The Customer Is Always Wrong

[rosac]

I may be joining the ranks of those behind the counters on saturday If I get the saturday job I applied for. It's only at a local corner shop, but I reckon I'll have a few stories by the end of next month (possibly involving chavs and ciggies, but y never know.)

wish me luck.

rosac

Prepare yourself for a fun shift. If you're in the UK (which I'm guessing you are, I think chavs are an exclusively British cultural phenomenon), Saturday's lottery night. Every man and his dog will want to buy a go or seven, and often have no clue as to how they work. I would wish you luck, but that would be naive. I wish you a quick and painless death.

eh... forgot about the lottery. Ah well, I'll just have to learn how to process them very quickly. Hopefully the fact that 90% of my towns old people will help.

yes, i do live in the Uk. The chavs local hangouts are both with view of the shop.

and umm thanks for the painless death thing... I think?

rosac

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

Le Royale Bump...

 

[rosac]

Didn't get the job.

Damn.

rosac

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

This isn't a bad thing, but it's something about my job.

People sometimes rent out the pools for private parties and such. We lifeguards are scheduled to guard for these parties. If we're lucky, the people will usually let us have some leftover cake or pizza or will usually let us help ourselves to the food. I think that's very nice of them.

Now, back to complaining.

At the main pool in my city, the boys locker room is always a mess. The lifeguards have to clean the locker rooms, and the boys locker room always has discared trash, and actual articles of clothing left behind. Literally, these people will leave behind their wife-beater shirts, their underwear, and even bathing suits. They are also quite destructive, breaking things, locking the doors of the stalls and then climbing out through the bottom, and just plain not flushing. I can't tell you how many times I've had to flush someone else's shit.
The other day, I actually had to fish a dirty shitty diaper out of the toilet. Luckily, I was wearing gloves... but still, it was fucking disgusting.

I hate the stupid people who come to swim...

 

[Tim Buck II]

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Some people are really messed up and are just plain violent when it comes to fast food. I work as a manager at McDonald's and the area my store is located in had a massive power outage (the power company tripped over themselves I guess) during a fairly slow point of the day but right before lunch rush. Our store and the other fast food stores next to us did not have a back-up generator, which is pretty stupid I know but hey I don't own the store. after about 15 minutes of no customers and no power we had to declare the store closed and waste all the food that was cooked. We put up close signs on all doors and blocked drive-through with witch's hats. Now this is where it gets fun - lunch rush, people start driving in I've got two of my crew standing out front to explain whats happened and to apologize for something that was entirely out of our hands. Now most customers were understanding and left with smiles but some people still came through drive-through (taking out the hats) asking for food then leaving pissed when we told them the situation. My boss decided he'd park his car across the entrance to drive through hoping that'll stop customers from coming through. It didn't work as this bastard in a nice chunky 4WD came up stopped and thinking drive through must till be open regardless of the fact there's a car blocking the way in, decided he'd try and fit between the car and the drive-through entry sign. He failed so miserably we couldn't help but laugh our heads off at this idiots attempt. My boss (laughing) walked out checked the damage took one look at this fool's face and said "I guess you'll be paying for that then?" The guy got out and thankfully co-operated. Some people are so messed up lol.

Regarding the bold text... WTF?!?!?

First use of text language right there.

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Our sign says:

The Customer Is Always Right. This doesn't stop them being idiots.

Are you kidding? That's awesome.

 

[SturmDolch]

Wow, finally read the whole thread... This is only the second thread over 20 pages where I have read it from start to finish, ever, from any forum. Wow.

Well... Even though I worked at a grocery store for 6 months and Best Buy for 3, I don't really have any good stories. I mean, there's the typical people who get mad when you don't have something and expect you to magically fix it, or build a camera out of the metal parts of the shelves or something..

One that sticks out is the moron who came into Best Buy late at night once, 10 minutes till closing. After the store closes, I usually started to clean and do closing duties right away because they took a while, what with inventory check and everything. Now, we had a deal on for 20 bucks off a camera and a bag with it. The guy that came in, with his whole family, took till 10:00 (closing) to pick out the camera. Then he took 3 of them, brought them to me, and asked for a deal.

Wait. Getting $60 off your purchase AND 3 bags worth about $20 each again is not a deal? I told him I can't, and he made me talk to my manager, who looked at me like I'm the idiot for even asking him. Well, told the guy that the manager said the same thing, and he smiled smugly, presumably thinking "Aha I knew it, these guys are all out to get me." Then he said he needed to think about it some more and left.

This was at 10:20. 20 minutes after closing. Needless to say, I didn't get all my closing done, and didn't get to do all the inventory checking. And the second-in-command was most displeased at me for that. Great.


Also, just another one... I'm surprised no one has mentioned Boxing Day. I got in an hour early, and it was quite hilarious to see the mournful eyes of the people lining up watching you, hoping that you might invite them inside, too.

What was supposed to happen to prevent rushes and arguments was to give out tickets to the people in line to get the item and then they would give the ticket to someone to get it for themselves. I happened to be distributing camcorders.

Open the doors... Massive rush of people, literally running. Strange, as there were no really good deals as far as I could tell. Whatever. Point is, people came to me.
Especially this one lady.
"I need that JVC camcorder!!!"
"Ok, can I have your ticket?"
"What?! TICKET!? There's no ticket! What are you talking about?"
"You need a ticket to get the camcorder"

"WHY ARE YOU HELPING OTHER PEOPLE? I WAS HERE FIRST!"
: "Just give her the camcorder to avoid a conflict."
I asked my supervisor, and he agreed. Turns out the ticket thing didn't happen. But still... No need to explode like that. And helping other people... It was just a simple question of where something is and me pointing...

Ugh. Supervisor told me I'm doing good though during the day, so that was cool.

Also love the people with unintelligible accents coming through...
At grocery store:
"Can I have ca-choo?" (Cashews)
"Do you have wavy strips?" (gravy mix, my co-worker said wavy strips sound epic).

 

[Amethyst Wind]

It's a good thing this thread got bumped, because I saw a good one just today.

I was in the chinese/english (they do both) takeaway getting my dinner, put my order in nice and easy, sit and wait for the food. 2 seconds later, in walks a family of chavs. Now the mother and kids are no problem, she keeps them from causing any hassle and they're still young enough for me to not hate them. The dad puts the order in. THEN the dad proceeds to lecture the staff on a particular dish he happens to like that they don't sell, saying that "people" would buy it if they sold it. Seriously, the guy goes on for about 5 minutes about this one dish and how the family who owns the place are "silly" for not selling it.

Now I've been going to this place for about 8 years, the girl serving is the 16-year old daughter and she'd been around fetching stuff for her parents when she was 8. She's smiling the glassy-eyed smile that she has rightfully earned by being in the business for so long, and this tool of a chavvy-daddy is lecturing her on how to run her FAMILY BUSINESS.

The chavvy family gets their food before I do as they bought basic chips and sausage while I'm actually getting a chinese dish made up (lord of mercy I do like sezchuan *spelling* pork), and as soon as they leave, the girl shoots me a look that promised me great pain if I agreed with the idiots who'd just left. I gave her a thumbs up, got my dinner and was on my way.

 

[dantheman931]

Just remembered another tire-related story. Who knew that five years of hell would give me so many wonderful stories years later? (Note: It still wasn't worth it.)

Hispanic guy comes in. Walks up to the counter, fixes me with this gaze of supreme concentration, and eventually says, "Me am buy tire." Only it came out like, "Me ahm bai taiyohhhh."

Now I've dealt with customers who don't speak English or don't speak very much of it. Normally I page one of the Spanish-speaking employees to act as an interpreter and all is well, but today there are none to be had, so I'm trying to help this guy as best I can. So I ask him, "Do you know your size?" figuring if he knows at least a little bit of English, maybe I can still do something for him. It never entered my mind that someone taught him how to say it phonetically, because what idiot would send someone to buy something like car tires with no preparation whatsoever?

The customer leans over the counter and says, very slowly, "Me... ahm... bai... taiyooohhhhhhh?"

*headdesk*

 

[Ciran]

That, and the vacationing girls from Korea* that came in one time thought I was cute and took my picture with them. But aside from that, people just suck in general.

*I guess pharmacies are the new hot spots for vacationing Koreans.

I just think they're willing to take pictures of anything. My brother and I were were both playing our GBAs a few years back while waiting for the train and these Koreans randomly decided to take a picture of us. It was just a tad weird, since it seemed like each one needed their own picture.

 

[Eskay]

second

customer - hello i purchased a keyboard from the man who was here yesterday
me - okay and whats the problem then
customer - (tapping the keys on the keyboard) you hear that
me - uuhhh what the clicking
customer - yeah you see i am a level 5 typist and i type very fast and thats very loud
me - does the keyboard work
customer - oh yeah it works fine but that clicking noise is off putting
me - if theres nothing wrong with it i cant refund it
(just then my dad walks in who owns the shop)
dad - whats the problem
(customer repeats complaint)
dad - HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THE FEEL OF IT UP YOUR ARSE NOW FUCK OFF

Wow, you and your dad don't sound like very nice guys at all. Thats a fairly understandable complaint if he's typing alot. Would it have been that hard to swap it for a quieter model? No loss to you, and the customer would have probably come back instead of telling all his friends not to shop there on account of how rude you were.

 

[shwnbob]

lol man I wish I had funny experiences like these where I work

 

[Lachiesa]

Well I was working in a restaurant, and a lady asked for a martini... so I take the fucking martini I bring it to her, she says : This is not a martini, taste it.. I was like oh no, I dont drink that I wouldnt know. She then insist saying its not martini so I take the glass away, take ther saaaaaaaaaaame bottle, bring it to her and now she's happy... wtf ?

 

[bookboy]

Cafe Nero : A Small Coffee does not mean a slightly wet cup. And Black Coffee does not have milk in it. Ever.

Heh. my mother drinks this stuff called "Chai Latte", a pre-made flavored tea. The irony is in the fact that "Chai" is the Chinese word for tea and a "latte" is a hot beverage with milk in it; The Chinese don't drink their tea with milk.

regardless of whether the Chinese Drink tea with milk in it, a Latte is actually a hot beverage with steamed of foamed milk in it. the name "Chai Tea Latte" usually means that it is a spiced specialty tea with Foamed milk in it. how the Chinese drink it is irrelevant because, (and it is the same with Vichysoisse and Belgian waffles) the foreign sounding name makes it sound exotic and therefore north Americans will pay more for it.

 

[Curiosity's Cat]

27 pages of reading. I am +1 literacy.
Time to contribute! Two bad stories now, and at a later date a good one.

In the first one, the customer wasn't wrong in the sense of incorrect, he was wrong in sense of eww.

I was a checkout wench at Woolworths (aka Toolworths), and this one guy who's 40ish looking comes up to my register. It was my first job and I was a rather naive 18 year old so I was a bit embarrassed when he loaded up the register with a box of tissues, 14 tubs of hand cream and a box of horny goat weed. I acted normal ringing it up but when I was scanning the 14 tubs of handcream I had to restrain myself from saying "Sir, I think you're going to need more tissues."

The second one I witnessed as a customer. I was in a line of customers trying to rent DVDs and the women at the counter were yelling and abusing this poor chick. Apparently they'd been rung and informed a DVD they'd reserved was in store, but it had been loaned out accidently before they arrived. The serving girl only looked about 16 and was at the counter by herself, and was visibly upset but keeping it together:

Leathery hag with saggy tattoos: I came ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE. HOW can it NOT be here?

Shop Girl: I'm really sorry, someone must have forgot to put it aside.

LH: I don't give a shit. I came all the way down here, what are you gonna do about it?

SG: I'm sorry, all I can do is call you when it comes in again, its a 3 day rental so it won't be very long.

LH: That's not F***in' good enough, you RANG us and TOLD us it was here, it's YOUR F***in' mistake.

SG: I know, and I'm sorry but I can't give you a DVD we don't have, I can give you a discount when you come in to pick it up next time.

This considers in a circular fashion with the stupid ***** refusing to leave without the non existant DVD. There are about 15 of us lined up at this point, its hot and everyone's annoyed. The women is either stupid or gunning for better compensation, which this quite obviously junior staff member probably isn't authorised to give. Then godawful hag and tries to get another customer to gang up on the girl with her.

LH: Look, mate, it was the store's F*** up, what do you think they should F***ing do?

Skinny nerdy glasses guy: Look Ma'am all these people are waiting. I think you should come back when they have the DVD.

The woman cuts loose at him, but he politely stands his ground.

LH: I'm going to get my boyfriend to sort you out you F***in D***head.

She leaves and reappears dragging the massive bald monster of a guy, built like a brick wall and all revved up to punch heads.

LH: That's him! He was giving me s***!

The beefy guy's face drops into panic.

Skinny guy: Hi Chris.

Chris the beefy boyfriend: Uhhh... hi.

LH: F***ing sort him out!

CtBB: Shut the F*** up Lenise, that's my Parole Officer!

The skinny nerd cop took them outside to Have Words, and the woman came back in and paid for the other DVD she wanted in injured silence.

SG: You have $20 worth of overdue fees. Would you like to fix that up now?

Crowd of Shoppers: stifled laughter.

LH: NO!!

And storms out.

Man, I'm glad for the poor shop girls sake the stupid bogan got taken down a peg!

 

[Gather]

((Hm, isn't that much of a necro, last post is only 1 day or so ago )

To tell my own, admittedly boring, stories:
To start off, I work at Coles Supermarkets as a "Sales Assistant" (AKA Checkout 'Chap'). The day was rather dull except for my final customer: For some unknown reason the EFPOS machine could not connect to this mans bank account. When this happens it asks for the person to sign the sheet of paper as though you were paying Credit and to 'verify' it. For some reason beyond my comprehension he refuses to sign it because he used savings. My guess is he doesn't like change but you guys might have a better one.

I did throw fuel into the fire by saying "Will you please just sign it" and then quickly said something about disconnecting from the sever (Which he ignored). A simple call to the manager fixed it... After telling said manager it wasn't related to me going home. Happily, the man didn't report me so... Yeah.

----
Now for something that is actually funny but sadly isn't my story, heck, I'm not even sure if it's true:
You know those parents that just let their kids do whatever they want? Well, me and my friend had the good fortune of having one of those things waiting in my line. He was running about, messing things up and well, being like those stupid kids without a leash. In fact the child actually snuck up to my hind leg and bit into it and damn it hurt. The worst part of it all was that it broke the skin and the child had a taste of my blood.

Now, all I could do was swear my ass off at the kid with my friend telling me to calm down. Now, the mother paid no attention to the child but when I was swearing, oh boy was that out of line! Red faced and all she looked at me and demanded to know why I had the audacity to swear at her child (Who was now crying, behind his mother) and further stating that could scar her child for life. Now, I don't know what made me say it but I just found it pure awesome: "Miss, I'm HIV positive."

Her face went whiter than a ghosts.

Edit: Oh yeah, what does EFPOS stand for... Electronic *Something* Point of Sale?

 

[Eskay]

i guess i should of added this guy used to come in constantly just looking at stuff asking stupid questions all the time and being a plague its not that it was loud he was just being a weirdo

Yeah that makes more sense, old dudes used to come into the golf store I worked in all the time and just want to chat. In isolation they seemed alright, the fifth time that day you wanted to do some nasty things to them with a nine iron! Despite what my firsrt post might have sounded like I feel your pain.... and soon they shall feel our wrath!

The most reliable and possibly best-quality keyboards in the world, the IBM Model M series, with a potential life-span of twenty or more years, are extremely loud, and actually sought out for their tactile feel and the ability to hear a definitive key click every time you press a key. A quiet keyboard is a mushy keyboard, and therefore not very reliable, for either length of service, or ability to type fast on them.

Interesting, is there no kind of happy medium here? I figured that a laptop style keyboard (in terms of button depth) would be ideal, less noise, yes still give you a certain clickability.

I also can't believe I find this interesting, this is what revising for finals is doing to me!

 

[Tsuki Tanaka]

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Some people are really messed up and are just plain violent when it comes to fast food. I work as a manager at McDonald's and the area my store is located in had a massive power outage (the power company tripped over themselves I guess) during a fairly slow point of the day but right before lunch rush. Our store and the other fast food stores next to us did not have a back-up generator, which is pretty stupid I know but hey I don't own the store. after about 15 minutes of no customers and no power we had to declare the store closed and waste all the food that was cooked. We put up close signs on all doors and blocked drive-through with witch's hats. Now this is where it gets fun - lunch rush, people start driving in I've got two of my crew standing out front to explain whats happened and to apologize for something that was entirely out of our hands. Now most customers were understanding and left with smiles but some people still came through drive-through (taking out the hats) asking for food then leaving pissed when we told them the situation. My boss decided he'd park his car across the entrance to drive through hoping that'll stop customers from coming through. It didn't work as this bastard in a nice chunky 4WD came up stopped and thinking drive through must till be open regardless of the fact there's a car blocking the way in, decided he'd try and fit between the car and the drive-through entry sign. He failed so miserably we couldn't help but laugh our heads off at this idiots attempt. My boss (laughing) walked out checked the damage took one look at this fool's face and said "I guess you'll be paying for that then?" The guy got out and thankfully co-operated. Some people are so messed up lol.

Regarding the bold text... WTF?!?!?

First use of text language right there.

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Our sign says:

The Customer Is Always Right. This doesn't stop them being idiots.

Are you kidding? That's awesome.

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Some people are really messed up and are just plain violent when it comes to fast food. I work as a manager at McDonald's and the area my store is located in had a massive power outage (the power company tripped over themselves I guess) during a fairly slow point of the day but right before lunch rush. Our store and the other fast food stores next to us did not have a back-up generator, which is pretty stupid I know but hey I don't own the store. after about 15 minutes of no customers and no power we had to declare the store closed and waste all the food that was cooked. We put up close signs on all doors and blocked drive-through with witch's hats. Now this is where it gets fun - lunch rush, people start driving in I've got two of my crew standing out front to explain whats happened and to apologize for something that was entirely out of our hands. Now most customers were understanding and left with smiles but some people still came through drive-through (taking out the hats) asking for food then leaving pissed when we told them the situation. My boss decided he'd park his car across the entrance to drive through hoping that'll stop customers from coming through. It didn't work as this bastard in a nice chunky 4WD came up stopped and thinking drive through must till be open regardless of the fact there's a car blocking the way in, decided he'd try and fit between the car and the drive-through entry sign. He failed so miserably we couldn't help but laugh our heads off at this idiots attempt. My boss (laughing) walked out checked the damage took one look at this fool's face and said "I guess you'll be paying for that then?" The guy got out and thankfully co-operated. Some people are so messed up lol.

Regarding the bold text... WTF?!?!?

First use of text language right there.

Oh man. I work at a GameStop.

You'd be AMAZED at the amount of stupid questions that people will ask. There are way too many occurrences for me to pick out just one, but I know I'll come up with one tomorrow, after I get off of work.

There are always half a dozen stupid people with stupid questions a day, at least.

Let me guess one!

"Do you have Mario for the PSP? I saw it on the T.V. last night."

Has this already been mentioned? By you, maybe?

I posted this as soon as I read yours.

Our sign says:

The Customer Is Always Right. This doesn't stop them being idiots.

Are you kidding? That's awesome.

Yes. We actually get that all the time. It's amazing how many stupid people are out there...

 

[Tim Buck II]

Yes. We actually get that all the time. It's amazing how many stupid people are out there...

Isn't it?

And I can't believe I replied to you twice in one post. In the same way. And that you quoted that twice.

Ah, well. What's done is done.

 

[Motiv_]

This thread is full of awesome. I'll post one of my stories tomorrow.

 

[Insanum]

I used too work in a car insurance callcentre - I have millions of insurance stories.

Anyway - My job was a claims handler - If you crashed your car or if it was damaged, Stolen (towed in some cases ¬¬) etc, I was your first port of call, As well as the guy you spoke too to keep tabs on the claim. In short i was the jack of all trades, with a specialisation in repairible vehicles.

So, i gets this call in, dear old lady, who was slightly annoyed. I takes her claim reference number, Bring up the details and familiarise myself with the file (as best i can without putting her on hold).

her accident circumstances:

Vehicle parked & unattended in Iceland C/Park (its a kind of supermarket for all you non-UK's) when wind blew over an advertising board damaging extensively the vehicle.

So basically a giant photo of Kerry katona had demolished the car, hilarious if it wasnt for her attitude. She had recieved a letter saying she had too pay the insurance excess. Stupidly the garage never charged her it when her car was repaired.

She wasnt happy about this as (like everyone in the UK) she thought if it wasnt her fault she didnt have too pay her Excess, Which isnt true. It was an "act of god".

now she said all along that Iceland admitted fault for the incident, But never forwarded on the supposed details she had from them, Therfore we had nothing too go off too get our money back.

The gist of a 20 minuite conversation was:

Me: Unfortunately madam you will have too pay your excess, you havent sent us icelands details so we cannot recover from them
Policyholder: Well...My husband have just had a heart attack and so ive been really busy.
M: Thats unfortunate madam, But it has been over 8 months since the incident, And with all due respect it's only a letter that we need.
PH: Just ring up my local iceland, They KNOW about the incident.
M: We've tried that, They say they dont
PH: Well theyre Lying! Ring them Again!
M: We have rang them several times & so far we havent had any joy. We have spent the past 4 months trying too get a recovery from them. Our recovery dept has now closed theyre side and wrote the loss off, meaning you have too pay your excess, It says in you contr
PH: I AM NOT PAYING MY EXCESS - ITS NOT MY FAULT AND I SHOULDNT HAVE TOO PAY IT! ME & MY HUSBAND HAVE HAD IT WITH YOUR COMPANY YOUR ALL USELESS *etc*
M: Madam it states in your contract, it is something you have agreed too and HAVE too pay it.
PH: No
M: no?
PH: Glad you heard me. You can get that money off iceland.
M: Well we need the details from yourself of who you spoke too at the time of the incident. If we dont get them we will be forced too affect your No claims bonus.
PH: FINE! ILL SEND THEM IN *slams phone down*.

But wait! Theres more:

I was good friends with the recovery dept and she never sent in the details - After ANOTHER 6 months we wrote off the £120 Excess, Effected her no claims (she lost something like 20 years) and didnt offer anymore policies too her.

All for a relatively minor claim.

Its not the worst, But it was amusing for the image of a giant Kerry Katona flattening a car.

Not as bad as a guy wishing my colleagues house would burn down...Ill go into that one if you want me too...