The Customer is Always Right

I work in a grocery store and it's not too bad, but there are always the customers that

A. Get pissed off when we're out of something
B. Want something cheaper then the price it's labeled at.

I don't understand the logic of these people. It's a grocery store, it's impossible to have every single item 100% of the time. And for the second option what makes someone ask for something cheaper than it's supposed to be? It's not a farmers market or a small business where haggling prices will work, we're given a price to put on the item and there's no other option. If you can't afford the cake, don't buy it.

I really try to help people out, but some are just ridiculous and some of the things you see are unmatched. I'm just glad I work in one of the food departments and not customer service. I've literally seen people eat half of a cake and then return it.

 

I worked at public city pools for 4 years. Because I'm a guy, and pretty tall, I ended up working at the "problem" pool. People would literally stand directly outside the gate with their and drink 40s out of paper bags. It was like being in a bad rap video. There was a pavilion about 50 feet away that was used to sell drugs, and the people who swam regularly had gang tattoos. I have skimmed more weaves out of the pool than I would care to recount.

Wacky shit would happen pretty much every day. The craziest thing that happened in my 4 years happened when there weren't enough guards to staff the pool that day, so they brought in a guard who worked one of the safer public pools. She was hot, and got harassed all day, culminating in actually being chased around the pool by a man holding a purple dildo and claiming to be the rapper mike jones.

 

I've got two from my time as a gas station clerk.

1. A woman comes up to me.
Her: "Can you tell me how fresh the coffee is?"
Me: "I made it about half an hour ago."
Her: "Then you need to dump it out."
Me: ???
Her: "Coffee only stays fresh for 20 minutes."
Me: "Ma'am, it's an 89 cent cup of coffee, not Starbucks."

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because she gets absolutely livid. Luckily, the store manager was in the back doing inventory and came out to calm her down. Later he told me he would fire me on the spot if he found out I dumped five gallons of perfectly good coffee.

2. One morning a box truck pulls up and about a dozen Mexicans get out of it and come in. The third one that comes to my register has a sixpack of Heineken and might pass for 18 on a good day. Without thinking about it, I ask for his ID. He doesn't understand at all, but the black guy who had been driving them blows up at me for being a racist prick, and saying that I don't have any right to make them prove they're legal immigrants, and threatening me with violence just for good measure. He wasn't interested in the fact that I didn't give two shits so long as a 21-year-old paid for the alcohol. I gave up and told him I was calling the cops, upon which they ran back to their truck and tore off.

 

I've worked a lot of jobs where I interacted directly with customers, and sometimes you're the only face of the company and you get all the wrath. Try dealing with 50 irate Staten Islanders trying to get home, standing in a smelly NYC bus station in August and their bus is late and when it arrives, has no AC. There's really not much you can do but take it. So today, when I see someone tearing an employee a new asshole (yeah, passengers and flight attendants are a great example) I try to step in to do what the employee can't, like tell the passenger he needs to exit the plane and proceed to Gate 34B--that's where the "Don't you know who I am?" counter is, and speak with the representative on duty. Say it loud enough and with mocking conviction so other passengers laugh at him. it's worked every time I've done it.

And if you drink, the flight attendants will keep your glass and wallet full for the entire flight.

 

I just had to chime in on this subject.

A favorite story of mine was when I was the Lead* working the night shift Tech Support for a telecommunications company. A guy who is a good friend of mine took the call first, and since he sat only a few feet away I could hear he was getting an earful. He looked at me and I motioned for him to send the call my way.

I get this lady and she erupted:
Customer: "Why can't you motherfuckers get this fixed? Don't you motherfuckers have field techs that work at night? I am so tired of this shit! Blah blahblah... motherfucker...blahblahblah...you motherfucker!"

She absolutely would not stop. So I shout into the phone "HEY! (customer stops).....ma'am, I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be too many more of those "motherfuckers".


Yes, I shamelessly ripped off Harlem Nights (I believe it was Redd Foxx) and yes, I fully expected to be fired the next day (I did not...it was never brought up actually).

* A Lead isn't necessarily the most technically savvy person, just someone who knows what to do if an issue comes up that needs escalation and can also be "a supervisor" if a customer, normally irate, wants to speak to one.

 

My first week or two working at a bookstore and I messed up some guy's order. He called in to complain, and I answered the phone. I then blamed the entire incident on myself in the third person, saying that we had a new guy on staff and he wasn't up to speed yet and that I would take care of it personally. The guy thanked me and said he was glad there was at least one competent employee working there.

 

At the end of High Svhool and summers while in college I managed to dodge retail but did work at a resort in town. For the most part the guests ignored the maintenance staff and we kept quiety fixing all the crap they broke each day, and have to explain at least once a day why they can't turn the A/C as high as it will go and leave the patio open and wonder why the a/c died. That and plunging toilets as rich people apparently have someone flush their toilets for them at home?

However, the girls that cleaned the rooms were often harassed or just berated by a few of the owners every day. How they never took a knife to some of the guests I will never understand.

At least this site lets me imagine the shit many people put up with that I manage to avoid.

<a class="postlink" href="http://notalwaysright.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://notalwaysright.com/</a>

 

I've worked McDonalds, I've worked as a Waiter, and I now work in a video store. I've seen some incredibly stupid shit.

The worst at McDonalds was when a customer was upset that his Big Mac had pickles. Now, I'd dealt with that complaint before. More often than not, someone just grabs the wrong burger and throws it in a bag. I always offered to replace it for free, and throw in any other free food they might want. This guy was just not having it, though. After ten minutes of calling me every curse word in the book, he threw the burger, still in the box, at my face from about 5 feet away. I immediately went blind with rage and jumped the counter to grab him, but he was out the door before I could do anything. If it weren't for that counter, I'd have likely spent some time in jail for assault charges and been fired.

I've also learned something interesting about video store customers. Did you know that no video store customer has EVER brought back a movie late? Like, ever? Yes, we still charge late fees, and the excuses people come up with to get out of them are always the same.

My favorite at my current job, though, had to be a guy that came in just a couple of days ago. He asked how much to rent our Xbox 360 system, and I told him it was $20, and it included two controllers and a game, as is the case 90% of the time we rent the system. This guy was just giving off the "I am going to screw these people" dirtball vibe. He smiled, grabbed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and said "alright, let me rent it!" He then informs me that he doesn't have an account. I got his ID and started the process of opening a new account. When I started to open his account, he gave me his phone number, and we're required to call it to make sure it is a real number. Sure enough, the number he gave me was disconnected. Well, here is the pickle: if you're account is brand new, we have to put a $200 hold on your credit card, to ensure we get our equipment back. Once we get the equipment, the money goes back into their account. We do this for all brand new accounts, to say nothing of his fake phone number. Otherwise, what stops someone from just coming in, opening a new account, and renting a system and never returning it? Even if you have a long time established account, we still are required to take down a credit card number, expiration date, and security code so we can charge someone if they don't bring it back. Well, I think that was this dude's plan, because he went fucking ballistic, screaming and shouting how we should just trust him and how he didn't have that kind of money to rent a system and he would never give us his credit card information and why can't he just use cash. I mean, he turned on a dime. He was as cordial and polite as could be until I told him of the credit card hold. After his profanity laced tirade, I inform him that he gave me a disconnected number, and he accuses me of dialing it wrong. I take the phone, put it on speaker, and say the numbers aloud as he watches me dial, and sure enough, "this number is not in service." He continues to argue, peppering his argument with "you motherfuckers," "lying douchebags," and "you dirty cocksuckers." Finally I told him there was zero chance of him opening an account with us or ever renting there. I had his ID, so I make him a profile with his name, address, and a note that said "do not rent ever, is a liar, enjoys profanity laced tirades." I gave him his ID back and told him never to come back or we'd call the police.

At this point he was clearly defeated, and he left, although still angrily ranting and calling me and my coworker "fucking asshole cocksuckers" for not letting him steal our shit. But hey, it is an otherwise stupidly easy video store job, so no real complaints here.

Apparently, he came in two days later when I wasn't working and attempted to do the same thing (thinking maybe he could get away with the scam on someone else, I guess?), only he was unlucky enough to try it on the store manager, who told him to leave or the police would be called as soon as he saw the note.

 

I live about 20 mins walk from that store; and the staff are assholes in there. It was only a matter of time.

 

I can say that I have fortunately never worked in customer service. However, my first ever job was in a Military Clothing and Sales store (for those of you not in the know, those are military supply stores on bases), and one of the things I was told specifically (I was hired on as a the janitor, mind you) when I was hired was to go and get a customer service rep whenever asked about medals, PT uniforms, etc.

Of course, I couldn't expect people to magically be aware of this, and stop me constantly, and ask me where this and that was, and when this thingie and that thingie was coming in they most certainly did.

The worst instance though of twatwaffle customers that I know (and that I was witness to) happened to a friend of mine about ten years back. My friend worked at a McDonald's. One afternoon I walked over there as it was about 20 minutes from my house; I ordered myself a twenty piece McNugget with some fries and visited him for a little while. It must have been about five minutes after I got there before this guy waltzed up to the counter my friend was working:

Twat: "I asked for 'no mayo' on this burger."
My friend: "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'll gladly replace it!"

The guy said nothing else, and snapped up the sandwich and disappeared around the corner to the back where the bathrooms were.

About five minutes later, he returns to the counter with the burger. He drops it, and leaves. He peels out of the parking lot.

That's when the stench finally hits us all in the face like a sack o' bricks. And it wasn't the stench of lard-and-grease fast food stench you inevitably catch a whiff of anytime you drive down a strip lined with fat-fuck hangouts.

Nope, it's the pungent reek of shit emanating from the burger. My friend grabs an ink pen off the register, and he gently lifts the top bun. Yup, the runniest, chunkiest mud pie any of us had ever laid our eyes upon. Everyone else in the place of course had disgusted looks on their faces, but my friend and I couldn't help but bust out laughing.

Another one I can remember, though not as drastic as the lurid tale I just told, happened to a female friend of mine that was putting herself through college by working at JC Penney. One day about a half an hour 'til closing, a woman walks in, and this is the conversation that ensues:

My friend: "Hi, Miss, how can I help you?"
Cuntish bitch: "Yes, I would like to return a bra."
My friend: "All right. Let me see it."
Cuntish bitch: "I'm wearing it."
My friend: "Um, you really shouldn't have worn it back here if you wanted to return it."
Cuntish bitch: "How dare you talk to me like that!"
My friend: "Like what? Like you still need to be talked through tying your shoes?"

She luckily wasn't so much as reprimanded, because as it turns out, this woman was what we suspected to be an "in person" troll of sorts; she was known to go to certain stores and pull stuff like this periodically from what we were told.

 

My favorite times working at lululemon revolved around picking out clothes for those who were shopping for significant others or just needed a little assistance, period. We had a customer who came into the store for the first time and loved the product. She tried on a pair of Groove Pants, and asked me if I could bring her a pair of pants in every style we offered. Then, she wanted me to pick out some tops and jackets. I basically just brought her customer and staff favorites in colors I thought would complement her. I had so much fun picking out clothes for this woman. It was a slow afternoon, so she was the only person in the store. I could give her all of my attention even though she wasn't demanding it at all. She was so nice, and the 5 year old little girl she brought with her was adorably cute and well-behaved. She bought over $1500 worth of clothes that afternoon, and the manager on duty thought I was the rockstar of the shift because of the Tuesday day-shift sale. The manager gave me a necklace from Nordstrom's and the customer became a regular. We didn't work on commission, but every time she came in she asked for me. This woman emphasized a lesson I learned well while waiting tables/working in retail: treat those who are beneath you well. Since she was always respectful and kind to me, I went out of my way to help her. And, I became a better lowly sales associate because I recognized how much fun it could be to shop for people and see how great they felt in yoga clothes. It isn't worth much, but I've found that when I treat servers and customer service reps well, sometimes they take care of me. Or, they're more willing to help. It's much easier and more pleasant than barking at them to fix something.

 

The scary thing is, people expect you to be a douche. It's not even hard to have people be happy that you're being polite; just act like a decent human being and it's like you magically unlock everyone's Let Me Help You power.

You don't even have to bend over backwards... just act like a normal person.

On the other hand, if they're being like one of these people...

 

Kind of a carryover for this story, but my first real job was working the support desk for medium sized software company. We provided tools for supply chain network planning and vehicle routing and scheduling. As you can imagine, that was not a large and varied customer base and considering the price point we typically got users that were also engineers, mathematicians, etc. I had one regular customer whose name was Jenny and Jenny was super nice, very smart, never called with anything less than a complete pain in the ass problem to solve, and typically she was on a super tight deadline by the point she gave up on fixing it herself. (Side note, but I heard rumors that she was also super hot, but alas I never saw her in person only over the phone or via email).

So one Friday afternoon around 4 PM (help desk unless those worthless shitbag implementation consultants and sales people never got to leave early on Friday**), I am dicking around just killing time until I can head home and enjoy the weekend. My phone rings and it is Jenny calling and I said "oh . . . hi Jenny" in the most discouraged voice that one can imagine and the poor lady just audibly deflated on the phone with "oh I know it's bad when I call." I just felt absolutely terrible, because this person is a customer of our company that pays a lot of manual each year for help desk support, is not a problem or bitchy customer at all, and I just made her feel terrible because our software didn't work and was putting her behind schedule. Asshole is not a big enough word.

However, there was a gigantic lesson from that which has served me well over the years. I have learned how to smile from the wrist down, how to bang my head against a desk while talking in a supportive and calm voice, and generally how to make people not feel bad for having questions. All of that came out of making one very nice person feel bad about themselves when they shouldn't have had to and I still remember it over 10 years later as a driving factor to how I interact with people professionally. To say it has served me well would be an understatement as my career grew.

** Full disclosure, I am now the shit bag sales guy that leaves early on Fridays.

 

The second to worst customer service job I had was during college. Toys R Us during the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle Christmas (that and those damn Furby's). People would cuss at you, demand to go back to the storage warehouse WITH YOU to show you weren't just "hiding them for the weekend crowds", everything. The boxes that they came in had an equal number of all characters (except Splinter, no idea) but EVERYONE wanted Raphael. It got so bad that when we'd get them in (usually 6-8 boxes of 36 characters) we would open all the boxes back on the loading dock, repack each box with just ONE character, write on all four sides what was in it, so no more digging during busy times.

I literally watched a woman that one of my co-workers was helping stare at him through the doorway of the storage area, he was looking at all the boxes to make sure we were out of Raphael, and when he came back and told her there were none, she ran back and dumped all four boxes remaining into the middle of the floor screaming, "You're lying, you didn't even look IN the boxes!" We both stood there in shock as she KICKED all the toys around looking for that specific one. Not finding it, she started to stomp on one of the others. A manager was walking around the corner, grabbed her, called security, who then called the cops for destruction of property & she was arrested. Some people go WAY overboard on their kids.

The actual worst customer service job was an outsource phone support person for Verizon Wireless. We had the ability to reverse certain charges, block text messaging, add up to $50 courtesy credit, all kinds of things without having to escalate. If it was over the $50, or they needed a bill rework, then you had a screen you filled out, put in a follow up to check it the next billing cycle, but it will be fixed. I had lots of idiots. One mother cussed me out over their kid's text messaging when records showed that the month prior, someone called, verified the account including last four of social security number, and had text messaging unblocked and a basic text plan put on. Problem? Basic text messaging was 250 texts. Their kid had over 5,000. Now, this requires a bill rework. Basically, I change the text plan to unlimited, submit the last month's bill to be recalculated under unlimited, and note in the account what the correct bill should be, have the customer pay that, and the next month, everything is fine.. Not good enough! Just because she's holding a $1300+ phone bill, she is screaming & cussing at me, even though I'm telling her she doesn't have to pay it, things will be fixed on the next billing cycle. Finally she demands to speak to a supervisor, I put her on hold, get one, and I listen to the call as my sup talks to her, explains the exact same thing I did. She then proceeds to cuss HIM out, at which time he deletes the bill rework, and tells her, "Ma'am, we do those things as a courtesy to you. The charges are valid. You will pay the entire bill. One more curse word out of your mouth, and I will simply lock all phones on your account (family plan with 4 lines) until the bill is paid, at which time we will cancel your service." Dead silence. "But you told me I didn't have to pay all of that!" He simply said, "You wouldn't have had to, had you not reverted to using profanity and threats over a problem that was already fixed by Ms. Nettie. Are there any other issues you wish for me to resolve today?" Dead silence. "Thank you for calling Verizon Wireless, have a great night." Click.

The absolute BEST was the customer who called to say his phone was stolen, and they were disputing charges on their bill. Keep in mind, we have caller ID, so we know what number you're calling from. As I'm pulling up their bill, you're not supposed to have "dead air" or complete silence on the line, so you think of things to chat with the customer with, the weather, sports, where they live, etc. So it's summertime, and an absolutely gorgeous evening, I'm asking how the weather is like there, they say it's great, but they just got back from vacation in Cancun, and really wish they were back there... so I get the bill pulled up, and ask what charges they were disputing. Two weeks worth of international calls because their phone (that they are on) was "stolen". The international charges? Cancun, Mexico. I simply said, "You were just in Cancun, correct?" "Well, yes..." "That's where these charges are from." "Oh, it was stolen while we were there!" "That's why all the charges are to <other cell number on the account> or <home number listed on the account>?" "They must have gone through my history!" "And they gave the phone back when you left, since you've been back for 8 days, and since then, you've been using the phone, and you are in fact on it right now?" "Damn, this isn't going to work, it is." "I do apologize*, sir, but the charges are valid." "BITCH! You tricked me into saying I went on vacation!" CLICK.

There's tons more, but there were also some REALLY nice people who were thrilled I'd go back & redo up to 3 months worth of bills for them, issue a credit, reverse charges because their kid signed up for a $10 a month daily horoscope site, whatever. Overall, I really liked the job, 80% of the time. The other 20% made me want to either cry, bash my keyboard into millions of pieces, or reach down the phone line & strangle them.

* - "I do apologize" = "I really don't care, but you're a fucking moron and I have to be nice to you." We're taught to NEVER say that, but we all do.

 

Well, this is timely. I got called a "twat" at work on Friday. Ummmm, just no, the "customer" isn't always right. My response, "OK, we are done here" and got up and walked out of the room. Then we flagged him as a "do not see" in the computer. Good luck with your kidney stone buddy, there are lots of other urology offices so maybe you won't curse out the next one who is trying to help. And you don't get to dictate and demand your treatment, sometimes we can't do what you are demanding that we do (which I guess was taking my magic wand and making his kidney stones disappear).

I put up with lots of stuff when I worked at the hospital because I had to (although the term twat may have been a first actually), but in private practice, I'm not going to put up with that.

 

I once had the distinct pleasure at working at the future-builder, look-out-for-the-little-guy whirlwind known to you as Home Depot. Where they dress you like a Tibet monk and pay you the same salary as one. I worked in a speciality department (flooring) where you need to know a LOT of info constantly (the plumbing department has over 25,000 seperate components). No commision, of course. So there's no drive to working in the place as soon as you begin. To admit, the people who I worked with were great. The management where what you would call complete fucking idiots that broke promises to everyone in the store on a weekly basis, meanwhile sending in "underover customers" to rate employee performance to make write-ups and micromanaging easier. For part-time employees for fuck's sake. All the stores pull this shit ALL THE TIME. What a pathetic shithole. A store that rakes in over $100,000 a day in retail rents out the shittiest hall in the entire city for its employee Christmas party. I swear I'm not making this up.

When I worked for a private flooring company, it was a FANTASTIC retail job. Minimal customers, everyone friendly, climate controlled...half my day was spent reading books at my desk and twice a day I would go do estimates at a person's house. The pay was great and I only worked with one other person. I miss that job, but eventually the store was bought out by Gold's Gym and we were gone.

 

The same company you are talking about as not caring about their employees also works people 39.5 hours so they can be considered "part time" so they don't have to provide them employee health insurance. Now that is heartbreaking to tell patients that of course you can help treat them, but they are going to have to deliver $5000 cashiers check for all of the various people holding their hands out (hospital, anaesthesiogist, surgeon) before we can even schedule them because they are uninsured. And none of those patients ever called me names for it (even though I sure felt like one). But that is a topic for another day.

 

I'm not the person you want working with the public; I hate the public. I'm fine in a job that peripherally deals with customer service ("we have to treat the customer right" "what's best for the customer?" "the call center really needs more resources to do right by our customers"), but when dealing directly with customers, my loathing and hatred of the public kind of shines through, no matter what happy face I put on it.

I'm being tongue in cheek here, but you know, if you've ever worked with the public, you can't help it. My first job ever was as a waitress, so I learned to loathe people early on.

The last job I had directly dealing with the public was as a national park ranger, so this was eons ago. I think the worst face of people that you can see is when they're on vacation. Something about being sunburnt and hungover and dealing with issues like hunger ("where's McDonald's?") and shelter ("it's Labor Day weekend, we didn't make reservations, and you're telling me THERE ARE NO MORE CAMPSITES?") makes people nasty. In fact, the whole summer season, I only ever saw one person walk through the Visitors Center with a smile, and coincidentally, he was the only black person I saw in the park.

The worst of the worst was when you had to tell people to get their dogs off the trail. Apparently, enforcing this regulation is worse than telling them to go fuck their mother, because the reaction us rangers would get trumped all other unpleasant situations with the public.

I think my lesson learned is that in dealing with a CSR (customer service rep) on any issue, to know that that CSR sees the whole bell curve of attitudes/problems/issues. In other words, it's a one-off relationship for me, as the customer, but they've had hundreds or thousands of these encounters.

And get this story from the summer: the most dedicated of our cadre, the nearly nun-like park devotee who would spend her off-hours researching more park knowledge while the rest of us got drunk and/or ran around playing outside, the woman that made about $15,000/year for the past 10 years because she kept coming back to the low paying temp ranger job and working as a Walmart clerk during the winter....had a very bad luck of the draw one fine day in the VC. She happened to be working the front desk, and in wandered some grizzled old rock hound, that apparently had a geology book published in the day. When I came thru the VC, on my off day because of paperwork something or other, he was getting angrier and angrier with her, demanding to know why we didn't have his book for sale. She opted to go for the broken record, neutral but not asskissing route, and he just kept at it and kept at it. Finally she started waiting on other customers, and he stormed out. He ended up going home and writing a nasty letter to his Congressman (I know this because one of the other rangers snuck the letter out of the Superintendent's office and copied it for all us lackeys), and she was subsequently written up and never worked in a park again. Last I saw on FB, she was working at a Walmart in North Carolina and had found God. I hope that stupid old rockhound died in a mineshaft.