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Pre-story: I'm sick. I has a cold & my brain feels like it wants to escape and go home, leaving my body where it falls. As such, I'm not in the best frame of mind for dealing with sucky customers; luckily, most of my regulars are awesome.
So, I'm sat in my little world when a customer approaches & asks for a ticket. it's not a complicated ticket, I'll be done with it in seconds...
Suddenly, a wild customer appears! He practically bolts up to the window, tries to pass his Oyster (prepaid travel) card & a grubby note to me with careless disregard for both the gentleman in front of him and the sheet of glass in front of me, & demans I "quickly" do his transaction first. Now if he'd not been acting like a twat, & the other customer was agreeable, I'd have considered it - but the twattishness overrules me checking for such permission, & I just tell him "I have to finish this transaction first." I'm stunned that he accepts this, I complete the original transaction (complete with comedy eyebrow raising between me & the other guy, who's a regular), and then proceed on to Mr. Impatient.
The transaction goes ahead incident-free, he exhibits no further signs of suckishness, & once I have squeezed his cash into the little plastic prepayment card to facilitate his departure from my immediate locale he goes forth into the platform, never to bee seen again if I'm lucky. All is now quiet at my portal, so I go into powersaving mode & resume reading other CS stories.
Within 2 minutes, I get another customer - nothing exciting or unusual here. Suddenly the previous wild customer re-appears at the platform-side window, tap-tap-tapping like a raven to get my attention. Now company doctrine on this is not especially specific, but we are encouraged to serve those wishing to get tickets before those apparently seeking only information as there are always others on site who are equally capable of dispensing such information, and of course it makes no sense to break off an ongoing transaction anyway. He keeps tapping for a few seconds then stops once realising that I'm not goingto break off what I'm doing to see to him.
Once I have finished my front-of-house customer, I walk over to him & engage the intercom so I can hear his plea for help.
Wild Customer: "A tenner."
Self: *blank stare*
WC: "Tenner, a tenner, a tenner!"
S: "I'm sorry?"
WC: "I gave you a tenner."
To save my poorly brain from more of this soul-sucking idiocy, my spleen takes up the cause & suggests that perhaps this gentleman is suggesting that I short-changed him. Because of my illness & fluff-filled noggin, I have almost short-changed a couple of people today, so I thank my spleen for the suggestion & wander back to my till to review the situation. Behold, it's true that this poor man only requested a £5 top-up, and as such if he did indeed give me £10 then I have done him a disservice.
Then my eyes decide to play a larger role, citing greater proximity to the brain than the spleen as claiming superiority. They cause me to look at the cash in my drawer. Something looks off, but as my eyes can only capture what's happening now, it turns out they're not as helpful as they tried to make out.
It's at this point that my brain struggles to full consciousness, reviews the evidence put forward by both eyes and ears, roundly ignores spleen, & finally puts all the pieces together. I walk back to the window where my Wild Customer has been impatiently waiting patiently, and disclose the results of my investigation.
"When you came to the window, both times the first thing you said was 'can you stick this Fiver on my Oyster?'."
Wild Customer uses Fast Exit. It's Super Effective!
..........
As far as we can guess, he was trying to catch me at busy times in the hope I'd just believe him to get him out of my hair, only to discover I'd been taken later.
So, I'm sat in my little world when a customer approaches & asks for a ticket. it's not a complicated ticket, I'll be done with it in seconds...
Suddenly, a wild customer appears! He practically bolts up to the window, tries to pass his Oyster (prepaid travel) card & a grubby note to me with careless disregard for both the gentleman in front of him and the sheet of glass in front of me, & demans I "quickly" do his transaction first. Now if he'd not been acting like a twat, & the other customer was agreeable, I'd have considered it - but the twattishness overrules me checking for such permission, & I just tell him "I have to finish this transaction first." I'm stunned that he accepts this, I complete the original transaction (complete with comedy eyebrow raising between me & the other guy, who's a regular), and then proceed on to Mr. Impatient.
The transaction goes ahead incident-free, he exhibits no further signs of suckishness, & once I have squeezed his cash into the little plastic prepayment card to facilitate his departure from my immediate locale he goes forth into the platform, never to bee seen again if I'm lucky. All is now quiet at my portal, so I go into powersaving mode & resume reading other CS stories.
Within 2 minutes, I get another customer - nothing exciting or unusual here. Suddenly the previous wild customer re-appears at the platform-side window, tap-tap-tapping like a raven to get my attention. Now company doctrine on this is not especially specific, but we are encouraged to serve those wishing to get tickets before those apparently seeking only information as there are always others on site who are equally capable of dispensing such information, and of course it makes no sense to break off an ongoing transaction anyway. He keeps tapping for a few seconds then stops once realising that I'm not goingto break off what I'm doing to see to him.
Once I have finished my front-of-house customer, I walk over to him & engage the intercom so I can hear his plea for help.
Wild Customer: "A tenner."
Self: *blank stare*
WC: "Tenner, a tenner, a tenner!"
S: "I'm sorry?"
WC: "I gave you a tenner."
To save my poorly brain from more of this soul-sucking idiocy, my spleen takes up the cause & suggests that perhaps this gentleman is suggesting that I short-changed him. Because of my illness & fluff-filled noggin, I have almost short-changed a couple of people today, so I thank my spleen for the suggestion & wander back to my till to review the situation. Behold, it's true that this poor man only requested a £5 top-up, and as such if he did indeed give me £10 then I have done him a disservice.
Then my eyes decide to play a larger role, citing greater proximity to the brain than the spleen as claiming superiority. They cause me to look at the cash in my drawer. Something looks off, but as my eyes can only capture what's happening now, it turns out they're not as helpful as they tried to make out.
It's at this point that my brain struggles to full consciousness, reviews the evidence put forward by both eyes and ears, roundly ignores spleen, & finally puts all the pieces together. I walk back to the window where my Wild Customer has been impatiently waiting patiently, and disclose the results of my investigation.
"When you came to the window, both times the first thing you said was 'can you stick this Fiver on my Oyster?'."
Wild Customer uses Fast Exit. It's Super Effective!
..........
As far as we can guess, he was trying to catch me at busy times in the hope I'd just believe him to get him out of my hair, only to discover I'd been taken later.
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