Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

I'm Apparently the In Store Therapist Now

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • I'm Apparently the In Store Therapist Now

    This is the first retail job I've worked where the wierdest customers did not come out as a result of Halloween. It helps that where I work is actually on the outskirts of the next town and Salem was sucking away most of the major crowds.

    That is not to say that the general spirit of Halloween wasn't influencing the atmosphere of the store. So, this customer started asked me a million and one questions about dehumidifiers and a convection heater she was looking at.

    Understand that we are not a specialty store. Even when I worked the electronics department of the K, I basically recited crap off the box and made it sound like I was really knowledgable. But in this store you can sum up our knowledge of any product by basically saying, "We haven't had any returns on it so far."

    With the heaters this is doubly so, since we got slammed with that Nor'Easter and people have been buying them up in a bid to keep the house warm. No returns means no complaints. Beyond that I don't know jack about the product or the company that makes it, or what the standards of measurment on the dials are, or whether or not the factory workers were allowed to take bathroom breaks.

    Oh and because the box looked dented on the dehumidifier, she insisted that it meant something was wrong with the product. So I had to move several heavy boxes around until she found the box with nary a scratch on the cardboard inspite of my insistence that the product was likely protected by styrofoam and that the box was likely damaged during the normal course of handling.

    Finally she took a dehumidifier and one of the convection heaters and since I was called to ring, I had the good fortune of dealing with this woman in my register. First she gets defensive about the two one hundred dollar bills she used for half of her transaction. In our store, cashiers have to have the Front End supervisor do the inspection bit. We're allowed to mark them with a pen, but it's the FES who has to hold it up to the light and confirm it's real.

    Crazy Customer (CC) : *Mile a minute* Why do you have to do that? This is change I was given at the store. What do I do to make sure I don't get a fake one?

    We get questions like that all the time. But this woman was friggin neurotic about the whole thing. So I really just did the order as quickly as I could and sent her on her way. And if that was the end of it, that'd be fine. But she also needed help loading the items into her car, which I was the only cashier available to do.

    When she brought the car up, I put the boxes in the back. And this is about when she dialed the crazy up to eleven.

    CC: I need the heat in my house right now.
    ME: Uhuh.
    CC: Yeah, because I share a house with my brother.
    ME: (Thinking as I try to edge away) Oh crap, a storytime customer. (Outloud) Well, have a nice day)
    CC: And my brother wants to kick me out of the house since our mother died and well now HE'S GONNA HAVE TO WAIT!"

    I'm not exaggerating. She actually shouted the last bit. Oh, she apologized, but it wasn't an "I'm so embarassed for being batshit insane just now" apology as it was the kind of apology you'd give if you accidentally bumped into someone on the bus.

  • #2
    I think someone's brain got frozen by the Nor'easter.

    Good on yah for staying sane through this crazy lady's craziness. Here's hoping her brother finally summons the courage to give her the boot

    Comment


    • #3
      She got $100 bills as "change"? Exactly what form of payment was she using to obtain those as change? Some million dollar bills from the toy department?

      Comment


      • #4
        Quoth sirwired View Post
        She got $100 bills as "change"? Exactly what form of payment was she using to obtain those as change? Some million dollar bills from the toy department?
        Dude. The dude(s) trying to pass the fake bills at my store ALWAYS say they got them as change. At Macy's or Best Buy or some stupid shit. Dumbass.

        OT: I've dealt with crazy like that before.
        Driver Picks the Music, Shotgun Shuts His Cakehole.
        Supernatural 9-13-05 to forever

        Comment


        • #5
          We're allowed to mark them with a pen, but it's the FES who has to hold it up to the light and confirm it's real.
          That's a smart move. From what I've read here the pens aren't always accurate... and many counterfeiters now use lower denominations of money to counterfeit larger bills, so the pens wouldn't help much with those.

          Comment


          • #6
            Yeah, I guess there was a rash of five dollar bills used as 100's. I don't think she was getting defensive because she had done something wrong, I attributed it to her general neurosis.

            I mean, all sympathy to her for losing a relative. But I can see why her brother doesn't want her living with him.

            Comment

            Working...
            X