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Gather round, kids. Auntie Kara's got an epic tale of asshattery that happened 7 years ago that she just remembered from another thread.
The year was 1999. I hadn't become the Customer Service Queen of Mean yet, I only had a few years' worth of working in the store under my belt and I had only begun to develop a tiny flame of ire towards these whiny lowlifes we call customers, a flame that would one day become a raging inferno of scorn within the darkness of my soul.
I had just recently moved up the food chain to become Assistant Manager of the Video Dept. Working Video was awesome, for the record. I worked every other department in the store to build up brownie points, and cashed them in as soon as a spot opened in Video (this was rare, since no one wanted to give it up). One of our responsibilities was also the film processing station. Sending off film to be developed, giving people their pictures when they came back, and also dealing with the Kodak Image Maker. You've seen it around, or something like it. Scan a picture, blow it up, resize it, edit it, then print it out and pay for it at the desk. This was back in the days when image editing at home was just still a pretty new (and expensive at the time) concept.
Which brings us to our little tale. Video closed at 10:30 every night. I was closing on the night in question, and there were no customers in the department at the time, so I decided to go to check the return box outside one last time for the evening. This is about 10:15. As I walk around leave the deparment, I see a guy at the Kodak Image Maker trying to figure it out (this almost always resulted in failure). I come back and he's still there, no big deal. He'll probably give up and go home. I check in the movies, put them on the shelves, and get ready to close my registers. Oh wait. That guy is still there. I can't lock the kiosk with someone using it. It's 1030. I ask him if he needs help, he says no. Okay, fine. I go back in the department and block the entrance with a rolling display rack to keep anyone else out of my department.
So I check the cabinet for the movies that came in for demos that wouldn't be released for the public for a few months. Nothing good that I haven't already taken home to watch. Still waiting around. 1045, guy still hasn't moved. I approach him again.
ME: I'm sorry sir, but our department closes at 1030 and it's now 1045. If you could bring your printed pictures over here, I can ring you up (people couldn't pay for prints at the regular checkouts).
SC: Yeah, I'm almost done.
ME: I'll be in opening in the morning at 9. If you like, I can lock the station where it is now and you can complete your printing then.
SC: I said I'm almost done.
ME: Sigh.
So I go back in the department and seal myself off again. I call my SO (I was a year ahead of her, she was still in school for her senior year). We chat for a bit, and I make it abundantly clear that I'm planning on stopping by her house on my way home from work, which should be soon because we're closed, but the guy just keeps wasting his time. The photo kiosk was on the back side of the Video deparment outside the department, he was about 4 feet away from me but he still persisted in doing whatever he was doing (and that's the fun part, we're almost there).
1110. I've already called the customer service desk to see if I can just run this guy off and they said no. So at long last, he's prancing around as if to indicate to me that he has a question. So I leave my fortified department hoping for a quick end to my evening. But it was not to be.
ME: Are you ready?
SC: This thing isn't working.
ME (Sigh, great): Hmm, it's been working all day, we haven't had any problems with it for quite awhile. What's the problem?
He pulls a printed picture out of the tray. It has a picture about the size of a dollar bill, surrouned on the rest of the photo paper by kind of a fuzzy background. The image itsef is terrible, it's grainy, it's blurred, it looks like some people on a roller coaster, but the quality is so bad they might as well be fighting ninjas.
ME: What type of editing option did you select?
SC: I just wanted to blow it up, and this is what I got.
ME: Okay, let's try this again and see what we can do. Can I see the original?
SC: It's right here.
He hands me his keychain.
ME: Um....
SC: This!
He has a teeny, tiny plastic square on his keyring. And on one side of that, is a teeny, tiny picture. Then it hits home. He went to Six Flags somewhere, got on a roller coaster that takes your picture, then decided to buy a souvenir. He obviously had the bright idea to get the cheapest option, then take it somewhere and have it blown up. There are two things wrong with this. First, it's illegal. Second, it will annihilate the picture quality.
ME: You're trying to blow this up?
SC: Yes.
ME: You can't do that.
SC: Why not?
ME: Because it's illegal unless you have a signed note of permission from the park that took the picture.
SC: But I have the original picture!
ME: But you can't make an illegal copy of it.
SC: Look, I got this cheap little picture, but I want to have something better. Can you blow it up to a size that I can frame it and hang it on the wall?
ME: No, because there's no way to retain the quality of the image with that kind of magnification.
Enter the Customer Service girl who is closing the store that night. A nice girl, but not too bright. We'll call her Paris. I step away from the customer to talk to her.
Paris: Oh, there you are. Why are you still here?
ME: Because this guy is still using the photo kiosk.
Paris: I thought you just forgot to bring me your till after you left.
ME: No, because (STORE MANAGER) would kill me.
Paris: So.... what's the problem.
ME: He's making illegal copies of a picture.
Paris: Oh. So....
ME: So he can't do that.
Paris: ...
ME: Because it's ILLEGAL.
SC: You know what? I'll just take this.
ME: You can't-
Paris: Just ring it up, okay?
ME: ...
Paris: ...
ME: Fine, but you get to talk to them if this comes back to bite me.
Okay, fine. At this point, I just want him out of the store. I do have to open the next morning, I'm tired, it's probably too late to stop by and see my SO, I just want out of there. So I go to ring him up.
SC: Here, I don't want these.
He hands me about 8 equally crappy copies of the picture.
ME: You did all these?
SC: Yeah, cause I wanted it to be bigger but it didn't come out right. But you can just throw them out.
ME: Okay. That'll be $70.
Oh boy. I had about a split second to forecast what was about to happen before he blew.
SC: $70?!?!
ME: You printed 8 pictures.
SC: BUT I DON'T WANT THOSE!
ME: But you printed them.
SC: THEY DIDN'T COME OUT RIGHT!
ME: They came out exactly as I would expect them to.
SC: WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THESE?
ME: I don't know. If you still want me to throw them out, I can. But you have to pay for them.
SC: THIS IS RIDICULOUS! THOSE PICTURES DIDN'T COME OUT!
ME: They did, actually. Just not the way you wanted them to.
I've got this guy. He's kept me here for an hour, and I'm going to make him pay. Oh hell, here she comes again.
Paris: Can you excuse us for a moment?
SC: Fine. But I ain't paying for those pictures.
So we go all the way back to the back room for the inevitible battle of wills.
Paris: What's the problem? Just let him buy the picture.
ME: No way. He screwed around for OVER AN HOUR making ILLEGAL copies of a picture that ANYONE with ANY SHRED of COMMON SENSE would know would not be able to be blown up!
Paris: We're closing in half an hour. You're now at an hour of overtime. Charge him for 1 damn picture.
ME: I'm the assistant manager of Video. (MANAGER) is not here right now. Right now, this is MY department and I will handle his ON MY OWN!
Paris: Then you can explain it to (STORE MANAGER) tomorrow.
ME: You know what? You want to charge him for 1? Do it. And then YOU can explain it. I'm done.
And I clocked out and went home. She probably only charged him for 1, but miraculously, I never heard a word about the incident from the dept manager or store manager. Yeah, I kind of admitted defeat, but she pulled rank on me, which infuriated me and I had to leave before I said or did something that could get me in trouble.
The year was 1999. I hadn't become the Customer Service Queen of Mean yet, I only had a few years' worth of working in the store under my belt and I had only begun to develop a tiny flame of ire towards these whiny lowlifes we call customers, a flame that would one day become a raging inferno of scorn within the darkness of my soul.
I had just recently moved up the food chain to become Assistant Manager of the Video Dept. Working Video was awesome, for the record. I worked every other department in the store to build up brownie points, and cashed them in as soon as a spot opened in Video (this was rare, since no one wanted to give it up). One of our responsibilities was also the film processing station. Sending off film to be developed, giving people their pictures when they came back, and also dealing with the Kodak Image Maker. You've seen it around, or something like it. Scan a picture, blow it up, resize it, edit it, then print it out and pay for it at the desk. This was back in the days when image editing at home was just still a pretty new (and expensive at the time) concept.
Which brings us to our little tale. Video closed at 10:30 every night. I was closing on the night in question, and there were no customers in the department at the time, so I decided to go to check the return box outside one last time for the evening. This is about 10:15. As I walk around leave the deparment, I see a guy at the Kodak Image Maker trying to figure it out (this almost always resulted in failure). I come back and he's still there, no big deal. He'll probably give up and go home. I check in the movies, put them on the shelves, and get ready to close my registers. Oh wait. That guy is still there. I can't lock the kiosk with someone using it. It's 1030. I ask him if he needs help, he says no. Okay, fine. I go back in the department and block the entrance with a rolling display rack to keep anyone else out of my department.
So I check the cabinet for the movies that came in for demos that wouldn't be released for the public for a few months. Nothing good that I haven't already taken home to watch. Still waiting around. 1045, guy still hasn't moved. I approach him again.
ME: I'm sorry sir, but our department closes at 1030 and it's now 1045. If you could bring your printed pictures over here, I can ring you up (people couldn't pay for prints at the regular checkouts).
SC: Yeah, I'm almost done.
ME: I'll be in opening in the morning at 9. If you like, I can lock the station where it is now and you can complete your printing then.
SC: I said I'm almost done.
ME: Sigh.
So I go back in the department and seal myself off again. I call my SO (I was a year ahead of her, she was still in school for her senior year). We chat for a bit, and I make it abundantly clear that I'm planning on stopping by her house on my way home from work, which should be soon because we're closed, but the guy just keeps wasting his time. The photo kiosk was on the back side of the Video deparment outside the department, he was about 4 feet away from me but he still persisted in doing whatever he was doing (and that's the fun part, we're almost there).
1110. I've already called the customer service desk to see if I can just run this guy off and they said no. So at long last, he's prancing around as if to indicate to me that he has a question. So I leave my fortified department hoping for a quick end to my evening. But it was not to be.
ME: Are you ready?
SC: This thing isn't working.
ME (Sigh, great): Hmm, it's been working all day, we haven't had any problems with it for quite awhile. What's the problem?
He pulls a printed picture out of the tray. It has a picture about the size of a dollar bill, surrouned on the rest of the photo paper by kind of a fuzzy background. The image itsef is terrible, it's grainy, it's blurred, it looks like some people on a roller coaster, but the quality is so bad they might as well be fighting ninjas.
ME: What type of editing option did you select?
SC: I just wanted to blow it up, and this is what I got.
ME: Okay, let's try this again and see what we can do. Can I see the original?
SC: It's right here.
He hands me his keychain.
ME: Um....
SC: This!
He has a teeny, tiny plastic square on his keyring. And on one side of that, is a teeny, tiny picture. Then it hits home. He went to Six Flags somewhere, got on a roller coaster that takes your picture, then decided to buy a souvenir. He obviously had the bright idea to get the cheapest option, then take it somewhere and have it blown up. There are two things wrong with this. First, it's illegal. Second, it will annihilate the picture quality.
ME: You're trying to blow this up?
SC: Yes.
ME: You can't do that.
SC: Why not?
ME: Because it's illegal unless you have a signed note of permission from the park that took the picture.
SC: But I have the original picture!
ME: But you can't make an illegal copy of it.
SC: Look, I got this cheap little picture, but I want to have something better. Can you blow it up to a size that I can frame it and hang it on the wall?
ME: No, because there's no way to retain the quality of the image with that kind of magnification.
Enter the Customer Service girl who is closing the store that night. A nice girl, but not too bright. We'll call her Paris. I step away from the customer to talk to her.
Paris: Oh, there you are. Why are you still here?
ME: Because this guy is still using the photo kiosk.
Paris: I thought you just forgot to bring me your till after you left.
ME: No, because (STORE MANAGER) would kill me.
Paris: So.... what's the problem.
ME: He's making illegal copies of a picture.
Paris: Oh. So....
ME: So he can't do that.
Paris: ...
ME: Because it's ILLEGAL.
SC: You know what? I'll just take this.
ME: You can't-
Paris: Just ring it up, okay?
ME: ...
Paris: ...
ME: Fine, but you get to talk to them if this comes back to bite me.
Okay, fine. At this point, I just want him out of the store. I do have to open the next morning, I'm tired, it's probably too late to stop by and see my SO, I just want out of there. So I go to ring him up.
SC: Here, I don't want these.
He hands me about 8 equally crappy copies of the picture.
ME: You did all these?
SC: Yeah, cause I wanted it to be bigger but it didn't come out right. But you can just throw them out.
ME: Okay. That'll be $70.
Oh boy. I had about a split second to forecast what was about to happen before he blew.
SC: $70?!?!
ME: You printed 8 pictures.
SC: BUT I DON'T WANT THOSE!
ME: But you printed them.
SC: THEY DIDN'T COME OUT RIGHT!
ME: They came out exactly as I would expect them to.
SC: WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THESE?
ME: I don't know. If you still want me to throw them out, I can. But you have to pay for them.
SC: THIS IS RIDICULOUS! THOSE PICTURES DIDN'T COME OUT!
ME: They did, actually. Just not the way you wanted them to.
I've got this guy. He's kept me here for an hour, and I'm going to make him pay. Oh hell, here she comes again.
Paris: Can you excuse us for a moment?
SC: Fine. But I ain't paying for those pictures.
So we go all the way back to the back room for the inevitible battle of wills.
Paris: What's the problem? Just let him buy the picture.
ME: No way. He screwed around for OVER AN HOUR making ILLEGAL copies of a picture that ANYONE with ANY SHRED of COMMON SENSE would know would not be able to be blown up!
Paris: We're closing in half an hour. You're now at an hour of overtime. Charge him for 1 damn picture.
ME: I'm the assistant manager of Video. (MANAGER) is not here right now. Right now, this is MY department and I will handle his ON MY OWN!
Paris: Then you can explain it to (STORE MANAGER) tomorrow.
ME: You know what? You want to charge him for 1? Do it. And then YOU can explain it. I'm done.
And I clocked out and went home. She probably only charged him for 1, but miraculously, I never heard a word about the incident from the dept manager or store manager. Yeah, I kind of admitted defeat, but she pulled rank on me, which infuriated me and I had to leave before I said or did something that could get me in trouble.
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