The nerve of this man still stuns me to this day.

[taxguykarl]

Good for your non sucky customers. I would probably have been quicker to call the police for that sort of nonsense. Let EW explain how being on hold evens out to his demands.

[coffee_drinker247]

There is nothing like that feeling of going home with the crushing sensation of being
forced on the spot by a horrid customer to GIVE IN to their demand. So disgusting.
Like a part of you was stolen. Used. That shaking rage at home when you replay it
in your head. But just a few keystrokes and a cocktail and CS.com soothes it away.......

This made me laugh out loud and it is quite true! I can just remind myself that I am not the only one dealing with shifty people!

But yes it is one of the WORST feelings in the world as a retail employee to have to grit your teeth and give into a customer who is being especially heinous and rude. I still get mad when I have to give into someone who is especially ridiculous. Mildly demanding and rude people will cause me to clench my jaw but the ones who scream and freak out and still get what they want piss me off to this day. And as a manager I am expected to be the one to give into their demands. Most of the time I just want them to shut up and get out but it still makes me mad that their rudeness gets them what they want.

Now if a customer threatens me or any of my employees, then hell no they aren't getting nothin' and will likely get kicked out.

As a younger woman who looks younger than she actually is (late twenties but appears 21) I tend to get crap from people because I don't look old enough to be a store manager let alone have been in management for the last five years. So I get a lot of older people who sneer at me (older women don't like me much) or men who try to bully me. And I've had people demand the manager and then get pissed when they realize oh hey, it's me. I actually kind of relish when that happens because of the look on their face when they realize they were being rude to the person in power.

[coffee_drinker247]

taxguykarl, thanks! I thought about it but he wasn't being violent or throwing a temper tantrum, just being a jerk. If he did start acting like that I would have for sure called the police immediately - I am the type of person who refuses to be intimidated in my place of work!

@sylvier, I think she had an equally busy time while I was gone and I took a full 45 minute break as well. I was so livid I thought about just not coming back but because I am a goody two shoes I went back and finished my shift. :/

@wagegoth, yeah this particular chain is the last rental chain left in my area. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are gone (this one has the word "Family" in it ). I actually used to work as a manager at Hollywood Video, it was a great job while it lasted because of my co-workers being so awesome - we are still friends to this day! This was about five years ago when I worked there and the store shut down after I'd been there about a year. So it's been gone for a while. Then Blockbuster went out of business a couple of years after that. So this last place is the last one left. The chain is not in all 50 states, but it's primarily in the Midwest and West, I think the headquarters are in Illinois.

I think the reason they are still open and renting movies is because they are typically in areas where Netflix and Redbox are not available and it is also super cheap I suppose it is only a matter of time before they will close as well. My fiance and I actually are still occasional customers at the one I worked at because we are behind the times, and a lot of people I worked with still work there so I like to go in and say hi to them. And we do not have Netflix yet but we do plan on getting it again once we move to our new apartment. We had it for a while and then had to discontinue when I lost my job so we will probably reactivate soon now that I'm in my new management job!

[vikingchyk]

@wagegoth, yeah this particular chain is the last rental chain left in my area. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are gone (this one has the word "Family" in it ).

Oh, my niece used to work at one of those, like two years ago. I was surprised they were still in business then.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Your manager's smoke break reminds me of my boss from the POS company. He was always stepping away to take a phone call that would "just take 5 minutes" then finally get done an hour later.

[icantbelievethesepeople]

Wow. An EW customer AND an EW manager. Because, yeah, a 30 MINUTE SMOKE BREAK?? WTF?

And that guy was an ass. If he had the time go drive all the way over just to get in your face about being on hold, then he should've just come over in the first place. Dumbass.

Sure, normally you wouldn't talk to a customer that way, but when you're the only employee actually working and it's extremely busy, the last thing you need is somebody trying to pull the "I deserve compensation wah wah wah" card. Dude, it's a DVD. Get over it.

I'd have thrown him out immediately. I've done so for much less. Whichever store I manage has a policy I strictly enforce. That policy is "act like an adult or go to time out until you can, given that that never happens, leave and don't come back". Couple that with "you are not special and I am under no obligation to treat you as such" people learn very fast not to act like toddlers in my stores.

[XCashier]

I'd have thrown him out immediately. I've done so for much less. Whichever store I manage has a policy I strictly enforce.

(Emphasis mine) You can throw people out if you are the manager, or if you work for a small Mom-and-Pop store and they've given you leeway to do so. Not so much if you're just a low-level peon and you have Corporate to answer to. Most Corporates won't ban a customer for anything short of murder; simply being a belligerent jackass certainly wouldn't merit a ban.

Coffee, I think you did the best you could in that situation. Kudos to the customers who backed you up and a big to your absent manager. That was flakiness at best; more like deliberately avoiding her duty.

[coffee_drinker247]

XCashier thanks so much for that! Exactly, as a manager or owner it is much different (I have done both). Currently am a manager of a store and I still can't ban people unless they are dangerous because I have corporate to answer to and they always side with the customer of course. But at the time of this story I was just a CSR because it was a part-time job, and I wasn't a manager there (but I was a manager elsewhere). This particular company lets customers walk all over them so I would have probably been written up if I kicked him out unless he was starting to threaten or be violent.

Unfortunately if you're not the manager and even when you are, you don't always get to use your own discretion, no matter how much you want to.