smelly customers + crush = CW great mirth

[portia911]

Of all the years I've worked in retail in it's various forms the worst type of customers have to be the ones who develop some kind of infatuation with you and make pathetic excuses to come into the store.

When I worked in mobile phones the guy who worked at the council rubbish tip decided he needed intense and regular training from me on every operation of his mobile phone.

He stunk to high heaven. Trust me. It was not just oflactory, it was so bad it actually developed into a combination of every sense in your body in a kind of self defense mechanism. His phone was also incrusted with crap, god only knows what it was, but it was awful and I had to handle it. I was brought up on a farm and will happily handle stuff that other people run screaming from. Of course all the guys I worked with thought this was hugely amusing.

One day after he came in for yet another of his protracted voicemail questions I stunk so bad I had to be sent home for the rest of the day.

I should have asked for danger money. God knows what kind of diseases I could have caught.

[StanFlouride]

In the Haight we have quite a few houseless folks who get a little 'ripe' in warm weather. Fortunately, we're well within SF's summer fog belt and most of the time that's not much of a problem.
(We are one of the few stores left where they can get treated as just customers and they share that info so they are pretty respectful and rarely try and 'liberate' our merchandise.)
There are two regular customers however, that stand out and even on cool days reek beyond belief.
One has not bathed since the 1960s (NOT an exaggeration!) and wears the same clothes year in and year out and the other is an older gentleman who clearly has a home but suffers from some sort of physiological disorder that makes him smell to high heaven with an exceptionally sour and pungent aroma.
The way our cash register is arranged when they come up you are trapped and can do nothing but breathe through your mouth and endure.
(As a former Army Medic and ER Tech I have dealt with some rather drastic odors but these two give me the dry heaves!)
We would never do anything to embarrass them but it is SOP to immediately fumigate any section of the store they've been in as soon as they leave.