I Felt Sorry for the Newbie

[Ghel]

Our newest full-time teller got cornered by one of our... more childlike customers. I suspect this customer has some sort of developmental disability. She is friendly enough, though perhaps a little too nice. She completed her transaction with the teller and would not leave. She just stood there, going on and on about her Christmas and playing Santa and other inane stuff. The teller tried to give her several subtle hints that the conversation was over, but this customer just wasn't picking up on it. I think the teller was being a bit too subtle and too nice. There wasn't any other customers waiting behind her, so the teller didn't even have that as an excuse to get rid of her.

After a couple minutes, I went over and said "Hi" to the customer, calling her by name. I stood a little way away from the teller window, and as expected, the customer walked toward me to make the same conversation, even showing me the picture on her phone of herself dressed up as Santa. I kept up the conversation for a minute or so, slowly hedging towards the exit. Then, in a break in the conversation, I said, "have a nice day!" and walked away from her.

The newbie teller looked relieved as the customer exited the lobby.

[taxguykarl]

It could be worse, this custy could be sucky. At least she doesn't have to deal with Betty.

[registerrodeo]

We used to have a developmentally delayed women come into the last place I worked. Nice enough, but she is in her 30-40's and has the mentality of a 6 year old and just wanted to be everyone's friend. We were nice to her, but it got to the point of her showing up at least 3 times a week and trying to monopolize us for 2 hours a day! Between that and worrying about this woman walking around downtown Pittsburgh by herself, we managed to get her to tell us her mother's name and phone number to call her and tell her her daughter was carrying large amounts of money and would show it to everyone (her SSD money) and that she would talk to anyone. Her mother was completely unconcerned and we finally had to ban her after she started getting aggressive towards our customers when they didn't want to be her friend.

[Catwoman2965]

We have a customer in my store. Who has no issues, but given the chance, will corner you, and talk your ear off. I've learned, and tell anyone new, while you don't have to ignore her completely, don't stop and talk to her. Continue listening and chatting, but moving around, straightening things, and so on, and eventually you can sort of ignore her, on the guise of fixing something. If you do that, she will lose interest and as she doens't have your undivided attention, she will leave.

[Ghel]

I recall we had to contact the woman in the OP's mother at one point because she was giving all her money to her boyfriend and didn't have enough to pay her utility bill.

And like Catwoman2965's customer, she will talk your ear off if you either don't appear busy or aren't firm in saying "goodbye."

[2gigch1]

I have used this tactic regularly:

(Because cell phones can be on silent)

*Annoying person bothering me*
*I suddenly grab cell phone, look at screen (that they can't see), pretend to answer*
"Yes sir! Right away sir! On my way!"
*Pretend to hang up*
(To annoying person) "Sorry, gotta go!"
*Take off*

[KellyHabersham]

This thread brings back memories of a guy whose family used to be involved with our church......."Jerry" had some mental and physical disabilities, he was friendly, but let's just say he had some issues which were causing problems, our then-pastor had to talk to his mom/family members, and they stopped attending our church because they were mad and didn't see the problem.

(I apologize if that's really vague, but it's hard to get into detail without getting into Fratching territory, and most of what I know about the situation, I got from my sister, who does/did tend to exaagerate)

[fireheart]

In my field of work (I work with kids) we're going to get kids with special needs somewhere along the line. At one of my old sites during the holidays, we had a kid who was the younger(I think) brother of one of the children we had that attended regularly. This particular kid attended a special class at another school and had a bunch of developmental issues (it wasn't made fully clear to me what it was). Work's solution at the time? Dump him onto me.
We eventually had to "ban" him because he was frequently provoking his brother into fighting with him, he got into fights with other children and this culminated with him biting another child on the butt and I had a breakdown. After that (and a few excursion-related mishaps, one of which involved him bringing a knife to an excursion to a kids play-centre!), it was made clear to the boys mother that we would not allow the child to attend the service unless we were able to get a care worker for him (the process was very long and the funding for the worker is provided by an independent service, not by the company themselves) and she gave us sufficient notice.
She took the hint and while the brother still attended weekdays, both of them were pulled out from holiday programs.