Retail jobs: the dumbest customer question you've been asked?

[barbzilla]

Well I have blocked most of my retail days out of my memory at this point, but for the most part it was people asking questions that would make Fred Flintstone look computer literate. For everyone still in retail, trust me it gets better. Once you make it to management or run the hell away to a real job like I did. Until that point, stick with it and get good references. (also it never hurts to talk to your customers about their jobs, that is how I got into law enforcement and paid my way through college).

 

[Antitonic]

Oh god, customer stories. I have two favourite standbys:
1) Customer asks for, and I quote: "that thing to mop stuff with, like a rake with a head". I ask "Like, a mop?". Customer visibly brightens and responds "Yeah! That's the thing!"
2) Customer returns a cordless screwdriver (tiny thing, basically no power), asking why it wasn't working. He'd jammed a rather large drill bit in it, and caused the motor to melt itself through the body. Turns out, he'd been trying to cut with it, like a saw.

Seriously, if a day goes by without at least one stupid person, something's gone horribly wrong.

 

[Blunderboy]

When I worked at Virgin Megastores someone approached me and asked "Do you sell CD's?"
I wish I was kidding.

Luckily I was leaving anyway so I said no.

 

[Rascarin]

I work in the cloakroom at a nightclub, so in addition to stupid people, most of my customers are also drunk. Many of them are drunk AND stupid. There's a lot of stupid that I get most nights.

- On the counter, printed in huge letters, is a sign that says "£2 PER ITEM" (it is also listed twice on the wall behind me). People will come up and ask me how much it is to put something in the cloakroom. I always look pointedly down at the sign before answering.
- The mens toilets are about three meters away from the cloakroom. You can see the door that says "Boys Only" from the counter. I always get people asking where the mens are.
- "Is this a gay club?" What? No. These rainbow flags, posters for gaydar, and collection tins for THT, and the fact that the place is fucking swamped with gay/lesbian stereotypes and drag queens mean nothing.
- "Can a get a drink here?" No. This is a cloakroom. If you want a drink,, go to the bar. That shouldn't be complicated.

Another thing that happens a lot is that people will, to save themselves the £2 cloakroom fee, leave their coats and bags just lying around the club, often with their wallets, phones, mp3's, etc in them. The number of them that are genuinely surprised when their shit goes missing is staggering. I mean, the club has literally hundreds, sometimes close to 1000 people in it, compared the a security team of about 5 people. it is YOUR fault if someone steals your stuff because you put in on the floor and walked away with it.

And my personal [least] favourite, are the people that lose their tickets (each coat that is given to me is exchanged for a numbered ticket that corresponds to the numbered hanger that the coat is on) and expect me to just be able to look and find their coat from hundreds. The amount of whining, pleading, aggression and sometimes violence I get from people who don't understand that a) it would be a massive waste of my time to go through every single coat in the place just to try and find theirs, b) it clearly states that you have to wait until the end of the night if you lost your ticket and that NO EXCEPTIONS will be made, c) it's my job on the line, and if I end up giving out the wrong item, i'll be in trouble. Frequent questions include:
- Can't I just describe it to you? it's black (50% of the coats will be black).
- I can give you my initials, will that help? (initials are not unique, and i would still have to look at every item in the cloakroom)
- Can I come behind there are look? (No)
- Can't you just be nice? (No)
- Well, then I want to speak to your manager. (My manager wrote the sign that says no exceptions)
- Fine, I'll just jump over and get it then. (Security!)

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Do WiiU games work on a Wii?

Shit you not.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Gah, double post.

 

[Judgement101]

Standing behind the counter and someone asked if I worked there, so I said "Nope, I just enjoy pretending." They thought I was serious.

 

[Zeren]

As I've never worked in retail, I'll just post a link to Not Always Right [http://notalwaysright.com/] and leave my opinion at that.

I have never worked in retail either so I will also post a link to a place like that.

http://fuckyeahretailrobin.tumblr.com/

It has stuff like this gem.

 

[Weaver]

I worked at a grocery store in high school and this crazy old guy came up to me and asked "Do you guys sell napalm?!?!"
I just directed him to GM.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Never done retail, but I did work customer service for a while. You tell people you're just mandated by this or that garage to receive their comments or complaints - not ABLE to do anything about them, just paid to RECEIVE them - and they still think they can go on a litany about how this or that mechanic is a jerk, how the peanuts weren't that good, how the music sucked, how the whole place was fine and dandy for thirty years but now the new whippersnapper of an owner doesn't get shit done...

On and on and on.

That was a hard two years, honestly. I was basically paid to affect as much empathy as I could on the phone, while being forced to develop a superhuman level of stamina for inane bullshit.

On occasion, the customers would catch my drift and understand they're supposed to talk about their last appointment or checkup.

The best thing ever? Old people. Old people are lonely, sometimes. They'll see you as an excuse to socialize - FINALLY socialize - and won't let you go. I've gone through an entire five-hour shift with just one person on the line, once.

 

[Madner Kami]

The most infuriating question/statement, by far, that I received on a weekly basis, when having difficulty scanning an item or locating the barcode, was this: "Oh, if it doesn't scan, that means it's free, right?"

Oh gawd, yeah. This joke, dear customers, grew old two days after beginning my work in this supermarket... 10 YEARS AGO. I dunno how people still think that this is even remotely new and funny in any way...

So, I got these things to offer:

So there're sometimes those oldtimers, who aren't really fond of their debit cards and PIN and write them onto a little paper, stashing it in their wallet. Not the brightest thing to do, but understandable, given the memory of some of them is a bit sketchy. Well anyways, once one of those elderly people actually gave me this very piece of paper, telling me that he forgot his glasses and asked me, if I could read it aloud, so he can put the PIN into the keypad.

And then there was that customer: Perfect german-speaking, no audible accent, caucasian looks, so no idea whether that person was a foreigner, who could come from a country where that way of payment is unusual or was just plain dumb or both (given that plenty of other customers before him in the queue did pay that way), who asked me: "Do you accept cash as payment?"

Of course there are naturally those customers, who lack a basic grasp of hygiene and ask: "Can I return these undies if they're not comfortable?" Yes, this happened more then once...

 

[chinangel]

I work at a fast food restraunt, and we have a BIG sign in our drive thru that changes to reflect lunch or breakfast.

I always...always get people asking: "Are you on breakfast/lunch yet?" while there is a MASSIVE sign in front that should answer that.

Another one...

I used to work in hair styling, and after the sign was flipped we'd have people trying to get in, after the sign was set to 'closed' trying to get in for 'a quick cut'.

In hair styling, NOTHING is quick.

 

[LordLundar]

Not one of mine (the dumbest I had was a neanderthal trying to convince me that a standard DV-i splitter cable could produce two separate monitor displays) but a coworker had someone ask him for and I am dead serious on this:

Do you have Mario on the PSP for the iPhone?

When he relayed that one to me I had to reboot my brain.

 

[EeveeElectro]

A lot of people can't read in my city which makes me sad. I get a lot of vegetarians coming in and asking what they're allowed to eat which makes me wonder why they don't do at least a tiny bit of research before deciding on the lifestyle.
I don't mean "Is the cheese vegetarian?" but "Is their meat on this cheese and tomato pizza?"
I do wonder how some people get by, they're so stupid they probably have to write "breathe" on their hand to stop themselves from dying.

 

[trollnystan]

I don't have any good ones =( Closest is probably:

Costumer: "Where is [item]?"
Me: "... Right behind you."

 

[Agayek]

Finally, and this is the most recent, some old guy came up to me and asked me some weird questions that I couldn't really answer, but gave it my best shot. He wasn't asking about store questions, but state questions, directions, and just weird stuff. Finally, he asks me, "Do you want to make a lot of money?"
"Uh, excuse me?"
"Do you want to make a lot of money?"
Baffled, I responded, "I don't think I'd be allowed to keep it," because that's store policy and I didn't want this guy handing my a large sum of cash on camera.
He throws his hands up and walks away, shouting, "Never mind. It's clear you're not interested." Just...what?

Pretty sure he was trying to recruit you for some sort of criminal operation.

Probably as a patsy or something.

 

[KefkaCultist]

It was a sunny, summer afternoon and the ice cream/arcade place I was working at was moderately busy. We had some people in the arcade playing games, I was working register for a few people in line, and my coworkers were scooping ice creams for customers. Suddenly, a girl, probably about age 15, came in and walked up to me at the register.

"Hello, did you need anything?" I asked.

To which she responded, "Yeah, are you guys open today?"

I cocked my head and look at her with mild bemusement. Thinking that she'd realize the obviousness of her question due to the facts that there were people in line, sounds from the arcade games, and that all these people were able to come through unlocked doors, so in an obviously joking way I said, "No, we're not." Unfortunately, she didn't pick up on my sarcastic tone and took my response seriously and started walking away, so I had to call her back and say that I was joking.

I just couldn't believe that someone had to ask if we were open when we clearly were and then didn't pick up on an obvious joke. Sure, it was a kid, but you'd think that someone that age would have at least enough problem solving skills to figure out that we were open.

EDIT: Also had someone ask if we sold alcohol... At a family-oriented ice cream shop/arcade...

 

[speight88]

Not exactly retail because i work in a bar but..

Customer: Can i get a Coke and a Lemonade
Me: sure thing.... Here you go
Customer: Thanks.... Which one is which?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Technical support at my college has provided me with a few.

"Here I'm going to copy your files onto the G drive so they'll be on the network when you get your new computer"
"But my files are saved onto Excel"
"What"