Family/Friend SCs

[blas]

I figured one of us should bring back this thread:

This is thread that is dedicated to our family members and/or friends that are SCs. Sure, we love them to death, but we get really embarrassed when they pull crap and make asses of themselves in public.

Ok, who wants to start?

[wagegoth]

Stepmother-in-law, can't take her anywhere

My stepmother-in-law (we'll not go into the evil she has created, at this site anyway) is one of those cheap tippers. She only leaves $2 (yes, that's two dollars) at a restaurant, no matter how many people were served, how much the check was, etc. I'll leave two dollars for a cup of tea (I know tea is a pain for the waitron, but I'm allergic to coffee, and I just tell the waitron what I want instead of making them drag out the big, wooden, box o' tea, and a hundred side items).

She makes a big point of picking up the check (they don't have a lot of money, so I know it makes her feel a bit proud and/or snobby to do it). Because I know this is going to happen, I always make sure I have some extra $5 and $10 bills, and then I'll sneak back and find the waitron afterward and give them the tip.

Thankfully, I haven't had to see her in about 5 years as she avoids us as much as possible.

[bars.of.a.rhyme]

Daddy once paid a gas station attendant in nickels and pennies.

I was wandering around looking for a bottle of soda, and I came up to the counter, saw the gigantic pile of coins, and shouted "SWEET PINE-SCENTED MADONNA!" My dad didn't understand my chagrin. After all, coins are money too. I'm a coinist, discriminating against coins to further my anti-coin agenda, bills 4 lyf, etc.

Don't hate him. He's never worked in retail, or any other job in which he would have had to count out a cash drawer. Luckily, my mother has extensive retail experience.

The other day my car broke down, and he came out to wait for the tow with me, since I'm a 19 year old girl and he had qualms about me waiting all alone in an abandoned parking lot at two in the morning. The woman with AAA couldn't give him a finite estimate on when the tow truck would arrive, and he was a little cross with her...but that was because it was two in the morning and he had to work the next day. I told her that she probably had a script and that the call was probably recorded for corporate to listen to and badger her about, and he grudgingly agreed. Yay!

Other than that, I've never seen him do anything unreasonable. He's gotten angry at employees before, but it was legitimate.

[Kiwi]

My mother despite working in retail can be a cs. She will demand a manager at the drop of a hat, complain about long lines, tell wait staff she saw them "standing around doing nothing" etc. All the classic sc stuff.

Although if I ever tell her about a sucky customer incident I had she gets all up in arms about how rude and nasty those people were... then do the same stuff to another person... sigh

[Ljt09863]

my Fiancee's mother is a horrible SC. we went to a restraunt once, and her food came back slightly(very SLIGHTY) cold, and the chicken sandwhich had a bone in it. everybody elses food was perfect. well, Fiancees mother told the waitress about the bone, but not about the food being cold. the waitress explained that some of the chicken has bones and there really isn't anything they could do about that.

well, fiancees mother didn't like that, and wanted to leave her about a $3 tip on a $50 bill. so after they got up and left the table, i threw seven dollars more on the table and walked off.....only to find Fiancees mother telling the waitress what she did wrong and what she needs to do from now on... other than the bone being in the chicken, eveything was fine! she filled our cups, got us food quickly, did everything fine. but that bone was enough.

she has done other things, but im not going into them right now.

[Fera Festiva]

I have a friend who - despite having only ever worked in customer service jobs - can be a terrible SC. She once had a massive rant at the guy sat behind the counter in a shop because he didn't "greet her properly" when she walked in. (Her reasoning is that customers are mean to her all day, so when she goes shopping she gets to be rude "back". I told her that Karma will bite her in the ass one day, but it didn't make a difference.)

My Dad used to be an SC, but now all three of his children have worked customer service, so he's mellowed considerably.

[susan]

I've never seen my sister be an SC to a worker, but she is one of those people who doesn't understand the concept of "opening times." She complained, at length, to me about the time she went Xmas shopping at ToysRUs. She was standing outside the door 5 or 10 minutes early and couldn't understand why they wouldn't open. Our convo went like this:

Her: But there were a whole bunch of us. They should have opened early!
Me: But they don't open until [whatver time].
Her: We were all standing there. Why didn't they open?
Me: Because they don't open until [that time]
Repeat ad infinitum

We've had that conversation about other places since, but she still doesn't get it.

My mom is another one of those who will complain about "workers just standing there." She will listen to me, though, when I point out that they may have trained to do whatever function she wants or that they might actually be in the middle of doing something else, even if it doesn't look like it.

Sadly, I have been known to get snippy with CS workers if I am really stressed out about whatever situation they can't help me with. I almost always apologize to them and make sure they know that I know it's not their fault and I'm not angry at them.

[April]

My MIL is the type who will see a minute defect with merchandise and badger and hammer and bitch and moan until she gets a discount. She usually goes for 50 percent. She badgered one poor manager so long that she ended up getting 50 percent of a mini fridge that was already discounted 50%.

I have never been shopping with her (my stories were told to me by my husband) and I never will

[SurlyBarman]

I have a couple friends who aren't always a pleasure to be out with. There are these two in particular, let's call them Brad and Serena, though those are not actually their real names. Brad and I used to work in the same restaurant and Serena works in a coffee shop. Both of them ought to know how not to be sucky customers, seeing as they have to deal with them on a daily basis. Anyway, this one night after Brad and I finished up our shift, we headed down the street with Serena and a couple other people to this bar for a couple drinks. They proceeded to hassle the waiter, calling him "Bob" instead of asking him what his name really was. They were rude, demanding, acted discontent the moment they walked in, didn't leave much of a tip, and Serena was being way over the top with her ghetto attitude. On top of that, she was insulting everyone in our group. Called me "Billy Bob" and "Cowboy" a couple times. On another night at the same bar, they behaved a little better when the management sent over a round of free drinks because they recognized me as a regular.

[MadMike]

I don't remember my grandma ever doing anything bad in the stores, but one time when she heard me complaining about my job, she actually said that God-awful line. You know the one. I told her about a few incidents at my job where the customer was definitely not right, but she didn't seem to believe that people could actually be that horrible.

[Dawnchaser]

OK, I've worked mostly phone jobs my whole life.

My whole family has heard stories about the rudeness and idiocy I dealt with on a daily basis.

Yet my mother is still TERRIBLE on the phone. She has a nasty habit of calling me up to crow about how she really put some poor hapless CSR in his/her place that day And so on...I was really really getting sick of it.

99% of the time she was totally wrong to do so as her pissiness rarely had anything to do with anything the CSR on the phone at the time had done.

I kept saying, "Well, you know, that person didn't really have anything to do with it," or "Maybe you'd get better results by being nicer"...Things like that. Not particularly wanting to start an argument since she's incredibly stubborn and she usually calls me at work.

It sort of sank in a few months ago when I said "Look, how would you like it if I called up and told you I'd just been treated in that way by some idiot customer calling up?" Now she's at least a LITTLE bit better. SIGH!

[CherryCokeKissez]

Thankfully no one in my immediate family is an SC that I know of. My dad will give staff a hard time, but very playfully (and usually in such a way that I end up rolling my eyes at him) so they know he's kidding and they kid back.

My dad's mom on the other hand, wasn't really sucky so-to-speak, but she would tip 15% up to five dollars. Five was her max for a tip no matter the size of the bill. I don't know if that's because she was sucky or because that was how she was raised (during the Depression and whatnot) or what. I don't remember her a whole lot, she died when I was ten...

[ArenaBoy]

My mom usually isn't an SC but when it comes to food service don't get me started. She's worked in food service for years, she even works at the arena and is well-respected. The problem is when we go out to eat, she ends up turning a good meal into a "that waiter is taking too long" when he just left our table and my mom had a chance to ask for something. I've found myself telling my mom to just relax, and she too thinks that "The Line" is important when it comes to customer service.

My dad tends to be an SC when it comes to technology. He gets pissed easily over simple things and he is the exact reason as to why I shop for myself when it comes to technology. When I was looking for a laptop for school, I wanted to get a Mac for movie editing and music editing. Me being the idiot I am, took my dad along just so he could look at computers for fun. Big mistake. My dad is a die-hard Windows fan, he is a pro at fixing the problems that pop up but put him in front of a Mac and he's as helpless as a turtle on its back. He was making a very loud fuss about Macs not coming with a word processor, a spreadsheet program and all that stuff. Needless to say, I make sure I'm nearby if he wants to play with my Mac, gord knows what he could end up doing to the thing.

[jb17kx]

Thankfully, nobody in my family is an SC, although they get close sometimes.
Thank God.

BTW, Wagegoth, why is tea so much of a hassle?

[Pagan]

My mom doesn't do the SC stuff. However, I did discover on our trip that she does one thing that falls in the clueless category - she doesn't read signs!

We got off the plane in Dallas (DFW) at 6:15pm. Found out that our connecting flight to Albuquerque was leaving at 6:20pm, in another terminal. Had to go up the stairs find the tram thingie, then the gate. I was the one who wound up navigating and she kept asking how I knew where to go. Now, I know we were tired and the jetlag was starting to catch up (up since 2am in Dublin), but I wanted to tell her, "Mom, look up!"

I should mention I noticed this the whole time, two weeks, England, Scotland, N. Ireland. Read the signs Mom!