Bear with me as this is my first official post outside of the meet'n greet thread, so hear goes.
The last job I worked at prior to joining the Navy was for a Greyhound Bus Line... In and of itself, that wasn't bad. The random idiots I encountered on a daily basis though? Yikes!
On Sexism
Some facts to consider: I am six foot, four and a half inches tall, weighing close to 280 pounds. At the time my shift supervisor was a little elf of a girl, blonde-haired and barely reaching my elbow in height. It's night shift at our station and we are the only two people behind the ticket counter. Enter the lone customer for the evening sauntering up to our desk.
As this took place in 2002, I'm a little fuzzy, but the general scenario played out as follows...
M: My cynical self.
SC: A dapper looking black chap who reeks of "Important Yuppie".
TS: My tiny supervisor.
M: Evenin' welcome to Greyhound.
SC: Good evening (Pointedly eyeing my nametag) Jay (Let it also be known I despise being called "Jay"), I've got X problem involving me trying to con you into a lower ticket fare! Can you help me?
TS: Actually sir, if you'd like, I ca-
SC: (Aruptly cutting her off mid-sentance.) Excuse me little lady, this gentleman and I were talking. (Ignoring her and returning to me) Now then, can you help me?
M: I apologize sir. The only people who are authorized to carry out that transaction are my manager and the shift supervisor.
SC: Well that's okay, just get your manager and he'll sort it out.
M: He had the morning shift and has left for the day.
SC: Oh... No problem, if you're not the supervisor, I'll just talk to him instead.... Where is he?
M: (Putting on my best *Cat-Got-The-Canary* grin while dramatically pointing to my co-worker.) Heh, that'd be HER!
SC: ...
The *Foot-in-Mouth* look on his face was absolutely priceless!
Thankfully he ate humble pie and acted fairly reasonably after that.
On The Most Common Complaint EVER
Day-in, day-out, no matter what, I would invaribly be asked one of the following questions concerning our lobby:
"Do you have change for the soda machine?"
Or
"The machine just ate my money... Can I get a refund?"
My reply was always:
"Sorry, the local transit owns this parking garage and we just rent the space from them. They take care of the vending machines and I have nothing to do with it."
That's when the fun would begin. I have seen outwardly-calm looking people explode into a spittle-spewing RAGE at the apparent audacity of my reply.
"Where's your manager!", "I'm getting my lawyer, I'm going to sue...", "I'll have your job..." and so'forth and so'on.
At which point I would politely inform them they were making a scene and if they did not leave my terminal I was calling the cops. Most usually did.
The irony though? For the few that accepted my reply and just looked bummed that they had lost 1.75$US, I'd point out that the machine was kinda wonky and if they lightly thumped it, their soda would usually drop through.
Pitch a fit though and I'd wave "bu-bye!" as they left before going over to retrieve their now fallen soda for myself.
............
I'll go ahead and conclude for the moment, see what kind of reaction I get. Then I can sally forth and share more wonderful tales of complete idiots!
The last job I worked at prior to joining the Navy was for a Greyhound Bus Line... In and of itself, that wasn't bad. The random idiots I encountered on a daily basis though? Yikes!
On Sexism
Some facts to consider: I am six foot, four and a half inches tall, weighing close to 280 pounds. At the time my shift supervisor was a little elf of a girl, blonde-haired and barely reaching my elbow in height. It's night shift at our station and we are the only two people behind the ticket counter. Enter the lone customer for the evening sauntering up to our desk.
As this took place in 2002, I'm a little fuzzy, but the general scenario played out as follows...
M: My cynical self.
SC: A dapper looking black chap who reeks of "Important Yuppie".
TS: My tiny supervisor.
M: Evenin' welcome to Greyhound.
SC: Good evening (Pointedly eyeing my nametag) Jay (Let it also be known I despise being called "Jay"), I've got X problem involving me trying to con you into a lower ticket fare! Can you help me?
TS: Actually sir, if you'd like, I ca-
SC: (Aruptly cutting her off mid-sentance.) Excuse me little lady, this gentleman and I were talking. (Ignoring her and returning to me) Now then, can you help me?
M: I apologize sir. The only people who are authorized to carry out that transaction are my manager and the shift supervisor.
SC: Well that's okay, just get your manager and he'll sort it out.
M: He had the morning shift and has left for the day.
SC: Oh... No problem, if you're not the supervisor, I'll just talk to him instead.... Where is he?
M: (Putting on my best *Cat-Got-The-Canary* grin while dramatically pointing to my co-worker.) Heh, that'd be HER!
SC: ...
The *Foot-in-Mouth* look on his face was absolutely priceless!
Thankfully he ate humble pie and acted fairly reasonably after that.
On The Most Common Complaint EVER
Day-in, day-out, no matter what, I would invaribly be asked one of the following questions concerning our lobby:
"Do you have change for the soda machine?"
Or
"The machine just ate my money... Can I get a refund?"
My reply was always:
"Sorry, the local transit owns this parking garage and we just rent the space from them. They take care of the vending machines and I have nothing to do with it."
That's when the fun would begin. I have seen outwardly-calm looking people explode into a spittle-spewing RAGE at the apparent audacity of my reply.
"Where's your manager!", "I'm getting my lawyer, I'm going to sue...", "I'll have your job..." and so'forth and so'on.
At which point I would politely inform them they were making a scene and if they did not leave my terminal I was calling the cops. Most usually did.
The irony though? For the few that accepted my reply and just looked bummed that they had lost 1.75$US, I'd point out that the machine was kinda wonky and if they lightly thumped it, their soda would usually drop through.
Pitch a fit though and I'd wave "bu-bye!" as they left before going over to retrieve their now fallen soda for myself.
............
I'll go ahead and conclude for the moment, see what kind of reaction I get. Then I can sally forth and share more wonderful tales of complete idiots!
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