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I am a manager with a large chain drugstore. The other day, the tech running our photo lab calls me out there to handle a situation. A man and his wife are at the counter and are claiming that the prints in their photo orders are not theirs.
Whenever we process a film order, we put a little sticker on the roll of film that you dropped off and a duplicate sticker on your order's envelope--it's called a twin check. That way, when the film exits the processor, we can match it up with the appropraite envelope. As long as things are kept organized, the prints that come off the machine will be yours, unless things get screwed up. Sometimes, the tech will put film in the wrong envelope, or put one twin check sticker on your film but place the other on the wrong envelope, causing the prints to go to the wrong customer.
Anyway, after a few standard questions what appeared to have happened was that our new employee had let some prints from another person's order get mixed in with this couple's order. Now, remember the twin check I told you about? When printing an order, the number on that sticker is entered into the machine, which will print that number on the back of the prints--another way to prevent orders from being mixed up. I check the back of the prints and sort them according to the twin check number. I matched up all the prints with "xxxx" printed on the back, and those with "yyyy" printed on the back. Then I counted them--nope, they weren't overcharged, just had someone else's prints accidentally placed in their envelope.
Problem solved, so I thought. "These aren't our pictures," claims the customer. "We took this photo from the right side of the building. These prints show the picture being taken from the left side. They must not be ours." I look at his negatives and the prints and realize what happened--our new technician put the film through the processor upside-down, causing the images on the prints to be reversed. I inform this lovely couple of what happened, offer an apology for the inconvenience, and tell them we will reprint their order the correct way. On top of this, I offer a refund for what they paid. Yeah, we made a mistake, but they'll end up getting their stuff for free an all they have to do is wait an extra 15 minutes for us to fix it. Now the problem was solved, right?
I think you'll know where this is going....
"No these are not our pictures! I'm not paying for this because you all lost our pictures!" I'm a little confused now, so I ask them to run this by me again. The customer is pointing to the picture of this building he took and explains that he took it from a certain angle and that this prints shows the photo taken from the opposite angle so the photo must not be his. So, I again explain that our technician made the mistake of putting his film through our machine upside-down, causing the image on the print to be reversed. Now, what are the odds of you taking a picture of a particular landmark, coming to a store to have them developed, and having our "idiot" employees manage to mix up your prints with some of the exact same building that "someone else" must have taken, all the while receiving a perfectly plausible explanation as to why this happened?
This man still continues to insist he did not take these particular few photos. I ask him if the other frames on his developed negatives are his. "yes," is the reply. So, basically he was saying that frame numbers 13 and 16 were pictures he took, but that frames 14 and 15 (which were in between the two he admits to taking) were not taken by him. Ok, I'm really at a loss for words at this point.
I then explain how we keep the orders organized, talking about those twin check stickers I wrote about earlier. His set of negatives that were developed from the roll of film he dropped off had a twin number sticker of "xxxx" on them, the envelope with his name on it had the corresponding "xxxx" sticker on it, and all the prints in the envelope (even the ones he claimed not to have taken) had "xxxx" printed on the back of them. That means that all those prints were made from the SAME ROLL OF FILM. There was no way you could claim some of the frames on the film were yours and some weren't. Based on my lengthy experience in doing this, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY anything had been messed up beyond the mistakes I had already acknowledged.
I even pointed out to him that all the frames on his cut negatives were in seqential order--the strip went right on through 1 to 27 with no gaps in the sequence. Continuing to insist that some of the frames were ones you took, but the ones right next to them were not is just....God, I can't even fathom the ignorance, especially since he said he had taken pictures of this one particular building "but from the opposite side." Listen to yourself! Opposite side--I told you the film was put in upside-down--don't you think there's some kind of correlation here? Obvisouly not--it'll all our fault because we're just so stupied and incompetent. Even after I had gone through all this with him, he at one point told me "I don't care how you keep your orders separated--these aren't mine!" Ok, whatever.
he starts to storm out of the store, but not before pointing his finger at me and telling me he's taking these pictures with him, calling his bank and stopping payment on the check he wrote for them, and if we want to "sue" him I can ahead and do it. Maybe I should call our bank and find out if the check was halted then pass it on the lawyers at corporate--I'm sure at least one of them would be up to reaming this guy out in small claims court. People like this honestly make me think God would be justified in sending a meteor crashing into the Earth to end the human race, considering we've sunken to such levels of stupidity.
Of course, with my luck, he'll be back in next week demanding the refund he initially refused, which of course I'll have to deny since he told me he was stopping payment on that check. Oh, joy.
Whenever we process a film order, we put a little sticker on the roll of film that you dropped off and a duplicate sticker on your order's envelope--it's called a twin check. That way, when the film exits the processor, we can match it up with the appropraite envelope. As long as things are kept organized, the prints that come off the machine will be yours, unless things get screwed up. Sometimes, the tech will put film in the wrong envelope, or put one twin check sticker on your film but place the other on the wrong envelope, causing the prints to go to the wrong customer.
Anyway, after a few standard questions what appeared to have happened was that our new employee had let some prints from another person's order get mixed in with this couple's order. Now, remember the twin check I told you about? When printing an order, the number on that sticker is entered into the machine, which will print that number on the back of the prints--another way to prevent orders from being mixed up. I check the back of the prints and sort them according to the twin check number. I matched up all the prints with "xxxx" printed on the back, and those with "yyyy" printed on the back. Then I counted them--nope, they weren't overcharged, just had someone else's prints accidentally placed in their envelope.
Problem solved, so I thought. "These aren't our pictures," claims the customer. "We took this photo from the right side of the building. These prints show the picture being taken from the left side. They must not be ours." I look at his negatives and the prints and realize what happened--our new technician put the film through the processor upside-down, causing the images on the prints to be reversed. I inform this lovely couple of what happened, offer an apology for the inconvenience, and tell them we will reprint their order the correct way. On top of this, I offer a refund for what they paid. Yeah, we made a mistake, but they'll end up getting their stuff for free an all they have to do is wait an extra 15 minutes for us to fix it. Now the problem was solved, right?
I think you'll know where this is going....
"No these are not our pictures! I'm not paying for this because you all lost our pictures!" I'm a little confused now, so I ask them to run this by me again. The customer is pointing to the picture of this building he took and explains that he took it from a certain angle and that this prints shows the photo taken from the opposite angle so the photo must not be his. So, I again explain that our technician made the mistake of putting his film through our machine upside-down, causing the image on the print to be reversed. Now, what are the odds of you taking a picture of a particular landmark, coming to a store to have them developed, and having our "idiot" employees manage to mix up your prints with some of the exact same building that "someone else" must have taken, all the while receiving a perfectly plausible explanation as to why this happened?
This man still continues to insist he did not take these particular few photos. I ask him if the other frames on his developed negatives are his. "yes," is the reply. So, basically he was saying that frame numbers 13 and 16 were pictures he took, but that frames 14 and 15 (which were in between the two he admits to taking) were not taken by him. Ok, I'm really at a loss for words at this point.
I then explain how we keep the orders organized, talking about those twin check stickers I wrote about earlier. His set of negatives that were developed from the roll of film he dropped off had a twin number sticker of "xxxx" on them, the envelope with his name on it had the corresponding "xxxx" sticker on it, and all the prints in the envelope (even the ones he claimed not to have taken) had "xxxx" printed on the back of them. That means that all those prints were made from the SAME ROLL OF FILM. There was no way you could claim some of the frames on the film were yours and some weren't. Based on my lengthy experience in doing this, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY anything had been messed up beyond the mistakes I had already acknowledged.
I even pointed out to him that all the frames on his cut negatives were in seqential order--the strip went right on through 1 to 27 with no gaps in the sequence. Continuing to insist that some of the frames were ones you took, but the ones right next to them were not is just....God, I can't even fathom the ignorance, especially since he said he had taken pictures of this one particular building "but from the opposite side." Listen to yourself! Opposite side--I told you the film was put in upside-down--don't you think there's some kind of correlation here? Obvisouly not--it'll all our fault because we're just so stupied and incompetent. Even after I had gone through all this with him, he at one point told me "I don't care how you keep your orders separated--these aren't mine!" Ok, whatever.
he starts to storm out of the store, but not before pointing his finger at me and telling me he's taking these pictures with him, calling his bank and stopping payment on the check he wrote for them, and if we want to "sue" him I can ahead and do it. Maybe I should call our bank and find out if the check was halted then pass it on the lawyers at corporate--I'm sure at least one of them would be up to reaming this guy out in small claims court. People like this honestly make me think God would be justified in sending a meteor crashing into the Earth to end the human race, considering we've sunken to such levels of stupidity.
Of course, with my luck, he'll be back in next week demanding the refund he initially refused, which of course I'll have to deny since he told me he was stopping payment on that check. Oh, joy.
I had to explain that even though they weren't originally in the picture, someone had to take the picture and there was no reason for them not to be. We all had a good laugh over that one. It was great that they thought it was a real picture. heheh
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