The Customer Is Always Wrong

[Signa]

Unfunny lines? Oh there's a whole new bunch of them....

"It can't scan. Does that mean it's free?"
*whilst checking notes* "It's ok, I printed it fresh this morning" or "The ink's still wet"
'Up to 80% off' actually means 0-80% off the RRP, not the price on the product.

And my all-time worst line to be heard
"I don't want a bag. I'm saving the environment."

Ok, I know this post is like 6 months old, but I had to respond to it.

I worked as a cashier for 4 years, and I heard the "it is free" line so many times. I decided once that I had heard enough of it, and wasn't going to laugh politely next time I heard it. Eventually, it did happen, and I can't remember my exact words, but it was along the lines of "yeah, that's what everyone says." The customer actually got pissed and glumly said "you could have laughed anyways."

I wasn't mean about it at all, but she still made me feel bad for being sick or the retarded joke after hearing it 50 times.

One of the first memorable things I had a customer say was the bag/environment line, but instead it was awesome. "nah, no bag. Save a plastic tree." I ended up using that one a ton on customers that declined bags. "ah, saving plastic trees?"

I've got a few stories of my own, but I'm waiting to finish reading the whole thread before I add my true response. I remember reading the first page when this thread started, but I didn't stick with it. I'm celebrating my 1-year liberation from retail, so a lot of my hate-filled memories are no longer so fresh and stinging.

Edit: Now that I've responded once, I think I'll just edit in my comments as I go along.

My brother worked as an EB Manager when Burning Crusade came out and he had to go to the midnight launch. He doesn't play WoW, but they all wore random Alliance and Horde shirts to 'get in the swing of things'. Anyway, my brother had an Alliance shirt on (not that he really knew what it was) and while he was serving at midnight to the throngs he said 'yes mate can I help you?' to this one nerdy looking fat guy at the counter. The guy goes,
'I will NOT buy my copy of BC from a person in the Alliance!'
My brother? Cool as a cucumber says, 'Good. Get your f&#$ing copy elsewhere. See ya!'...and promptly kicked him out. He quit a few weeks later as he got sick of the idiots.

11 pages and this is the first line that broke me into laughter. That's not to say that the rest of the thread wasn't funny. Oh no, the thread's been great. Something about WoWtards though just hit a funny nerve with me.

Cust:Can I withdraw some money from my account?
MeLooking at the three notes in my hand) Yes, but it would be easier to simply keep this cash and pay more on the card.
Custlooking confused) Oh no, I want to withdraw a specific amount.
MeGiving in) OK how much would you like?
Cust: $20
Me:...

I hand her the $20 note she just gave me

Me:Here you go.

I've had that exact customer. The only difference was that they handed me two $20s, and I got to hand one back. I didn't make a big deal out of it, and I don't even know if he noticed that I handed him his own cash back

 

[JakubK666]

Disregard that I suck cock, I need to check which tab I'm on when replying.

 

[Arionis]

Woman " I'm looking for a game for my son. He's fourteen, with a XBOX and an Atari."

Me. "Okay, well, for the XBOX, Hitman is very challenging."

Woman "Hitman? I don't want him assassinating people for fun."

Me "Well, there's Halo as well, if he has friends over constantly. We have Halo 2 and a map pack as well."

"Halo? What's that?"

"A first person shooter ma'am, great for parties."

"Shooter? You WANT my son to kill everyone in his school?"

"No ma'am. Um......we have Fusion Frenzy as well, another party game, fun for pretty much anyone."

"Frenzy? That sounds too violent for him, I am NOT wanting my son to grow some murderous rage and kill the first thing he sees."

........."Ma'am, do you watch him play the games?"

"Sometimes, yes, why?"

"You said you have an Atari?"

"That's correct."

*locates and hands her one of our three copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600*

"Here you are ma'am, free of charge as apology for the trouble."

"Oh, I loved this movie, I bet he'll love this. Thank you."

My boss comes up to me after she leaves. "How do you sleep at night?"

Me. "Hopefully, she lives near me, so I'll get to have her screams as her son beats her for a lullaby." *goes back to reading my magazine*

 

[Lucia di Lammermore]

I am always courteous to restaurant and store workers, mostly because I understand that they don't really want the job, and that it sucks to have bitchy customers. This wears thin when I meet people who are offences to Darwin but I have yet to abuse someone across a counter.

I once came close. me and a group of friends went to Dairy queen for milkshakes. it so happend that they were running a 4 for 3 sale. after we ordered our *4* milkshakes and went to the register, we were asked "would you like the sale price?" I almost told him "No, we would rather pay full price for all our shakes." in a really sarcastic tone of voice.

 

[ApolloSoldier]

I absolutely love this thread, it's close to being therapeutic.
I have been working in the Auto Parts business for several years now and there is no end to the amount of stupidity I face daily.

Some examples: Woman walks into store, I greet her and she walks up to my counter.
Customer: "I would like some parts for my car"
Me: "Alright, what make and model of car do you own?"
Cus: "Well, I'm not sure. It's blue."
At this point, I'm letting out a very quiet sigh.
Me: "Well, is it a Toyota? Honda? Chev?"
Cus: "I'm not really sure. It's blue though. I'm just looking for some parts"
Me: "Well, is the car here? I can come take a look at it."
Cus: "No, I took the bus because I need the parts for my car."
I thought at first she was just joshing me, but after about ten minutes of this, I realized she was for real, and she didn't really know what she was looking for, but she was adamant that I find parts for her blue car. Finally, I made a show of tapping a bunch of keys, and "hmmm"ing away, and said "I'm sorry ma'am, but we don't have any stock left on parts for blue cars. We should be getting some more in next week though."
She left the store, wasn't upset or anything, I just couldn't figure her out for the life of me.

Then there's the welfare teens. They are awesome. And ignorant. They don't work, they get up at 3PM, and they expect to be handed everything like they deserve it. This couple comes in and I can tell they're gonna be trouble just by looking at them. The chick is one of those "alley cat types" as my mom likes to call them; (she works in Social Services, deals with them all the time) with bleached blond hair, puffy blue bags under her eyes, and a huge attitude, and the guy with her is a short little scrawny bastard with beady eyes. Anyways, they come in, march up to my counter, drop a pair of shock absorbers down, and say "We want our money back."
Our return policy is pretty awesome, basically if the parts are wrong or you end up not needing them, just bring them on back we don't mind, we give a full refund, no restocking fee. So I explain that I'll return them no problem, full refund, and then the ***** starts mouthing off about how we're ripping them off because they can buy shocks up at Canadian Tire for half the price because they're on sale. I'm like "That's great, but that sale is actually on their economy line which don't last very long, and the ones you bought here are premiums with a lifetime warranty." Well, she doesn't like my tone and starts shouting at me that we're mean and out to get them and their money. My manager is standing a couple feet away, and I'm watching as she starts to break down in silent laughter, and I tried to process the return, which ended up being a hassle, not to mention my temper was starting to boil over at being personally accused of ripping people off and lying (I wasn't even in the day they bought the damn things). "Okay, do you have a debit or credit card I can return this to?" "No, we don't have any of those" "Well, I don't have that much cash in my till, we usually refund direct to a card." "Well we don't have a debit card."
I pause.
"I see. So who's debit card did you use to buy these then?"

It's great. I have more, and some are even better, like the "I have a Dodge Camaro." customer.
Others are just ignorant, thinking that because our company is affiliated with Canadian Tire, that means we are all retarded and know absolutely nothing.
I've worked in dealerships, and in heavy trucking parts, and my other co-workers have similar experience, which makes us all laugh when customers try to act smart. We don't know everything, and we'll be the first to admit it; but we know our shit and we're damn proud of our work.
Oh, and we're not the frickin' Borg. We are not a hive mind. I do not know what one of the other guys looked up for your '86 Chevette three weeks ago, nor do I want to know. And I didn't place your order yesterday, because it was one of my few days off, but if you actually give me a minute, I can go look it up instead of you standing there yelling at me for not knowing it Mr. I'm-So-Important-I-Drive-A-Dodge-Caravan.

 

[Daye.04]

Ah. This thread is a classic.
I recently started volunteering at the Red Cross again.
After one day back I was given a bag full of old underwear.
Unwashed.
That was very disgusting to look at/smell.

Edit: I quoted the wrong person =P

This one got me thinking about something that happened recently

This probably doesn't even belong here, since it's on a vessel, and not customers. But since we don't personally deal with customers, I'll just go ahead and post my stuff here. It would be kinda dubious to make anew thread just for this kind of stuff
Here it goes:

I'll explein the background first. I'm on a vessel, and it's about 50 peeps here. We're like a small community living in a hotel with each our own rooms. We eat at one of two places, and have about five washing rooms onboard. One is for regulare clothes. One is for the top chiefs. One is for petty and junior officers (regulare and boiler suits). One is for boiler suits. And one is for crew (And since I'm placed down by the crew, for me too). This takes both regulare and boiler.

Now, we put on our own laundries (Except for the chiefs, who ahve one of the crews to wash their boilers), and take out the clothes ourself. In the meantime it's free for everyone to fuck it up. I strongly doubt anyone does thism though. As we all live together for several months. And therefor no one wants to fuck anyone more than they're being allready. But occasionally there's these reports on stolen clothes. Usually boiler suits and stuff.

Not long ago, we heard about one guy saying someone stole his boiler suit. Of course, it couldn't just have been that he forgot where he had it or anything. Especially since everyone on board can recieve free coverals if they need it. Another time there was this t-shirt that was gone. A bit harder, because we don't recieve free t-shirts, but still. Who actally takes another guys t-shirt?

But get this. Just the other day, someone said that their boxer-shorts have been stolen. One of them. Seriously? Someone stole your underwear? After wash? I could maaaybe stretch it and believe that they did it before wash (Don't ask. It's easy to go insane onboard). But after? YOu think someone has such a desperate need for a piece of underwear that they steal yours?

Yeah, take a look in your drawer, mate.

 

[Undeed]

I work for an auctioneer in south florida. He covers house sales, estate sales, and auctions. It's good work, and usually it's great because the people who are there want to be there. I do three things:
1- I move things. We move around alot, and move a lot of merchandise with us. The worst thing I've ever had the pleasure of moving was a 450 lb bronze sculpture of an eagle that took no less than three people to move due to it's size and shape.
2- I help with auctions. Little things, like making sure he notices a bid, or helping people carry their stuff afterwards.
3- I help with security. Most of the estate sales run more like flea markets than auctions, just with much more expensive stuff. Some time we get someone who think their clever and tries to walk out witout paying, usually it doesn't work.

Like I said, it's usually not too bad as anyone there generally wants to be there. I've had some interesting people though. For example:

We were holding a charity auction for some foundation or other, and we brought a bunch of expensive stuff. Sports memoribilia, art, the eagle, etc. This one woman buys a hulking piece of artwork that's about three feet tall, paper mache on a steel frame to support the weight. It weighs probably about 50 or 60 lbs. I carry it out for her, nice and polite like. We start walking out, and she can't find her car. We circle halfway about the building before she remembers she parked on the other side. She says to me "It looks heavy". I reply that it is in fact heavy, and carry on in silence. She some how come to, and shares with me, the conclusion that I must have been abused as a child to carry *such* a heavy object for *such* a long period of time without complaint. I hope to god she thought she was making a joke. We finally get to her car, and I successfuly manhandle the monstrosity into her back seat. She looks at me and asks if I can take it out and turn it around. Of course I can, no problem mam', here you go. And away she goes, no tip, no thank you, nothing at all. RAGE.

 

[FluffX]

/snip/
*locates and hands her one of our three copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600*
/snip/

You Sir/Madam, have damned yourself. I'm going to go wash the taint of your words from my eyes.

Not that it wasn't an awesome way to damn yourself though.

 

[Arionis]

/snip/
*locates and hands her one of our three copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600*
/snip/

You Sir/Madam, have damned yourself. I'm going to go wash the taint of your words from my eyes.

Not that it wasn't an awesome way to damn yourself though.

Why, thank you kindly.

And it is indeed Sir. xD

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

I'm thinking I should have just stopped doing stuff when I was 19. Because by then I had enough stories to fill the, "Crotchety Old Codgers Tome of Real Time Stories That He May Or May Not Recellect."

So, here's chapter Five: "Doorjam Cuffs".

For those of you who do not know, doorjam cuffs are handcuffs with a strap, and a plastic hook that you place ontop of a door. Use your imagination.

So, A week after my eighteenth birthday I go out to buy a pair, a pair of positionary cuffs, and a whip. So, I get to my local adult shop, show the gentleman behind the counter my I.D, and he lets me get back to my shopping.
So, as I come up to the counter with my goodies the manager comes out. A nice woman, early thirties. HOTTER than the damn sun.
So, she apparently came out because the man did not know if he was allowed to sell them to me or not. I was being patient, so I let them talk a moment. She asks to see my I.D, I show her. She looks at me, notices how I apparently have the, "Yes, I know everything, if you like, I can tell you it." look. And asks me to educate her employee.
So, I begin droning on about the legal age limit for sex shops and shit, and how 18, while still being a minor, is an adult in America.
After a while I just got plain old bored. Informed the manager that I was growing tired, and asked if I could pay and be on my way.
Seriosuly, I think this lady was trolling for some of me. Because then she began lecturing the guy about minors, and some such crap. So finally after five minutes I interrupt.
"Look. I've been here thirty minuets playing whatever game this is. Lady, I will gladly have you assist me in breaking these in if it helps get this transaction going."
She looks at me, does the, 'undresses me with her eyes' thing. And runs the items and my card. She then asks me to follow her back to her office, leaving my friends at the coutner with the epitomy of the, "Dude," look.
We get back to her office, she begins to unbutton her shirt and tells me to take off my pants, when she gets a buzz.
"Ma'am, we had three tramps just walk in, and they look drunk."
I begin to laugh my ass off, she asks how long I can wait. I tell her I have an appoitnment in an hour and must get back to my friends. So, I leave, got my shizzle, went to the mall with my friends, met up with my girlfriend, and had a grand old time beign broken up with at the cofee shop. Apparently, she was going to be going out with the doofus who worked the counter at the sex shop. Apparently last week at my birthday party she was half an hour late because she had an affair with him on the way to my party.
Moral of the story......Um...Get with the hot older lady at the sex shop next time.... Lord knows your ***** of a girlfriend is going to cheat on you anyhow.

Bows down in reverence* UR A GOD!

/worship
worship the awesome! WORSHIP IT!

thats like the one in a million story that you tell over and over again. I am officialy wowed. this earns the Lord_Ascendant Commendation for Awesomest Story

 

[Xhumed]

*locates and hands her one of our three copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600*

I thought they buried every copy of that in a big pit...

I must say, it does me proud to see this thread has continued without me, like a mad scientist proud to see his monstrous creation lurching off to destroy a village...

 

[eatenbyagrue]

I used to work tech support for Microsoft, handling hardware issues with the 360. This story was passed around the office for the longest time before I left the company:

Me: Thank you for calling X-Box customer service, my name is eatenbyagrue, how may I help you?
Caller: Uh yeah, the disc tray for my console won't close.
Me: Alright sir, if I understand your problem correctly, then you are having problems with the disc tray of your console?
Caller: Yup.
*what follows is the standard console registry stuff. I finish that then get back to the issue at hand*
Me: So have you checked the tray for anything blocking it, a misaligned faceplate, or something?
Caller: Well, here's the problem. *pauses, sounds kind of embarrassed as he continues* See, my little brother got his tallywhacker (yes, thats what he actually used) stuck in the tray.
Me: *trying as hard as I can not to laugh* ....Seriously? (I'm not supposed to say that, but I was too flabbergasted to say anything else)
Caller: Yeah.
Me: Well, you can press the "eject" button again and it should open the disc tray.
Caller: *tries it* Oh hey, that worked. Thanks again.
Me: No problem. Thank you for calling X-Box customer support, and have a nice day.
Caller: You too. *as he is hanging up* DON'T STICK YOUR THING IN MY X-BOX!
Me (and my boss, who was apparently recording this): *start laughing like madmen*

Last I heard, they used that exact recording to demonstrate how to handle "special" issues to newbies.

 

[Labyrinth]

I must say, it does me proud to see this thread has continued without me, like a mad scientist proud to see his monstrous creation lurching off to destroy a village...

Congratulations good sir. I would award you a Labyrinth Red Star had I not already.

 

[LockHeart]

I loved this one, mainly because I'd been in the exact same position for almost two years:

I was in Morrisson's Supermarket and overheard an exchange between one of the shop floor staff and a woman -

Her: 'Excuse me, do you knwo where X item is?'
Him: 'Yeah.'
Her: 'Could you show me where it is?'
Him: 'No.'
Her: 'Well could you tell me where it is?'
Him: 'No.'
Her: 'Well why not?'
Him: 'You think they pay me enough to even get off my arse for an hour?'
Her: '..... Fair enough.' *walks off*

I do admire her grasp of the reality of working in retail though!

 

[Xhumed]

I loved this one, mainly because I'd been in the exact same position for almost two years:

I was in Morrisson's Supermarket and overheard an exchange between one of the shop floor staff and a woman -

Her: 'Excuse me, do you knwo where X item is?'
Him: 'Yeah.'
Her: 'Could you show me where it is?'
Him: 'No.'
Her: 'Well could you tell me where it is?'
Him: 'No.'
Her: 'Well why not?'
Him: 'You think they pay me enough to even get off my arse for an hour?'
Her: '..... Fair enough.' *walks off*

I do admire her grasp of the reality of working in retail though!

Actually, that's a little against the spirit of this thread...really, he should have assisted her- it wasn't a case of her being horrible, just that person being a disaffected, lazy gimp. Obviously, she has lost faith in retail staff. It's one thing being pissed off by customer abuse, another to be dickish without provocation.

 

[dragontiers]

A friend of mine owns a tobacco shop. Virtually nothing in the shop can be sold to anyone under 18, as 90% of it either contains tobacco or is intended for tobacco use. Also, he sells adult oriented materials, aka movies, toys, etc. that are all prominantly displayed. Due to this he has a strict carding policy to even be in the store. There are numerous signs displayed on the door and around the cashier area to this effect. (My favorite shows the standard "We ID" info, with a little blurb he added underneath that says "No ID? Then I'm going to have to ask you to Fuck Off.") If anyone walks in the door and looks younger than 30, they are automatically carded. Every time, even if they've been in everyday for a month and are on a first name basis with the owner. Additionally, he has some other carding guidelines (If you are wearing a high school t-shirt/sweatshirt you get carded. If you have writing on your hands, you get carded. If you ask where the cheep pipes are, you get carded.) Despite this fact, most people seem to believe they don't need an ID. Most transactions go down something like this:

Group of 5 or 6 people walk in.
Owner: Do you guys have your IDs on you?
4 or 5 people show ID's
Last person(s) tries to blend in with the rest of his/her friends.
Owner: Can I see your ID?
LP: Oh, I don't have it with me.
Owner: I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside.
Friends: It's ok (s)he's over 18.
Owner: I'm sorry, but without ID I can't sell him/her anything. And as long as she is with your group I can't sell you anything because you might be buying it for them.
Group talks among itself for a few seconds, then the person without ID leaves, ususally with a small part of the group to keep them company.

Another scenario I've seen him get a number of times goes like this:

Young black man enters store
YBM: Give me 5 phillies. (Phillie blunts are a cheap cigar, that, among other features, is fairly easy to unroll, allowing you to replace it's contents with the "tobacco" of your choice.)
Owner: Ok, I'll need to see some ID before I can make the sale.
YBM: No, it's okay dude. I'm XX (insert appropriate age for tobacco purchase here).
Owner: I still need to see ID. State Law.
YBM: What? You don't think I look XX? Do I look like a little kid to you?
Owner: I'm sorry, state law. I can't sell you any tobacco products without ID.
YBM: It's cause I'm Black, isn't it? #@$* I'm never coming back to this store again, you racist Mother Fucker!

It really does go down just like that. As if there is some corelation between a patrons skin color and a state law requiring the store to ID them!

Another irritant is the general level stupidity of some people who pay with credit/debit cards. It's usually a guy who'll try to use a card with a name like Jodi or Sarah on it. Now maybe, just maybe, that is there name, but usually not. So, once again it's time to see the ID:
Owner: Can I see your ID again for a minute?
Customer: Oh, it's okay. It's my Mom/Sister/Girlfriend/Wife's card.
Owner: I'm sorry, we don't take third party cards.
Customer: No, it's okay. My name is on the account too.
Owner: Well, your name isn't on the card. I can't accept it.
Customer: Here let me call them up...
Owner: I'm sorry, I can't take it over the phone. They'd have to be here for me to take it.
Customer: Oh, never mind then.

It's right up there with people who don't sign their cards, then when you go to ID them want to signt the card right there in front of you and then expect you to take it. Umm, NO.

Another type of idiot that likes to come in is the stupid stoner. As the store carries a lot of tobacco paraphanalia (i.e. pipes, hooka's, bubblers), a lot of people use them for other uses as well. That's all well and good. We don't care what you do with it once you get it home. Just don't be stupid in the store. Inevitably, someone will say something they shouldn't though.

Customer: *mentions illegal substance*
Owner: I'm sorry, What???
Customer: *repeats themselves*
Owner: I don't know what you mean. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Customer: *tries to explain themselves, but just digs a bigger hole*
Owner: I'm going to have to ask you to leave.
Customer: Huh, what?
Owner: Sorry, you're going to have to leave.
Customer: *heads to the door, completely confused*

These are just the daily idiots. I know there are better stories, but I can't think of them at the moment. I will post again later if I remember them.

 

[Oopsie]

I once had a friend come to me with his computer. He was told to clean it by tech support but they didn't tell him how. So he used a moist piece of cloth to take all the dust out of his computer. Frankly to say I had a laugh.

 

[Spyalt]

Heh, I used to do a paper run, and I discovered how to tell a person's personality by their mail box.

Man, I meat some nasty pieces of work there.

Then my boss introduced a GPS tracking system, and I quit.

I'm so glad I did.

I do the same. The people will the tiny letter boxes but huge papers are clearly sadistic bastards. While those with very large letter boxes are clearly lovely people.

 

[Arionis]

*locates and hands her one of our three copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600*

I thought they buried every copy of that in a big pit...

I must say, it does me proud to see this thread has continued without me, like a mad scientist proud to see his monstrous creation lurching off to destroy a village...

As had I, untill I found the copies.

I keep one of them in my coat pocket at all times. xD

No idea why though. 8/

 

[Baneat]

There is one thing I find rather annoying when I'm working here. Now as I'm an electrician, I have to repair the elctric stuff people brake (Stupid people ). That's generally okay. Unless those times they stick around.

When they do, they're allways like. "That's what is wrong". No .. It's not. "Yes, I know it that's what is wrong. You should check that". And they go on and on and on. For instance. When the first I do, is checking the button. And figure out that it's not something wrong with it. Then it's not the button there is something wrong with! Still they keep saying it is. And suggest I'm doing it wrong (For those of you who don't know how to do this - you stick a wire to one end, and another to the other end). It's merely impossible to do it wrong -.-

Also. When people pull the cable instead of the plug. And then comes to me wondering why they appliance doesn't work .. Stupid people -.-

Just wondering, do you make a large portion of your cash on people pulling on the cable, and you just unscrewing it and rewiring it? It's amazing what problems you get when people ask you to repair their computers.

"My hard drive started smoking, I think I got a virus or something?"

"My computer's running slow, All I use is Limewire, but I KNOW it's clean (I know the program itself is but who would use that piece of shite for legitimate P2P?) because my other techno-illiterate friends said so. Reformat, charge them and move on.

People fuck with their mobos trying to install a USB drive in the RAM ports because they think that's what readyboost means.

People come with computers *FILLED* with dust and wonder where the BSODs come from.

Einstein said the stupdity of mankind was infinte, he's definately right.

Don't get me started on people who try to play wii games in a 360 or buy l4d for PC and wonder why the xbox won't accept them.