A canonical list of SCs

[Dreamstalker]

Don't they also tend to somehow, in violation of a few laws of physics, take up every inch of the aisle at the same time? Or is that only if there's a pack of more than one?

[Hon'ya-chan]

Credit goes to Answerman for this: Go down to the Flake of the Week.

Manga Cow = someone who sits in the comics aisle of a big-box bookstore, like Borders or Barnes & Noble, and reads manga all day, grazing like a cow in a pasture. You likely see these people every time you go to one of those stores.

[Dreamstalker]

The Nervous Loner: This guy reminds me of the way I used to be in grade school, except he's probably in his mid-50s and I "wised up" at 16. A fairly large man with a very nervous speech pattern, to the point where it makes me nervous to listen to him. Will prattle on about $series (he seems to know to pick the ones I know the least about) in a vaguely grating monotone, ignoring the fact that a line is building up. Even if I subtly (or not so much) call for the next in line, he's positioned himself in such a way that nobody else can access the counter at the register (he's one of the reasons we should have more than one reg upstairs). Reminds me of a classic autistic/AS stereotype who is only ever interested in one thing and Cthulhu help you if you try to take them from that course.

Although the vast majority of customers in the shop are pleasant, we also get a handful of specimens that seem to define the negative connotations of otaku (personality of a a cheese grater, social skills of a wet noodle, vaguely smelly).

[Marxfan]

The Sadistic Master Woman - The woman who orders food at drive-thru, then changes her order at the window. When we bring her the food, she asks us for ketchup. When we return with ketchup, she asks for some ranch too. When we return with ranch, she asks for an extra bag. When we return with an extra bag, she asks for more napkins, and so on, making me run back and forth a good like a confused little rabbit.

I get this type of customer, too, and they drive me crazy. I honestly think it's a power trip for them.

[Earl]

The Crybaby - The guy who orders something we took off the menu a year ago... and complains about it for 3 solid minutes, talking about how good it was, and how we take things off the menu because we hate him, etc.

The Blind Guy - The guy who goes to the drive through, ignores the menu, and the many "Carl's Jr." logos, and proceeds to order food from another fast-food chain.

The Blind Guy Who Deserves To Be Actually Blind - The guy who orders something from another fast-food chain, then gives us the finger when we explain to him that we don't have it, and that it comes from Arby's, not Carl's.

The Temper-Tantrum Grown Man - The guy who will turn steaming mad if we do the slightest thing wrong, even if it can be fixed in literally 8 seconds. His rage has even switched on when we accidentally gave him MORE change than he was supposed to get.

The Animal Cruelty Guy - The guy who orders a cheeseburger for his dog, and requested it PLAIN, who then storms in later, telling us that apparently a "plain" cheeseburger isn't supposed to have cheese. Instead of ordering a plain HAMburger, he orders one with "cheese" in the name itself, and precious Foofie can't eat cheese. We call him the animal cruelty guy because it's bad enough that humans eat our filth... it's wrong to make a helpless animal eat it too.

The Cheap Asshole - The guy who orders two burgers, then comes back in later claiming that he didn't order the second one, and wants a refund. Of course, he doesn't give the second burger back (although we would have thrown it out, we can't let someone have a burger they shouldn't have). Since only management deals with refunds, they decide they just wanted him to get the fuck out and give him a refund anyways.

The Man Who Is Never Wrong - The guy who can't read the menu right, and thinks the picture for the #6 combo is really for the #7 combo. Thinking he's ordering a #6, he orders a #7. I repeat the order back to him for confirmation, and he says it's right. He comes back later and says we screwed up his order. We then explain that he had mistaken one combo for another, and explain that we had even repeated the order back to him, and he had confirmed it. He then tells us that it's our fault because our menu is "hard to read", and that we apparently mumbled the order back to him. Alas, he is never EVER wrong.

The Sadistic Master Woman - The woman who orders food at drive-thru, then changes her order at the window. When we bring her the food, she asks us for ketchup. When we return with ketchup, she asks for some ranch too. When we return with ranch, she asks for an extra bag. When we return with an extra bag, she asks for more napkins, and so on, making me run back and forth a good like a confused little rabbit.

Little Miss Bitch - The 9-year-old girl who wanted a root beer float on drive-thru. Seeing as we don't sell root beer floats, we told her "no". She then explained how she knows that we have ice cream (for milkshakes) and we have root beer, we have to make her a root beer float. We explained that since we don't sell root beer floats, we don't have a price for them, so we can't sell one. We told her that we COULD charge her the $3.23 for a milkshake (without stirring it, so it's just the ice cream) and $1.50 for a small root beer, but she refused that offer, saying that it's too much. Since I had actually made a root beer float like this before at work... I felt obligated to butt in. I told her that the root beer was really watered down anyways, and in the end it would taste nasty as hell. She then goes on a huge speech about how we HAVE to make one for her, running all her words together in slurred speech, like a drunk, so we shut the drive-thru window before we lost control of ourselves.

[Koliedrus]

Sliders - They insist that the layout of the store has been drastically altered since their previous visit.

Slider: "Why do you people keep moving things around?! Cat food was right here last week, dammit!"
Me: "Um, no, it's been twelve aisles in that (pointing) direction for over a decade."

When I first experienced these creatures, I had assumed it was faulty memory due to declining mental faculties. As exposure to them grew, I realized that they were of every age group and demographic.

I've come to the conclusion that their Arrow of Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time) is dimensionally skewed, causing them to drift through parallel universes even as they drift toward tomorrow.


Crazy Bettys - At four-foot-something, dressed in gypsy garb, stroke-ridden features shown by her lurching gait and only one side of her face responding to facial expressions, this frightful looking entity has been mistaken as an SC by the uninitiated. Noobs scatter in fear when they see her ambling toward the entrance.

In truth, she has a kick-ass sense of humor made apparent to those of us able to understand what she's saying through her stroke-initiated speech problems coupled with a thick, Eastern European accent. In a single exchange, she will demand that "Hey, you" help her retrieve a pint of milk, thank you for helping her and engage you in a short, bright conversation (more would tire her so think of it as a failsafe).

Afterward, there is the inevitable hug, a radiant smile from the entire half of her face that still works and a gentle touch on your cheek.


Crazy Betty's are rare in my experience. That's not to say that others don't exist elsewhere but, locally, their herd is in danger of extinction.

Do Not Mistake a Crazy Betty for an SC!

If you happen to spot one, feel free to pm me regarding first-contact protocol.

[Talonetc]

My Favorite

"I will only speak with a manager": Ah, my personal favorite. The overbearing individual whose "time is so valuable" they require a managers immediate attention for even the most simple or miniscule task which my greenest rep could handle before he or she had their morning coffee.

[Delphae]

The Just Passing Throughs These people always seem to walk down the isle you are working in, no matter how crowded it is do to Truck, Planogram changes or Seasonal changovers. They are not getting anything in the isle, just using it to pass to the back or front, risking tripping over countless boxes and totes. This especially is true when you are working in an isle that is not a main path.

[Slytovhand]

and again....

Similar to the Illiterati, the Innumerati - who doesn't understand either that 'once' means only 1.. not 2 or 3 or 16. Nor does it mean once a year. Once.. is once - that's it!

Also, doesn't understand the concept that 5 days is not the same as 3 days (or any other period of time...).

Similarly - the Uncalenderati - where 2am Tuesday morning is [I]not[I] actually Monday night. IE - this pass will cover you for all day Monday - so no, Tuesday morning (even if it is 1am) is not the same day! Is it really that difficult to understand?

[Slytovhand]

and a couple more...

The Mountaineer - aka Grossus Exageratus - takes the smallest most minor issue - let's see how big we can make it.

EG - I had someone who had a bill with an admin fee on it - by the end of the conversation, the whole concept of paying it was "Like Nazi Germany, Frank. It's Nazi Germany!"

What? - a Democratic Socialist Nationalist political party that took Germany out of a ten year depression by increasing state-owned capital works programs?? I fail to see the connection.....


The Emotional Blackmailer - or at least - tries to be. I actually had someone say to me "Where's your humanity?". Why?? Because he was late (as in - past the cut-off time) for the 4th time (you only get 1 shot at that), and he had woken up (2am) to get it fixed. Because it was his 4th try, I said no - I apparently have no 'humanity' because he doesn't learn his lessons.

[Slytovhand]

2 more....

Whizz-bangs (I just made it up :-P) - they give you a name or fully describe what they are on about, even though you have absolutely no idea what it is. They are so sure that what they are talking about is either common knowledge, or their head is stuck...somewhere, that the rest of the universe must be on their wavelength.

Eg - I had one guy ring in to the call centre I was working at for course enrolments. He decided to tell me all about some PC or program or whatever (hey - am I really supposed to listen??) - and I had no idea what he was going on about - not that that really matters, because that just means that they get to teach you - from the very beginning onwards.

Also... I put vehicles onto peoples e-tag accounts. I love it when they rant off some special model and classification tag sort of thing (FPV GT350 XYZ 990.... blah blah blah). Nice to ask after that 'So - is that a Ford or a Holden?" hehehe

Second one..

The Mates Rates Employee - is similar to someone mentioned before. They either currently work with you, have previously worked there, or are related to someone who does - and wants you to give them freebies, cheapies etc. "C'mon... maaaattteeeee!!!!!! You can do that for me... I won't tell anyone - don't worry about the cameras or microphones around here that management look at, nor the fact that it will show up on the reports at the end of the shift...."

[Slytovhand]

Only on page 7...so....

Ok - only on page 7 here - and I don't think I've quite seen the same, and it's probably on one of the others... but......

The But surely you're psychic - specifically at petrol stations, "So when's the price of petrol gonna come down?". My response is (and actually has been with a couple of regular customers who can get away with it cos it's a standard line.." As soon as you leave".

The Surely you can fix this - similar to the above, but they say "So why is the price of petrol so high?" - standard response - "Because we have cameras on the freeway, and I saw you were coming in - so I changed it".

[Lyger]

WILSON! - People so crazy, they may as well be talking to a volleyball, since nobody else is willing to put up with their drivel that stems from pure hatred, pure dementia, or both.

The Bedbugs - Couple that refuses to stop kissing, hugging, even groping each other every ten seconds. Not limited to any sexual orientation.

[Bagboy]

The lets harrass the boss person - Stands around and loiters while harrassing my boss, L.

The Samantha Foxers- These are lesbians that claim they were hot, but are now like in their 50's-60's

The paris Hiltons- The really ditzy chicks.

[DesignFox]

"Just Looking" Parrot: As the name implies this person does not seem to know any phrase other than "Just Looking". This person squawks this phrase anytime a sales associate happens to come within 20 feet of him or even glances in his direction. Also any attempts at conversation, even something as simple as Good Morning is quickly met by flapping arms and a squawks of "Just Looking ! Just Looking ! Just looking!"
)

I find these people to be so incredibly rude. Parents are teaching their kids to behave this way, too, I've noticed....

Example:
Me-"Hi, welcome to _______! How are you today?"
SC-"I'm Just looking!"

Well gee...I guess I'm not allowed to say hello and be friendly?! At least be cordial and answer me...then, when I start my sales pitch you can politely inform me that you are only interested in viewing the products and not making any actual purchases! I promise, I have better things to do than hassle you when you are 'just looking.'