News of the weird....

[Rapscallion]

:Raps, want my rimshot smiley?:

I wouldn't want to encourage people to use it

Rapscallion

[TYFSOK]

My second retail job was at a large Barnes & Noble. Back when Princess Diana died, one of the enterprising ASMs collected all of the remaindered/bargain books editions of various Princess Di coffee-table photo books and built a 5 ft. tall shrine near the information desk Why? Because he knew they would sell, and sell they did. We had to rebuild that damned thing every morning.

One evening, a little old lady came up and without preamble, barked out this question at us:

"Why aren't you selling any protective covers so we can keep our precious Princess Di books safe?"

I swear to all that's holy that the previous is a direct quote.

After a few moments of us at the desk blink-blinking in WTF?!, we directed her to where we keep such things, all the while trying to explain to her that there were no special "Princess Di" booksleeves anywhere.

[Chickenstuff]

How did you find me?

I don't work in retail anymore, but I still have to deal with people. The weirdest question I ever heard was when I was working the switchboard.

Me = Good morning, ******/****, how may I help you?
Confused person = Yes, can you tell me your phone number?
Me =

It's not like she was transferred to me, so I'm not sure what the hell happened between the time she dialed and the time she talked to me....

[MystyGlyttyr]

This was definitely my best one. Have yet to top it. We are a TEXAS newspaper. We cover an area over about four states, all of them in the mid-south. Our affliates are scattered around said four states, our reporters are all locals, all our EMPLOYEES are locals, I have one of the longest commutes at 30 miles. I have a decidely peculiar but still quite southern accent. The name of our paper very much shows that we are a Texas paper. The phone number you dial is a Texas area code, which is VASTLY different from any area code in New York (I know, I looked.) There is no, no no NO reason for this.

Me: "Newsroom."
Them: "Yeah, hi. Where are ya'll located?"
Me: *assuming he meant, y'know...something normal* "Yes, we're on 'Street' right across the street from 'Historic Landmark'."
Them: "...okay...are you in Texas, or New York?"

...there is no emoticon to correctly assimilate my response. Something like + + +

[Stockman]

Lol, onion soup sans onions.. nice.

We get people like that at Walmart every once in awhile. I haven't had to deal with any fo them directly but I do hear about them.

One woman came up to me when I was obviously busy pushing some merchandise into the back room and started asking me for something in sporting goods and I had no clue what she said.. she spoke perfect English but when she told me the two things she wanted it sounded like she made the words up. I swear she said something about jumbolaya, and that sporting goods used to have it and now they didn't. I just redirected her to the nearby sporting goods associate and let him figure it out.. I asked him later he said he had no idea and told her we didn't have the things she wanted.

[Becks]

This happened to me a few weeks or so back...

My cohort in crime and I were taking down the salad bar for the night, when two little girls came up to me. Why? To ask if I'd be nice enough to lift one of them back into the shopping cart. (I guess they had to use the bathroom...) Sure, why not. Being the nice person I usually am, I did so.

Not bad, not sucky, just...an odd request.

[skeptic53]

my MOD (manager on duty) and I donned latex gloves and started sifting through the trash cans in the back. And digging. And searching. After a while, we FINALLY FOUND IT! Woo hoo! We rinsed it off, put in a plastic container, and I proudly marched it out to the table. At which point, the mother said, "Where's the other half?"

we had to go diving again....and we found the damn second piece, miraculously enough.

I did all this with a full station on a busy night. And they thanked me graciously, praising me up and down.

And tipped me 5%.

Wow. Just... wow. They should be sentenced to waiting tables for a year in a retirement community full of tightwads.

[sportsmom]

Quite a few years and a couple of kids ago I worked at Lerner, back when it was still Lerner and not this whole NY&Co. Crap they've got going on now. It was there that I came across the weirdest customer I have ever had the distinct displeasure to meet.

This woman was not full of weird requests, she was just weird. Over the course of a year we got the following stories out of her...

*Her neighbors cut a hole in her apartment wall every morning, stole her things and made themselves food to eat, then they fixed and painted the hole so she wouldn't know about it.

*Her son was trying to get her declared insane so that he could steal her things and all her money. (I'm pretty sure he had a case)

*She didnt tell us about this, it was just an observation, but it was still odd...she always carried a white plastic bag with her. She never opened it or said what was in it, but she never put it down. This woman would put her purse down and walk away from it, but would not leave that bag.

Here's the real kicker to her weirdness...

*She said that one night she was in the kitchen cutting up vegetables for a salad and when she called her husband in to dinner he didn't come, so she went to get him. Apparently while she was cutting up the veggies, someone came in to her house without making any noise and stabbed her husband to death.




I still think the knife was what was in the bag.

[phoenix_rising]

--At a chain restaurant I worked at for years, we had a regular who would come into the bar and ask for our french onion soup...with no onions. I'll repeat that. He wanted french onion soup...with no onions. Basically, he wanted us to STRAIN the soup! Which management had the kitchen actually DO! I never dealt with this person directly, but he was definitely a known commodity at our place.

Actually, I prefer only the broth of French onion soup. I don't like the cheese or the onions, just the broth.

[Gurndigarn]

One evening, a little old lady came up and without preamble, barked out this question at us:

"Why aren't you selling any protective covers so we can keep our precious Princess Di books safe?"

I swear to all that's holy that the previous is a direct quote.

I know a lot of people got caught up in the real-life fairy-tale/real-life soap opera of the whole thing, but some of the people who worship her scare me.

[Broomjockey]

I don't work in retail anymore, but I still have to deal with people. The weirdest question I ever heard was when I was working the switchboard.

Me = Good morning, ******/****, how may I help you?
Confused person = Yes, can you tell me your phone number?
Me =

It's not like she was transferred to me, so I'm not sure what the hell happened between the time she dialed and the time she talked to me....

Its possible she just had the number on speed dial. That happened to an ex-friend of mine. He called me and said "What's your phone number?" Turns out he just got a new phone and wanted to reprogram my number into its speed dial.

[Broomjockey]

Lol, onion soup sans onions.. nice.

We get people like that at Walmart every once in awhile. I haven't had to deal with any fo them directly but I do hear about them.

One woman came up to me when I was obviously busy pushing some merchandise into the back room and started asking me for something in sporting goods and I had no clue what she said.. she spoke perfect English but when she told me the two things she wanted it sounded like she made the words up. I swear she said something about jumbolaya, and that sporting goods used to have it and now they didn't. I just redirected her to the nearby sporting goods associate and let him figure it out.. I asked him later he said he had no idea and told her we didn't have the things she wanted.

Is it possible she wanted Jai Alai (sp?) equipment?

[dispatch]

While working as a stateroom steward it was my job to be a subserviant gameshow host to the people in my section, on embarkation day, everyone's a little bit off since they just arrived, had to go to the boat drill, trying to find their freind's room, etc. after 3 hours of delivering luggage to rooms and running to answer requests for fresh ice, extra lifejackets, softer pillows and the like, I decided I had earned a smoke or two, as I'm walking the 1/4 mile to the stern and dreading the 4 decks of stairs to the crew smoking area, these two teenage girls come scampering up like squirrels, stop right in front of me and squeak "Hi!"

Me: *shifting from Dennis Leary to Pat Sajack* "Aloha! Welcome aboard, can I help you ladies find something?"
Girl 1: "Hee heeeeee, *smile* are you my biological father?"
Me: "........I.......uhhhhh.......How old are you?"
Girl 2: "We've had lots of caffeine, we're sorry."

I doubt that I was her father, but I made for deck 13 with a quickened pace and a bewildered look on my face and proceeded to smoke 4 cigarettes before venturing back 20 minutes later

[Seanette]

I'd have told him to hold on while I get a manager, changed my voice a little bit, apologized and promised to put him into the VIP section and bake a fresh pie of his choice, just for him.

Then chuckled the rest of the day wondering what happened to him when he got to the resturant.

But I'm evil like that

My only less-than-glowing comment about this piece of malevolent brilliance would be to wonder if you'd just set up the actual restaurant employees for an even higher suck index than the idiot would have produced without an assist.

[Jester]

Actually, I prefer only the broth of French onion soup. I don't like the cheese or the onions, just the broth.

Actually, I like it without the cheese or crouton, and we would get many people who would order it without the cheese, without the crouton, or without either. but to ask them to STRAIN THE ONIONS OUT? Sorry...just weird.

As for the person in store speaking English that y'all couldn't understand, you said she said something like "jumbolaya." Jambalaya is a wonderful Cajun dish, usually made with sausage, chicken, shrimp, rice, and spices. Now, if your store also has a food section, that may have been what she was looking for.

Or, of course, she could have just been a complete whack job.



TOMORROW STARTS MY VACATION! NO MORE ASSHAT SUCKASS CUSTOMERS FOR A WEEK!