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So, I required police intervention at work yesterday...
Finally getting around to writing this out.
BG I'm back in the textbook business, after a fashion. I'm the accounting specialist/assistant manager/gatekeeper to the boss in a bookstore at a small private university. I love the work here, the community is small, so the store is smaller, and while it's in the same company that I do have some issues with, I'm not nearly as stressful as my last store, and I'm actually learning a lot of new things, and am being given a lot of new responsibilities. Case in point, there's a HUGE company conference in town the store manager HAS to be at. Guess who's been running the store? Open to Close the last week, starting Tuesday. It's tiring, but rewarding. Plus, being on such a small campus, incidences of sucky and stupid customers are few and far between. When they happen though, oh boy are they a doozy... End BG
On Monday, my day off, apparently this guy comes in wanting to sell some books. Ok, from what my CW tells me, Bossman looks at what he has and flat out says no. End of story, we will NOT buy your books. It's 10 brand new, never been opened, copies of a single book. That sets off every alarm bell in the book, really. Further, when asked for an ID to see if the books were even in the system (can't even price them without a valid ID), guy hands over an ID that expired in 2010. Bossman told him, no valid ID, no buyback ever. So he left.
He waits until Wednesday to come back, most likely waiting to see if he could get someone else to do the buyback for him. Only this time he'd gone online to our company website to generate a quote. These quotes say something along the lines of "If the books are in resellable condition, any <Company? store will honor the quote, at their discretion". Well, the quotes are only valid for a certain period of time.
His quote on Wednesday had a few errors. I saw him pull out the 10 books and told him I needed an ID, he went out to his car, supposedly to look for it. I was going "no. No effin' way am I buying these."
CW tells me he was in on Monday, and I'm like "Oh REALLY, now?"
I grab the quote, and start reading through it. Yeah, it expired the day before at 11 in the morning. He came in around 12:30-1 ish. I was all set to tell him I couldn't honor it, but then I looked and it was for only ONE copy of the book at the same time. This would have netted him $18 or so. He was essentially expecting us to hand him $180.
He comes back into the store and asks for his money, and I explain the whole "quote expired" issue. He argues that the website said I'd give him the money for the books. I told him that we aren't allowed to buy 10 at a time. The max would be 2, period, end of story. He said ok, give him $36. I asked for ID again and was told he didn't have any. I told him he could come back with ID and I'd give him whatever the system price was without a quote, OR the quote for the exact number of books. If he had a quote for 1 book, he'd get that price for one and whatever MY system said for the other.
He tried to play the "No speak English card" and responed with "mande...?"
My CW is Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan. She just stared, and when he realized this, I think he just switched back to English and went on his way. I thought that was the end of it, he wouldn't be back since he had no valid ID, student or state.
Well, yesterday, my CW was at her graduation ceremony, so I was alone a good chunk of the day. No big deal, I've done it before in larger stores and made out ok. This was fine. Except, around 1 pm, guess who came back? Same backpack full of the same 10 copies. I sighed internally and tried to mentally prepare myself.
He whips out another quote from <company> website, expiring at 3:27 pm. Well, all right, this might not be so bad...but it's for one book. AGAIN. He generated a quote for a SINGLE FRICKING COPY. he did it AGAIN. Ugh. Well, ok, I know how to get him out of the store. I ask for ID.
Shite, he's got one. And it's still valid, hasn't expired. So I nonchalantly pull up a word doc and start typing in his details while once again explaining to him since he generated a quote for a single copy of the book, I can ONLY honor it for that price, and the second copy will only be $5. We don't use this book at our store, or our school. Never have, probably never will.
Holy shit, did he flip a bitchfit switch on.
Cue pounding the counter emphatically as he starts exclaiming "Last time I was in here YOU SAID if I had the quote I could SELL TWO COPIES AT THIS PRICE!"
"Yes, if you had a quote for two copies, bit--"
"YOU SAID TWO!!! I HAVE TEN TO SELL!"
"Yes, sir, but you only generated a quote for one title, see, I scan this barcode, and it brings up one copy"
"then CHANGE it to TWO"
"I can't do that"
"DO IT!"
He kept leaning closer and closer over the counter, straining to look at my computer screen and I was getting frightened and VERY uneasy. Luckily the way our system works, a few keystrokes and it looks like a hiccup and error message pops up. So I do that and tell him I need to go reboot the server in the back, brb.
I snatch his ID while I run, head to the back and make a copy of it while I call the campus PD. The wonderful thing about this campus and community is how tight knit it is. The campus officers will wander in just because, and chitchat, grab some drinks or snacks and go on their way. So when I called the PD, I asked that an officer "casually wander over", as I had a belligerent customer who was getting aggressive, and I was about to make him very unhappy by telling him "NO" again. they said someone would be over shortly.
I head back out and once again, start going round and round with the guy, who claimed I was a liar and I told him one thing the other day, and something different today, yadda yadda, complete with emphatic pounding on the counter again and again. Oi.
Then, THEN he says he was only going to sell back two TODAY, and I admit, I lost my patience. I told him "you canNOT sell two copies today, then come back another day to sell two more until they're all gone. We will pop your ID as suspicious!!"
Right around that time (2 minutes after I called) a campus police offer strolled in and I said I. We chatted back and forth while I finally, FINALLY processed the ONE copy for buyback, got him to fill in MORE of his ID info on the receipt and sent him away. As soon as he was down the steps, I started shaking a bit. the campus officer asked if I was ok, and if that was the guy. I said yes, and told the bare bones.
She sent another officer to go talk to him, while she talked to me, and what followed was me telling her what happened over the course of the week. Once she heard Bossman had point blank said no? She called her lieutenant, and they had a discussion.
Meanwhile, guy told the other officer he bought the books at "an estate sale somewhere, about six months ago".
...
right, then. Ok, so I called a few stores in our company also in town, and narrowed down the possible colleges that use this particular book. I have more work to do on Monday, contact the other store in our company that's closed on Fridays thanks to this guy. Blegh.
End of the day, guy is issued a Criminal Trespass. He's not a student, and his business has been refused several times at the store, so he's not allowed to set foot on campus again. I tell you when the other officer came over the radio and said he was off campus and heading away down the street, I felt so relieved, despite being a little queasy and a little shaky.
I have to write a statement, and so does my CW. The sargeant will be in on Monday, to talk to Bossman. I called him, too, while he was at the conference, and explained what happened.
It's been a long week. Between running the store, dealing with this guy, and the horrid news I've gotten among other things, I'm so frazzled and exhausted, it's not even funny.
Roll on 1 pm. My week will be officially over and I'll have some downtime to just REST until next week. Blegh.
The End.
BG I'm back in the textbook business, after a fashion. I'm the accounting specialist/assistant manager/gatekeeper to the boss in a bookstore at a small private university. I love the work here, the community is small, so the store is smaller, and while it's in the same company that I do have some issues with, I'm not nearly as stressful as my last store, and I'm actually learning a lot of new things, and am being given a lot of new responsibilities. Case in point, there's a HUGE company conference in town the store manager HAS to be at. Guess who's been running the store? Open to Close the last week, starting Tuesday. It's tiring, but rewarding. Plus, being on such a small campus, incidences of sucky and stupid customers are few and far between. When they happen though, oh boy are they a doozy... End BG
On Monday, my day off, apparently this guy comes in wanting to sell some books. Ok, from what my CW tells me, Bossman looks at what he has and flat out says no. End of story, we will NOT buy your books. It's 10 brand new, never been opened, copies of a single book. That sets off every alarm bell in the book, really. Further, when asked for an ID to see if the books were even in the system (can't even price them without a valid ID), guy hands over an ID that expired in 2010. Bossman told him, no valid ID, no buyback ever. So he left.
He waits until Wednesday to come back, most likely waiting to see if he could get someone else to do the buyback for him. Only this time he'd gone online to our company website to generate a quote. These quotes say something along the lines of "If the books are in resellable condition, any <Company? store will honor the quote, at their discretion". Well, the quotes are only valid for a certain period of time.
His quote on Wednesday had a few errors. I saw him pull out the 10 books and told him I needed an ID, he went out to his car, supposedly to look for it. I was going "no. No effin' way am I buying these."
CW tells me he was in on Monday, and I'm like "Oh REALLY, now?"
I grab the quote, and start reading through it. Yeah, it expired the day before at 11 in the morning. He came in around 12:30-1 ish. I was all set to tell him I couldn't honor it, but then I looked and it was for only ONE copy of the book at the same time. This would have netted him $18 or so. He was essentially expecting us to hand him $180.
He comes back into the store and asks for his money, and I explain the whole "quote expired" issue. He argues that the website said I'd give him the money for the books. I told him that we aren't allowed to buy 10 at a time. The max would be 2, period, end of story. He said ok, give him $36. I asked for ID again and was told he didn't have any. I told him he could come back with ID and I'd give him whatever the system price was without a quote, OR the quote for the exact number of books. If he had a quote for 1 book, he'd get that price for one and whatever MY system said for the other.
He tried to play the "No speak English card" and responed with "mande...?"
My CW is Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan. She just stared, and when he realized this, I think he just switched back to English and went on his way. I thought that was the end of it, he wouldn't be back since he had no valid ID, student or state.
Well, yesterday, my CW was at her graduation ceremony, so I was alone a good chunk of the day. No big deal, I've done it before in larger stores and made out ok. This was fine. Except, around 1 pm, guess who came back? Same backpack full of the same 10 copies. I sighed internally and tried to mentally prepare myself.
He whips out another quote from <company> website, expiring at 3:27 pm. Well, all right, this might not be so bad...but it's for one book. AGAIN. He generated a quote for a SINGLE FRICKING COPY. he did it AGAIN. Ugh. Well, ok, I know how to get him out of the store. I ask for ID.
Shite, he's got one. And it's still valid, hasn't expired. So I nonchalantly pull up a word doc and start typing in his details while once again explaining to him since he generated a quote for a single copy of the book, I can ONLY honor it for that price, and the second copy will only be $5. We don't use this book at our store, or our school. Never have, probably never will.
Holy shit, did he flip a bitchfit switch on.
Cue pounding the counter emphatically as he starts exclaiming "Last time I was in here YOU SAID if I had the quote I could SELL TWO COPIES AT THIS PRICE!"
"Yes, if you had a quote for two copies, bit--"
"YOU SAID TWO!!! I HAVE TEN TO SELL!"
"Yes, sir, but you only generated a quote for one title, see, I scan this barcode, and it brings up one copy"
"then CHANGE it to TWO"
"I can't do that"
"DO IT!"
He kept leaning closer and closer over the counter, straining to look at my computer screen and I was getting frightened and VERY uneasy. Luckily the way our system works, a few keystrokes and it looks like a hiccup and error message pops up. So I do that and tell him I need to go reboot the server in the back, brb.
I snatch his ID while I run, head to the back and make a copy of it while I call the campus PD. The wonderful thing about this campus and community is how tight knit it is. The campus officers will wander in just because, and chitchat, grab some drinks or snacks and go on their way. So when I called the PD, I asked that an officer "casually wander over", as I had a belligerent customer who was getting aggressive, and I was about to make him very unhappy by telling him "NO" again. they said someone would be over shortly.
I head back out and once again, start going round and round with the guy, who claimed I was a liar and I told him one thing the other day, and something different today, yadda yadda, complete with emphatic pounding on the counter again and again. Oi.
Then, THEN he says he was only going to sell back two TODAY, and I admit, I lost my patience. I told him "you canNOT sell two copies today, then come back another day to sell two more until they're all gone. We will pop your ID as suspicious!!"
Right around that time (2 minutes after I called) a campus police offer strolled in and I said I. We chatted back and forth while I finally, FINALLY processed the ONE copy for buyback, got him to fill in MORE of his ID info on the receipt and sent him away. As soon as he was down the steps, I started shaking a bit. the campus officer asked if I was ok, and if that was the guy. I said yes, and told the bare bones.
She sent another officer to go talk to him, while she talked to me, and what followed was me telling her what happened over the course of the week. Once she heard Bossman had point blank said no? She called her lieutenant, and they had a discussion.
Meanwhile, guy told the other officer he bought the books at "an estate sale somewhere, about six months ago".
...
right, then. Ok, so I called a few stores in our company also in town, and narrowed down the possible colleges that use this particular book. I have more work to do on Monday, contact the other store in our company that's closed on Fridays thanks to this guy. Blegh.
End of the day, guy is issued a Criminal Trespass. He's not a student, and his business has been refused several times at the store, so he's not allowed to set foot on campus again. I tell you when the other officer came over the radio and said he was off campus and heading away down the street, I felt so relieved, despite being a little queasy and a little shaky.
I have to write a statement, and so does my CW. The sargeant will be in on Monday, to talk to Bossman. I called him, too, while he was at the conference, and explained what happened.
It's been a long week. Between running the store, dealing with this guy, and the horrid news I've gotten among other things, I'm so frazzled and exhausted, it's not even funny.
Roll on 1 pm. My week will be officially over and I'll have some downtime to just REST until next week. Blegh.
The End.
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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