the phone down and count to twenty.
“Yes, ma’am, we have that in stock.”
“Put that on hold for me too, then.”
"Ok, ma’am, if you can just give me your name so we know who to give these to - "
“I also want a stapler.”
“…”
“It’s black, and silver -”
“Ma’am, we have about twenty varieties of staplers here in the store. I think it would be best if you came in and looked yourself, so you’d be sure to find the one you like best.”
“But I want you to do it.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I think it would be best if you finished your shopping in person when you come in to pick up your filing cabinet. If you inquire at the service desk when you come in, your folders and cabinet will be waiting for you.”
“Why can’t you get it for me?”
She had me. I couldn’t tell the truth without being rude… but I couldn’t make any polite lies up, either. I took a deep breath and risked having Home Office called on me.
“Because, ma’am, we don’t offer a personal shopper service here in the store.”
“Oh. You should.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Now, your name for the hold form?”
After that it was ok, but really - why did she assume that I would be willing to drop everything and do all her shopping for her? Geez.
There have been a couple of times when I’ve walked an in-store customer through their shopping, but mostly when they were elderly or just clueless as to what their boss had put on their purchase order in office-supply-store code. I am not paid to provide that service to people over the phone. That’s why we have a catalog and a web site.
Oh, I get this too from time to time. It’s just…bizarre.
Just the other day:
Patron: Why do you have to put your books on the lower shelves? It’s hard to bend over to get them.
Me: Maybe I could help you with that. What would you like?
Patron: No, I’m telling you, you got to move those books up to eye level. Nobody wants to bend over to look at the titles down at the bottom. You should rotate them…
Me: Rotate them?
Patron: Yeah, rotate them every week so that we can see ALL the titles, not just the ones on top.
Me: Sir, this is a library, not a bookshop. These books are shelved according to a system. We can’t simply rotate them…
Patron: Oh yeah? You can’t or you won’t? It’s a stupid system and it’s for your benefit…not ours.
Me: Well, we could get higher shelves…
Patron: I’m telling you, it’s easier to change the system.
Hark, I do believe I just heard Melvil Dewey flip in his grave.
I intended to quote the entire thing.
…
To add…What I learned in customer service -
- It doesn’t matter how many signs or flyers you bother to put up, you will find yourself repeating the most obvious facts ad nauseum.
We have posters around our library stating that we don’t accept cash payments for library fines and subscriptions. Plus it’s written on most of our flyers, library guides and there are signs on each counter and on our queue poles. About twenty times a day we have to deal with patrons who stand in line and then get annoyed when we tell them we can’t accept their cash. “But I stood in line for twenty minutes! And you’re telling me I can’t pay? You guys are just wasting our time!” Perhaps we should try neon signs with lights all a-blinking, Vegas-style.
- Customers always believe they can have anything anywhere.
There was once a fellow who harrassed and verbally abused our staff because we didn’t have any copies of the book he wanted, to the point of insisting that we buy an extra copy from the Borders next door, just so he could borrow it. The title in question - Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Make Friends & Influence People’.
Then there was a lady who rushed in seconds after we opened, wanting to know where the water-cooler was. I told her we didn’t have one and that the nearest cafe was a floor below us. Her response - ‘You’re kidding me. I waited outside for half an hour and you’re telling me you don’t have a water-cooler? What kind of library is this?’ My colleague calmly fetched her a glass of water from our staff room. She sipped it quietly at the counter, handed back the glass and strolled out.
I’m half expecting someone to ask me for a taco next.
They probably got that silly idea of using cash from reading the face of a dollar bill
Note the use of the word all by the federal govenment. Not some, not just cause we don’t feel like handling cash, all.
Drugstore customer to my friend: Could I get some more of these maxi pads [brandishes an empty maxi pad box] with the same lot number?
Friend: [checks the lot numbers of all maxi pads on shelf, finds none matching] There aren’t any up here, I’ll have to go check in the stockroom.
Customer: [checks watch, looks impatient, ends up screaming and chasing my friend around with the maxi pad box]
And another coffee shop tale:
Customer: I was in here last week and I had a Parisian coffee.
Me: It’s this one here, the ‘Colombian Parisian’.
Customer: no, I’m certain it was French. This one is Colombian.
Me: Yes, the roast is French. The coffee is grown in Colombia.
Customer: Where’s the French coffee, then? The one I had last week was French, I’m sure of it.
… this kind of thing actually happened several times, I was always reluctant to say ‘Coffee only grows in HOT places, it doesn’t grow in Vienna, Paris, Turkey etc … these are what we call the ROASTS. I know this may be difficult for you to understand, but COFFEE DOES NOT GROW IN FRANCE. Nor Seattle. You can stand here and argue all you want but you are NEVER going to get a coffee GROWN IN FRANCE !!!’ grr.
i won’t even mention the customers who order coffee by the look:
‘I had it last week. It’s white on top.’
Well just for that guy and others ‘not in their department’…
“This isn’t my department” is not the answer to ‘do you have such and such’. The answer to that question is either ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘let me check on that for you’.
“This isn’t my department” is the answer to the question ‘why don’t you know if you have what I’m asking for’? It’s a deservedly stupid answer to a stupid question. It is certainly not an answer to a solicited question, i.e., ‘Can I help you’.
I’m in the video store, checking out, right? Phone rings. Clerk picks up the phone.
“Mom and Pop Video.”
Pause.
“Yes sir, we do have videos for rent.”
Pause.
“Yes sir, we do sell videos.”
Pause.
“Yes sir, we rent VCRs.”
Pause.
“New releases are two dollars for overnight rental, all others are one dollar overnight, or three dollars for a five day rental. VCRS rent for eight dollars overnight, and we need a major credit card or a cash deposit.”
Pause. At this point, the clerk glances at me to see if I’m getting irritated with waiting. I was in a mellow mood, and didn’t mind.
He glances back at the phone.
“Yes sir, we have lots of movies.”
Pause.
“No sir, we have a fair amount of television, stand-up comedy, documentaries, all kinds of stuff.”
LONG pause.
“We have all kinds of movies, sir.”
Pause.
“Action films, kung-fu films, dramas, comedies, science fiction, horror, mystery, suspense, documentaries, television shows, and special interest.”
Pause.
“Special interest is what we call stuff that doesn’t fall into one of the other categories, sir.”
Pause. Exasperated glare.
“Lots of different stuff, sir.”
LONG pause.
“Sir, we have over four thousand titles in stock.”
Pause.
“Sir, if you would care to come in, you can look through them at your --”
Pause.
“No, sir, I have other customers to wait on here. I am not going to read you a list of every movie in the store. If you would like to come and look, you’re quite welcome.”
Pause.
“No sir, I’m not going to do that. Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”
Pause.
“Yes, sir, my manager’s name is Robert. To hell with you, sir.”
…and he hung up the phone. “Sorry, guy,” he said to me.
I was still laughing when I left the store…
In defense of the idiot customer, though, I think I should point out the “dazzle factor.”
My daughter used to work at a theme park. She worked as a “greeter.” Her job was to greet people, check their ID bracelets, and go through their picnic stuff to make sure they weren’t bringing beer into the park.
She was stationed directly below a giant fragging sign made out of a 3-by-6 sheet of plywood. This sign had ONE word painted on it. That word took up the whole sheet of plywood.
That word was “RESTROOMS–>”
…and twenty, thirty, fifty times a day, she’d have to point out where the restrooms were to people who’d just arrived at the park after a long drive, and had to pee.
At first, she thought the world was full of idiots… but, in time, she came to realize that it was the “dazzle factor”. These people had just gotten to a theme park with lots of flash and thunder and noise and lights and a zillion signs to read.
These people weren’t stupid. It was just that the sign, gigantic as it was… tended to get lost in the clash and clutter. SHE knew it was there because she spent all day staring at it… but someone fresh out of the car after nine hours on the interstate might well lose it in all the flash and thunder…
…“Dazzle Factor.”
Although I don’t think you can apply this reasoning to someone who’s mad at you because you can’t magically create a pair of Levi’s 501s with a zipper fly, right there on the spot…
I’m going to sound stupid, but what do you take? Am I required to have a bank account to use the library?
To make it even more irritating, they probably get paid far more than you do.
Maybe I should’ve mentioned that my library isn’t located in the United States.
Fair question, Shade, we accept cheques and cashcards - which are stored valued smart cards sold at most convenience stores. The reason we don’t accept cash is that it takes up way too much of the staff’s time to count and counter-check everything everyday. Also, with the cards and cheques, you needn’t queue at the service desk to settle your fines. You could mail in your cheque or pay at one of our automated terminals. So in a way it saves our patrons time too.
Ok, I’m rambling here.
In any case, the point I was trying to make was it doesn’t matter how many signboards or how much information you put up, you’ll find yourself repeating that information over and over. I assume people just enjoy the interaction. And it’s part of the work I guess.