Rachel Marcy previously shared Seven Hospital Vignettes.
A group of college students asked for the student price. I’d previously gotten in trouble for failing to thoroughly check student IDs, so I figured I should follow through. They didn’t have them.
I was on my own and I ordinarily wouldn’t care, but one of the guys annoyed me, so I told them they would have to pay full price.
“Look,” he said pompously, “You can either make $10 at the student price, or nothing. Which is it going to be?”
“I get paid by the hour,” I said. “If you don’t have your ID, you have to pay the full price.”
He looked confused. They left. I might not be a paragon of customer service.
*
The man and the woman strode to the counter and demanded tickets for the exhibit.
I started to speak. “If you want the coatroom–”
“Thanks,” the man snapped, as he stalked off into the exhibit room.
A minute later, they re-emerged, and asked the gift shop manager where they could hang their coats.
“She didn’t tell us where,” the man said, accusingly.
They divested themselves of their coats and walked back through the gift shop. The man narrowed his eyes and glared at me.
I leaned against the counter and smiled benignly. We maintained eye contact until he was forced to twist his head around rather than watch where he was going. Eventually the woman ushered him inside the door. He broke off first, so I’m pretty sure that means I won.
*
A man came storming in.
“Do you have outdoor hibiscus?” he demanded.
“I’m not sure, but I can call the gardener,” I said.
“DO YOU HAVE OUTDOOR HIBISCUS?”
“No,” I said.
He left.
*
The car was sitting in the parking lot. It was 10 minutes before closing, and I really didn’t want to deal with people. At first I thought maybe they’d pulled over to read a map. Upon further examination, they were making out in the front seat.
They were teenagers, or maybe he was early 20s. I remembered seeing her around school, but I didn’t know her name.
I told them we sold the last tickets half an hour before closing. They could go in if they really wanted to, but they’d only have 10 minutes and we didn’t give a discount.
The guy started offering me increasing amounts of money, although I’m not sure to what end. I wasn’t easily tempted to stay past closing time, that’s for sure.
“You could just pay $16,” I said. “But we still close in 10 minutes. Or you could come back another time.”
“Well, I just inherited $30,000, so it doesn’t matter to me,” he blustered.
At that point, I guess his girlfriend coaxed him away.
They returned a few weeks later.
“So, you decided to come back,” I observed.
“I’ve never been here,” he said, combatively.
His girlfriend nudged him. “No…” she said, with a shy smile. “We have. Remember? That one time?”
“No,” he said, bluntly. “I was probably high.”
*
Two women and a 2-year-old walked into the toy store. The older woman was the boy’s mother, and the younger was presumably the nanny.
“Can you help me?” the older woman asked. “I get totally overwhelmed by stores like this.”
So I took her around the store, making suggestions for a birthday present for a 4-year-old girl. We must have found something satisfactory, because she turned her attention to her second problem: she was pregnant, and she wanted her son to give his future sibling a present. Her son was interested in a stuffed monkey, so she thought maybe that could become the gift.
Feeling a sense of obligation and dread, I told her that the button eyes on the stuffed animal weren’t considered baby-safe. “But we have a baby-safe monkey with thread eyes right here!” I said, encouraging her back into the infant section.
“Fillmore!*” she said, grasping a monkey in each hand. “Which one do you want for Baby Brother or Baby Sister? This isn’t for you. Do you want this one or this one? Baby Brother or Baby Sister? No, this isn’t for you.”
“Sister?” Fillmore said, tentatively.
One of the monkeys was bought, per Fillmore’s confused pointing. Probably the one with the hazardous button eyes, but I can’t remember. Fillmore got a knight figurine. I considered telling her that it was probably too delicate for a toddler, but then I gave up.
The next day I was working at the store’s second location. My back was to the door when I heard her voice.
“Fillmore!”
I turned.
“Oh,” she giggled, crinkling her nose in amusement. “You were at the other store yesterday. Ha ha.”
“Ha ha,” I said.
Fillmore was clutching the toy knight. Its sword had broken, or something, and she wanted to return it. Not that Fillmore cared; Fillmore was upset he was losing his knight.
“Do you have anything like it that’s better for toddlers?” she asked.
I showed her a set of small wooden figures, complete with royal family and knights. Fillmore seemed interested, but his mother fretted.
“Daddy doesn’t like you to have toys that look like dolls,” she said.
They bought that or something else. Fillmore sank to the floor, sobbing.
“Yes, yes,” his mother said, picking him up. “It’s so hard being two and a half.”
*Name changed. It was another Presidential surname, though.
*
The man was visiting friends, and he wanted a gift for their 2-year-old daughter. “Her dad’s a doctor and her mom’s a journalist, so she’s probably really brilliant,” he said. This was a common theme: people hastened to assure me that the child in question was not, by any metric, an average kid. “What do you have for a precocious 4-year-old?” they’d say. The doctor-lawyer combination was the trump card of power parents.
I showed the man the Lego Duplo. “Do girls play with Lego?” he asked.
I showed him some of my favorite picture books. “I just don’t think they’d take the time to read to her,” he said, dubious. That probably wasn’t remotely true, but it still made me desperately sad. “Anyway, she’s probably reading at a college level, or something.”
He bought the books. I pictured him standing, shocked, as his brilliant friends praised their daughter for bladder control.
*
We had a regular customer, Lilly, who often came in with her nanny. She’d roll into the store in her stroller, and climb out with the demeanor of a miner descending for a day’s work. She would then set about exploring the store with great seriousness of purpose.
When an older woman tried to say hello, Lilly graced her with an affronted scowl, then resumed pushing her miniature shopping cart around the store. The woman laughed and said it was good to be cautious around strangers.
Lilly presumably recognized me as a fellow curmudgeon, because she gradually decided I was an acceptable person. If there weren’t other customers in the store, we’d play with the trains. She even started talking to me, although I think that was more a sign of her increasing age than my likeability.
We had a bucket of noisemakers by the counter. They were just plastic tubes that made a rather irritating sound when tilted, but they were beloved by children of a certain age. Lilly handed me one.
“Thank you,” I said.
She handed me a second one.
“Thank you,” I said.
She handed me a third.
“Th–”
She took it back, totally deadpan.
Lilly was a precocious child.
*
Tags: jobs, rachel marcy, retail, weird true tales, work, writing
I work in customer service and at least in my experience, talking to a Lilly makes all of these terrible people less memorable.
TOO REAL.
I have to leave for my own retail job in an hour lolol sob.
I firmly believe that people who have never worked in retail have like, zero conception of what it is like. Which would explain SO many things: abject rudeness, the belief that you can bribe retail employees, the idea that “I’ll never shop here again!” is some kind of threat, the thought that berating the cashier will somehow produce lower prices and/or better selection, etc. There are so many rude, terrible customers out there that it truly beggars belief and the only explanation is that some people really truly believe that retail is another world or retail employees are not real people.
I used to work at a place with rotating flavors, and customers would get *so mad* at me if we didn’t have their flavor that day, and ask me all sorts of questions. And I always wanted to be like, “do you REALLY think I have this much control over the operations of the store? Do you see me right now? I am wearing a name tag in the shape of a hand.”
I don’t understand how people can go through life without ever working retail. But they must exist because there are people who clearly have NEVER worked in retail, like the dude who didn’t know where to put his coat and then was rude about it.
I have never worked in retail. As a teenager, I decided I didn’t want to work in retail or in fast food. I cleaned outhouses and bathrooms in public parks instead and never regretted the decision.
so, you just had to deal with a different sort of shit.
*sheepish wave* I have never worked retail before, but I *have* worked customer service gigs almost exclusively. I can’t fathom the kind of bullshit that retail employees have to deal with, but the stories I’ve heard have been more than enough reason to offer nothing but the most pleasant experiences I can provide as a customer.
I skipped retail and instead worked at museums growing up. I finally did a season in retail in my late 20s, but honestly I think that either you learn the life lessons or you don’t, but retail isn’t the only teacher.
the thought that berating the cashier will somehow produce lower prices
This is because of all those damn newspaper/magazine/blog articles like “LIFEHACK: just casually ask the staff for a discount. They totally have the liberty to knock big bucks off the price tag, but only if you ask. Don’t be afraid to take a stand! Insist on your rightful discount! Show those minimum-wage-earning teens that you aren’t some chump who’s stupid enough to pay the advertised price!”
There are so many “how to get what you want from customer service” articles out there that are just advocating douche-y behavior. No, using my name at the end of every sentence will not make me more inclined to give you what you want. No, we do not have any X in reserve that I can sell you. No, you are probably not as charming as you think you are. Yes, you can talk to my manager, but they are going to be annoyed at having to tell you the exact same thing that I did. If you really want to complain about policy Y, send a letter to the head of the company, I get paid by the hour and don’t make the rules.
I actually do do customer service where I have a little bit of liberty to give people discounts if they are nice or charming or because I feel like being nice, but I usually like to do it for people who are my friends or people who are totally not expecting it. People who think they are entitled to it are less likely to get it.
I was just going to say, about the only real way to get a discount from a cashier is if the customer is being especially nice, or has just done a nice thing for a fellow customer, or in one case, if the cashier has just recognized that the customer is the person who called 911 for her several months ago while she was chasing after her mugger yelling “Hey! Hey! That’s my purse!”
…If I could have purchased the books for her, I would have, but all I could give was 40% off.
Occasionally you can benefit from the previous customer being an arsehole.
We rented a car once on a holiday weekend when lots of flights had been cancelled. Literally all rental cars in the whole of NYC had been booked. The guy in front of us was really awkward (“How much?! Well, what would the price be if I rented a different size car on a different date from a different location?”). The attendant served us while he was thinking about it and as she led us out to a much larger car than we had paid for, confided that she only had one economy car left, and she was saving it for him.
The worst part is when your manager won’t back you up, or is authorized by The Powers That Be to take liberties with pricing that would get you fired, and it bites you in the ass. My last retail manager was like that. The store’s numbers had been steadily dropping, so he was throwing around discounts like it was going out of style. I lost a lot of sales because of that. (We didn’t earn commission, but we had a weekly sales quota).
“Um, why are these boots ringing up at full price?”
“They’re brand-new stock, we just got them in this week. They won’t be on sale for another couple of months.”
“I was here yesterday and spoke to this guy named John, and he said he could give me a 25% discount.”
“Well… he could, because he’s the manager, but the most I’m authorized to do is 10%. He’s not in today.”
“In that case I’ll just come back later when he’s here.”
I inevitably ended up getting fired because I never met my sales figures, THANKS A LOT JOHN
Yep, I remember basically that scenario when I worked retail – a “well if you won’t give me a discount let me talk to your manager!” guy. Okay, here’s my manager, manager didn’t have any particular discount to offer, so “well I WANT a discount, let me talk to YOUR manager!” and she gave him the number for corporate offices, who promptly called us to say “just give a damn discount, how dare you possibly not satisfy a customer?” and yet whined at us all the time when weekly sales numbers weren’t sufficient…
Managers who won’t back up their staff are The Worst, in any industry.
The absolute worst.
My favourite food service job was at a lovely little restaurant owned by two of the most stuck up, weird, bitter people I’ve ever met. I absolutely adored them. One time I had a customer complain about his friend’s meal. His own meal was fine, and the friend wasn’t upset about receiving buttered toast instead of dry toast, it was just a weird ego thing I guess. This asshole screamed in my face, called me incompetent, and demanded to speak to the manager. My boss walked over to the table, listened politely to the guy as he explained the situation, and then kicked him out without letting him finish his meal. Take that, motherfucker!
I feel so vindicated just reading that.
My boss told me, when I’d been working there long enough to actually answer customer questions, that if a customer got difficult, or started being rude to me, that I should hand them off to him, because “you’re not paid to put up with that kind of shit.” My boss has many flaws, but he’s ultimately a pretty great boss.
I have an awesome manager/owner who totally backs us up. All of the staff are allowed to add any person, at any time, and for any reason to our “Do Not Rent” list (I work in a hotel) and then that person is banned forever. And the manager is totally ok with that. I once asked if it was ok to add some guy who’d swore at me over a refund, and my boss was all “add him, he was a jerk.” And one time he called up corporate and yelled at them for an hour on my behalf because I had been put through hell the previous night when they screwed up and triple booked us. It was Amazing. Corporate even apologized when he was done.
I worked at a movie theater in high school and my boss demanded that we box office monkeys demand customers follow the “no large bags” policy (put in place after 9/11, in theory to protect us from bombs, but mostly to prevent people from bringing in their own microwave popcorn/snacks). Whenever we stopped someone, they inevitably threw a fit, the manager would be called, and he’d apologize and let them through. Infuriating and a waste of everyone’s time.
At my theatre, we had extra-small bags that was hidden from the customers. We were told to lie about its existence if the customer asked us about it. So one day a customer comes up, requests an extra small bag and before I could tell my spiel, she said, “Look, I know you have them.” And I gave it to her.
The manager immediately swoops down like a hawk and I tell him point blank, “She knew we were lying.” Surprisingly I never got reamed. It was my only moment of small defiance that I treasure greatly.
As a cashier, I was often told, “They have to show the coupon to get the discount. But if they’re really angry, just give it to them.”
No. I do not reward adults who throw temper tantrums.
I worked at a store where I gave a small discount to the cook at the tiny but spectacular Thai place across the street, and then he’d give me my dinner for cheaper. Works out for everyone.
I’ve worked at so many places where there was a manager-to-manager discount deal going on. Most memorably, the summer I did a gig at Godiva, our store manager regularly swapped her employee discount (50 percent!) for free pizzas from the fancy Italian place in the mall. As a broke, broke, broke summer-between-college-years kid, my birthday gift to my two roommates with a shared birthday was $50 worth of chocolates and a free pizza (which cost me $25). It’s still the only birthday gift-giving experience I remember.
Yeah, why not? If you can do it then it just makes everyone happier.
Our movie theater had an ongoing “understanding” with the local ice cream stand. They’d bring us sundaes and we’d let them have free movies. It was excellent.
That sounds like heaven.
Once a lovely person casually used their employee discount to give me a jacket for free once and I didn’t notice until I looked at the receipt later. My friend thought she thought I was attractive, but I’m pretty sure I just looked super poor.
This very lovely sales clerk once gave me a 35% “friends & family discount” once. She was the best and then the whole company went under 🙁
When I was filling my BC script last time, the cashier at CVS asked about my insurance and I explained that my insurance didn’t cover any BC because it was provided through my religious institution workplace. She was like, “Let me see what I can do” and somehow, miraculously, whipped up a 50% discount. It was the best.
Love your use of the word miraculous in this context!
I have been given discounts at independent bookshops twice (most recently just a few weeks ago), due to a combination of approving of my book selection and wanting to make the final total a convenient round number. I have an uncomfortable feeling that this is part of why independent bookshops go bust so often, though.
Nah. You can thank Amazon for bookstores closing. Small discounts (especially to people likely to come back and buy more books) usually aren’t enough to put them out of business.
Rewarding nice customers with small discounts is, honestly, one of the few joys involved in retail/food service. It’s a tiny moment of control and empowerment in an otherwise dehumanizing job, and a small “fuck you” to corporate. Also, nice customers make terrible shifts marginally less terrible, and it’s nice to do something for them to acknowledge that hey, I was ready to burst into tears before you walked in, and then you were cool, and recognized me as a person with inherent worth and dignity. Here’s a 20% discount.
Why yes, I have worked as a barista, why do you ask?
i worked at a larger retailer and we kept a list of active discount codes by the register, even ones that were in coupons or ones that weren’t advertised. if someone was really lovely, i would always use one of those. “you were JUST telling me about how you subscribe to lucky magazine and saw our coupon in the back, right?” “i’ve never heard of—” “you’re SO right, they’re one of my favorites too! 30% off it is.” surprise discount time was probably one of my favorite parts of that job.
OH MY GOD I hate when people use my name over and over again. (Unless it’s like, a nice older lady.) It’s always these asshole, aggressive guys that think they’re being charming but it’s really some weird power thing, and it BEYOND skeeves me out.
It is pretty much the number one way to guarentee I will not lift a finger to do anything for your that is not explicitly in my job description. Especially if you got it off my name tag/shirt and not from me saying it.
Ugh I hate that so much. I feel like using someone’s name at them like that is actually pretty aggressive in a conversation.
Yes! It’s the “forced teaming” thing that really rubs me the wrong way.
At a past bookstore job of mine, we all had to wear nametags prominently displayed and it was SO infuriating to have customers think that gave them permission to use our names (while maintaining complete anonymity themselves, of course). One guy always wore the nametag but removed his name from it, specifically citing that power imbalance as the reason why. He never changed it when the managers told him to. They let him get away with it because he was an experienced trainer for new hires at holiday time.
I worked in the children’s department and covered mine with glittery stickers until the name wasn’t readable at a glance. Worked almost as well.
I used to wear a name tag with the wrong name on it, but a name close enough to my name that I didn’t really get in trouble for it. This was an ideal situation, because it meant I knew who was some weirdo customer who got it off the tag, and who knew my parents or something (small town, man).
It’s a neuro-linguistic programming trick, so these people actually think that they are being super subtle and manipulating you, which somehow makes it even more infuriating!
We don’t wear name tags at my food service job, but we are encouraged to introduce ourselves to our tables. A couple weeks ago, I did so; guy asked if anyone ever calls me *common nickname*, I said no, and then he proceeded to call me that nickname the entire time he was there. And he was one of those people. (He also complained about pickles being 25 cents extra, even though our menu clearly states what comes with a burger.)
YES! Anyone else listen to that This American Life ep that had the reporter testing out this thing called “The Good Guy Discount”? I seethed. What the fuck. The reason it’s embarrassing to ask for a discount that doesn’t exist is that YOU SHOULDN’T ASK FOR A DISCOUNT THAT DOESN’T EXIST. Gawd. All I could think while listening was “of course it’s a good GUY discount, only a dude would be entitled enough to believe he was owed a price cut just by existing and then be confrontational about it”
YESSS I remember that segment making me so so uncomfortable. I think it was their attitude about it that pissed me off the most. If I remember right, they kind of played the whole segment off as “Haha, look at this cool thing my friend does to save money. Oh, but it’s hard to do and a little embarrassing, oh well, guess it’s not for everyone!” I didn’t feel bad for the reporter at all, he deserved every moment of discomfort.
That segment was so uncomfortable. Of course, I would rather be swallowed up by the earth than haggle or negotiate for anything, and definitely once spent $90 on tea one time because I felt too awkward to say “wow that tea is hella more expensive than I bargained for, please don’t sell it to me anymore”, so…
UGH the name thing!
“No, using my name at the end of every sentence will not make me more inclined to give you what you want. ” That’s a thing? All that’s likely to do is annoy the everloving shit out of me. You don’t know me!
When I worked retail so many people would try to bargain with me like it was a yard sale!
Good old “I’ll never shop here again!” Only one person actually said that to me in the entire time I worked as a cashier (even most jerks are more self-aware than that, apparently). Unsurprisingly, she was the one I would have chosen if someone had asked me to pick one customer to ban from ever shopping here again.
It is the only time where I feel the phrase “I’m sorry you feel that way,” (as a way of shutting down conversation) is 100% legit .
“I’m going to your competitor!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. Does that mean you DON’T want an appointment to fix your internet?”
“Do you match your online price?”
“No, sorry.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to BUY IT FROM AMAZON.” *hovers to see if I change my mind*
Please do. Then I won’t have to go fetch the damn thing for you. My lunch break starts in 5.
I love it when terrible customers ragequit the store. If I actually made them happy enough to keep doing business with us, it would be so much more stressful for everybody. Please, for the love of cheese, take your business elsewhere.
Worked at a book shop and can attest to this.
Also:
“No, you don’t understand, OUR CHILD IS VERY ADVANCED FOR HIS AGE”
When I worked in a book shop this exact phrase was said to me after I recommended a book (edit: just remembered that the book was The Phantom Tollbooth) and told them that I myself had enjoyed it at that child’s age.
I didn’t say anything, but my face went red and my nostrils flared so I think my point came across.
“Daddy doesn’t like you to have toys that look like dolls,” she said.
brb weeping
One of my SILs once posted to Facebook that she was worried about her 2-year-old son because his favorite movie was Cinderella.
We are not friends anymore.
Ugh. I was once in a grocery store, and a girl asked her mom for Pokemon cards. Her mom refused, because they’re “for boys.”
I wanted to shake her and say but when I was eight and Pokemon first came out in North America I LOVED IT, and so did several other girls in my class! We even had a lecture from our teacher on how Trading Pokemon Cards Is Like Gambling And Is Dangerous It Will Ruin Your Life. (spoiler alert, it didn’t)
Oh man I loved Pokemon. Periodically I will go looking for the movie (the one with Mew/MewTwo) on Netflix and still get really upset every time it’s not available on streaming.
pokemon 2000!
Ugh, never mind. The first one. Pokemon 2000 is the one with the weird arctic bird.
🙂
That doesn’t even make sense! Every single Pokemon enthusiast that I’ve ever met has been female.
Yeah, I know many many more women who are into pokemon than men. And I do not suffer from a dearth of man friends, either.
I will say it was like a weird obsessive hobby at my brother’s all-boys school, well into the ’00s, but honestly I found that in some ways his all-boys school was more like my all-girls school than I would have anticipated, I.E. we both had massive homeroom singalongs to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan.
I’m so ridiculously happy that my parents never had a problem with my requests for “the boy toy” in my Happy Meal.
I went largely un-exposed to Pokemon, even though I was growing up at the height of the craze, because Pokemon cards were actually BANNED at my school. The only explanation I ever heard as to why was “something something gambling something.”
At my last yard sale I had a bunch of craft stuff and the cutest 4 year old was there with his dad. He was obsessed with all my craft supplies and begged for them (was selling them for pennies) – his dad said only girls play with that. I gave him a bag of stuff for free.
The saddest. :((((
And the customer who thought Legos weren’t for girls! It’s so sad that even 2014’s toddlers are getting such blatantly sexist messages. I really want to show these vignettes to people who think that innate interest/drive causes the continued gender-segregation of some professions.
You (everyone!) must read ‘Delusions of Gender’ by Cordelia Fine – it’s a whole book about that exact thing and the mythical differences between male & female brains. It is excellent!
Daddy is an asshole.
Being two and a half is only hard if your parents are assholes.
Poor Fillmore. This sentence (“Daddy doesn’t like you to have toys that look like dolls,” she said) is going to haunt my dreams.
I want to hug him and give him the laciest, pink-est toys in the world.
I dunno I try not to be an asshole but sometimes you really can’t let the kid eat cookies for every meal, which is my three year old’s idea of unbearable oppression.
Yes. Currently the wrangler of a 2 year old who threw herself down on the garage floor in dramatic tears because I wouldn’t let her eat a monkey shaped eraser this morning.
You monster. No, I completely sympathize. Mine screamed the other day because I wouldn’t share my food with her. I relented, and she proceeded to spit it out, STOMP ON IT, and then scream some more. So, I also am clearly a monster.
The 5-year old next door invited me to his birthday party (awww), and his mom had made him a pinata (to look like TNT from Minecraft). He got upset because he didn’t want people to break it. And also because he didn’t want to share his pinata, but the breaking thing was an important part of it all.
Also, I’m sure it’s genuinely frustrating to lack fine motor skills or a developed capacity for long-term thought.
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that my only letting my 3-year-old nephew watch two episodes of Ninjago when I babysit him makes me the Sauron of his universe, but he really can wrangle Netflix much more ably than I am comfortable with so I’m strangely okay with my rule enforcing.
No, two-and-a-half is a terrible age to be. But Filmore’s parents are still assholes.
I have to admit that sometimes I’ve been the person who has walked into a huge store, gotten overwhelmed, failed to find a salesperson, and wanted to stand in the middle of the store and shout “OUTDOOR HIBISCUS?” until someone just hands it to me.
I worked as a cashier at a pharmacy. The registers were right by the entrance. 60 yr old man preceded into the store by a couple of 10 year old children (grandchildren?) and enormous beer gut: “EXCUSE ME, WHERE IS CONDOMS?”
I have been the customer that has called in a rather shrill voice to the first employee I see, “HI, CAN YOU PLEASE SHOW ME THE EXIT THANK YOU” (Whole Foods is scary when you can’t get out.)
I too have nearly been claimed by the Whole Foods Vortex. It’s got to be deliberate, right? They assume you’ll eventually give up and just buy some shit you so can escape.
Uuugggh retail!! My two favorite customer comments:
upon walking into the tiny store and looking around: “So what kind of store is this?”
picking up an item: “Why does this cost so much?”
“Why does this cost so much?”
There is no good response to that. None. I don’t understand it. What are people looking for? A diagram giving the manufacturing cost, wholesale cost, and retail markup? Why are you even asking? If it’s too expensive, don’t fucking buy it! Literally the only answer people want is “Here’s a discount!”
“Why does it cost so much? Because I get paid $75.00/hour. It’s a sweet gig.”
What a good response! I think I used to just say “sadly I’m not the one who sets the pricing” and hope they’d leave me the hell alone.
I’ve actually answered “because everybody here gets paid a living wage” before. The customer was being incredibly irritating, though, or I would have had more self-control.
“Well done, that is the magic question! Now you have asked, I can give the item to you for free.”
My late MIL did this. It was so, so annoying.
My favorite was the customer who thought he could use a receipt for a gift card AS a gift card. That….is really not how that works.
That last one: I worked in wholefoody workers co-operative. We had an amazing (cheap and well stocked) ‘normal’ veg section and a foddie-friendy organic section (fancy mushrooms, asparagus, heritage tomatoes etc), a bunch of reasonably priced (considering it wasn’t packaged by 6 year olds and watered with the blood of orangutans) basics, and stuff like organic macademia oil/rare quinoa/sun-ripened almond milk etc. GUESS which products a certain sort of customer always zeroes in on, then acts surprised/unsettled by the bill. Absolute worst includes a negative comparison to their shop at [supermarket where they don’t sell any of this specialist stuff].
OH MY GOD IF YOU WANT YOUR SHOPPING TO COST LESS BUY THE CHEAPER STUFF YOU FUCKING FUCKWITS.
Put these together into one person and you’ve got my dad in any sort of home decor/stationary/accessory shop. IF my dad would ever go into a home decor/stationary/accessory shop.
“What kind of store is this?”
“Well, the gigantic sign out front says ‘JoAnn Fabric and Crafts,’ and we are surrounded by bolts of fabric, skeins of yarn, and bottles of paint, so I’m going to say… sporting goods, maybe? Beats me.”
I especially loved this one because the store was about the size of a large bedroom, so you could see literally every product upon walking in. There are no surprises! You already know what kind of store it is!
I once had a customer who followed up ‘Why does this cost so much?’ with ‘You know them Chinese can make it for pennies, don’t ya?’ I just smiled at him in a baffled and slightly feral manner until he slunk away.
I used to work for a store that had a regular line with items made in China/Bangladesh/Vietnam and an “ethical” line made in the US. The customers who patted themselves on the back the hardest for being fine, upstanding people who don’t support sweatshops were also the customers who complained the loudest about having to pay much more for their locally-made clothes.
Re: “what kind of store is this?” I once worked at a weird upscale dog clothing store. It was called “Urban Dog” and it had pictures of dogs on the sign and little dog mannequins wearing bedazzled collars and sweaters in the front window. Weird concept, but pretty obvious, right? NOPE. We had at least a couple of people come in daily asking, “is this a children’s clothing store?” or “do you sell women’s clothes here?” Um, seriously people?
A guy was startled at our labor costs to install his [product we sell] last week, and he was all, “it can’t really be that much, can it? You just need a couple of guys at $8/hr, and you’re good.” Um, no, actually, all of our techs are highly skilled and qualified, and also ours is not a business which believes in paying people $8/hr, not even the teenager who used to do odd jobs around the place after school.
Also, people who talk about how they want to Buy American and get Quality, but then moan and complain about the price.
pharmacy cashier job again:
*customer holds up two brands of laxatives* “Which brand is better?”
“You can ask the pharmacist for a recommendation.”
“You don’t know?”
“I have not personally taken either of those, ma’am.”
Poor Fillmore!
Main takeaway, people are horrid.
Ah, terrible customers (or c*ntomers, as we used to call them in my former retail job). Middle-class white women in their 40s were always the rudest, in my experience, followed closely by rich white dudes in their 50s and 60s.
Oh man, let me apologize on behalf of my demographic. That is truly embarrassing.
(40s white women, not older richer dudes.)
was trying to describe why someone of this demographic didn’t sit right with me and couldn’t quite put my finger on it until i settled on “she’s just a real can-i-talk-to-your-manager type, you know?”
omg, totally stealing that. PERFECTION.
YES oh my god. Approximately 98% of the asshole customers I’ve ever encountered have been middle-aged white people.
This is great. I love Lilly. Also, I wish there was more than 7! Write more vignettes, Rachel! The picture for this is perfect too. I remember reading about the production of Shopgirl. That was also the first book I bought when I moved to LA for grad school…
These stories are always fascinating and strange to me because I’m always slightly terrified of people who work in service — I’m worried I’ll do something to hurt their feelings (though I am like this with most people).
““Daddy doesn’t like you to have toys that look like dolls,” she said.
They bought that or something else. Fillmore sank to the floor, sobbing. ”
Shitty parents like that just break my heart.
The Fillmore story makes me want to cry so much. Not the latter part, (though that’s bad and I am indignant about gender issues, etc). The “pick a toy to give away to your sibling” part, where he clearly didn’t understand and then was going to be horribly disappointed because of thinking the toy was for him. Seriously. Nearly tears.
The moral of this past week on The Toast for me is that I am not allowed to read articles that reference two-year olds in any way because I cry. (See “Love You Forever” made horrific.)
It started bad and just stayed bad! Why even would you do that? The 2-year-old doesn’t get it, and the newborn is not exactly going to be that into a stuffed monkey.
If she doesn’t even take him to the toy store without the nanny, then she may not have any idea what 2-year-olds get or don’t get.
Not that that makes it any better.
Yes, the pick a toy thing was just strange. ‘Oh, my 2 year old really likes that stuffed monkey, that means I should buy it for his still-gestating sibling!’. Well, strange or just mean. You have to start young with sharing, but I don’t think it’s asking too much to hold off on the toy buying with a 2 year old until there’s an actual other human being to share with.
i don’t care what you say. as far as i’m concerned, that child’s true name is fillmore.
This is even funnier if you imagine Fillmore’s real name is Taft.
Or Bush.
“Bush sank to the floor, sobbing.”
I like to imagine what president names are on-trend right now for bougie parents. (I don’t interact with a lot of people with new babies, so. The field is somewhat open.)
Maybe… Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Grant? Lincoln.
Then I thought Hoover and laughed.
I pictured him being named Truman, personally.
My money’s on Hoover or Cleveland. Pierce? Maybe Garfield?
I feel like the kind of man who will refuse to let his son play with dolls is also the kind who will name his son Roosevelt.
OH GOD this is so accurate that it is painful. I work at a museum, and one day I was answering the main phone line and a woman called and said, “There are geese in the park.”
“…I’m not sure-” I started to say, because a) it’s a park, in the fall there are always geese in the park and b) this is a museum, why am I the person you are calling? Why aren’t you calling the park?
“Shouldn’t someone call animal control about that?” She said.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all about educating the public regarding the dangers of large waterfowl, because have you seen there teeth? But no ma’am, I can not get rid of the geese in the park.
I also enjoy the endless calls we get from people who are lost trying to find the museum. “I don’t know where I am, but I just passed Main street. How do I get to your museum?” I just want to say, you understand I don’t have GPS tracker on your car? I can not tell where you are any better than you can. One might even say I will be less likely to know where you are, than you yourself! What main street did you pass? Are you even in the right state? How did you get this phone number if you can’t find our building?! Calling from the road is literally the least effective way to get directions. “No sir, I can not stay on the line with you until you get here.”
When people ask a long series of really, really dumb questions or do things like try to get us to book hotel rooms for them (WE ARE NOT A HOTEL) I am also a big fan of “Let me google that for you”, because half of the time the person will figure out what I am hinting at. The other half of the time it is no use, and you spend ten minutes trying to explain that there are travel sites and travel agents and “no I can not call the hotel for you sir.” LORD.
Hilarious… Especially the geese one. “yes, someone should call animal control. Maybe that someone is YOU.”
“Although, you know, I was reading recently that geese are migratory, which means they’ll leave on their own if you give ’em a minute…”
These are not the typos you’re looking for. *hopes no one notices as I can no longer edit this comment*
Oh my God, the people who want directions but won’t tell you where they actually are! I used to get those all the time when I worked in a hotel. Really, if the answer to “Can you tell me your cross-street” is “There’s a gas station on my right,” I’m probably not going to be much help.
And then there was the guy who got tired of trying to get a cab at the festival grounds, so he started walking back to the hotel, got about two miles in and decided he was done walking, called me at the front desk and insisted that I send a cab to him even though he couldn’t tell me where he now was. Eventually we got to this point:
“I’m on *mumbles something that sounds vaguely like ‘Brode’*”
“I’m sorry; I’m having trouble hearing you. Did you say you’re on Broad Street?”
“Not Broad!” (in a tone implying that was the most idiotic guess I could have made) “Brode! B-R-O-A-D. Brode!”
I have a very similar story from working as a cashier about the word gnocchi, or as the customer insisted on calling it “ga-nash-eee”
AHAHAHA
so much sympathy
I’m front desk/primary guest relations at a museum, also! And it’s not geese but homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people (and some druggies) in the public park across the street. They mostly stick to themselves and don’t hassle groups. They just want a place to chill out because home is depressing or maybe they just want to sell drugs? ALL THE TIME i get people calling “Is it safe to walk to the museum?” “Is it safe to park in front of the park?” “I have a school group and hello here we are, 50 screaming first-graders, where do we go to eat lunch? surely we can’t go to the public park IN FRONT OF CITY HALL with cops watching it it’s not safe” (these are the teachers who didn’t pay attention to the letter when they booked saying the museum is small and does not have lunch facilities)
Unfortunately, GPS tends to send people to our old location from ten years ago, which was logically on Museum Street. But it’s still like pulling teeth to give directions to people. And then they ask about parking. (“we’re on a city block. park at a meter. no, i can’t tell you if meters next to the building will be open when you get here…”)
I do a lot of the googling for people, too. And calling for taxis, then explaining to the cab company that no, they aren’t going to Museum Street. Actually, they should go to City Hall but stop half a block early.
Sometimes I want to be passive-aggressive and snarky at these people, but honestly I love my job and at least we’re a small enough museum that these annoyances aren’t as common as they could be.
Fellow museum worker over here!
There’s a member who calls occasionally to berate us for not having enough native plants and plant identifying placards in and around our grounds (in a city park full of native plants.) There are three botanically centered institutions surrounding us within walking distance. Face to Palm (-frond).
I used to live and work at a restaurant in Marin County, CA. There are a lot of good anecdotes to explain the type of people that live and eat in Marin, but this one is especially good & relevant to calling animal control:
One Sunday afternoon I was closing up the place and bringing tables/chairs inside from the front patio. I noticed a small group of people gathered just a few steps away staring down at a slow-moving rat. One lady noticed me and asked if there was someone I could call. I assumed she meant animal control to dispose of the rat, but she then specified, “Call wildlife rescue, this rat looks dehydrated.” Maybe it had just pushed too hard at bikram that morning? I did call the wildlife rescue, because I was basically employed to suffer fools. They told me the rat was probably dying (duhhhh). The small group was then concerned that the rat was going to get away and/or die on the street so could I please get it a container of water and a box to put over it? I wish there had been a box big enough to put on top of those people. Anyway, that rat died like a king.
“There’s a sign at Ramzet Park that say ‘Do not drink the sprinkler water’ so I made Sun tea with it and now I have an infection.”
http://youtu.be/Hyc1aMtnHJo
“I found a sandwich in your park, and I want to know why it doesn’t have mayonnaise on it”
This is glorious! I worked at visual arts center and then a performing arts center – in fundraising, not even front-of-house. People would still get a hold of my direct line and ask me crazy questions:
“Can you estimate the value of the painting I bought at a garage sale this weekend over the phone right now? It’s old so it’s probably really valuable.”
“Can I borrow some costumes from [insert popular Broadway show that came through on tour two years ago] for my sixth grader to wear for Halloween?”
“Can I request that you have [insert Broadway show that hasn’t toured in years] come to town in six months? That’s my 20th High School Reunion and my friends and I would love to be able to see it while we’re in town”
“Can I perform my self-written rap album in the lobby during next week’s performance of Phantom of the Opera? Did I mention it’s rap that I wrote myself?”
“Can I talk to [insert name of deceased famous political figure that our theater was named after]? I want to talk to him about [controversial issue]”
…those are only the ones I remember. There were so, so, so many. I used to keep a little notebook.
so….many tales to tell here but among my least favourite are people who want to involve you in their Food Issues. I am not a good enough writer to summons all the ways in which this is framed to demand some sort of reinforcing/permissive response from the listener, but think infinitely subtle variations on ‘Oh, chocolate, I shouldn’t…should I?’ and ‘that cake’s not too fattening, is it?’. It is overwhelmingly women who do this. NOW. I know this is a structural problem, and in the right circumstances I have got plenty of support to give to unpicking all that bullshit. BUT. As a waitress/shop assistant, I have nowhere to go with it, and it is so damn hard to find ways out of playing along. Suggestions welcome, because I am pretty sure resorting to ‘oh, I don’t worry about that sort of thing’ is also pretty belittling :-/
Go on, treat yoself!
I once knee-jerk responded to a question like that with, “Ohhhh no, I’m not the one responsible for making that decision.” I did not make friends that day.
Could you try something along the lines of, “Oh, it sounds like you could use another minute or so to decide, I’ll be right back”? You’re right in that it’s hard to respond directly to any of the ones framed as informational questions without getting into the BS, so I’m just trying to brainstorm ways to Run The Eff Away.
With regards to “is this cake fattening”, I’m trying to formulate something along the lines of a light-hearted “Understanding the infinite mysteries of the human metabolism is sadly something I can’t help you with”. But it’s definitely a stretch, and I don’t know that I could always (ever?) get the tone quite right. (See also: shahea’s comment below)
Despite having worked in bakeries/butcher shops for almost a decade I still have trouble responding to stuff like this. Also the dreaded comments about the size of MY OWN BODY. I mostly pretend I didn’t hear because I have no idea how to address such rudeness.
“The heart wants what the heart wants”
I always found that a facetious “no, that cake actually has no calories at all,” accompanied by a conspiratorial look, generally did the trick. The customers were going to do what they wanted anyway; they mostly just wanted me to acknowledge their struggles.
> “No,” he said, bluntly. “I was probably high.”
*narrows eyes*
Seriously. I see what she did, there.
Garfield. I’m convinced it’s Garfield.
Hoover!
Or maybe Van Buren?
Polk!
I have a horrible feeling it’s Jaxon. Not Jackson, which apparently is #8 for boy’s names now, and would be a president’s surname, of course. That wouldn’t be special enough for these parents. Poor Jaxon. (There are totally other names that are often first names too–Tyler! Taylor! etc.–but I have a feeling that if it was noticeably a presidential last name, it’s not one of those. sigh.) Still, that’s better than Garfield. His future employers would likely be of a generation that would associate his name with the Grumpy Cat of the newspapers (maybe not wrongly, if his parents fuck him up thoroughly enough).
Only the poor, vulgar and “ethnic” people use unique names now. I heard it on the Freakonomics podcast so it must be true.
Roosevelt? Harrison? Coolidge?
HOOVER.
oh please not Hoover. Carter? aughhhh I want to know.
My best friend is pregnant, and I was discussing baby names with her and some friends this weekend, and I said that I thought unique spellings just weren’t a good idea. They looked at me like I was crazy and asked for an example. I gave them Caidynn and they started cooing over how cute of a name that was.
*headdesk*
This is why I left the South.
A friend of mine is on the outs with his cousin because he wanted to name his not-yet born son Jaxon, but his cousin was farther along in her pregnancy and “scooped” the name when her son was born. Name-poaching is a serious offense, apparently.
Hope the outs aren’t too bad, yikes! If it were just a friend, I’d say just go for it anyway–it’s not like your kid was going to be the only Jaxon anyway. With first cousins, I guess it’s probably worth picking another of a billion names. If they love it that much, though, family nicknames!! (too logical?)
Immediately what I thought too.
Either Lincoln or Kennedy. So many fucking Kennedys walking around preschool these days.
But aren’t they usually girls?
God, I hope so. Just reading this almost made me choke on a tootsie roll!
All I could think was, it’s Reagan, isn’t it? Frakking Reagan.
YOUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM SUCKS COCKS IN HELL.
Poor lil Fillmore. 🙁
And gah, retail customers are the worst.
I used to get in trouble at my retail job for answering customer questions with honest answers.
Example: “My grandson asked for this for his birthday, but I’ve never seen it. Is it appropriate for a nine-year-old?”
“It’s rated R, and I’ve seen it and I wouldn’t get that for my nine-year-old, no. Here are some more appropriate options for his age group.”
“Thank you! I will get this instead.”
[Mystifying glare of death from the manager.]
So I got demoted from sales to door person, which led to people asking me MORE questions right when they walked in the door, and my manager getting more angry at my answers. (“I don’t know that band! But if you tell me the genre and how to spell their name, I’ll point you in the right direction!”) But when a cashier lied to a customer about the return policy and the customer then decided to destroy the store, breaking windows, throwing things, etc., before leaving he pointed dramatically at me and said, “SHE’S the only nice one here! All the rest of y’all are BITCHES.”
Let that be a lesson unto you, former co-workers! You should have honored your return policy. #customerservice
Wait, should you have pretended to know the band, or…?
I don’t pretend to know! The manager also put me in zero-sum situations, like complain that I wasn’t doing anything when I was at the door (as…the…door…person…), so then she’d tell me to go stock shelves, and if when I was doing that a customer came in, she yelled at me for not being at my post. Once she told me I should have gotten faster to the door when I was at the top of a ladder. Should I have yelled, “WELCOME TO X, HOW CAN I HELP YOU?” from the ceiling or just jumped off the ladder like a flying squirrel?
Squirrel, definitely.
I quit a job where they stationed me at the front sweater table where I was to “look busy fluffing these garments” for eight hours and could not then assist people who asked questions about things outside my tiny area. Still the best quitting I have ever done.
Working in retail should be a prerequisite to being allowed to shop. Anywhere. For anything. For bonus points, be a woman working in tech (or other manly-type of) retail.
Cycling shop. Or, well, rather being a woman working in a cycling shop and having women come in with these horror stories of being talked down to, ignored, and one guy even called a woman fat! She was nearly in tears!
GAAH. I hate the way shitty competitive guys keep trying to co-opt fun things like cycling and hiking, and less fun but still enjoyable things like running. Once the lycra-clad men who expect everyone to get out of their way while running or cycling where people are walking get involved, the fun is OVER.
A woman came into my small store and started speaking to me in Russian. I explained apologetically that I don’t speak Russian. I tried English, French, and my high school Spanish, but all my attempts at communication were stymied because she insisted on answering me in Russian. I finally went to the stock room to ask my Russian coworker to help her. The two of them spent about 20 minutes discussing the merits of our merchandise (or… who knows what? not me, the only non-Russian-speaker in the room), but I noticed that every now and then she would turn to shoot a death glare in my direction.
When she left, I mentioned the glares to my coworker and asked him if the woman had been upset about something.
“She was mad because you wouldn’t speak Russian to her,” he said.
“But I got her a staff member who speaks it, and I told her from the start that I’m not Russian!” I spluttered indignantly.
“Yeah,” he said, “but she said you look Russian, so you should know the language.”
When my friend and I were in Russia trying to learn Russian, she got that kind of treatment a lot when she spoke, whereas people generally weren’t angry when they found out that my Russian was really bad. We are both American and were speaking at about the same level, so we were confused about why. One of our friends who emigrated from Bulgaria as a child suggested that, because of her age and Slavic looks, people were assuming that her parents left when the Soviet Union dissolved and then never bothered to teach her the language. Maybe that lady was making a similar assumption?
A friend of mine experienced both sides of that, though in a positive way. When she was just starting to learn Russian, people were pretty nice to her and like, Oh, of course you don’t speak it, you’re not Russian. But then when she was living there and was fluent, she started dressing “like a Russian” (she said this involved buying high-heeled boots) and BAM, she got Russians-only discounts from then on.
One branch of my family is from the Baltics, and there it is common for ethnically-Baltic people to pretend not to speak Russian. My aunt is a teacher and she is apparently unusual in that she will speak Russian to her Russian students, while most teachers refuse. Maybe the Russian lady figured it was something like that?
Ahh! I get this ALL THE TIME. I’m half Colombian, so I look Hispanic, but I was raised in California by my very-white other half of the family, so my Spanish is terrible, and *random people* who attempt to ask me for directions/ask me questions/chat with me in Spanish always seem offended when I’m like “Lo siento… no hablo…”. Like I invited them to speak with my under false pretenses.
I worked retail as a shy teen girl who was scared of everyone; I also have skin problems (eczema, allergies, rashes, dry skin, etc), and I’m very self-conscious about them.
The absolute worst customer I have ever had, a woman I will remember and loathe to my dying day, came in near the end of my shift and proceeded to a) exclaim over how disgusting my hands were, b) condescendingly explain to me that I could solve all my allergies by cutting high fructose corn syrup out of my diet (which, I didn’t and still don’t eat packaged foods hardly at all, and also I’m pretty sure corn syrup isn’t going to do ANYTHING for ANAPHYLAXIS, because I have ACTUAL FOOD ALLERGIES), and c) WOULD NOT LEAVE
She spent 30 minutes next to the register, telling me over and over that curing my lifelong skin problems would be so easy! She should know, with her degree in naturopathy from Phoenix University!
Now, as an adult who no longer works retail, I can laugh about how pathetic it is to bully a teen girl over her medical conditions with a mail-order degree; at the time I barely made it to the end of my shift, then fled to cry in the back.
tl;dr don’t hassle someone about their medical problems, and for the love of god, don’t hassle someone about their medical problems when they can’t get away or tell you to fuck off, like, c’mon now.
I am sorry that happened to you and I am glad you don’t have to work in that shop anymore.
Wow. Just, wow.
I’m a tall lady, very tall. My last summer working retail in my life was at a Godiva. Mostly, anyone coming into a store dedicated to chocolate was in a pretty good mood. (As opposed to, say, a previous gig selling children’s clothing.) But I did once tolerate a bored, money’ed woman who was buying herself enough chocolate to cover about 40% of my day’s sales goal lazily declaring, “it must be terrible to be so tall”.
Yes, it was my last retail gig.
I imagine that person has a sad, sad life, if spending 30 minutes bullying a teenager was how she chose to use her time.
Ugh, that’s awful, I’m sorry. I have a friend with eczema issues, and once he was on the bus when out of the blue a complete stranger said to him, “Wow, what the fuck is wrong with your hands?”
NO, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH *YOU*
“They’re healing from the last time a stranger asked me a rude personal question.”
I have sensitive skin as well! I used to get a horrible skin rash and blisters on my hands from handling too much cash and cleaning agents at work and one guy told me that I needed to go gluten free to clear it right up. I wish I could have told him that if I had the money to both not work and eat a celebrity diet I would certainly do so, all whilst soaking my hands in the healing blood of my enemies.
Oh god. I worked summers at a KB Toys and the specific nature of the experiences above are giving me flashbacks, though the store above sounds WAY nicer than KB Toys was.
Also, the toddler’s name was either Harrison or Grant, I am betting. I really hope it was Eisenhower, though.
My money’s on Truman.
I figured Lincoln.
I have my money on Pierce. That mother sounds like someone who’d name their child Pierce.
(if there are Toasties who have children named Pierce, I apologize and am sure you/your individual Pierces are exceptions to this rule)
Reagan
My father wanted to name me Reagan. He always assures me that it was not after the president, though, but rather after one of the terrible daughters from King Lear. So much better.
I have two female friends named Reagan! One is Regan, I should say, but in both cases their parents were uber-liberals and would have shuddered at Ronald allusions.
Carter.
I used to work in a gift shop that specialized in products made in-state (plus a few other items made elsewhere in the US, because they were too awesome/delicious not to carry). At least once a shift, someone would pick up one of the non-local products, look at me, and go ‘AHA!’ in the smuggest, most triumphant way possible. Like, yes, you found us out, good for you, please either pay or leave.
The worst, though, was when I offered chocolate samples to a woman who proceeded to look me up and down, sneer, and say, ‘well, dear, I’m trying not to look like a whale.’ But hey, more delicious stone-ground chocolate for me, I guess.
“Oh, so you like my whale costume? Thanks! I like your obnoxious asshole costume, too!”
“Look,” he said pompously, “You can either make $10 at the student price, or nothing. Which is it going to be?”
“I get paid by the hour,” I said. “If you don’t have your ID, you have to pay the full price.”
You are my hero.
People who threaten hourly employees with loss of business are hilarious. Seriously, dude, the person you’re talking to gets paid whether you spend money or not; that threat only motivates them to get you out of the store as fast as possible so they never have to see you again.
Yes, perfect. My favorite retail experience is the one crusty assbag who has repeatedly closed the shop door on me after seeing me coming towards it carrying a case of champagne. That I’ve yet to stab him with one of the giant knives we use for cutting Pecorino is a miracle.
Well, I worked as a waitress, and got a taste of just how odd weird and bitchy people can be.
What I worried about, like in going to a department store, is that I can take up the sales person’s time. For instance, when I’m hunting for the perfect piece of jewelry and I don’t know what I want, I will look at 20 or so pieces. One sales person said she was having fun, so I took her at her word, and I did buy a bunch of the pieces … but in my quest for perfection I can be pretty needy. I worry about the “just buy something already, geez Louise” reaction. It’s really cool, though, when I’m able to describe the kind of jewelry I want for an outfit, and the sales person picks the perfect piece & it’s amazing. That said, I have 2 dressers full of jewelry … . It might be time to stop buying jewelry but so far no one has been able to present a decent argument for why I should cease & desist. Except, I have no place to put my clothes anymore. Well. I should think about that then.
I worked in the kid’s section of a Barnes and Noble and yeah, all the book and toy related stories are soooo familiar. Especially the “precocious 8-year-old” who “reads above their level” and then, when you show the parent/grandma/family friend an easy middle-grade book, they say, “Oh, no, that’s much too long, an 8-year-old can’t read this.” I show them the chapter books. “Yes, like this, exactly. Why didn’t you just bring me here in the first place?”
So… the kid’s reading at or slightly below their level, then. I can only recommend as well as you describe your needs, Customer Who Expects Telepathy.
Ah..a fellow B&N worker. I know of what you speak. I once had a very WASP-y grandmother approach me to ask about a children’s book about Chanukkah, (she didn’t know what it was) but she pronounced it “Cha-Noo-Kah” and then whispered conspiratorially, “My son married one of them you know, so they’re raising the kids like that.” Uh. What. It’s definitely one of those moments where you look frantically around for a witness to that level of lunacy.
Working in public libraries is not that different from retail (as in, the council often refers to borrowers as ‘customers’) and it’s amazing the fight people will put up to save 20p on their overdue books. One time, a lady was trying to get out of paying charges on lost books by saying that since she could not find her receipt with the due dates for her books on it, she did not technically have a due date. Finally, after I said that regardless of whether she still has her date slip, there are multiple venues for checking when books are due back, she relented and deigned to pay her charges, saying ‘it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s not your fault!’ ummm….I know?
Another man threatened to sue the town council because the public PCs had slow internet, and since users at the main branch are only granted an hour a day on the internet, we were preventing him from watching the full episode of Celebrity Big Brother :/
how dare you infringe upon his most basic human rights in such a manner!
I am flooded with hot, immediate rage every time I hear libraryfolk call patrons “customers.” The above is basically why.
I will not start because I wouldn’t stop.
This also applies to academia. I’ve started hissing as quietly as I can every time one of my coworkers starts talking about how ‘we’re not in the university business, we’re in the customer service business!’, mainly because it alleviates my desire to launch myself across the table at him in a blind rage.
For now.
YES. Ditto for museums and schools in general. It almost feels like a betrayal or exploitation in a way? I can’t really explain the feeling, other than disappointment that as both a user and staff member at different institutions, I’m not much more than a £££ figure (but I suppose that’s also fairly naïve to not expect that). However, our council is looking to cut £26.5 MILLION from the budget in the next year, potentially putting some library services and staff hours on the chopping block, and it’s present in both the language they use and the way staff and library users are treated that we’re all considered part of a customer service business. It makes me really sad.
I hate the customers thing too. What’s wrong with patrons? Public service is not business. I work for a public library, and the great thing about it is that the community as a whole is providing our resources to all of its members. I hate the capitulation to thinking of everything in a business model. No. We are not that, and that is a good thing. This is basic.
It’s always the patrons who owe less than a dollar who get super angry about it, too. You owe us a quarter, dude, calm down.
My favorite irate library patron story is the time a guy yelled at me because the public computer he was using kept crashing. He wasn’t angry about the quality of our PCs – he was angry about the library’s involvement in the liberal conspiracy, because the computers *only crashed on conservative websites.*
HAHAHA to the liberal conspiracy! Yes! We have these people too, who say very thoughtfully and suspiciously “well, it’s just makes you wonder who is watching what we read…”. David Icke followers of the world unite! (and the people who reserve Icke’s books are a whole ‘nother story)
Also, the 11 year old boy who set his public pc wallpaper in the children’s section to a topless woman, in full view of library staff, and vehemently denied it was him when we told him his access had been temporarily barred as a result. He was like “oohhh, my friend stole my card. And my password!! He did it!”. I’m just gonna call it now, he probably won’t be spared in the cull.
I worked at a call centre for a major American cell phone company one summer, and HOO BOY. So many stories, ranging from creepy dudes telling me I have a hot voice and must be hot and where do I live, to the guy who gave his ex-girlfriend his account password, so when they broke up she bought All The Things and he wanted a refund we couldn’t give him. (It’s funny now, but annoying at the time because I worked 3pm -12:30am, and it was my last call of the day and he would NOT GO AWAY.)
I worked in a call center and was ALL THE TIME getting ‘you sound cute, are you cute?’ type comments from dudes because I have a sweet voice. And like, I’m a fat 30+ married lesbian with cats, guys. I am legit the fucking cutest. BUT I AM NOT FOR YOOOOOOOOU *takes to the sea with wife and cats and cake*
The last caller who won’t go away. 🙁 Ughhhh I hate that guy. Glad you escaped!
I escaped like 15 minutes after my shift was supposed to end, and had to get a floor manager, but sure.
I used to work as a dispatcher for a grocery delivery company, and when you’re the dispatcher you are also the person who takes and makes every single customer phone call, and MY GOD. The dude who wasn’t home for his delivery because he was at the grocery store. The man who insisted the driver had not arrived because his dogs hadn’t started barking and therefore there could not possibly be a truck outside. The woman who called six times on a Sunday morning because her green beans weren’t there, even though I explained that her receipt would tell her whether she’d been given a substitute or just refunded that part of the cost all six times. The one guy at a dispatch center sort of higher up who was always flirting with me, which seemed really weird because like dude, you’ve never so much as seen me and I just really need a tow truck right now. The time college kids tried to rob one of the trucks. The time one of the drivers just lied to me all night about where he was and what he was doing and I had to deal with like 10 irate customers FOR HOURS.
On the other hand there was that time I called an alternate number because I wasn’t getting an answer and got the customer’s son, who yelled at me about how he had just moved to DC and he didn’t have time for this!!!!! but then called me back specifically to apologize. That was a nice time.
Oh god. Basically having to be on the phone with people is the worst. So dehumanizing most of the time.
Haha, my ex used to get groceries delivered, even though he worked right next to a 24 hour grocery store, but he never left me money to pay for it, and pretty much EVERY SINGLE TIME he didn’t come home from work on time and I had to make the delivery guy wait for him and it was soooo awkward.
sry 4 vehemence but I HATE YOUR EX
there’s like, a whole domino effect that can happen from that kind of delay, oy. oy.
THE FEELING IS MUTUAL, GURL.
Another time, this couple came into the store. I greeted them and explained the sale we had going on. The man listened politely and asked a few questions; the woman had a sour look on her face, wouldn’t look at me, and didn’t say a word the entire time. They browsed for a few minutes and then turned to leave.
I said, “Have a nice day!”
The man said, “Thanks, you too!”
The woman finally broke her silence to snap at him, “Why are you talking to her?!”
It was kind of an ego boost that she considered me a threat because I remember thinking she was a lot more attractive than me. But mostly it made me sad for her that she was so insecure. I wanted to say, “Lady, right now I’m thinking about how I get to close up shop in an hour, and then I can get a smoothie on my way home and spend the evening in bed reading erotic fanfiction. What I am definitely not thinking of is your boyfriend’s wiener and how I could get in touch with it. Calm down.”
I had a job at a rec center where we basically had to stand at the front and greet every single person who walked in. We’d get in trouble if we didn’t. The number of girls who would grip their boyfriends just a little tighter when this happened and sneer at me was ridiculous. God. I’d been there since 4 am, I was stuck in an itchy poly blend polo shirt, I wasn’t allowed to sit down. I was LITERALLY being forced to do this for minimum wage, but the girls always took it as a personal insult I would speak to them. Now I’m always really nice to Wal Mart greeters. I feel their pain.
I had a friend that worked at Barnes and Noble. One afternoon a woman left the store in a huff and called him from out front to complain that there was a “small black child in the children’s section with an erection.”
Not sure what her expectations were really? People are the worst sometimes.
I just started a coffee shop cashier job. Woo boy. Lots of vignettes to look forward to! My favorite so far are the people who are on the phone the ENTIRE TIME they are giving me their complicated order, with multiple drinks and baked goods. Bonus points when they are doing that “hold the phone in front of your face instead of next to your ear” thing, making them speak louder. Also could not just, like, have your convo partner hold for A MINUTE while you relay your order to me. But I guess that would make me seem more important that your person on the line….for all of 60 seconds.
Retail question: what are polite ways to ask people to repeat themselves? We get a lot of customers who are not native English speakers and sometimes I have a hard time understanding, especially when they speak quietly. I know it is embarrassing and uncomfortable for both of us when I have to ask them to repeat it, like, 4 times…what to do? I also want to avoid seeming like a jerk because I know there’s lot of issues wrapped up in “having an accent” and, yeah.
I go with “could you repeat that please?” or “say again?” and just be really apologetic because it happens. Sometimes I have accidentally just stared and said um what? don’t do this.
I have this problem a lot, though not in the context of retail, and I’ve recently started adding “I’m sorry, it’s noisy in here,” if I have to ask someone to repeat themselves more than twice. I’m still undecided as to whether it helps, though.
I think the important thing re: accents is just to be polite and apologetic. They know they have an accent and it’s not your fault that you don’t understand them, but it is on you to be polite. That was my take when I worked at a coffee shop, at least. Also good luck at your job! I worked as a barista for most of my twenties and it was so frustrating some days! But there are also things I miss about, like free cookies and awesome regulars.
I handle many, many telephone calls every day with many non-native English speaking people at my particular office gig — adding a telephone to the mix does not help most people feel more confident in their speaking abilities, and not being able to see them doesn’t help me guess (through body language/other cues). So, my default — and I think this would work just as well in person — is this: if I need to ask for a repeat more than twice, I just apologize very sincerely and explain (lie) that I am slightly hard-of-hearing (and/or the connection isn’t great, but that part wouldn’t work in person) and would they mind please repeating whatever-it-is again. I feel like this takes the pressure off, somewhat. Also, sometimes I just blindly guess at what I think is being said, or at least at a key word/phrase, and either I’m magically right or my wrong guess leads them to repeat/explain in a different way that is more easily expressed and understood. Honestly, though, in my experience it’s all in the tone — if you are genuinely sorry for making them repeat themselves, and you are really trying to understand, I think that comes through pretty clearly and erases any of the other potentially embarrassing/irritating issues.
I actually got the “wait a minute” gesture from a customer once. He was really upset when I immediately started taking the order of the young woman behind him.
That was one of my favorite things to do.
I went to a telephone workshop once and the instructor suggested: “I’m sorry, I don’t have an ear for your accent yet, would you mind repeating?” It’s sort of awkward phrasing, but it makes the point that it’s not their fault that they have an accent, just that you haven’t been exposed to it much. I am not sure if this works though.
When I worked in a bookstore, there was a woman we called Bible Lady. Bible Lady ordered these tiny little Gideon bibles, and then would proceed to stand there next to the register, tear the little pages out, and eat them. While doing this, she would explain to every customer who approached the register that she thought I looked like a ballerina, or someone who would be in Town & Country. She would then be like, “Don’t you think she’s pretty?” (referring to me), and if the customer wasn’t super enthusiastic about my looks, she would lean towards them, spitting little flecks of bible in their face as she spoke, and say, “TELL.HER.SHE’S.PRETTY.” I would be protesting and asking her to go away while this all went on, but she was so damn stubborn that she wouldn’t leave until she’d not only confirmed with a few customers that I was pretty, but had also worked her way through one bible and purchased another for the road.
She also stuffed her shoes with the bible because “the devil enters you through your feet” and would chuck holy water at my face randomly. A delight, really, when you’re held captive behind a register and can’t escape.
OH MY GOD
This story is TERRIFYING
Oh, oh! The other creepy thing she used to do was to notice “devils” around the store. She’d be like, “There’s one up on the top of that shelf. He’s staring at you. That woman over there [points to co-worker] hates you and has cast evil on you in the form of that devil” and then she’d wander away. I’m kind of convinced that devil might still be sitting on top of the Local Authors shelf, waiting for me.
Aw, I kind of like the sound of her. We had some straight-up mad customers and they were always nice in between bouts of wierdness. Some of them we even held contact numbers for so we could check up on them if we hadn’t seen them in a while.
working at a bougie natural foods grocery store in produce:
“Are there any better Roma tomatoes in the back?”
“Um let me check” (no) *brings out box of identical tomatoes*
“Oh no nevermind, these are the same” *goes on to talk about her raw diet and how much better the produce is in another city*
customer on the phone: “do you have organic tomatillos?”
“no we only have conventional”
“where are they from?”
“Mexico”
“Oh no that’s terrible did you know in Mexico they fertilize their crops with human poop?! So many chemicals, you’re basically just eating cancer”
“ummm… ok”
“can you cut open this avocado to see if it’s overripe?”
“um no” (actually sometimes we did this because some customers were obnoxious about it)
“which yam is the sweetest?”
*gives different answer every time*
one time a customer yelled “HEY VEGETABLE LADY!” at my coworker to ask her what the price was. The price was in front of her. We have nametags.
Mexico hardly has a monopoly on food grown in poop. Treated sewage sludge is sometimes used as fertilizer in the US and Canada. The treatments might well be different, but some of the chemicals that remain in the sludge are probably the same.
…probably you wouldn’t want to share that with your customers though.
that makes sense! I kind of felt like saying, well, poop is a fertilizer and we use cow poop soooo….
Human poop probably has more transmittable diseases.
Oh heavens, not POOP CHEMICALS!
I’m fascinated at the number of people who would walk past my younger co-workers to come to me, then mock me about my age and “they didn’t know (company) hired peope as old as me!” “Oh, good, an old person!” I was stunned at retail. I’d previously worked nice hours for nice pay and was respected as a knowledgeable professional. A manager told me to tell them I was going on break, and walk away. She later quit working for the company. My younger co-workers were mocked and insulted for their age, too. By people who should have known better.
My retail jobs were all garbage, but most of my personal vignettes are from the years I spent as a barista at Starbucks. Listen, no barista cares about your objection to the cup size names. Baristas didn’t pick those names. Baristas don’t care about your outrage that “tall” is the smallest size on the menu now. Baristas have heard it all before, probably multiple times every single day they work.
Baristas don’t care if you say “medium,” either, but when they repeat your drink order, they are going to say “grande,” and it’s not because they’re snottily correcting you, it’s because they are required to do this. Please tip your baristas.
ETA: I forgot my personal favorite daily occurrence, which is the Old White Guy (always, without fail) who grumpily exclaims, “I just want a regular cup of coffee! Can’t I just get a regular cup of coffee???!!!” Sirs, calm down.
I work at Another Coffee Establishment, and people are very hesitant about saying “small/medium/large” due to Starbucks conditioning, like they are afraid of being publicly shamed for saying “medium.” It’s okay folks! You can have a medium coffee! On the other hand, there are people who seem a little sad we don’t have special size names – but they’re the type who have around 5 other Very Specific drink words, for their Very Important Espresso Drink Order.
(Not that I am blaming you/current Starbucks employees in any way, as you say they have no say over the special names, and entitled customers will be entitled customers everywhere)
YES TO ALL OF THAT. Yes, you can have a regular cup of coffee. Do you see those four GIANT ASS URNS behind me? THOSE ARE FULL OF DRIP COFFEE.
A related question– Customer: “Ohh, man, I need to stay up ALLLLLL night. What drink has, like, THE MOST CAFFEINE EVERRRR?” Me: “Drip coffee.” Customer: *crestfallen* “Oh.” What were you hoping for, the secret Caramel Cocaine-uccino?!
I spent six years at Starbucks. I never saw a single partner snottily correct a customer about ANYTHING, so I have no idea where that stereotype came from and why people get so worked up about it. Did Rush Limbaugh bitch about it or something? When I was an Overly Enthusiastic Young Barista, I would actually explain the cup sizes and how they evolved. “Funny enough, we DO have a short cup!” I would chirp, pulling one out. No one actually cared, as I was simply interrupting their oh-so-original comedy routine.
See also: “They always do it for me at the OTHER Starbucks!” and “Why are you not enthusiastic about ringing up a hundred $5 gift cards for me right now? I’M SPENDING FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN YOUR STORE.”
I grew to hate Other Starbucks. All the baristas at the Other Starbucks just do whatever the fuck they want, and then those of us with strict managers have to deal with the fallout. Fuck you, Other Starbucks.
Yeah, in all the years I worked at Starbucks, and in all the years that I’ve been a customer, I have literally not even once seen a barista snottily correct anyone about the cup sizes. I do not believe it’s ever actually happened.
THE OTHER STARBUCKS!
Damn that Other Starbucks! Some Other Starbucks in town apparently agreed to sell someone two travelers of HOT CHOCOLATE??? I don’t know, but my own manager was SUCH a spineless pushover that when a customer argued with her about it, then suddenly we had to make hot chocolate travelers, too. Which meant making individual hot chocolates and then carefully pouring them into the traveler spouts. Oh my god, that job. My store was right up the road from the local Upper Middle Class Suburban Mega Church, and right down the road from Tech Bro Industries, one exit away from Old White Guy Semi-Important Government Contractor Headquarters, so you can imagine.
“I just want a cup of coffee. You still sell coffee here, right? Ha ha ha!”
Fuck you I hate you I will stab you in the face and pour lemonade on you. I mean ha, you’re funny, yes, you can have your coffee, you hilarious and original jokester, I sincerely hope you don’t lean on the condiment bar and get mocha on your pants. That sure would be a shame.
I always, without fail, ask for “the biggest cup of coffee you’re allowed to give me”. And at least 70% of the time it makes the barista/coffee creator smile. (Plus my pleases and thank yous, because I wasn’t raised to think of people in retail/food service jobs as inferior, and I know that it sucks to be ordered around.)
This article speaks to my soul. I worked…a lot of customer service throughout my schooling years. I now have a tic which consists of yelling “THE CUSTOMER IS NEVER RIGHT AND USUALLY LYING TO YOU. AND ALWAYS TIP YOUR SERVER.” to surprised unfortunates who try to discuss service jobs with me.
Also- in terms of customers who try to intimidate you in to compliance with things? I used to work at a rec center, and six foot tall muscle heads would periodically try to stare me down when I worked the front desk (idiots- there were cameras everywhere and two of my coworkers were former Marines turned personal trainers). Scarier than them by far? Soccer moms. I had two soccer moms get in my face to scream at me for daring to reprimand their spawn and I swear I saw Hell while they yelled at me. *Shudder*
Seconded a thousand times on the soccer moms.
Soccer moms are the worst!
I work in a shop with a cafe component. My favorite is when I asked people what milk they want for their lattes, and after I tell them we have whole, skim, or soy milk they reply with, “oh, do you have almond milk?”
…no. If we had almond milk, I would have included that in my list of milk offerings! And some of these customers are repeat offenders who hear the milk spiel e v e r y time.
“Do you have almond milk? You should carry almond milk; a lot of people really like it.”
Well, as the anonymous employee making $8.50/hr, I’ll be sure to get right on that.
As I was a terrible bitch of a barista, I would respond to that sort of thing with an extremely deadpan, “we have whole, skim, or soy milk.”
It was amazing how many people tried it *again.* “But not almond?”
“We have whole, skim, and soy.”
WHY THE FUCK WOULD I BE HIDING THE ALMOND MILK?
People who haven’t worked retail (or in a similar industry dealing with CUSTOMERS) should not be allowed to shop. Period.
When I worked in a bookstore, I had CUSTOMERS ask me the stupidest things. “I’m looking for a book. It has a green cover. Do you know it?”
An actual thing a library patron once asked me:
“I checked out this book a few months ago and now I want to read it again but I don’t remember the title or the author or even, really, what it was about. All I know is that it didn’t have chapters – it just kept going. Do you think you could find that?”
No, lady. No, I cannot.
Oh my god, that’s my favorite patron to help. #LibrarianProbs
“It has a bicycle on the cover? Or a dog or something?”
What is with the thing where only one person in a couple (usually the dude in a heterosexual couple but it happens either way) can give me their orders? I will say, “What size?” and they turn to the person who says, “Medium,” and then the Orderer tells me, “They want medium.” Yes, I know, I am right there, we don’t have to play telephone.
I work in a hotel, the cheap kind. This happened today:
When it’s dark, the lobby is locked and all guests must use the security window.
10:30 at night, a guest starts yanking at the locked door like a monkey banging on the bars, utterly confused in the face of the “Lobby Closed, Please Use Guest Window” sign with the giant arrow. He doesn’t stop until I come to the window, say “It’s locked” and ask how I could help him.
“Open the door,” he demands, “I need to use your bathroom.” (yank, yank)
I explain that I can’t open the door after hours for anyone.
“But someone’s taking a shower in the room and I have to go.” (further yanking on the door)
I repeat that I can’t open the door.
With a final yank on the door, he sighs heavily, the most persecuted creature ever born, and proclaims, as if I had just slaughtered his puppy:
“Man, I really need to dump a load” and looks at me expectantly, “Open the door.”
I walked away from the window.
He left eventually.
I spent two summers cleaning hotel rooms. I think that guy immediately returned to his room and had a grossplosion.
People are gross at hotels.
Have you read How May We Hate You? It’s a tumblr full of Times Square hotel concierge stories, and it’s AMAZING.
I don’t work directly in retail but do a lot of repair work in service stations, so I get to see a lot of what goes on. Just remember the girl behind the counter doesn’t set the fuel prices, so if you want to vent about how much it costs to fill your oversized SUV tell it to someone who cares! ( and I’m pretty sure Toasties aren’t going to carry on like that anyhow).
Oh god I just went back and read the hospital ones and everyone’s comments and oh god why…?! The worst. Hugs to everyone.
I’m just geniunely baffled why most people find it difficult to be nice to retail workers. (And sometimes I wonder if my smiling to everyone is just evidence that I’m ‘too nice,’ like it’s a bad thing?) One time there was a lady who shouted down the entire staff in my fave bookshop. Most times, people -even my parents- just ignore retail workers. It’s sad. So I make it a point to reply somehow, even if just a polite “No, thank you” to land developing salesmen with their flyers.
Now that I’m thinking about my barista job again, everything is flooding back. People who would just throw their credit cards down on the counter in front of you, often while you were holding your hand out for it. All the various regulars who would stand there and watch you like a hawk to make sure you made their drinks the “right” (totally weird) way (that they completely invented). People who stand there at the bar, listening to us calling out the names on the cups, and ask every single time we put a drink up, “Is this mine??” PEOPLE WHO WOULD TAKE SOMEONE ELSE’S DRINK FROM THE BAR BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION, SO THEN WE’D HAVE TO MAKE THE DRINK OVER AGAIN.
The lady whose regular drink was a double short soy extra dry cappuccino with 10 splendas. TEN SPLENDAS. If we didn’t put the Splenda in first to let the shots melt it, she would ask us to make it over, because “It tastes gross when the Splenda’s not melted.” OH, IS THAT WHEN IT TASTES GROSS?
ARRRGH people who threw the credit card or cash down on the counter made me SO PISSED. Like, well beyond what something like that really should. What I eventually started doing was putting it back down on the counter instead of handing it to them. It was fantastic, because they always looked so CONFUSED, but no one ever said anything.
And oh god, there are no customers more psychotic than the extra-dry cappuccino crowd. “BONE DRY, I SAID. BONNNNNNNNE DRYYYYYYY.” Ten splendas in two shots of espresso and a few drops of soy? WOULD the Splenda even completely dissolve? I’m picture a brown sludge of sucralose.
Ha ha, yeah, I always did that too. I liked to maintain eye contact while I did it. I did not get put on register very often.
Yeah, just… it was gross. You know how hard it is to make soy froth well to begin with, but then also extra dry? Get out. Take your sludge and go.
YES to all of these!!! AND once I had a woman ask for 22 SPLENDA IN HER DRINK???? she originally asked for 11 Splenda in a small cup but then decided she wanted a larger cup and could we just double the Splenda in that case? I just…why. why.
I worked many years as manager of a large used bookstore/newsstand in a tourist-y town in the Smoky Mtns. Beyond the “I’m looking for my favorite childhood book; it was blue; do you have it?” questions, my favorite vignette is this one:
Lady comes to counter to buy something, says something snarky and mean about the South.
Me, making conversation: “Where are you from?”
Lady: Ohio
Me: Ah, a Yankee
Lady: No, I’m a Midwesterner
Me: Well, around here, if you not from the South, you’re a Yankee
Lady: I. Am. Not! I’m from the Midwest!!!
Me: Listen. I’m the Southerner here so I get to say who’s a Yankee or not.
She left huffily and I smiled to myself.
Why why why why why does ordering coffee bring out the absolute worst control-freak impulses in people???
I worked in a bookstore during my summers in college, so we had two frequent kinds of annoying customers: the one who would ask me questions like, “Do you have that book? About the the woman who lived on a farm? I think in Canada?” and then get really indignant when I needed them to narrow it down a bit more, and the one who would try to stick their kid in the children’s section and then run away and make me the de facto babysitter while they did the rest of their shopping. I got really good at yelling “YOU SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN YOUR CHILD” while they tried to sneak out.
There was also the guy who came in looking for a copy of the Little Prince. Somehow, the only editions we had left were in French and Latin, and when I told him this he went, “THIS IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY,” and stormed out. Probably he was really concerned with all the ancient Romans moving to America and taking all the jobs.
I worked at Pier 1, so I dealt with privileged (mostly white) assholes pretty much every day. The worst, though, was this one time when a guy came in and had his wife talking to him on the phone while she was in the other Pier 1 THE NEXT TOWN OVER. He walked around the store and refused to talk to me, just snapped his fingers and pointed/gestured at whatever his wife was telling him to get (or set aside and decide not to get later). I was super nice and accomodating and squashing my rage into oblivion in the hopes that he would sign up for a credit card and he then he DIDN’T even though he spent like $2,000.
The only other really bad thing was when men would come in and, after being asked if I could help them find anything, would either a) scoff and say “No,” as if a dude can’t be interested in decor, or b) say “Yeah, my WIFE!” and then wait for the resulting guffaws.
I ended up really liking customer service jobs, but man, in high school (when I wasn't used to it and was 3x as horrible at quick thinking as I am now, which is still pretty bad) I would've killed to find a job where I had more independence/solo time. I might have been a little too much of a germophobe to go the outhouse route, but I can't guarantee it. I really hated having to answer people's questions without passing out in fear/running away (which I actually did a couple of times). I am now a reference librarian and I love it, no joke.
YES to all of these!!! AND once I had a woman ask for 22 SPLENDA IN HER DRINK???? she originally asked for 11 Splenda in a small cup but then decided she wanted a larger cup and could we just double the Splenda in that case? I just…why. why.
It sucks, I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. I've never worked in retail (though who knows what'll happen after college) but I believe empathy and basic decency will make it better.
This was such a great piece. In college, I worked as a waitress at a fast-service-y place (a la Cosi) and my biggest pet peeve were those customers who ordered their meals while on their phones. I cannot think of anything ruder. “Nice” is sort of my default, but I would go dead in the eyes when I encountered a cell-phone-orderer at my register. It made me feel like an ATM as opposed to, I dunno, a human being.
Post-college I worked at a museum and when I covered the reception desk, I came to encounter the next most annoying part of retail, which is The Person Making The Joke That They Think Is Original But Actually Is Made By Multiple People Multiple Times A Day. (David Sedaris also talks about this in SantaLand Diaries). In my case, it would be a hetero dude with his spouse or maybe friends.
Me: “Hi, how are you? Welcome to X Museum”
Him [smirking]: “One adult, one child”
So, I would ring up those two tickets, only to find that he was joking. The joke is: he’s an adult, but he acts like a child! LOLOLOLOL now I have to cancel that order and ring up the real one, while smiling weakly. Blergh. This joke was made…often.
Wait, is that a typo? Did you mean ice cream? Or was she for serious buying fancy ice, which she wanted packaged up with lesser ice?
Not retail, but I’ve spent the past year helping people enroll in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The vast majority of my clients were nice as could be, but with the disastrous rollout I have had a few VERY ANGRY people. The thing that makes me good at my job? I’m patient and sweet and empathetic to a fault, so almost all my angry people have left apologizing for their initial attitude. Even if I couldn’t actually fix the problem they were having! It’s not the most useful superpower, but it’s pretty great sometimes.
Also, I’m usually friendly and cheerful to service workers because I know how rough it can be and I don’t want to be That Customer, but when I was living in Jerusalem and trying to get internet set up, man, did I ever lose my temper with the internet call center people. After being shuffled between 10 different reps (my Hebrew wasn’t good enough and their English wasn’t good enough to communicate about something as complicated as wifi) I was basically starting every conversation by yelling. I felt awful when they finally transferred me to someone super sweet and helpful and I started out by shouting at him >.< that guy was so nice I almost asked him out.
Point is, being aggressively nice and helpful can pay off on both ends of the transaction :p
You guise (from 5 weeks ago, am I behind or what?), it was obviously Buchanan.
I hate the customers thing too. What's wrong with patrons? Public service is not business. I work for a public library, and the great thing about it is that the community as a whole is providing our resources to all of its members. I hate the capitulation to thinking of everything in a business model. No. We are not that, and that is a good thing. This is basic.