Whiny Loony doesn't get her way EVEN after contacting spineless corporate (long)

[thehuckster]

Background

Flashing back to the year 2000 when I 16 and was manning the registers at a CVS drugstore at the mall. This was a pretty busy Saturday afternoon, and I was still relatively new at the job at the time.

Meet the Whiny Loony

I will admit, there was one thing I did wrong in this scenario, but after you read the story I hope you'll agree that the SC's suckiness by far trumped my inexperience. The SC in this long scene was a middle aged woman who came up with a handful of items:

1 Oral-B toothbrush
1 tube of Crest toothpaste
a 6-pack of Dentine gum

I'm specifying the brands here because I'd like to underline here that these were not cheap generic storebrands but the more expensive brandname items.

After I scan the gum, she immediately retorts, "That price is wrong!" in the usual SC tone, where obviously it's all your fault the register didn't have the right price in the system.

"That's supposed to be 50-cents!" She added.

I knew right away she had to be wrong. I had added sales stickers myself to the front of the counter where the gum was, and that was only for the one-pack. I informed her of this, but she insisted she got this from the other aisle where it was clearly marked. I went into that aisle and sure enough, she was correct. Someone who was responsible for tagging that aisle earlier today mistakenly labeled the wrong pack of gum on sale. We had to honor the displayed price, of course, so I promptly overrode the price, and continued scanning.

The toothbrush and toothpaste came to their respective prices, and then she handed me four coupons. Two coupons were store coupons which set the price for each of these items to 99 cents. The other two coupons were manufacturers coupons which took $1 off of the 99-cent item. I told her she could only use one coupon for each item, and she flipped out.

"WHAT? You clearly don't know how to do your job! You can certainly use both coupons for each item!"

I humored her, and attempted to use the coupons. The store coupons came out alright, but when I tried scan the other one to take $1 off a 99-cent item, the registered gave me an error stating it was an invalid combo.

I patiently explained, "The register will not even allow me to apply this second coupon. What you can do is use the manufacturer's coupon for another purchase later on."

"This is UNACCEPTABLE!"

I'm thinking to myself, she's going to be paying around $2.50 for a 6-pack of gum, a good toothbrush, and good toothpaste. That's a pretty good deal by my book.

She demands a supervisor, whom I page to the front. When the supervisor arrives, I explain the situation, which she keeps interupting with her whiny version of the events. The supervisor then informs me that I was in the wrong.

"What you can do is override the discount on the manufacturer's coupon so it's 99-cents off, and thus she'll just get them for free."

"Oh," I said. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry, ma'am."

The Whiny Loony Turns it up a Notch

This is when things get super sucky. Despite getting all these items for a grand total of 50 cents, she was still greatly dissatisfied. Through her whiny voice, I couldn't make out what she was complaining about now, but I knew she was still complaining about the price. Was she upset over the 2-cents she was denied when she thought we should pay her a cent for each item since it was a dollar off a 99-cent item? Was she upset that she should have been compensated for her "inconvenience" throughout this transaction? When you get two items for free and an item that is usually $4 for 50-cents, there's only a few things you could even theoretically dispute.

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to hear it. A second supervisor came to the front to back up the other supervisor, and because we had a line of customers forming, I went to another register to clear the line. Throughout the 20-30 minutes she was there, I got a few snippets of gems.

SC: "This GUM was mislabeled! I should be compensated."
Sup: "You were. You're getting it for 50-cents, as the sign incorrectly advertised."
SC: "But that isn't enough!"

SC: "Why do you expect me to pay you people after all I've been through?"
Sup: "You either pay 50-cents and get your items, or you don't and get nothing! It's your choice!"

SC: "Why is it only YOU who's helping me? Those other workers aren't doing anything!"
Sup: "What? They're helping other customers."
SC: "You should only help one customer at a time."
Sup: "Well, that's not going to happen."

Finally, after this long, winded dispute, in a huff, the SC literally threw the two quarters on the counter and said, "FINE! FINE! But let this be known," she bellowed in front of everyone else in line, pointing to each of us, "I am reporting YOU, YOU, and YOU to the CEO of this corporation! He will hear about this! And I will tell my husband to sell ALL OF HIS STOCK in this corporation! See how you deal with that!" She proceeded to turn to the customers in line, yelling, "These people are THEIVES!" At that point, she grabbed her bag and left.

We collected ourselves in the next few minutes, and I tried to get a full story on what, exactly, she was so angry about. The supervisor was simply too flustered to go into details. Now, chances are she doesn't know the CEO, but it's somewhat feasible, since CVS corporate headquarters is 4 miles away from the mall. However, I was greatly amused by her threat of selling stock in CVS, as if that would seriously affect us cashiers. I just loved how she seemed to think we gave a crap about how much stock she was going to sell in the company.

The Loony's Complaint Makes it Through

The next day I come in and the assistant manager who was off the previous day came up to us, looking confused, and said, "Woonsocket (corporate) called. They told us they got some kind of incoherent rant from some customer about the price of something and customer service issues."

The supervisor who mostly handled her replied, "Oh, yeah. She was absolutely insane. We had no idea what she was so pissed about, but she was getting the deal of a lifetime and was still complaining about it!"

The AM said, "Corporate couldn't really make much out of the complaint either. One of the complaints she got out of it was that the customer didn't have all three of you help her at once."

I, then, chimed in, "Uuh... you should have seen the line. So, she wanted all of us to help her out with whatever it was? Two of us were on registers to keep the line from going out of the store! It was a madhouse when she came in. Plus, there was absolutely no reason why she needed three workers to figure out whatever phantom problem she had. She was a complete loony."

The AM then said, "Well, amazingly corporate seems to agree she's a loony. They almost always take the side of the customer on complaints, as you know, but this is one of the rare cases she actually took our side. The woman actually offered condolences to anyone who had to deal with her yesterday."

Two weeks later, CVS announced they were expanding into Califonia and other western markets through some acquisitions. This pushed the stock price forward about 60% overnight. I wonder if her husband heeded her demands to sell the stock.

[Pixilated]

Having gotten through cashier work at a place that does really lousy training, I feel for you! I used to hate it when I was told, "Oh, but you could've done such-and-such" -- how nice, yet another procedure that nobody told me about! (Not saying your store had really lousy training -- even if the training was spectacular, newbies can't remember everything right off the bat!)

I'd have loved to see the Sup. say, "Oh, all the staff should wait on only one customer at a time? Very well, ma'am, THAT customer was here before you so please excuse us ... we'll all be back in about 20 minutes ..."

Once she went into Doom Pronouncement Mode, I bet most of the other customers were either gawking at her or laughing uncontrollably.

Kudos to corporate for backing you guys.

[XCashier]

Kudos to corporate for backing you guys.

Agreed! It's exceptionally rare, but even they can get pushed too far and have to tell the customer no. I'm glad they did in this instance.

I feel your pain; the second job I had was at a different drugstore (I was about 19 at the time). They didn't train worth squat, yet jumped on my case every time I slipped up, or the customer had a gripe, even if it wasn't my fault. They berated me in front of the customers, frequently contradicting themselves. When the customer verbally abused me, they stood by and did nothing, silently condoning it. It was horrible; I don't know why I stayed as long as I did.

The whole thing with "the customer is always right" has led to a nation of entitlement-minded spoiled brat customers and depressed, angry employees. Some places are starting to put their foot down with unreasonable customers, but they're few and far between. The system is in dire need of a massive overhaul.

[Kristev]

Oh my word. That primate strips me of all words to describe.

That corporate would take the employees' side over her madness really surprises me.

[MoonCat]

She sounds like a complete nutcase. Pays 50 cents for her items and still whining because you didn't do what? Bow down, kiss her feet, pay her $100 cash in compensation for her "inconvenience"? What inconvenience? Queen of the EW's there.

[thehuckster]

the second job I had was at a different drugstore (I was about 19 at the time). They didn't train worth squat, yet jumped on my case every time I slipped up, or the customer had a gripe, even if it wasn't my fault. They berated me in front of the customers, frequently contradicting themselves.

In their defense, I didn't find this particular situation a major training fail, nor did they really berate me in front of the customer. They simply told me the facts on how to resolve the issue, which was really a rather rare "edge case:" Very rarely do coupons "validly" combine to result in a negative price which you must override to zero. Usually if something like that occurs, you can bet you're over-combining offers. This was just one of those once-in-a-million cases where it was perfectly legit. The supervisor was kind about it. You can't teach every new guy every little nuance about the job, most of those nuances simply comes from hard-earned experience.

[AccountingDrone]

I love getting trainees, they tend to be more detail oriented as they are trying to not forget to do something, and I am rarely in any sort of hurry so I am not snippy at them for being slow.

I would have really hated to have been the poor corporate person that had to talk to her ... poor thing must have been absolutely baffled. Talk about headache inducing ...

[tropicsgoddess]

Oh man...that made my head spin at how incredibly loony that SC was.

[Sapphire Silk]

"What you can do is override the discount on the manufacturer's coupon so it's 99-cents off, and thus she'll just get them for free."

I'm not sure I get this. I didn't think stores allowed customers to apply two coupons to the same item, certainly not if the discount led to the item costing nothing. That makes no sense.

Two weeks later, CVS announced they were expanding into Califonia and other western markets through some acquisitions. This pushed the stock price forward about 60% overnight. I wonder if her husband heeded her demands to sell the stock.

I doubt he did That sounds simply like the standard, "I'll show you!" kind of threat.

But it should would have been karma if he had.

[fireheart]

You can't teach every new guy every little nuance about the job, most of those nuances simply comes from hard-earned experience.

That's usually the method I used with my coworkers, but otherwise QFT.

I'd attempt to teach them a couple of things I did which sped the process up a bit for the customer. I figured it was good knowledge when I left.

[HotelMinion]

Glad corporate agree she was a loony. My corporate is pretty fair. When the customer complains, they hear us out. This woman should've got nothing but a free pass to the nearest loony bin!! :P

[XCashier]

You can't teach every new guy every little nuance about the job, most of those nuances simply comes from hard-earned experience.

Of course not, but you can do more than, "here's the cash register, get started!" And then when the employee makes an error, say, "You're supposed to know!" You can't know what you haven't been taught.

[Laund-o-rama Mama]

She sounds like one of those nutty "extreme couponers"! And I BET she wanted it to work out to negative numbers so YOU would owe HER! That's why she threw such a fit over the 50 cents.

[thehuckster]

I'm not sure I get this. I didn't think stores allowed customers to apply two coupons to the same item, certainly not if the discount led to the item costing nothing. That makes no sense.

Their explanation was, while you can't combine two store coupons, or two manufacturer's coupons, you can combine a store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon. Even if that effectively makes the product free.

Of course not, but you can do more than, "here's the cash register, get started!" And then when the employee makes an error, say, "You're supposed to know!" You can't know what you haven't been taught.

Of course. I'm just saying that's not what they did when I started at CVS, that was probably a month or two into my job, and that was the first time I really messed something up. Plus, they didn't really embarrass or berate me in front of the customer, their statement that I could override the coupon discount was more of a matter-of-fact, "FYI" kind of thing.

I would have really hated to have been the poor corporate person that had to talk to her ... poor thing must have been absolutely baffled. Talk about headache inducing ...

Judging by how the assistant manager described the call, I'm sure it had to sound like one of Gravekeeper's callers. She might have even complained about a smell, for all we know.

[Sapphire Silk]

She sounds like one of those nutty "extreme couponers"! And I BET she wanted it to work out to negative numbers so YOU would owe HER! That's why she threw such a fit over the 50 cents.

Ah, now this makes perfect. sense. She was probably smugly thinking to herself how she would brag to her couponing friends that she got product for free, and even got money back from the store to boot. Then she got derailed by the OP.