Was *I* the sucky customer?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

"Dude, crack kills."

There is no acceptable reason for a store employee to say that to a customer. None.

You handled this exactly the right way.

[Fiyero]

I know what you mean about not wanting to ask questions at these kind of shops, and I can visualise the entire event.
I had an experience very much like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAgg1pKRuo8
I was buying a compact digital camera (for when I didn't want to take my 'big' camera). I wanted one with some advanced features, long exposure capability being the deal maker or breaker. Asking about this feature to the staff at [electrical retailer] was like asking for an explanation of Einstein's theory of relativity. One simply read what was on the display (which I could read). Argh

[Damien]

you were not sucky at all - you had a request and were treated rudely, very rudely. The manager seemed to be fair and helpful... and the kid was a raging idiot (I hate that tough-guy-whatever attitude of losers)

[morgana]

There was a sucky person in this equation . . . It was not you. Or the manager.

I think any person with a spine would have called a manager over the first comment. And any manager with a spine would have fired the idiot over his reaction to being corrected.

How do people get that stupid?

[crazylegs]

The kid was in the wrong, plain and simple.

I see no suck on your part.

[Peppergirl]

I don't think you were wrong. The only thing bad is if the manager fired him in full view of customers.

Regardless of what an emp has done, no one deserves that.

'Course, even if he did, that is not YOUR fault either.

Do you mind PM'ing me and telling where it was? Im really curious.

[wagegoth]

I'll fourth or fifth everyone (whatever we're up to) that this was almost certainly the last straw for this kid. He must have done this thing a number of times before.

You were definitely NOT sucky. You didn't scream, rant, freak, rave, rabble, stomp, chomp, foam at the mouth, demand the kid be fired, etc. You politely asked for a manager and explained the problem.

The kid buried himself.

[JoitheArtist]

If the kid had apologized once seeing that the item did exist, that would be different.

But to insult you, be proven wrong, and to just shrug? Uh-uh. No. So not acceptable.

No suck on your part!

[draftermatt]

Not at all sucky. He deserved to be fired, you don't talk to customers that way, unless they're your buddy. And even then I wouldn't do it for fear that another customer would hear and complain about me.

And the "whatever" to the manager. That burns me up. The manager did him a favor it seems, since he obviously didn't want to be there anyway.

I once had a guy who worked for me say that to me "Crack kills man" when I was explaining something. It took a good deal of restraint not to fire him.

[aurelemsrealm]

I wouldn't have felt bad about it. He did it to himself. He was out of line, and I would've complained to management, too. I'm a firm believer in taking personal responsibility for oneself. The firing was between the clerk and manager, and that's as much consideration as I'd have given it.

The only reason I can see to justify an employee coping an attitude with a customer is if the customer is being a jerk first. Sucky customers do deserve a snarky response, but such was not the case here.

[kibbles]

You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about, and the kid deserved to be fired. He could have said "I had never heard of that let me check with a manager"; but, instead he accused you of using illegal drugs.

Then when he was shown the item in question, instead of apologizing or anything, he got a snarky attitude. You were not an asshole, and please don't doubt that for a second.

[smileyeagle1021]

I'd say probably not sucky the "kid" (it seems hard to say that about someone a year younger than me, but that's how he acted) made his bed, now he can sleep in it... insinuating that a customer is a druggie because they are asking for something obscure, obsolete, and possibly no longer existent, is way over the line... and just shrugging and saying "whatever" to a manager... I get the impression that you didn't get him fired, I guess he was a problem child so to speak and that was the straw that broke the camels back.

edit- wow I must be sucking at typing today... 2 people beat me to the punch

[katie kaboom]

I'm guessing the incident with you was the last straw for this kid because i can't see him having gotten fired if he had a good record with the store. Sounds like the "whatever" was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Sheldonrs]

The kid did it to himself. Doing a good job starts with attitude and his sucked. It doesn't seem like he was happy there anyway so you actually helped him. :-)

[xaenon]

Li'l background. Once upon a time, I used to be a helluva computer technician. The days of doing it for a living are over, but I still dabble here and there. And today I had need of some old-school hardware, known generically as a Laplink cable.

For those who know what that is, skip this paragraph. For those who don't, it's a data transfer cable specifically for connecting the parallel (printer) or serial ports of two computers together for the purpose of transferring data from one to the other - assuming, of course, you have the proper software. In the old DOS days, it was Interlink and Interserver, in Windows-95 and newer it's called Direct Cable Connection, and there are even third-party utilities that work with this (the most commonly known of which is Laplink, hence the name of the cable). Bottom line: I've used it a LOT of times. It works - a little slow, but it beats the old floppy shuffle.

Well, it turns out mine is missing in action, and I had to go out anyway, so I went into the big computer superstore we have here in SE Ohio, spent about a half-hour looking for what I wanted. I generally don't like to ask the sale staff for help, because often 'help' results in more headaches - as was the case today.

But, not finding the cable I wanted on their pegboard, I decided to abandon all hope and ask - perhaps they had one in the mythical land of Stock Room, or perhaps they could order one. So I flagged down one of the roving sales clerks, a young fellow about 20, by the looks of him.

And spent the next twenty minutes trying to explain to him what I was looking for. Repeatedly. And on at least two occasions he flat declared that there WAS no such thing, and upon my insistence that these items DO exist (or at least, they DID, and I'm certain someone, somewhere still makes them), he made a remark that made me absolutely see red. The comment? "Dude, crack kills."

I asked for his manager. I mean, okay, I get that maybe these youngsters might not know what that is; it is, after all, something that isn't used much anymore. Today USB flash drives, easy access to CD- and DVD-burners, and plug-and-play networking have made such gadgets obsolete. Hence, in his 'long' career as a salesperson for a computer store (what, four years possibly?) it's conceivable that nobody's ever asked for such a thing. Hell, I can't remember the last time I used MINE. It's an outdated item that's outside his experience. I get that.

But to flat tell me 'there is no such thing' when I know better, and to insinuate that I'm using crack just because he's never heard of the item I'm asking for? Not even REMOTELY acceptable. His manager felt so, too. Fortunately manager-man was somewhat less retarded and helped me find the exact item - on the display hooks, no less (I'd missed it somehow, so perhaps I'm retarded, too) and made a point of showing it to his wayward clerk, who shrugged it off with a 'whatever'. It seems his manager hated 'whatever' almost as much as *I* do, because that word got the kid fired.

Now, seriously, should I feel bad about this? On one hand, I sorta do. I never wanted him to be fired, after all, it IS a pretty obscure item. But on the other hand, his comment went over a line, and his attitude was abyssmal.

So, what do you think? Was I an asshole?