Yay, more rude customer story

[navci]

It was pretty slow for the afternoon and early evening.
At some point I had a customer in, talking about chopping boards. We were talking about Maple, Oak and Bamboo. Having fun, when a lady with something that look like severe sunburnt in a black hat, black dress that shows way too much cleavage than it is appropiate for her age, sunglasses, and a son/assistant that dressed up like a businessman came in. So I said hi, was gonna see what they need before going back to chopping board lady.

lady> Let me borrow your phonebook.
me> We don't have a phonebook. (we might have it somewhere, I remember seeing it once or twice, but I dunno where it is and didn't feel like go look for it when I have another customer in hoping to buy something)
lady> Just let me borrow the phonebook. I need to make a very important phone call. *getting impatient*
me> We don't have a phone book. Maybe you can try guest services over at the front entrance, they should be able to help you there.
lady> I am not running around. Just let me use the phonebook.
me> But we don't have a phone book.
lady> You have a phone don't you? Why won't you have a phone book?
me> We don't usually need to look anything up from the phone book. (it's true, all of the phone calls we need to make are all in our computer directory)
lady> *look at me for a moment, start to storm out* I think you're lying.
me> *irritated, and quite insulted that she'd make such a big deal over this and feel the need to insult me in front of two customers, decided to say this against my better judgement* I think you are really rude. *voice still calm, however*
lady> *already outside the corridor, but decided to yell back* I think you're rude too.

My choppin board customer, at this point, examining the two chopping board, and expressed her sympathy; said how she cannot believe how rude that lady was. I felt like ranting myself and actually let slip a couple comments that I shouldn't be saying; sounding a little upsetf, and kinda steaming. Other customer who just walked in as lady was storming out asked me if I was okay. Took a couple deep breaths, calm my voice down and finally be able to smile again. Chopping board lady bought a chopping board, reassure me that that lady was rude, and I was being a perfect angel.

Man. Have never lost my temper at work. Usually I'll just let them yell, but honestly. One, fucking, phonebook, which I don't have. Is that really worth either of our trouble to make those accusations and a scene?

Bitch. Hope she never found her phonebook.

[Guntz348]

Heh that's nothing. I worked in retail for ohhh about 6 years before I got my current job, bartending(not that these people are any better), but I can't even count the number of times I've been physically threatened because I didn't give the person, I won't call them a customer because they had no intention of buying anything, who just walked in off the street what they wanted, or told them what they wanted to hear.

I had one woman threaten to have me arrested and sue me for violating her civil rights because the handicap lift was broken and she was in a wheelchair. This was a few years back when I worked at a music store. She wanted to use it and I politley explained that it was out of order and that we were getting it repaired sometime that week. So me being the nice and helpful person that am say, "but if you tell me what you are looking for, I can go up there, get it and bring it down to you so you can look at it.". This seemed to send her into a rage somehow. She started screaming about how she wanted to go up there and look at the sheet music(all the sheet music was on another level from the main floor, only 2 steps though). She then started to yell that I was violating her civil rights and the person's with disabilities act. I really can't figure out how that worked, I didn't own the joint, my name wasnt on the door, and I sure as hell didn't get the profits.

I never did quite figure out what her deal was though. One of the owners who also go threated to be sued said she just came in there to start a fight, he was probably right. Now I have to cut off drunk people when they've had too much to drink. Now theres fun for ya, some drunk loser threatening to drag you outside and beat you to death on the curb. It's those times where I just say thank god for the bouncers. ^_^

[anwserman]

Reminds me of the Oreo Scoopables. I think I might have made mention to this before... anyway.

Last year at the Dairy Queen, we got a product called the Oreo Scoopable. It was the only item in the store that had sprinkles. Thus, instead of training the employees all over again about using sprinkles on sundaes and stuff - since we didn't have them before - the owner (my father) decided it would be easier to limit the sprinkes to just that one item.

So, we get a family of three that comes. They want a chocolate sundae with sprinkles. Nikki, one of my former co-workers, politely tells the customer that the sprinkles are for that one item, the Oreo Scoopable, and for nothing else. The customer then asks for a chocolate sundae, and with sprinkles in a cup. Once again, Nikki politely tells the customer that we cannot do that, as the sprinkes can only be served on the Oreo Scoopable. Customer leaves irritated, but leave with their chicken baskets and stuff. The person who asked was a female.

Then, about five minutes later, the lady comes back and asks for a dish of ice cream. This time, it is a different employee waiting on them, Mary. Mary starts to ring up the dish of ice-cream, and Nikki walks up to Mary to see what she's ringing up so she can make the product for her (you know, speed up service). While Nikki is there, standing next to Mary, the customer asks for sprinkles. Mary, knowing Nikki already explained to the customer, re-explains. Nikki gets the dish of ice-cream for Mary and the customer leaves irritated.

Now, I'm in the back, on my break, noticing and knowing the customer has come up twice for the sprinkles. My break finishes, and I head up front and we're all sitting around, cleaning when the guy of the group comes up (it was his wife for the first two trips.) He asks for a side of sprinkes. Knowing this is the third trip up here, I explained the sprinkle policy and said, "I am the active manager on duty, and we are not allowed to give you any sprinkes." He gets pissed and storms off.

Haha. Yes, not only do the customers leave all their shit on the picnic tables for us to clean up (it was a sizable mass), they call up my manager, Randi, to complain about "how they were improperly treated", that "we were ganging up on them" (e.g. Nikki seeing what Mary needed to get made for her order) and that "they will never go back to the place." Well, Randi gets pissed off, storms to the store, yells at us all at the top of her hungs - and leaves.

Yeah. More details go on - with me going hysterical about what exactly happened (I threatened to quit that night), and we came to the conclusion that we did nothing wrong but the customers were asses.

Note: After Randi, my manager reamed us, her husband told her that he knows her a little bit (that whore that complained) and that she's a manipulative, mean bitch. http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wacko.gif



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: anwserman on 2005-04-21 23:33 ]</font>

[Skorpius]

I could never be payed to serve stupid people and not be able to tell them how dumb they are.

[navci]

People need to relax.
A lot of stress in their life really will go away if they don't get angry over small things like phonebook, sprinkles or nice person offering help.

Honest.

[Skorpius]

Sprinkles.

I can't help but giggle every time I say it out loud.

[Deathscythealpha]

Heh, I like these lil retail rants, it lets all the Shop workers here vent themselves and realise that they are not the only one's who seem to have evil morons as clientel.

I iwsh i could find a time when people arent rude. Dont serve them an age restricted product, they get assy. Dont have the product they want in stock, they get assy. Some shit has stolen the box for what they anted to buy, they get assy because we dont sell them the product anyway and cause series errors on our system.

I dont get why people feel the need to be rude to someone just doing their job. I bet they would get upset if I wandered into their workplace and started being a shithead.


On 2005-04-21 22:57, Guntz348 wrote:
It's those times where I just say thank god for the bouncers. ^_^



Bouncers = Godesends. I was always glad that we had those guys around, otherwise half the staff at my last work would probably be dead right now.

[Daikarin]

I like the way you people show your difference to any idiot that walks in, demands something and starts arguing over nothing. The client is not always right.

[Blitzkommando]

This can be applied to anybody, not just retail. But unfortunately, retail seems to get the brunt of it all.

My dad had similar experiences, though he was not the person attacked. At his old job they had a cafeteria in the building for the workers, which is great. Well, he would see people come in, look at the food and turn their noses up and say, "What is that?!", as if the food were contaminated or vile or something. The cooks would then explain what it is only returned by the person replying something to the effect of, "Why would anyone want that?" My dad got fed up with this. He would treat the cooks with courtesy, not just the cooks but the entire staff. He would even have little conversations, just to show that he did care. And what do you know, they were great people.

If only more people could do like that and appreciate what people are able to do, not what they are unable to do.

[Kidou]

My friend once worked in a video store and I helped her sometimes, off the books.
Since I was younger, I was never sent to shoo kids my age out for the "Adult Section", but the one day Kissy sent me to get them out. And this one boy was like really rude to me:

Kid: Hey..Look at this! (to his friend)
Me: You can't be here...
Kid: Can so.
Me: Your like... 5...
Kid: No, I'm 14
Me: Uh-huh. Point proven
Kid: Dude.. your a bitch
Me: I know. Go away..

Not that bad. But I can't put the worse here, or it would get locked. http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime1.gif

[Blue-Hawk]

Slobs. That's all I can say. We get them from one of our other stores a few miles away, in my home town no less, that closed a few months ago. Just because you got away with it there doesn't mean you can at our place. Tht and bitching that you can't get something for the same prices as the other store had a few months ago. Those were what we retail people like to call 'Closeout's'. Sheesh these people really piss me off. And the sad part about the slobs is, they are the sam people that would have fits if they see a speck of dirt in their homes.

[Kidou]

People suck sometimes.

[Guntz348]

You know it really comes down to one thing. At least in my experience and from what me and my co-workers have figured out. All they really want is the attention. Most of the people that make your life at work difficult, are only doing it because they want attention and there life tends to suck. Most of them just want an outlet, someone to actually put up with them and hear them bitch and moan and not be rude back to them. The only place you'll find that is in retail, I mean hell it's your job to take it with a smile and be nice back to them after all.

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

I cannot continue my efforts to be the best worker I can be at my current job. I'm going to one day slack off. Not worth the trouble anymore.

Sometimes I feel like I'm invisible or something.
No one notices I'm literally running and doing as much work as possible while someone gets in my way or stupidly asks me something ridiculous and impedes my progress then gets pissy over what I "didn't do fast enough" when they stopped me for their question!

Well today a customer comes to use the restroom. I'm running to the back kitchen for the thousandth time. I run into the walk in fridge but see a customer snooping around.

We have a partition that covers up 90% of the kitchen. This Guy is clearly in our 90% and the partiition is not down(a curtain). I clearly tell everyone to put the curtain down when customers come through the back(bad set up for public restroom use-some damn customer brought about threats over laws concerning restaurants and restrooms which I still think is Bull Shit).

I run over as I see this guy is clearly looking around and plainly reading the packing materials we use everyday. Nobody needs to know what we're doing in the back or watch us work on the food. We aren't doing anything wrong but its very rude to stare at me or anyone else. Mind your own business. Wait outside please, damn.

I ask nicely that he move aside so I can pull down the curtain, he rudely says: "What?! You don't want me to look at you?!", I reply "Yes. I'm an ugly man."

I have no idea where that came from but it was the first thing to come to mind. That wasn't the worst thing to happen today but argh, very infuriating.

[Kidou]

I just love when they are jerks to you, and then claim your being rude. Like those kids I was talking about. They called me a bitch and stuff.. and when I weakly commented that I knew I was, and I, the bitch was going to get the manager, they were jerks..

[navci]

On 2005-04-23 03:17, HAYABUSA-FMW- wrote:
I ask nicely that he move aside so I can pull down the curtain, he rudely says: "What?! You don't want me to look at you?!", I reply "Yes. I'm an ugly man."


That is a very good comeback, though.
And Guntz has a good point. See. the store I work in is actually a nice, rich area. Most people who come in and shop are nice gentleman and ladies since prolly 1845 or something. Usually they are the sweetest people alive, they don't need to let anything out on you because their life is calm, quiet and happy. When we DO get the nasty people, that is usually the kind that you can see right away. Maybe that lady wanted me to give her sympathy for sunburnt or something.

Heh. I am sure if I did she would murder me.

[hollowtip]

The cooks would then explain what it is only returned by the person replying something to the effect of, "Why would anyone want that?" My dad got fed up with this. He would treat the cooks with courtesy, not just the cooks but the entire staff. He would even have little conversations, just to show that he did care. And what do you know, they were great people.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I always try to be courteous to workers. Anybody who usually acts the way you described is a clear indication that they themselves have never worked in customer service. The majority of customers I greet are polite and well-mannered, but every once in awhile you get someone who feels like you personally owe them something.

[Alielle]

On 2005-04-23 10:08, navinator wrote:

Heh. I am sure if I did she would murder me.



With your own knives! x_x

Seriously though, I can empathize. Retail sucks.

[Graptakular83]

Yep, business workers unite to complain! Navi, i love when you get these started, because theres a great comraderie between all of us and our horrible stories, misery loves company i suppose, heres like the millionth recap of my fave bad customers:

*Man walks up to counter*
Man: "Hello, id like this card in a plastic bag, without being handled or touched by human hands."
Me: ???


Me: "Hello ma'am, can i help you with anything?"
Lady: "What, i cant look around on my own? I dont need YOU to help me! Ive been shopping here for 13 years and...."
*i walk away*


*Man uppercuts other man because of argument over the new hot wheels cars, man lies bloody unconcious in toy area, other man buys his toy car and goes home*

And so many more that theres no room to type. Maybe we should write a book, if not, theres probably a book like this already out.

[Guntz348]

The best fight I've ever seen was when I was 16 and worked at Stop & Shop(grosery store for those of you not in the north east). It was Xmass eve and there was one bag of sugar left in the entire store. A guy walks up grabs the sugar puts it in his cart and starts walking down the isle. He stops to look at something else, while hes doing this a second guy walks up and sees the empty shelf were the sugar once layed. He sees the suga in the other guys cart and very cassually walks over to the cart, picks up the sugar and puts it in his cart.

When the guy, we'll call him Mr. Sugar, sees that his bag has been taken he loses it. Runs up the other guy, we can just call him the Thief, starts screaming and swearing that he stole the sugar. The Thief denys it of course, so what does Mr. Sugar do? Throws a wild right hook and catches the guy in the jar. The Thief reels back and slams into the shelfs, Mr. Sugar then jumps on him and wrestles him to the ground. The two of them were rolling around on the ground then security ran up, yolked em both up and tossed em out the front door.

Now this left the highly desired bag of sugar just sitting in a cart, ungaurded. A little old lady walks up, sees the sugar and says, "Hmmm I need that if I'm gonna make cookies." Takes the sugar and walks away. I was in shock for a few minutes then I just burst out laughing and went up to the security office to watch the video with the guards. http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime1.gif

Another great music store story for you. I had a guy walk up with his ear piece on, talking on the phone. He reaches over the counter grabs a piece of paper and pen and scribbles something on it. I forgot what CD he was looking for but I just looked up, smiled a little bit and walked away from him. I went back to where the manager was sitting and said quite loudly, "you'd better take this guy, if I do I'll just end up getting arrest for assault... again". I then went in the office and had a snack, but man I really wish I could've just knocked that guy out. People on cell phones at the counters at stores is one of my biggest pet peaves.

[War_Child]

I hate when people listen to music, talk on cellphones or just plain WALK AWAY when i'm ringing them through.

I also hate when people buy a game, bring it back 2 weeks later, wanting a refund since they didn't like it. Or when people buy a system, go to sell it back a month later, and claim it is still new and therefore should get most of their money back. I got called a fucking moron, a fucking idiot, a retard, and the dude claimed I insulted him because I wouldn't give him 3/4 what he paid in cash for his used psp.

Then we get the pissy kids who whine when we won't sell/rent them an M rated game. This actually caused one kid to CRY. I laughed inside http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

Then we get the people who go to trade stuff in and there are gashes that go through the disc. "It's still brand new!" they say! "You're stupid for not buying it!" they say.

Don't forget the people who flip out when they realize that their struggling-to-run, filthy, previously opened, launch model ps2 that fails to read any type of non-dvd game disc (and even then it took 3 minutes to pick up the disc) is only worth 30 bucks store credit.

We get people threatening to sue and call the better business bureau because their computer didn't meet the requirements needed to run a product they bought, even though we asked them if it met the requirements and even though it says what it needs on the box.

Not to mention the people who yell in foreign languages because you won't take the tax off their item or give them a deal. Just because we are a small store, doesn't make us a garage sale!

Ah the things i put up with on a regular basis!

[RedRage]

I work in a rather large grocery store in Iowa, and within a two mile radius there are 5 or 6 "senior living centers." Guess where they all shop. Most of them are really nice but some of them are rudest people ever, with the exception of the teenagers that hangout in the store (there are two high schools in the same radius)

I work in the Pizza Shop in the store and we have the best prices in town for all of our pizzas but people still try to haggle over prices, especially at closing time. My favorite thing is when people come by at 10 till closing and ask if they can get some pizza for half off since we just throw it away when we close, then I let them watch me as I throw it away or better yet I box it up and keep it for myself.

One day I scared the heck out of a customer. While I was chopping veggies he started asking me questions and complaining about something, so i walked over to the counter to listen to him but i still had the knife in my hand (it's about a 12 inch knife) while he was talking i was just staring at him and smiliing then for some reason i just started flipping the knife in the air while i was staring him in the eyes. when he was done talking he looked at the knife that i was tossing and got a frightened look on his face at which point i simply said "I'm sorry sir there is nothing I can do." He walked away and I never saw him again, oh well.


I have seen all kinds of weird stuff, I have heard all kinds of weird stuff, and most importantly I have done all kinds of weird stuff.

Some of my inspiration comes from here http://www.manicmart.com/index.phtml

[War_Child]

Story x2 http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif


Saturday: we close at 6pm. A customer phones at 5:53. I get the female of the bunch.

Them: "Hi, what time do you guys close at?"
Me: "6 pm"
Them: "What time is it now?"
Me: "7 to"
Them: "Well, we're just coming to pick up the playsation you repaired for us"
Me: "Well, I guess I'll see you in 7 minutes or so"
Them: "Guess so! Thanks alot, bye!"

Nothing suspicious here. Until a tall man with a curly mullet storms in.

Him: "ARE YOU THE ONE WHO ACCUSED ME OF SEVEN MINUTES!?"

at this point i was thinking "wtf did he do to my language"

So I reply: "Um, I guess that would be me"
Him: "Well that's retarded, I'm driving a pretty hot car so I'm even more pissed off!"

I was tempted to remind him that most cars are now equipped with air conditioning or at the very least one window that can roll down. But I bit my tongue.

Me: "Well, we close when we close. What's your name?"

Him: *gives name* "That's still pretty retarded"

I get his playstation, ring in the transaction, and get him the fuck out of the store.

Sunday: It was an unusually warm day and the air was worse in the store, so we popped the door open. Along comes a crazy, smelly British man. He leans in the doorway, says hi, me and the other guy say hi, and he sees my Halo 2 shirt that says "Go Earth" on it.

Brit: "Go Earth... and how many sins have you committed? 50 000?"
Me: "Eh... sounds about right"

At this point he starts mumbling about how the old woman at the flower shop supposedly wears a police badge and helped arrest "the worst 2 men in the world".

Him: "And here you are with 50 000 sins, when the end of time comes..."
Me: *shrugs* "Eh, what'cha gonna do? Nobody's perfect."

He mumbles on for a few seconds more before leaving. I was fucking scared.

[Guntz348]

A customer once told me that the reason I was so tired during the day was because I didn't have Jesus in my life. Yeah that must be it, thanks lady, you sure did save me.

[zero12410]

During the blackout that hit the easten coast I worked at a convenience store that remained open while everthing else in the town closed. This was hell we couldn't use the cash register and had to write down everything we sold... One man was on line with the rest of the town ( no joke ) and just kept bitching about how long the line was and how we were being horribly slow, so he gets to the counter with his 12 pack of beer and realises that he has no money...

You all are lucky though, my last job was customer service for a domain registrar, selling domain names and web hosting. We would get people who would call about stupid **** like their comps not working right and every night without fail I would get a call from someone saying their site was down, however I could view it and interact with it where I was. When I told them that they'd say something like "It must be because you're so close to the servers" they where in nj and I was in ny... then I'd get to tell the to go to *insert proxy here* they would check, see their site, and still refuse to listen to the fact that it was an issue with their isp.

I worked the night shift, my co-workers during the shift that came in after me were all morons, they would just tell people to call back later, the woman on the second shift and me on the third had to handle everything that came in. I personaly had to show the manager how to do her job...

I could keep going with this, but I need sleep...