For once a Nice Customer

Yesterday was a day filled with nasty customers, and downright assholes. However this time I feel like talking about the one nice lady that I had the pleasure of helping out. 

This poor lady, who was in her late 50's, had her car run out of gas on the state highway by my work. I was outside on my break when I saw her walking up behind the store, and she asked if there was a phone she could use. I told her that inside the store there were phones that we could let her use for emergency calls. I went back in and about 5 minutes later, this lady comes strolling up and asks to use the phone. She told me that her car ran out of gas and she had to call someone for help. The people she called asked for an email address so they could send a confirmation of roadside assistance being sent out. I gave her my email since I was able to check it on the work computer. 

About an hour and half later, the lady comes back in and says that the roadside assistance would not go on the road that she claimed her car was on because it was a toll road, and that there was no way she walked that far to the store. The guy, who had came with his own personal car and no credentials, ended up driving her around a different road for 45 minutes looking for the car that wasn't even there. 

At this point the poor lady is worrying about the cops having the car towed off the road, and that her family doesn't know where she is. Once again I let her use the phone, then offer that I could drive her to her car. Since it was getting late and dark out, I left work 30 minutes early and drove this wonderful lady up the turnpike looking for the car. We finally saw it off the side of the road with the hazard lights on. Unfortunately it was on the opposite side of the road, which meant i had to drive to the next exit, pay the toll and turn around to get to the car. This whole time, the lady is telling me her life story, and about her husband who is in the hospital. We talked the whole way about different things, and we had a great time. 

When we got to the car, I made sure it was only gas that was the problem, and waited for a tow truck to come. The driver told us that it would be a $100 charge to be towed to a gas station at the next exit. The lady unfortunately did not have any money on her, and didn't have enough to pay for some gas. I decided to give the tow truck driver my AAA card, which would cover being towed to the next exit. Luckily after hearing the story of how I helped this lady on my own time, the driver offered to accept the AAA card, and then tow the car to her house on his own dim.

This whole situation made me feel so good about myself and about other people. Knowing that there are people out there that are willing to help while expecting nothing in return is just a great feeling. I hope that if something like this happens to me, someone will be just as nice and help me out.

--Servant of the People

Respect Part 2

There is one thing about customers and respect that I did not touch on in my last rant. I don't know why it slipped my mind, since to me, it is my biggest pet peeve. I am talking about when customers come up to pay and they just throw theyre money down on the counter, as if it is beneath them to hand it to you. To me, this shows utter lack of respect for you as a person.

It just pisses me off to no end, to go out of my way to be nice to someone and have them ignore you and throw their money on the counter. Why don't you throw it on the ground while you're at it. This has been a symbol of superiority for the ages. Going as far back as when people first started having servants and slaves, the owners or masters thought that the ones serving them did not deserve to have anything handed to them, and would end up throwing it on the ground to show them that they were in a position of authority.

Even though society has grown out of master servant relationships, I feel that it still lingers in peoples subconcious. They wont say it, but people who do this feel that they are better than you, and should not have to give you any courtesy. Does it really take that much more effort to wait for you to take the money from your hand? No, not really.

This is the most annoying when you actually go to take it out of their hand, and instead of letting you, the customer will just drop it. The same goes for when someone is paying with a credit card. They will litterally throw the card at you, not really caring if it glides off the counter and onto the floor. The most they will say is "Oh, im sorry" in a smug little voice. I know your not sorry, and how about you just hand me the damn card instead of throwing it at me. I am not a dog your throwing treats to, I am a fucking person.

I touched on this last point in my last rant about respect, but as I am writing this it just kept nagging at me. If someone goes out of their way to say "Hey, how are you doing?", the correct response is not barking out an order of what you want. I bet you will notice the faces of the employees turn to disgust pretty quickly after you do this. I have caught myself doing this once or twice when I preoccupied with something on my mind, but when I look up and realize what I said, I am quick to correct by saying something along the lines of "I'm sorry, I'm doing fine. How about you?"

The next time you are in a store, try and realize that the person behind the counter is a human, and deserves more than having stuff thrown at them or having orders barked in their faces.

That's all for now. Luckily my viral infection is over and I am back to work, so I should have plenty of more stories to tell.

--Servant of the People

We are not a bank!!

Ok, What I don't understand is, if you are going to ask for smaller bills at a store....why do you ask for large bills at the bank? Let me make this clear, I don't mind making change for someone that needs to use the soda machine and what not. What I do mind is when people come up with a $100 bill and ask for 10s and 5s. If you wanted those denominations, why didn't you ask for them at the bank? 

At my work, we have this one guy that comes in a couple times a week. He always hands us at least $200, usually more, in 50s and 100s to be changed into 5s, 10s, and 20s. Most of the time we do not have the money in our drawers to be able to make the change, and have to end up borrowing money from our cash office, which is a pain in and of itself. We have asked him on several occasions not to do this, but he just ignores us and states it is our job to do what he wants. Hes even complained to corporate about us refusing to make change for him, and now we are basically forced to do it.

I swear people like this are trying to compensate for something. They feel the need to get big bills from the bank, so that when they go to the store, the employees will be all amazed and jealous about the kind of money he carries around. I am willing to bet that those few $50 bills are from some government assistance program. 

Its not even the making change that gets on my nerves, its the smug look he gives us when hes walking up to the counter, and the obvious staring at my female coworkers. I don't think I can state how much of  a pig he is, and how he is probably compensating for being incontinent. You are not a big shot, you are an annoying sad little man. Go to the bank and get your own damn change. 

Rant about Managers

This is not so much a story as it is a rant. I am getting sick and tired of managers and supervisors being pushed around by customers. Just because a customer is going to bitch an complain about things if they don't get their way, doesn't mean you give them whatever they want just to avoid confrontation. The other day a big bitch of a lady came to return an item but had no receipt. Now the item was one of the few things store policy says we HAVE to have a receipt for. I told the lady that and she started giving me an attitude. This is when my manager came over and said "oh we can return that for you, your here all the time."

Apparently whenever this bitch doesn't get her way, she complains the to corporate office until she does. My manager also tells me "oh shes so and so's mom". Well you know what, I don't give a shit who she is, Policy says no receipt no return. If they don't want to deal with the BS that comes back from corporate fine, give it to me. I will stand up for my decision no matter what. We should not be rewarding customers for giving us Bull shit. They say they don't want to lose customers, but my question is do you really want THOSE kinds of customers? Let them go somewhere else and annoy them.

To all you managers and supervisors out there. Don't be afraid to stand up to a customer about an issue. Your employees will love you for having their backs. If anything, its good to know you made the customer waste their time going to corporate. If they get enough resistance, they'll eventually stop.

Well that's all I have for today, unfortunately I've been stuck home due to a viral infection, so I haven't really been in the mood to be on the computer. Hopefully tomorrow will be different.

--Servant of the People

Spring Break Bikini Brawl

Someone reminded me of this video, not exactly new, but it cracks me up every time. I wonder what was so bad that made her snap.

The Senile Flower Lady

So today was a relatively slow day at work. So it did not surprise me that some annoying customer was going to come out of the woodwork to ruin what was so far a pleasant day.

This lady calls and right off the bat starts complaining to me about how the flowers she purchased last week were dead. Apparently she bought them for a church event, and they were dead when she bought them. Now the first thought that came into my mind was *why did you buy dead flowers in the first place*. But unfortunately I am not allowed to say that, because its "rude".

She goes on to explain about how she was very embarrassed bringing these to the event and having them looking awful *once again why did you buy them if they were awful*. After a couple minutes of her explaining her unsatisfaction with the flowers, she gets to the heart of her complaint.

She first tells me that she purchased the flowers with her debit card, and that the church was going to reimburse her for the expense. She then said that when she returned the item, they employee chose the credit button and therefor did not return it to her account. Now if you have read my previous post about Cash Back, you would know that we can only return things as a credit. I think I spent a good five minutes trying to make her understand that all returns process as a credit, and it is up to your bank on when it actually hits your account.

After seeing my logic, she tries to switch her story around. She now is saying that when she bought the Flowers, the cashier chose credit for her and not debit. She never uses credit because the money she uses is her money, because shes 80 something years old. She then states that the money was her grocery money for the week. But wait a minute, she just said that the church was reimbursing her for the flowers and also if she had already spent the money how could it be for groceries the next week.

Somehow we get back into arguing about why the money isn't in her account. She informs me that she returned them late Monday. After explaining that since she returned it after 3pm Monday, the bank wouldn't receive it until Tuesday, and most likely wouldn't process until Wednesday night. So the money would be in her account most likely on Thursday morning. She would have to call her bank to find out. She then starts asking what bank the store uses, and kept insisting even after I explain that it is up to her bank not ours.

What should have been a 2 minute or less conversation, wound up being 10 minutes in total. Sometimes I just cant fathom what is going through these peoples heads. They just have to blame someone, when it could most likely have been avoided on there part. Lesson of the day for this woman: Don't buy dead flowers.

--Servant of the People

Can I Return This?

One of the biggest things you have to deal with in the customer service business, people returning things. Now for the most part we return almost ANYTHING, and when I say anything I mean it. We once refunded a woman for a turkey because it was dry after she cooked it. God forbid she thinks that she may have over cooked it....nope it was our fault, apparently.

One of the few things we don't return is stuff bought from out competitors. You'd think this would be a common sense kind of thing, but trust me there are people that just don't get it.

Case in point, This lady walks up to me with a roll of Aluminum foil and asks if she could return it. She did not have her receipt, but that usually isn't a problem, since we can return it as store credit. However when I went to scan the item, it kept coming up saying "Item not Found". This tells me that the bar code is not in our system, so not from our store. I take a look at the product, and notice a white label stuck over the bar code that is printed right on the box. Now having been a cashier before, I knew that our products do not have these stickers.

This is the conversation that followed:

Me: M'am, I don't think you bought this here. Its not scanning into the system.
Idiot Customer: No you must be mistaken, I do all of my shopping here. I wouldn't have bought it elsewhere.
Me: Well M'am, I'm 100% sure this did not come from our store, we don't put these labels on our products *points to white sticker*
Idiot Customer: Are you sure? I'm sure I bought this here!
Me: Yes M'am, I'm sure. *I've only been working here for a year, i think i know what our products look like*
Idiot Customer: Oh ok, I guess I might have bought that at *competitor name here*


Now I thought this was the end of it. But as the woman is walking away, she turns around and starts confronting me in a much angrier tone. She went from being an Idiot, to being a complete Bitch.

Employees Only

So this wasn't something that happened to me, but something I witnessed today.

I was doing some work at the cafe in my local Borders, like every Monday and Wednesday. Went in got my coffee and took a seat. I noticed as I was setting up my laptop, that the clerk picked up a big metal container and brought it to the back, probably to have it cleaned and what not. Less than a minute after the employee walked through the back room door, a middle aged woman walked up the counter and started taping her fingers on it. After waiting maybe 30 seconds she storms behind the counter and opens the door where the clerk had went. This is what I heard:

Bitch: HELLO!!! HELLOOOOOO!! IS ANYONE WORKING HERE!!!
Employee: M'am, this area is for employees only. I will be out to help you in just a minute.
Bitch: Your supposed to helping customers like me, not fooling around in the back room!
Employee: Your not allowed back here M'am, please go out front and I will be with you in a second.
Bitch: Well you better hurry up, I have somewhere to be.

Now the best part is when another customer chimes in:

Customer: Hey Lady! If you just waited at the counter like a normal person instead of being a complete bitch
he would have already been done and helped you.
Bitch: Excuse me? Why don't you mind your own business!
Customer: Why don't you get the fuck out of here and stop harassing people, you ignorant bitch.
Bitch: UHG! I don't need this! *storms out of the store*

Well, I have to say that the whole event was making me crack up. I love it when other customers rescue the employees from assholes like that. I want to know who she thought she was to go into the back room and start yelling at the employee. Ah well, at least this bitch got put in her place. Too many people get away with it.

--Servant of the People

Customers and Lunch Breaks

For many of you who work for larger companies, you are not allowed to work off the clock. This includes when you clock out for lunch. Well in retail stores customers like to pretend that your lunch break isn't worth a damned thing.

Several times after I clocked out for lunch and preceded to walk to the back of the store for a cigarette, customers will approach me and ask questions. Most of the time I answer them politely and continue on my way.  However, every so often you get that bitch of a customer that wont leave you alone.

Today after I clocked out, a woman came up to me and asked where an item was located. As usual I told her where it was and continued on my way. This time, the woman stopped me again and DEMANDED I show her where it is exactly. I told the lady that I was on my lunch break and could not, but informed her there was an employee back in that section that could help her find what she needed.

Now as I am sitting outside enjoying my break, a manager comes up to me and says that a woman filed a complain against me for refusing to help her. Even though the complain didn't go any farther and the manager understood completely, it was still extremely frustrating. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that customers don't give two shits about you being on break or not.

One of these days I would love to follow someone to their work and start asking them to do work when they are on lunch. I assure you 100% of them will refuse and get pissed off for asking. If anyone can think of a reason why customers think this way, please leave a comment. I cannot figure it out for the life of me!

--Servant of the People

Cash Back

This subject has been the topic of many complaints and arguments. Customers tend to feel that stores are banks, and should be able to give them as much money back as they want, or give them as much change as they want. We all know that its just too hard and takes too much time to drive across the parking lot. Well the story I have for today is about one particular bitch that decided to take it to the next level.

It all started on a very busy Sunday afternoon, cashiers are all working as fast as possible trying to get customers out the door, and possibly catch that rare moment of down time. A woman goes through a line to purchase her $50 worth of items. Now for the 5 minutes this lady is being rung up, she does not bag her own groceries, she does not help put the bags in her cart, and she does not bother to say anything to the cashier (because of course its a cashier, shes too high and mighty to talk to one of those.) At the end of the order the cashier tells the woman her total and processes it. This was the mistake.

Respect

Day in and Day out I deal with the most rude people on the face of the earth. The thing I hear the most out of the mouth of the customers is "This is ****** your supposed to be about customer service." Now most of the time the complaints I get are about cashiers. I will admit there are some cashiers that deserve the complaints, but in my experience its the customers that deserve the complaints.

When I used to be a cashier, I would always ask the customers how they were doing and if they found everything okay. Some of the nicer people would actually talk to you and respond. However most of the people I talked to didn't even acknowledge my existence. Half the time they were on their cell phones, reading a book, or just down right ignoring me. Every now and then I get the customer that has the nerve to go report me for not being friendlier to them, and I remember exactly who they are. They are the people that looked at me like I was a piece of dirt for working a cash register, and I rung them out as fast and quietly as possible just to get them the hell out.

When I was growing up, I was always taught that if you wanted respect, you had to give respect. I guess in todays world we want everything without giving anything in return.

--Servant of the People

The Hell that is called Lottery

Many of you may have noticed that the Mega Millions jackpot was at $312 million on Friday. Now for anybody that doesn't work behind a counter that sells lottery, you may be thinking happy thoughts and dreaming about what you could do with that kind of money.

Unfortunately, when I walk into work and see those big red letters up that high, all I can do is sigh and get ready for hell. You see, when a lottery jackpot gets anywhere above $200 million, all the nut jobs decide to rush to the store and spend their life savings on tickets. Pretty much all day, the line for lottery tickets is 10 people deep. This wouldn't be so bad if people weren't spending $300. Normally I can whip through the line in about 5 minutes, but when a single person takes 10 minutes to make up their mind and want me to print out 100 chances all on separate tickets, it takes FOREVER. Now normally I don't give a crap how long it takes. Work is work. But when people are waiting in line that long, they get impatient, and instead of just buying their tickets and leaving, they have to complain to me. Which gets old, fast.

You have two different types of lottery players. The ones mentioned above, and the hardcore lottery players. These people have played the same pick 3 and pick 4 numbers twice a day, everyday, for 20 years. As they are waiting in line, with nothing to do, a normal person would fill out a lottery card to make it move a little faster. Unfortunately there are no normal people, and they come up and rattle off 100 sets of numbers as fast as humanly possible, then have the nerve to get upset when you ask them to repeat. My favorite mistake is putting a pick 4 Straight and box on one ticket. OH MY GOD you'd think the world ended. I wish I could throw a blank form at them and tell them to fill it out themselves.

The sad thing is, I cant escape the hardcore lottery players even when I'm not working. I bet everyone has been to a 7-11 trying to buy a soda, and the only teller is tied up with some wrinkled up old fart that has a wad full of numbers that the teller has to hand enter into the machine. Your 1 minute pit stop just turned into 15.

Please, if anyone gets anything out of this rant, let it be to FILL OUT YOUR NUMBERS AHEAD OF TIME!!!!

That is all.

--Servant of the People

Welcome!

Hi there!

Anyone who has visited some kind of retail store has run into someone like me. If you haven't guessed by now, I am one of the people standing behind the customer service desk at your favorite place to shop. I would love to tell you which one of your favorite stores I call home, but due to the brand new social media clause I cannot. That and I don't need crazy people finding out I was talking about them, then finding me in the parking lot and running me over.

The purpose of this blog is to blow off steam that builds up from dealing with customers all day, everyday. Some of what I have to say may offend some, if that is the case then you are most likely the kind of person I cant stand and I don't care what you think.

I feel that customers have plenty of places to bitch, moan, and complain about every little thing they encounter. This is my place to bitch, moan, and complain about the worst of those customers. If you don't like what you see, then hit that little X in the top right of the screen, and good riddance.

-- Servant of the People