GTFO my business, bitch: Godawful Customers

It's part of life: the first job, or the job you take to help pay the bills, or the summer job. A lot of people have done time in the world of customer service for one reason or another. Some of us make our careers dealing with various incarnations of the creature known as Customer.

And some of them are lovely. I once worked at a dress shop at the Bristol Renaissance Fair, and I helped dress a woman for her wedding: she was the sweetest, friendliest person I'd ever worked with, and she tipped me $20 for my help. A lot of them, however, don't seem to get that the person on the other side of the counter (or in my current case, the person answering their e-mail) is an actual human being with a life beyond kowtowing to their every possible whim. Company regulations? Physical impossibilities? Bah! They demand satisfaction now, and heaven help you if you fail to provide it!

Highlights of my career as an independent contractor include: the optometrist who swore he was personal friends with Steve Jobs and would get our service shut down (and used eleven exclamation points at once to say it), the woman who taunted me that she was deleting our app "an theres nothin u can do to stop me!!", and more spam than the entire European theatre of World War II. The Apple users tend to be more dickish than the Mac users, who are in turn more dickish than the downtrodden and pathetically grateful Windows users, but none of them like to hear that "I'm sorry, but that liability is clearly stated in our terms of service."

So share your war stories, WGW. Who have you met? Who would you like to never meet again?

I work in a used bookstore. There's no Dewey Decimal or even a database of what's in the store (though we're getting one and I loathe the day that happens). The number of college students that don't know how to navigate around the fiction section is frightening. People don't seem to understand that we're a used bookstore, especially during text book week.

"When's your next text book shipment coming in?"

"Never. We only sell what people sell to us."

*blank stare*

And since it is basically a pawn shop, we buy books. People come into the store expecting to make, I don't know, hundreds of dollars on crap. I mean books falling apart, missing covers, smelling strongly like cigarettes or cat piss. Apparently if it's old, it's worth over nine thousand dollars NO MATTER WHAT.

I worked a Service Desk at a K-Mart for five years.

I've blocked most of the memories, but here are a couple of notables:

1. Angry drunk guy threatening the cart boy, for allegedly checking out his wife/girlfriend. Just when she got him to leave, Drunk Angry Guy popped back in to yell at Cart Boy one last time "YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY, ASSHOLE?!"

2. Another drunk, this time a lady who asked if anybody had turned in her keys--which were hanging from a lanyard around her neck the whole time.

3. The crazy German lady who always thought the cashiers were ripping her off, and loudly reminding us how she allegedly got a store in California shut down for bad pricing.

4. Lady who tried to return a swimsuit from the year before. The part of the reciept with the year was conspicuously missing, but at the bottom it had the name of the store manager--who had moved on from our store the previous fall. Store policy at the time was 90 days, and not at all if it had been worn. It had definitely been worn.

5. Getting called a racist because I wouldn't give a black guy a cash refund for his jacket--his jacket bearing a Target store brand logo. I know it's a cliche, but one of my best friends is black, and he worked there. I was this close to calling him to ask how racist I was.

When I was first working in a high school library, a parent came in with her daughter to find out what books she was missing so that she could transfer to another school. When I said that an English textbook was missing, the mother went ballistic and started screaming that we'd lost the book on purpose so she would have to pay for it. The daughter looked like she wanted to sink through the floor in embarrassment. I tried to get my boss, who was officially in charge of the library, to handle things, but she wouldn't, so I wound up sending them to the principal. The mother proceded to grab a plaque off the wall of the principal's office and throw it through the window, at which point the police were called.

Two weeks later, the daughter brought in the missing book. It had been under her bed the whole time.

Oh, god. I think I'll post in segments.

There were the metric fuckton of people who didn't understand what a bookstore IS. They would want to check-out the books. Or they would repeatedly ask, "Are they ALL on sale?"

There were the people who wanted "That book by that guy" and were pissed when you pointed out (gently) that half the books in the store would qualify. There was the guy who was pissed that I didn't know the name of the book that was on a certain table back in December (6-8 months before) and he thought the cover was maybe blue.

There were the people who got the title or the author wrong, and when you tried to direct them to the correct book, they would INSIST that no, they wanted the Duke of Crisco, when they needed the Count of Monte Cristo for school.

There was the guy who called six times in one night wanting a book that was out of print. The first two times I gave him the info for a used book store that was pretty good at getting OOP books. We could not. He seemed to think if he called enough, the book would automagically come back into print.

There were the people who were pissed if I couldn't recommend a book for their friend's husband's boss's kid, when they didn't know what books, or even what SUBJECTS they liked.

The kicker was the day that led to my most petty revenge yet. A customer had ordered four books. When they had been ordered, there had been one (1) copy in the warehouses. Sometimes that shit doesn't update for days. Note that the custie had not paid anything. Well, those copies were gone, and I get a little pop-up telling me that I have to call and tell them that three of their books won't be coming. I don't even get to the good news. The woman screams so fucking loud that the stockers could hear her clearly all the way across the stockroom. It became clear that she was not going to stop calling me inept and stupid and a bitch because her fucking SHITTY EROTICA was not coming in.

So the one that came in? The only copy apparently available for sale in the US?

I bought it, just so she couldn't have it.

I currently work as a salesman in the electronics department of a national chain. It is my personal belief that working in retail for long enough will make you racist. I have certainly become very good at profiling customers based on their nationality, and have become heavily racist against one group in particular.

A black shopper will be intensely curious, asking many questions about all the products, and when he finds something he likes he will buy it even if he can't really afford it. A Hispanic has a 50/50 chance of speaking English, and will politely wave you away whether he can or not. Indians are a pain to deal with; they are always looking to squeeze every last discount they can, even ones I have no authority to give them (they always want to buy the floor model even though in most cases I can't sell it, and they will always try to haggle the price down even though, again, I can't budge an inch since the profit margin on televisions is so razor thin).

But the worst customers of all? White people.

White people are petty, vain, ignorant, self-absorbed, entitled little shitbags who think nothing of belittling, threatening, and otherwise degrading people they know can't fight back. They are the ones who pull me away from a $2,000 television sale because they can't wait one more moment for me to ring up a $10 cable (bonus points: most of them don't bother to apologize to me for ruining the sale, and they NEVER apologize to the other customer they booted out of the way). They are the ones who buy a huge TV for Super Bowl weekend and try to return it on Monday, then threaten to call the police and their lawyer when we charge a restocking fee on returned TVs which have been opened (they also don't seem to understand that they are the reason we've had to start doing this). They are the ones who come in with a receipt from two years ago and are completely shocked and appalled I won't take the return ("[Other store] would take it back!"... ma'am, I've worked in [other store], and no we wouldn't). They are the ones who flip through the manuals, hide those same manuals, then ask bullshit gotcha questions like "How many screws are needed to secure the stand?"; get them wrong and they'll give you a smug look and call you a "fucking idiot that doesn't know anything about his own department", get them right and they'll deign to purchase something from you (probably a $20 phone, which they will purchase because it's cheap even though I tell them half of that particular brand of phone come back to the store within a week after getting it because it is a piece of shit with a poor brand). After greeting a customer with a cheerful "Good morning!" I was shocked when she responded by calling me "the reason your store is going out of business"; I was not shocked that it came out of the stinking gullet of a white woman.

Those of you working retail in the US? Think of the biggest asshole customers you've had... you know, the ones that are so hair-pullingly enraging you have to take a break as soon as they've left, the ones you tell people about for days afterward. Got a good picture of them in your head? I bet you can count on one hand the number of those customers who are not white.

I can't think of even one who isn't.

(Disclaimer: I myself am probably the whitest person I know, so don't bother trying to play the reverse racism angle.)

TheHermit wrote:

I currently work as a salesman in the electronics department of a national chain. It is my personal belief that working in retail for long enough will make you racist. I have certainly become very good at profiling customers based on their nationality, and have become heavily racist against one group in particular.

(Disclaimer: I myself am probably the whitest person I know, so don't bother trying to play the reverse racism angle.)

OMFG I AM SO OFFENDED!

Actually, not. You're completely right for the most part. Sadly, being an asshole transcends race and gender.

I've a list of my top customer hates:

1.) (and this is often the basis for my somewhat irrational and inadvertent racist tendencies) Obnoxious drunk native Americans. Now, happy drunks are fine. They often joke around with you and suchlike, and that's cool. It does get somewhat annoying to have to help pour them into their rooms (which goes for ANY drunk), but the obnoxious ones? 99 out of 100 times here, they are Native American. Not only are they just crappy to wait on, but they will pull the race card faster than you can blink. "YOUR PEOPLE TOOK MY LAND!" "YOUR ANCESTORS KILLED MINE!" blah blah blah over and over and over again. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. Number one out of sheer annoyance factor--if I lived in another area, I'm sure this would probably not even be on my list. It doubly annoys me because my ancestors--both sides, I checked!--were in Norway and Sweden farming when that crap went down. I'm only a 3rd generation American. It's the only thing that makes my eye twitch, almost comically I've been told.

1.5) So very close to #1 but it's obnoxious white drunks. Although I do get #1 way more often, the white folk, us white folk, when we drink.... HOLY FUCKING SHIT we are rude. It's like what TheHermit was saying times a million. >< Cowboys (ALL of you. Bastards) fall into this category. The only time I had to have the cops escort someone from the property was the best man at a wedding who drank too much, and when I denied him something... I don't even remember what anymore, I think it was pr0n because he didn't have a credit card, he kept opening up his door (which was in the lobby) and screaming at the top of his lungs. He also called me a fucking bitch, and all sorts of other obscenities. I told him to get out. He didn't, so I called the cops and pressed charges. The groom, the next day, was mortified, but admitted his friend was an ass when he drank. Oh well.

2.) Old white people. I really do have to distinguish this here because almost all old folks of other races I've met have been super awesome. It's the little old ladies who complain when something's too hot or too cold, or that breakfast should be served at 5 AM (!!) because "I'm up, everyone else should be" (verbatim there), and who ask incessant questions about the cleanliness of a room (like, seriously? Like I'm going to tell you if they're dirty anyway, which they aren't?), and who nit pick that they had to wait five seconds while you were on the phone, and how I should kiss their ass because they're such a good customer who had stayed there hundreds of times before (maybe at OTHER hotels with the same name, but not here, lady), and so on.

3.) People who think they are handicapped when they are not. NO, I"M SORRY I'M NOT SELLING YOU THE HANDICAPPED ROOM BECAUSE YOUR FAT ASS CAN'T MAKE IT UP THE STEPS! I'm sorry you hurt your knee (but you're not using crutches), but I'm not carrying your baggage for you when I have a line of people waiting to check in. Blah. Actual handicapped people? Usually give you the 'fuck the right off' look when you offer to help them, so they are totes cool. Lazy people? Really not cool.

4.) People who yell and think that will get them help faster. It's completely opposite, my friend. If you are nice and say "I hate to complain, but..." and please and thank you, I will bend over backwards to get you help. I will find discounts for you and all sorts of other things. If you yell at me, I refer you to my supervisor, whom you then yell at, and they refer you to the general manager... and when you yell at him, he tells you to leave a message and then never gets back to you. Yelling never helps to solve problems, yo. All it does is piss off the people you want to help you.

Honestly, I like working nights because I don't see that many people. When I do see people, it's at the end of my shift and I'm happy because I'm going home soon. I've never had a complaint against me--only compliments on my excellent customer service--but god damn, people make it hard sometimes to smile and suffer through the bullshit. Having complaints that the sheets are too scratchy, or that we don't get a certain channel on the television, or that long distance calls cost money (NO WAI. Dumb shits. Never call from a hotel... they tack on so many fees and jack the rates up). I had a lady come at like five in the morning and get in the pool after very carefully stepping over the 'closed' sign on the chain, who then had the audacity to complain when I asked her to get out. "It's five in the morning and there's no one here, so no one will know." Doesn't make a difference, GTFO. Of course, I lied to her and said that it was because maintenance puts in cleaning chemicals overnight, and they don't dissipate until seven or eight. She got out in a hurry then, lol.

I'll keep this thread in mind when specific ridiculous things come up, which I'm sure they will. They always do.

TheHermit wrote:

I currently work as a salesman in the electronics department of a national chain. It is my personal belief that working in retail for long enough will make you racist.

Lol, that reminds me of riding the MAX in Portland. I was horrified at myself for developing all these gross generalizations about people based on race, age group, and gender, but damn. It got to the point where I would be absorbed in a book or my DS and I would hear a group of people start being super loud. I would think to myself 'black teenagers' and then turn around. Always black teenagers. Always. Portland is, like, the whitest city in the US! Why are the white people never loud on the MAX? Not that white people on the MAX never pissed me off. Guys who cold approached me on the MAX despite my pretty obvs lack of interest were always white(yet dudes who cold approached me in the street were always hispanic for some reason???) They just never did stuff like play their ring tone at maximum volumn and sing along with it or start drumming on random shit. Weird.

Of course it was just teenagers, who I loathe anyway regardless of race.

Maximilia wrote:

Actual handicapped people? Usually give you the 'fuck the right off' look when you offer to help them, so they are totes cool. Lazy people? Really not cool.

Also reminds me of public transportation. Handicapped people = cool. People with handicapped people = jackasses.

Didn't happen to me, but happened to another artist in my industry...

So, said artist (let's call him "J") is working on a fully painted TV-series based graphic novel for a comic company (let's call them "Z"). In order to get the twist at the end of this tale, you have to realize that "Z" made a lot of its money producing bubble gum and bubble gum cards. Got that? Good.

Moving right along... so J finishes the graphic novel for Z. A couple of weeks pass (more like a month) as the graphic novel is gone over with a fine-toothed comb by overseers from the TV series franchise to make sure that everything is approved. Turns out seven panels have to be changed, and because this is a fully painted book, they have to be repainted from scratch.

J does the repaints, sends them off, and waits for payment for the extra work.

And waits.

And waits.

Finally he calls up the editor on the book (let's call him, oh, "M") and asks where the hell his money is.

M responds that gee, there was no provision for extra work in the contract, but he'll sure see what he can do to get J something for all that work.

More weeks pass, but one day J gets his payment for the seven extra panels. And it is...

*drum roll, please!*

... a case of bubble gum cards, with gum.

*insert sad saxophone sound effect, followed by a trumpet flare of RIGHTEOUS FURY!*

J phones up M and rips him a new one, asks him when the hell BUBBLE GUM became a recognized method of payment in the comics industry, and informs him that he will never EVER take one of M's calls again for as long as they both shall live.

(I never did hear what J did with all that gum, not to mention all those crappy cards.)

I don't know if this counts as God-Awful or just insane. I used to work in a make up store and I turned around to greet an older male customer who jumps and says, "You're real?"

I paused and was like, "Of course I'm real."

He just looks me up and down and says, "They're doing amazing things with robotics these days." and walks away. To this day I have no idea why he thought I was a robot or if he was high or what

I got bitched out by a lady this morning because someone yesterday put something on hold for her, neglected to tell her that we don't hold overnight, and when she drove "all the way down here" (she made it sound like she drove from Canada or something), it had been put back. The part that got me was that she kept screaming, "You didn't tell me! You said it would be here!"

I was nowhere near the store yesterday. I have no idea who she talked to, but it wasn't me.

Soylent Green wrote:

I work in a used bookstore. There's no Dewey Decimal or even a database of what's in the store (though we're getting one and I loathe the day that happens).

Out of curiousity, why do you loathe this? I can't tell you how happy I am that we have a database at our store, to keep track of inventory and trade credit, etc. If we didn't, I'm afraid of how bad our overstock would get (and we have multiple shelves of overstock science fiction, with more every day. Other overstock piles up on the top shelves of the bookcases and I'm afraid it'll one day fall on me.).

My other job is working with individuals with disabilities and while I could bitch about my clients at times, they're not really customers.

However, in the winter, I sometimes help at my family's Christmas tree farm. I cannot tell you the number of times people have argued that we need to have the fields lit so they can come out at night, sidewalks, and more pre-cut trees. Or that we should do something about the roads leading out there. We. Are. A. Farm. As in, place of the dirt and much and weather and tractors to get you to your tree. A place where pre-cut trees only exist because someone else cut it down and decided they didn't want it and left it behind to go kill another tree. We are in the country. The road conditions are not up to us and if you want nighttime hours and lightning and sidewalks, get yourself to the nearest Wal-Mart and buy your tree there.

And this typical exchange (yes, I'm the one who submitted it).

Sparrow wrote:

Soylent Green wrote:

I work in a used bookstore. There's no Dewey Decimal or even a database of what's in the store (though we're getting one and I loathe the day that happens).

Out of curiousity, why do you loathe this?

Mostly because of text book season. We get countless people looking for text books we know we don't have because with very few exceptions, we only get the old text books that the college stores won't buy back and no one wants a bio book from three editions and five years ago. I should probably mention that we're an extremely busy store and the thought of having to stop everything to look up a list of twenty text books to tell them what anyone else in the store could tell them: we don't have them.

You may actually find it helpful; for some reason, custies seem to believe you more quickly if THE COMPUTER SAYS. Computers are apparently magical.

Maximilia wrote:

3.) People who think they are handicapped when they are not. NO, I"M SORRY I'M NOT SELLING YOU THE HANDICAPPED ROOM BECAUSE YOUR FAT ASS CAN'T MAKE IT UP THE STEPS! I'm sorry you hurt your knee (but you're not using crutches), but I'm not carrying your baggage for you when I have a line of people waiting to check in. Blah. Actual handicapped people? Usually give you the 'fuck the right off' look when you offer to help them, so they are totes cool. Lazy people? Really not cool.

Most days, I wouldn't give you the "fuck off" look--I'm desperate for any help I can get, and I will talk up any store where a clerk sees me hauling huge bags around while on crutches and says "You look a little tired; can I help you carry that to your car?" Hell, one clerk volunteered (some other employee) to take my bags clear across the mall for me to where I parked. I turned it down--they were crazy busy that day--but I appreciate that kind of service. So thank you, and people like you.

And the part about customers going "I hate to complain, but..."? Yeah, that was me during my last conference trip, because I really don't like causing problems in situations like that. The room was smoky when I got in, and when I called the desk to ask for some room deodorizer, it turned into a five minute long back and forth apology-fest with the clerk: "I'm so sorry to have to ask..." "No, no, I'm sorry your room smells..." "I really hate to be a bother." "I'm sorry you're even having to call at all..." I thought I was there for the Pop Culture Conference, but it turned out to be Guiltfest 2010.


As far as customer bullshit goes--can I count tutoring? If it doesn't count, feel free to disregard. I was doing one-on-one essay work for an upper-division class, and one of the students came to the appointment, sat down across from me, and tossed her paper across the table at me. "Tell me what I need to fix," she tells me, and then proceeds to spend the next half-hour texting on her phone.*

She was the worst of the lot, but so many of them had an "I don't care" attitude toward the process, and many made it clear that they were only dealing with me because they were being forced to work with me, and I had to sit there because I was paid to do it. So many of those kids think that just because they speak English, they don't actually have a need to improve in reading or writing at all. These were, of course, also the students studying to become elementary school teachers. They hated reading and writing, they plagiarized like mad (at least two intentionally in one semester and more unintentional ones from laziness), and they couldn't write a coherent argument if you paid them to do it. It was a little scary.

*I looked over her paper and gave it back without fighting it. Half the faculty said I handled it well. The other half said I should have thrown it right back at her. Her professor shrugged and said that she was failing anyway, so why bother stressing?

lemmingwriter wrote:

Maximilia wrote:

3.) People who think they are handicapped when they are not. NO, I"M SORRY I'M NOT SELLING YOU THE HANDICAPPED ROOM BECAUSE YOUR FAT ASS CAN'T MAKE IT UP THE STEPS! I'm sorry you hurt your knee (but you're not using crutches), but I'm not carrying your baggage for you when I have a line of people waiting to check in. Blah. Actual handicapped people? Usually give you the 'fuck the right off' look when you offer to help them, so they are totes cool. Lazy people? Really not cool.

Most days, I wouldn't give you the "fuck off" look--I'm desperate for any help I can get, and I will talk up any store where a clerk sees me hauling huge bags around while on crutches and says "You look a little tired; can I help you carry that to your car?" Hell, one clerk volunteered (some other employee) to take my bags clear across the mall for me to where I parked. I turned it down--they were crazy busy that day--but I appreciate that kind of service. So thank you, and people like you.

I can dig that. Some people though... hell, the guy who worked before me today had a lady who couldn't find her room. So, he offered to take her up there, and en route, saw that she was having trouble managing her luggage. Since the room was upstairs, he asked politely, "Would you like some help with your luggage, ma'am?" She turned and snapped at him, "Do you think I can't carry my own luggage?!" He was rather baffled by that response, but he's new to the hospitality biz.

I don't think people get that we're not being condescending when we offer to help. We're paid to do so, and while it's not the best wage, it's not the worst in the area either. We're paid relatively well for a pretty simple job because the front desk people are the "face" of the hotel--it's all PR. If we make a good impression on the customer, the customer will return. Not only that, but if they have a good impression, if there actually IS something wrong with the room, they are much more likely to forgive the hotel for a mix-up or something because the people at the front desk were nice to them.

Gad. In marketing research (you know those annoying ladies with the clipboards, in the shopping mall? "Hi, I'm doing a survey, can I ask you a few questions?" That's marketing research) our "customers" are called "respondents". And we get some fun ones:

The teenaged kids who come in demanding to do a survey because they know we pay for interviews, and then get pissy when we actually expect them to do the survey.

Parents of small children. There was the woman who came in for a pre-arranged interview that she had been warned would take at least forty-five minutes. So in she came, with her seven-year-old son, her five-year-old son, and her three-year-old son, fully expecting that the office staff would babysit them while she finished the survey.

Anybody who insists on changing an infant's -- or worse, a toddler's -- diaper on the interview room floor.

One woman brought her five-year-old in and let him answer the identifying information: she gave me her given name, but let him spell out the family surname ...


one


letter


at


a


time.

And give their address the same way: "Four ... seven ... five ... three ... East ... Adobe ... Road." And their phone number: "Area code four ... eight ... zero ... "

People who accepted food products to take home and try, and then lied about it ("What frozen dinner?") or were insulting when we called, as arranged, to get their opinions.

But my very favorite was the young woman who got paid fifteen dollars for doing a survey: at that time, our office policy was to pay all respondent fees over ten dollars by check, so we gave her a check for US$15. She came back in the next day to complain that since she didn't have a bank account (or the necessary brain cells to take the check to the bank on which it was drawn), she'd had to take it to a check-cashing establishment that had charged her US$10; she tried to demand that we compensate her for that $10.

Dear valued customer,

When you're referring to me as a retard in your very first communique, I get the impression that we're not going to have a satisfactory working relationship. Also, Terry Pratchett defined the use of five or more exclamation points as the sign of an unbalanced mind, and after reading your rude and ungrammatical messages I agree with him. Kindly delete our app and go get eaten by a coyote.

Thank you,

Application Support

I'm a waitress.

I liked the lady who came in and was waited on by one of my black coworkers. We'll call her S. When she was ready to leave, with her husband, she approached another black waitress, T, and said, "Are you the one who tipped us?"

Her husband says, "No, no, this wasn't the girl who waited on us. That was the other black girl, with the big ass." Nice.

How about the people to whom I explained almost every menu item. "What are chipotle wings?" Explanation. "Are they good?" I think they are. "What are spicy mango wings?" Explanation. "Are they good?" I think they are, yes. "What's that?" Ma'am... that's salsa. "What's salsa?" Explanation. I think it's good. "You think everything's good. *eyeroll*" Actually, ma'am, I think the burritos are terrible.

Anyway, they ordered $90 worth of drinks, had me set a place for a part of 15, then when half their party didn't show up, they tipped me $4 and left me a bunch of salsa-covered menus and tipped drinks. After I brought them free tequila for the birthday and free churros. Hate.

Oh, oh, oh. This one's just funny. Middle-aged-ish man trying to hit on me tells me about how he saved someone's life and pulled them from a burning car today. Then his friend comes in and asks me what I'm doing in a restaurant, as obviously I should be modelling. Then original guy tells me I look like Kristen Stewart from the Twilight movies. Awesome. Oh, and did I want to go to the hotel next door after my shift and swim with them? SOUNDS LIKE RAPE

Then there was the man with his aunt and cousin who got me talking to them and found out I'm going to school to be an English professor. As I wrapped up their checks, the man calls me back over with "a piece of advice for [me]." Dreading the outcome of this, as the man had continuously (and once successfully) tried to rub my arm during his meal, I returned and smiled and asked what advice he had. Well, turns out he wanted to tell me, "When you become an English teacher, make sure that when you sleep with your first student, you don't make a big hooplah when he needs to go out into the world and make his own way in life."

"When I sleep with my first student?" Baffled.

"Yeah, it's an English professor thing. It's the poetry in them. I slept with mine. : D : D"

"....Oh. Well. My poetry is terrible HAHAHAHA Y'ALL HAVE A NICE NIGHT AND COME SEE US AGAIN OKAY?"

InkWeaver wrote:

Then there was the man with his aunt and cousin who got me talking to them and found out I'm going to school to be an English professor. As I wrapped up their checks, the man calls me back over with "a piece of advice for [me]." Dreading the outcome of this, as the man had continuously (and once successfully) tried to rub my arm during his meal, I returned and smiled and asked what advice he had. Well, turns out he wanted to tell me, "When you become an English teacher, make sure that when you sleep with your first student, you don't make a big hooplah when he needs to go out into the world and make his own way in life."

"When I sleep with my first student?" Baffled.

"Yeah, it's an English professor thing. It's the poetry in them. I slept with mine. : D : D"

"....Oh. Well. My poetry is terrible HAHAHAHA Y'ALL HAVE A NICE NIGHT AND COME SEE US AGAIN OKAY?"

I think this guy teaches at my university.

InkWeaver wrote:

"Yeah, it's an English professor thing. It's the poetry in them. I slept with mine. : D : D"

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Mine, this time around:

IF I AM PICKING SOMETHING UP, DON'T PUT STUFF ON TOP OF IT. ESPECIALLY DO NOT PUT THINGS ON MY HANDS. Sure, it wasn't anything heavy this time, but they'll put anything up there. They will look directly at my hands and lay shit on them. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!

Ooh boy. I just got a new job at PetSmart (between that and classes, I can get more than four hours of sleep consecutively maybe twice a week) and I'm learning some of the interesting things that make up the world of pet owners (excuse me, "pet parents.")

First: whoever invented Fancy Feast can go fuck themselves with a red-hot railroad spike and die. Seriously. While the notion of marketing to people with more money than sense is generally a winner, did you have to make it such an ironclad bitch to stock? Ignoring for a moment that they have so many permutations that Diebold is taking notes, they have this obnoxious habit of changing the labeling based on the alignment of Venus or whatever. I spent fifteen minutes last week trying to find "Classic Beef" when all that was on the shelf was "Classic Tender Beef." It was only after an exhaustive search that I cracked the box, pulled out one of the cans, and discovered that they were apparently the same goddamn thing.

Also, I had been on the job two days before I ran into the local horror stories- the old cat lady with a bad attitude who gives you an earful of shit because, even though you spent the last six hours stocking fucking Fancy Feast, you don't have the one goddamn permutation that she feeds her cat and apparently buying chipped instead of sliced will unbalance the fabric of the fucking universe.

Second: People who walk away after their pet shits on the floor. This one should be pretty self-explanatory.

I used to work an upscale cosmetics counter at a department store. I have oodles and oodles of stories that I'll share later in the thread, but here's one to start.

Gift With Purchase time is very, very busy. This period of time is when you can spend a given amount of money (it varies from brand to brand, but I'd say the standard range is $20-35) and receive a free gift, usually a sweet little makeup bag with a bunch of freebies. Well, the neurosis this induces is another long story, but I'll just start with this one.

Anyway, GWP is an EXTREMELY busy time at any cosmetics counter. People want their free shit, y'all, and they're going to make you work for that sale, but I'm a go-getter so that's ok. Anyway, I was the lone girl at this counter one particular day during GWP and a middle-aged (incidentally) white lady comes in and expresses an interest in our mineral foundations.
She is quite fair. I match her with a color. It matches her skin tone perfectly. I say to her "this is a perfect match." Like a typical middle-aged makeup N00b, she says"BUT I WANT SOME COLOR".

"Ma'am, the best way to achieve that is either getting a tan, which I don't recommend because of the damage, getting a fake tan, for which we have several products, or a bronzer or blush that will add a little color and definition on top of the foundation. Foundation's purpose is to even out and match your natural shade, not to fake a darker or paler complexion."

Well, she wasn't having it. She continues to ask me a bunch of bullshit questions, perseverating over two shades of mineral foundation. Meanwhile, 4 or 5 other customers (some of whom with MUCH bigger purchases(like $90 face cream) to make) need assistance. I'm trying to balance my time and offer her a minute to assess which shade she prefers while I assist another shopper.

She says:
"EXCUSE ME, but I'd really prefer if you just waited on ME."

I do, and a coworker is kind enough to step in. She finally and very forcefully decides on a shade that is two shades too dark, against my repeated recommendations. You can recommend, but if somebody insists on looking like Snooki you have to just let them look like Snooki. At checkout- no joke- she says:

"Are you sure this isn't too dark?"

I could have punched her in the jaw there.

I used to work at Staples; for a broad reference of how terrible it was, I went back to McDonalds because I make more there than I did fixing computers at Staples, and McDonalds treats its employees better.

So, three weeks to the day of starting that job, I get a customer looking for a toner cartridge. He has the model number of the printer, which is good. Protip; if you don't know the model number of your printer, or the model number of your ink cartridge, no, the sales associate can't figure it out for you.

I find it for him, and, as per my job, try to suggestive-sell the Staples-brand of the same cartridge. For those not in the know, these are made by taking the used-up cartridges people trade in for a small discount on the new one they're buying. They get shipped off to a factory, refilled by Staples and shipped to stores. There is similar butthurt over this like the video-game industry's butthurt over used game sales. (You can also buy little home refill kits, which are a much better value.)

He insists that he wants the brand-name cartridge and picks one up, because the Staples-brand is probably made on "Japan or gook-ville" and he only buys American-made products.

Japan or gook-ville.

Partly because I'm an ass and partly because I can't stand it when people deny reality, I pointed out to him the "Made in China" label on the brand-name box, and told him the Staples version is refilled in America.

He took a swing at me with the toner cartridge.

Of course, he was at least fifty years old, I had just gotten my brown-belt in Uechi-Ryu, and I was still four years away from the lovely time in my life where my knees would dislocate solely because I have the audacity to walk twenty feet. So, I took a step to the side, let him miss, let him stumble and nearly fall on his face, listened to him swear, and then watched as he stomped up to the customer service desk. I couldn't hear him once he was up there, and it wasn't long before the manager was coming towards me.

The dude complained to the manager that I didn't let him hit me, said manager only stalking towards me to say, "Did that guy actually try to hit you? He did? Wow, you'll never believe what he just said..."

This is why I'll take fast-food over retail any day.

Quote :

"Are you sure this isn't too dark?"

I hope you told her it was.

Alhazred wrote:

The dude complained to the manager that I didn't let him hit me

Holy fucking shit, dude! Fucking incredible.

You have got to post this to RHU.