my dirty little secret

The post below inspired me to write about my worst customer suck at my first job (shoe store in busy outlet mall).

I work at a self-serve shoe store.

Dear customers,

I appreciate the fact that your money goes to my paycheck and therefore enables me to pay for things like rent and electricity as well as enables me to buy fun things, like hockey tickets and a trip to Nova Scotia and The Most Serene Republic CDs. I like all those things. Ninety-five percent of you are good--either friendly and outgoing and talkative, or just plain nice, or grateful when we bend over backwards to track down a pair of shoes for you. I like listening to peoples' stories about what they need for their daughter's wedding or their son's graduation from law school or my own personal favorite, the lady who needed drop-dead shoes to go with a drop-dead dress because she was going to a party where her ex-fiancee would be with his new wife, the one he cheated on her with. Good stories. And for the most part, my work is pretty laid-back.

However.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? HOW THE FUCK WERE YOU RAISED? Do you think it is APPROPRIATE to take down TWELVE pairs of shoes from a stack and STREW THEM ALL OVER THE AISLE? Why in God's name would you assemble a pile of TWENTY-FIVE PAIRS OF SHOES, take them ALL out of their boxes, take ONE pair and not even make the EFFORT to match the shoes back with the boxes? Do you have ANY IDEA what a COLOSSAL HEADACHE that is for me and my coworkers to put back? We aren't psychic, we aren't mind-readers, and we DON'T have memorized the EXACT LOCATION of EVERY GOD-DAMN PAIR OF SHOES IN THE STORE.

And WHY do people HIDE SHOES? I know this must happen throughout retail--people thinking they MUST have these shoes, NO ONE ELSE must touch them, but instead of doing the sensible thing and taking them up to the cash wrap so we can hold them, HIDING them. I have found shoes underneath the benches, behind the mirrors, underneath a stack of purses, in an entirely different corner of the store. WHY? Are you THREE? And for the LOVE of GOD do not BITCH US OUT when we FIND your shoes and RETURN them to their proper places so SOMEONE ELSE MAY BUY THEM. You don't put a proper hold on them? YOU CAN'T COMPLAIN. Don't you come up to our counter and say "I put three pairs of shoes under a bench yesterday so no one would touch them and now they're GONE!" WE HAD TO CLEAN THOSE UP LADY. You fucking dumbshit. Do you think we wouldn't notice? Do you think we wouldn't CARE?

And you, lady? We are not "discriminating" against you because no one in this store speaks your language. Look, between those of us working tonight, we speak English, Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Hindi. There are only six of us working. I apologize. We do our best to communicate with customers in a mutually intelligible language. But there is no LAW that says WE MUST SPEAK WHATEVER LANGUAGE THE CUSTOMER SPEAKS. Stomping out of the store, enraged, after yelling at us in whatever language it is you speak? Not the way to ensure prompt and attentive service next time. Because oh yes, we will remember you, and we will tell every fucking employee here alllllll about you.

And hey, lady. Store policy: "No returns on shoes that have been worn outside." IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW MUCH YOU HATE THEM NOW, too bad, so sad, YOU OWN THEM. Look, if you can't prove to us that there's something WRONG with the shoe? NO. TAKE IT THE FUCK HOME. Put it in the back of your closet and never think about it again, give it to Goodwill, sell it on Ebay, boil it up and eat it for dinner, make a funny hat out of it, I DON'T CARE. GET IT THE FUCK OUT OF OUR STORE BECAUSE YOU HAVE OBVIOUSLY BEEN WEARING THESE STANK-ASS SHOES SINCE LAST SUMMER. They are FILTHY and have toe marks in them. You did not just "wear them around the house and decided I don't like them." THIS IS A STORE, NOT A SHOE RENTAL.

Good goddamn, people. They're shoes. How do you get to voting age in a civilized society and not understand these basic concepts?

 Yeah, I posted yesterday, but I thought it's worth mentioning.

Probably closer to a wtf than a suck - annoying nonetheless!

Re: University Bookstore Cashier! We ask to check ID for all credit card purchases, no matter how big or small the purchase is. It's RUSH week #2, and there was a HUGE line up.

Me: That'll be $3XX.XX please.
Girl: *gives me a visa card*
Me: May I see an ID?
Girl: *blank stare*
Me: An ID please.
Girl: *points the her Visa*
Me: No, I need to see a separate picture ID.
Girl: *blank stare* *sighs* *takes out a second Visa card*
Me: No no, a PICTURE ID.
Girl: My name's on there.
Me: Yes, but I asked for a picture ID, like a driver's license or your school ID.
Girl: I don't have that. Can you just ring it up?
Me: No. Do you have another tender?
Girl: *picks up 2nd Visa card*

*headdesk*

It finished with her finally remembering that she had a international ID, but with the credit card "not approved." Needless to say, it took another 3-4 minutes to make her understand that NOT approved does not = approved. Part of the conversation went as such:

Me: Sorry, it was not approved. Did you want to try a different tender then?
Girl: But it says approved.
Me: No, it says NOT approved.
Girl: BUT IT SAYS APPROVED.
Me: *circles* It says NOT approved.

Good times.

No doubt about it lady...you're just a little bit rude.

A man in a business suit walks up to my register. And proceeds to ask me where a book would be held. It is a familiar title so I start to give him directions to the upstairs. Then he asks me questions about our credit and debit policy. Just then some lady, walks up with two books, reaches around the man at my reg who I am helping and throws her books down, then proceeds to try and shove him out of the way instead of saying excuse me. I look at her and ask her to wait her turn while I help this man. She looks shocked then says "Oh! I thought he worked here!"

Wtf...so that gives you the right to shove people? You don't shove people who work here. You don't shove people period. You say excuse me.

I have a customer returning some hair dye and exchanging it with another. She happens to know the shift leader, and they're talking as I do the return, all is well and happy at register 2. Then, a 20-something girl comes up to me wearing bright pink sweats, matching jacket and pants, with bright pink eyeshadow and her hair up in a knot on her head, and throws boxes and boxes of laxatives on the counter that I'm currently using to assist nice hair-dye lady, or NHL as I'll call her (hehe).

I politely ask crazy girl with pink sweats, I'll call her CPA, if she needs a basket, and I put all of her laxatives in the basket. She proceeds to shove the basket into NHL to push her out of the way and then puts the basket on the counter. I ask her to take her basket and wait in line, so she takes her basket, and stands precisely 3 inches behind NHL while I try to help NHL. My shift leader asks me to move to a different register to help CPA. As I do this, CPA throws all of the laxatives out of the basket at me on the counter really quickly. I scan them up and her total quickly shuffles up to $105..in laxatives.. But all small boxes with low pill counts, and they're all store brand, so you can imagine this is a lot of boxes.

She proceeds to pull out a wad of what I can only imagine is over $500 in 20's and throws $120 at me, and as I make her change, she pulls out each individual box of pills, opens them, pulls out the sheet inside, counts the pills, puts them back in the box, slides the box back toward me, pulls out the next box, does the same thing, and the next and the same and the next..etc.

After giving her change, she grabs all of the boxes with her arms and runs out of the store.

Dear CPA..
YOU'RE VERY, VERY STRANGE.
Love,
Me.

[edit]
I understand she could have an eating disorder, but it doesn't explain the reason she was uncomfortably close to NHL, throwing and opening and counting each pill, and being very shifty and twitchy, and just generally rude. I forgot to mention that she had cut an entire line as well as literally hitting NHL with her basket.
[/edit]

Kiwi, Coffee-girl, Canada


Two evening-regulars, one morning regular, and one person whom I see at odd times but who usually manages to get the other cashier, have decided that the most fun game in the world is pester the cashier about her (entirely non-existent) love-life.
Dudes. It's not your business. Quit asking me about it.
You two, stop asking me if I've got a boyfriend yet; you do it every night you see me, it's getting old, and no, I'm not interested in becoming your girlfriend - either of you. No, it's not amusing. No, licking your lips at me just makes me even more creeped out, and incredibly thankful that I know how to break knees, arms, and collarbones.
Number three, no, I don't have a crush on the guy in front of you, and that's not why I was taking so long; I was taking so long because he ordered some kriffing complicated drinks; I'm actually relieved to make your medium with one sweetener and two milk on the side, so please don't badger me about it. I get enough of this stuff from my grandfather.
Number four, you're at least forty, please don't be asking the cashier who can pass for fifteen for her number.
Slightly creeped out here.

Also, to those three ladies at the other cash:
1) I'm not serving you; I'm cleaning things. I'm carrying breakable items on a tray, and somebody else is making your drinks as we speak.
2) When you ask me how many ounces is in a cup, I will blink and ask you what an ounce is. It's because I don't know.
3) Please don't jump down my throat and call me an idiotic child. In case the accent didn't give it away, I'm not from around here.
4) Don't point at the travel mugs when you're asking me how many ounces are in 'those cups', and then tell me that you meant the medium cups into which your drinks are being poured after I've gone to try to figure it out for you. The medium cups are nowhere NEAR the travel mugs.
5) Don't say I must have 'failed primary school math' to my manager's face. She gets scary-polite, and hearing her explain that New Zealanders use Metric in the sorts of tones I last heard her use when she was furious, is actually somewhat disturbing. I adore this manager.

Splendifferous.

Dear, dear customers,

I know that most large chain bookstores all carry more-or-less the same books at more-or-less the same prices. I know that most of them look roughly the same inside--bookshelves, a CD/DVD section, a cafe, some armchairs. And I know that three of the biggest ones (in the States, at least) all begin with B.

But just because we look the same and sell the same products and start with the same letter does not mean that Store BA will accept books from store BO. The book you are trying to return belongs to Store BO. It still has the BO price sticker on it. We are a BA. We do not and cannot accept merchandise from an entirely different store for return or exchange. We just can't. It's from a completely different store. It is not ours to take back. And telling me that I'm stupid and clearly don't know how the world works and demanding to see my manager so that I can "get proper come-uppance" will not change things one iota.

There's a BO across the street. Go there, make your exchange, make your children happy, and go home. Don't waste a good twenty minutes of your life trying to make us take back a book that we never sold to you in the first place.

Need to get a few rants out...I work customer service for a company that makes a very specific product ("SP" from here on out)...the type of product is not relevant, and I'd rather stay anonymous ;)

So, when you call a company about SP and leave a message on our voicemail, how can you forget to leave your area code? I mean, we only serve the entire US, all of Canada and have various customers in Ecuador, Guatamala, Bahrain, and so many more I can't keep track.
I sure hope you didn't need SP too badly...I couldn't call you back.

Also, just because I am a sweet sounding female does not make me an idiot. I had a strange call today.
A guy calls up and says, "I need to speak to someone about a SP".
I blink, roll my eyes, and say in my "I'm being sweet because you're an idiot" voice, "Ok, in regards to what?"
Guy says, "what do you mean?"
I say, "Do you need technical assistance, pricing or availability on SP?"
He is silent for a moment, then says, "Thanks SO much for trying to help me" all condescending and hangs up!

I emailed my boss in case he really was a customer or something, but seriously, I need to know wtf you want to talk about before I can figure out if I can help you or have to pass you on (I can do pricing, availability and basic technical stuff. All you have to do is ask.)

Meet Me At Moonrise / A Lunar Mix

( 8 song mix under here ! )

I'm in ur Netflix, inspektin yer DVDs!


In the past week, I've seen:

--DVD sleeves with sand in them. (???)
--Two DVDs that were so coated in something that they were stuck to the inside of their respective sleeves. One had to be scrapped because said crap was not able to be removed so that the DVD would even have a chance of playing again. (!!!)
--A DVD that looked like it had been burned, chewed on around the edge by some wild animal, and then split in half long ways between layers (so that it was like 2 DVDs were in the sleeve.


I can't even begin to imagine the shit some people put rental DVDs through.

So, I was happily retrieving the mail just now, as I am currently awaiting important medical records. Now, some more backstory, my dad owns a bakery, and it is a small, privately owned business.  As we are not a major chain grocery store or anything of the sort, we can't have everything all the time. In fact, lately we've been running out of various items due to the insanely high cost of wheat and rye (yay commodities and ethanol). We can't afford to make the bigger batches and be left with a lot.

Anyway, in my mailbox, I was greeted with this lovely postcard of an unhappy customer who couldn't even be bothered to look up either our home address or the business address (available in any phonebook... or our receipts).

Verbatim:

If I come in for bread (early PM) on a Tuesday I expect to be able to buy all types of bread. You run a bakery!  [this was highlighted]

P.S. Otherwise, I'll go somewhere else.



Sigh. I can understand being disappointed in lack of bread. But thank you so much for the wonderful polite tone to the letter (lack of salutation and signature, etc.). I wish people would stop and think for a moment before making themselves sound like idiots. Gas prices are going through the roof, as are food costs. It's not like we have a magical oven where we can pour forth all kinds of breads (besdies, we only make three kinds of bread on Tuesdays, and we have about ten varieties).

We not only run a bakery, but we bake things too. And it's not as easy as people seem to think it is. We have to keep in mind the fact that FOOD PRICES SUCK AND SO DO INGREDIENT PRICES SO YOU'RE LUCKY WE'RE STILL IN BUSINESS. *headdesk*

Once again, I can understand going into a bakery and being upset about bread. But we open at 6 AM. We often run out of bread by 2 in the afternoon. We close at 5. We're not St. Louis Bread Company, we can't afford to throw away twenty loaves of bread.

 

Again, dog groomer at a local bouncing red ball...

PEOPLE. The correct response when you walk into our salon, and I say "Hi!" is not "SNOWBALL" or "PETTERFLUFFERBUTT".

Okay. I get it, you're here to get your dog, but does it hurt to give me a few seconds of common decency? There is absolutely no need to just say your dogs name. I am NOT just a computer/dog fetcher!

..that's all. Its been bugging me for weeks now. :(

Recap: Retail monkey for the store where you can expect great things.

A story from this weekend.


A woman went up to one of my co-workers and asked her to take a top off of one of the mannequins. It was one of the mannequins that had its arms in all weird poses, so my co-worker was trying to be careful and see if there was a way to maybe take the arms off or something, so as not to rip the top. The woman was getting impatient and bitchy, and kept yelling at her to just pull it off. The co-worker was trying to explain she didn’t want it to catch on one of the arms, and the woman just kept yelling, so finally, my co-worker yanked the thing off over the mannequin’s neck (ours don’t have heads). The woman turned to my co-worker and said, “There! Now you know how to get your children dressed in the morning!!”


WTF is wrong with people?? 

I don't know what it was about Sunday, but the maroons were out and about in full. We were also hit by a big storm that involved a good bit of hail and wind. After the storm had passed, I had a slightly weird but I suppose well-meaning fellow insist on showing me the "amazing" photos he had taken of the storm. All while a line of cars built up behind him in the DT. I kinda wanted to say, "Sir, I was at work when the storm happened FIVE SECONDS AGO, I saw it."

( I CAN'T HEAR SHIT, CAP'N )

( Witnessed suck from the gas station )

I'm the phone/admin monkey at a digital repair store. We fix things :D


Customer walks in, carrying a Marantz Amp. As per usual I ask him if it's in warranty, it's not. I remind him we have a $55 quote fee, which comes off labour costs at the end of the repair. He nods as if he understands, and starts filling out our booking in form.

Then he stops, and looks at me: "Is this upfront?"

I answer yes, yes it is. The following is just not needed:

( cut for language... )

Now, maybe I shouldn't have added the last part.. But gosh darnit I do not appreciate things being thrown at me.

I'm use to being told we're useless when we're waiting on parts to come in or are taking our time to repair something - but never before a customer has even fully booked in their repair.

Dear customer,

No, we will not refund you a pair of jeans that :

(1) you do not have the receipt for
(2) you admit you bought two years ago
(3) we don't even carry that model anymore.

How could you possibly have looked surprised when I told you that wouldn't be happening?

This isn't really a suck, it's more of a WTF? because I got five of them yesterday.

I work as a cashier at a medium-sized, local grocery store. We're a pretty diverse place: we have regular stuff, organic stuff, and a rather impressive soup/salad/chicken wing/pizza/prepared foods/hot sandwich bar alongside our bakery and deli. The hot bars are $5.99/lb., mix and match, aside from pizza and sandwiches which are priced individually.


To repeat: I just scan your groceries. I don't price them! And by the way, signature verification is for YOUR protection. If you want to have your identity stolen, that's fine by me.

The stories you are about to read are true. The groceries have been changed to protect their expiration dates.

This is the city, Malaga, New Jersey. I carry a nametag.

It was Monday, May 12, 2008. It was rainy in Malaga. We were working the day watch out of the front end. My partner is Kestrel, Queen of Poles. The boss is Genie with the Light Brown Hair. My name's Thursday; I'm a cashier.

( Guard your women and children well, send these bastards back to Hell, we’ll teach them the ways of war, they won’t come here anymore… )

( Well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road… and you feel the eyes upon you as you're shakin' off the cold… you pretend it doesn't bother you but you just want to explode… )

( No more pie now… no more crème brûlée… lay off the gravy… and soufflé… no French fri-yi-yies now… no ice cream parfait… Mister cheese nacho… stay away… )

( Y donde màs no cabe un alma allì se mete a darse caña poseido por el ritmo ragatanga… )

A couple days ago, a customer calls my store (I affectionately call it beebeedubbs for short) to let me know she was in earlier that day and had made a purchase of five antibacterial soaps, but that she only came home with four. Fine. She explains the cashier was having a little trouble - for this particular soap, none of the bottles had UPC stickers on them - but that she thought everything was okay. Being of sound mind, I tell her, "Just bring in your receipt and let us know which one you're missing so we can replace it." That's it.

This is when she gets the WTF award for the day: "I don't live close by; it's really inconvenient for me to come back."

So she didn't get her soap, but she doesn't want to come back in to get it, even though we're not asking for much on her end. What does she expect us to do? Shall I get in my car and drive one bottle of soap to whatever Godforsaken town she's living in that she can't come into the store?

What's worse is she continued to argue with me for a couple minutes that it would be so inconvenient for her to come in, even though I explained all we could do for her is if she brought back the receipt, we could replace the soap she is missing.