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