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Reminder: I work in a wine store. New Year's Eve has the potential to be our biggest night of the year.
Friday was a whole mess of suck. In addition to the suck from the Boss (see MiM), we were in the weeds all day, and generally busy as hell. Didn't help that I was late (thank you, MTA and massive snowstorm), and people were being generally pissy. I may have contributed to the suck a little bit, but I have a feeling this was just someone looking to take his attitude out on someone.
We were overstocked on wine. There was no chance of running out (and in fact, the only bubbly we ran out of was the really expensive Champagne). This was deliberate, and we were focused mainly on making sure we had enough of the cheap stuff. Result? We had three times as much as we actually ended up selling. Had to send some to the other store to get it out of the way.
As I said, I was late. Not very late, only about 15-20 minutes. This was due to one of my trains just stopping, with no explanation. I left quite early, to make sure I'd be there to let in the early shoppers. When the train stopped, I started trying to call my bosses and coworkers, to get someone else out there to open. No luck. I couldn't get a signal strong enough to even send a text. I must have looked crazy, pacing the car, trying to find a good signal spot, even asking the conductor how long we'd be, and if I had enough time to step upstairs and make a fast call. He said he had no idea, so I stayed put. Once the train started moving again, I was officially LATE.
At that point, I was frantic, and freaking out. I *knew* my bosses would know, and would wonder WTF I was doing (no, they wouldn't wonder if I was ok, just whether or not I fucked up).
Boss2 called just as the train was pulling into my transfer point. I explained what happened, and all he said was "well, there are customers waiting. What do I tell them?"
I said he should tell them I'll be there in 15-20 minutes. That I'm stuck on the train, but not too far away. He said that he'd tell them to come back in a half hour. Fine, whatever, that works. I get off the phone and run for the connecting train. *Just* barely get it, and get to the store quickly. Less than 20 minutes late. Not bad, really. Could have been a lot worse, if I hadn't gotten the connection immediately.
Quickly I opened up, settled in, and people started coming through. My coworker showed up shortly, and we settled into a rhythm. I was trying to assemble bags and answer the phone while helping customers, and he was ringing and bagging as fast as he could. The phone rang, and a customer asked us to hold aside "two bottles of Prosecco" for him. We were far too busy to take hold orders or spend more than a couple minutes on the phone at that point, so I told him "I'm sorry sir, but that's not possible today. We are however fully stocked and will not be running out of any of our sparkling wines this evening."
Apparently he didn't hear (or didn't listen to) the second part of my statement. All he heard was "no." And that sent him into a tizzy. He ranted about having driven past the store twice (TWICE!) and we weren't open yet. To which, I of course, apologized and explained I'd been stuck on the train and unable to get there. Halfway through my apology he hung up on me.
I promptly put it out of my mind. Either he'd be in, or he wouldn't, and I couldn't really be bothered to care.
Cue an hour later.
We were in the weeds again, and I was attempting to bag as quickly as possible. A (very good) customer decided she needed two full cases of wine, so I'm helping her pick and choose while bagging and answering the phone. There was a line four deep (plus a couple of special orders that needed picking up), and both of us were working as fast as possible.
Mr. Entitlement came swaggering in (after almost breaking the lock on our door by pulling on it *really* hard), grabbed two bottles of our cheapest Prosecco, and rushed up to the line, cutting in front of the customer I'd been helping. I let my coworker know that the two cases were next, and I was going to grab the boxes to pack the bottles. I went and grabbed the boxes, and as I came back, Mr. Entitlement was being rung out (you guessed it, ahead of the other lovely customer). He mentioned that he drove past the store twice (TWICE!) this morning, and we were closed. I apologized again, and explained that the trains were still a bit messed up from the storm.
He started to berate me for having bad customer service. Said that all he wanted was for us to grab his Prosecco for him (because he drove past TWICE and we were CLOSED!), and me telling him "no" was Bad Customer Service. He carried on in this vein for a while, with me interjecting occasionally that I was sorry, but it simply wasn't possible to hold wine for anyone due to how busy we were.
He came back with this gem: "How much money could you POSSIBLY lose holding TWO bottles of Prosecco for me?! Terrible customer service! You're supposed to say 'Yes, Sir' and hop to it!"
He was done with his transaction, so I started in on packing the order the wonderful customer who had been waiting there all this time, looking at him like he'd grown a second head. He left, and I wished him a Happy New Year and a Wonderful Day.
He glared and left.
The wonderful customer shook her head, and then said "oh, by the way, can you hold two bottles of this (cheap red wine) for me? I'll be back to pick it up later." With a wink, of course. Gotta love the sarcastic ones.
Friday was a whole mess of suck. In addition to the suck from the Boss (see MiM), we were in the weeds all day, and generally busy as hell. Didn't help that I was late (thank you, MTA and massive snowstorm), and people were being generally pissy. I may have contributed to the suck a little bit, but I have a feeling this was just someone looking to take his attitude out on someone.
We were overstocked on wine. There was no chance of running out (and in fact, the only bubbly we ran out of was the really expensive Champagne). This was deliberate, and we were focused mainly on making sure we had enough of the cheap stuff. Result? We had three times as much as we actually ended up selling. Had to send some to the other store to get it out of the way.
As I said, I was late. Not very late, only about 15-20 minutes. This was due to one of my trains just stopping, with no explanation. I left quite early, to make sure I'd be there to let in the early shoppers. When the train stopped, I started trying to call my bosses and coworkers, to get someone else out there to open. No luck. I couldn't get a signal strong enough to even send a text. I must have looked crazy, pacing the car, trying to find a good signal spot, even asking the conductor how long we'd be, and if I had enough time to step upstairs and make a fast call. He said he had no idea, so I stayed put. Once the train started moving again, I was officially LATE.
At that point, I was frantic, and freaking out. I *knew* my bosses would know, and would wonder WTF I was doing (no, they wouldn't wonder if I was ok, just whether or not I fucked up).
Boss2 called just as the train was pulling into my transfer point. I explained what happened, and all he said was "well, there are customers waiting. What do I tell them?"
I said he should tell them I'll be there in 15-20 minutes. That I'm stuck on the train, but not too far away. He said that he'd tell them to come back in a half hour. Fine, whatever, that works. I get off the phone and run for the connecting train. *Just* barely get it, and get to the store quickly. Less than 20 minutes late. Not bad, really. Could have been a lot worse, if I hadn't gotten the connection immediately.
Quickly I opened up, settled in, and people started coming through. My coworker showed up shortly, and we settled into a rhythm. I was trying to assemble bags and answer the phone while helping customers, and he was ringing and bagging as fast as he could. The phone rang, and a customer asked us to hold aside "two bottles of Prosecco" for him. We were far too busy to take hold orders or spend more than a couple minutes on the phone at that point, so I told him "I'm sorry sir, but that's not possible today. We are however fully stocked and will not be running out of any of our sparkling wines this evening."
Apparently he didn't hear (or didn't listen to) the second part of my statement. All he heard was "no." And that sent him into a tizzy. He ranted about having driven past the store twice (TWICE!) and we weren't open yet. To which, I of course, apologized and explained I'd been stuck on the train and unable to get there. Halfway through my apology he hung up on me.
I promptly put it out of my mind. Either he'd be in, or he wouldn't, and I couldn't really be bothered to care.
Cue an hour later.
We were in the weeds again, and I was attempting to bag as quickly as possible. A (very good) customer decided she needed two full cases of wine, so I'm helping her pick and choose while bagging and answering the phone. There was a line four deep (plus a couple of special orders that needed picking up), and both of us were working as fast as possible.
Mr. Entitlement came swaggering in (after almost breaking the lock on our door by pulling on it *really* hard), grabbed two bottles of our cheapest Prosecco, and rushed up to the line, cutting in front of the customer I'd been helping. I let my coworker know that the two cases were next, and I was going to grab the boxes to pack the bottles. I went and grabbed the boxes, and as I came back, Mr. Entitlement was being rung out (you guessed it, ahead of the other lovely customer). He mentioned that he drove past the store twice (TWICE!) this morning, and we were closed. I apologized again, and explained that the trains were still a bit messed up from the storm.
He started to berate me for having bad customer service. Said that all he wanted was for us to grab his Prosecco for him (because he drove past TWICE and we were CLOSED!), and me telling him "no" was Bad Customer Service. He carried on in this vein for a while, with me interjecting occasionally that I was sorry, but it simply wasn't possible to hold wine for anyone due to how busy we were.
He came back with this gem: "How much money could you POSSIBLY lose holding TWO bottles of Prosecco for me?! Terrible customer service! You're supposed to say 'Yes, Sir' and hop to it!"
He was done with his transaction, so I started in on packing the order the wonderful customer who had been waiting there all this time, looking at him like he'd grown a second head. He left, and I wished him a Happy New Year and a Wonderful Day.
He glared and left.
The wonderful customer shook her head, and then said "oh, by the way, can you hold two bottles of this (cheap red wine) for me? I'll be back to pick it up later." With a wink, of course. Gotta love the sarcastic ones.
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