workin' retail: modern-day sharecropping

[DudeMan]

I'd venture a guess that pretty much all of us either have in the past or currently work retail. It's modern-day sharecropping. Or a rite of passage, if you will.

After watching Clerks recently for the umpteenth time, I thought it would be fun to start a thread about Workin' Retail and hear some good stories.

Funny stories? Annoying Customers? Tricks you played on customers just for the hell of it? Enquiring minds want to know.

Okay, here's one story from my days of working in a record store. Most of the customers were really cool, but a small but distinct minority were stupid, annoying, thieving, belligerant, or some combination of the above. Plus we were bored out of our skulls half the time. One thing we did one day to combat boredom had to do with this big plate-glass window that was on either side of the entrance. We also had these big potted plants that were also on either side of the entrance. Once day we took the potted plants and lined them up in front of the plate-glass window such that if you didnt' look closely you might mistake the plate glass window for the entrance. Hilarity ensues. In the course of the two hours we had this up, two people did a dead-on face-plant into the plate glass window where they thought it was the exit.

Okay, so that is incredibly rude, immature and insensitive. But know what? It was also pretty damned funny at the time.

Any others?

[IPrayForSound]

I can't think of any great stories right this second. All I have to offer is my favorite thing I used to say to customers: "I'm the closest thing to a manager you're gonna see today, ma'am."

Strangely, I never got fired.

[The Sheck]

Gather round kids, for I used to work retail at the grandaddy of all retail outlets: The Mall of America!

I worked at the Great American Cookie Co. They had two stores there, both of which I floated at. One was near the giant rotunda, which would be host to such glamorous artists as N'Sync (Before they were huge), Leeann Womack, and I think good ol' Rush Limbaugh did a book signing there. The other was across from the world's ugliest themed restaurant 'Cafe Odyssey' which would provide shoppers with the opportunity to dine in replicas of exotic locations such as Machu Picchu and Atlantis. It offered elaborate lighting effects and video screens to simulate how day and night would look in each place. (Don't forget the average entree price of $30 and you see why it is now closed)

Stories? Right around the time we would close, the stoner kids would flock to the store and see what they could have for free. Most were so out of it, we would be able to say "All right. Tell you what I'm gonna do. Since it's the end of the night and the cookies don't keep well overnight, I'm gonna let you have them for $1 each." Most would buy 12, not knowing that the actual price was $1. (Maybe that's why the stores are now gone from the MoA)

I saw a gunshot victim run past the store once. We heard some pop-pop sounds that we couldn't identify. A minute later, some guy goes flying past the store, holding his arm. T-Shirt stained in blood.

The fellow co-workers and I used to write down names of cookies customers would mispronounce. The funniest one I can remember was 'White Chunk Macadamia' being called 'White Chump Macedonians' by some confused soul. I then asked the man if he wanted some Syrian Chocolate Chip to go with that.

Being the MoA is a huge place, people would get lost and ask for directions often. Some of the time we'd mess with people's heads. Like telling them the flow of traffic in the mall only goes one way, so if you want to go back to a store, you actually have to go forward. Or if someone inquired about a store that wasn't in the mall, that didn't stop us from giving directions to where it was. ("Oh, you want to get to Ikea. Take a left here, go down the stairs. It's next to World of Haggus.")

Lots of she-males and transvestites in the mall...we'd have a game going called 'Name that Tranny' when one walked by.

There was an employee bathroom that was shared by four stores or so. Apparently, there's some culture that believes toilet paper, after it's been used, should be thrown into a wastebasket instead of flushed. Nastier than it sounds...

I got it on with my gf at the time on the back counter of the store. (Not where we'd make cookies, but where the paperwork was done.) Good times...

To allievate boredom, my co-worker Greg and I would pretend one of us didn't speak English when a customer ordered. We made up these elaborate hand-signals and pig latinesque language. Sometimes we'd mess up people's orders and then the other would remark to the customer, "Foreigners...What are you gonna do? It's all good, they're cheap labor." "He thinks his American name is Nutsack." And try to get the customer to call the non-English speaking co-worker Nutsack.

It's amazing it took me a year to get fired. (And it was for a non-related thing that wasn't my fault. How ironic.)

[DogStarMan]

I waited tables for about 8 years. I regularly spit into the food of customers who pissed me off. Be nice to your servers people.

[ms. chevious]

this isn't exactly retail, but...

anyway, growing up in tha w.c. (west chester), my first job was at king's island. i was an usher for the mtv-wannabe show under the eiffel tower, and for kiddie show in hanna barbera land. usually this job rawked b/c btw shows you could sleep, read, do whatever...except for the one usher whose job it was to stand outside the entrance and answer questions, etc. once, when it was my turn for guard duty, this woman approaches me and asks, "where is 'it's a small world'?".

i know that she's looking for the old smurf boatride that had been taken out several years before, but i choose to be absoutley literal.

"florida, ma'am," i answered politely, since 'it's a small world' IS in florida...(i guess it's in california, too, but florida is a straight shot down 75).

"no, i mean, where is it HERE?" asks the woman, her voice tinged with annoyance.

"FLORIDA, ma'am. 'it's a small world' is in FLORIDA, not OHIO," i respond, nicely and politely and smiley and fake-cheery, like every good ohio girl learns to be.

"but it used to be HERE," she protests.

"no, ma'am, kings island is owned by paramount, and 'it's a small world' is owned by DISNEY. at no time has kings island ever been a part of the disney company. 'it's a small world' has NEVER been at this park."

increasingly annoyed, the woman sputters, "can you please just tell me where it is?"

"FLORIDA. orlando. disney world."

she quickly turns and marches off in a huff.

mission accomplished ;)

[cuddlyevil]

Up until this time last year, I worked for a chain of uniform shops that sold scrubs and shoes to doctors and nurses. Now, the scariest stories were the nurses who's come in and look through the entire store (including accessories) and not know where the blood pressure cuffs were or what they looked like-I always noted which hospitals or doctor's offices they worked in and would avoid said offices.

But, my favorite story happened when I was assistant manager. The manager of the store and I are old friends. We were both working on a Saturday and at the cashwrap when this lady and her daughter walk in. They both look slightly cromagnon-ish if'n you know what I mean? The daughter walks up to us and hollers "Do you have any purple? my mama loves purple!" Upon hearing her voice, my manager and I are thrown into an immediate "deliverance" flashback. This girl proceeds to follow her mom and then another customer around the store saying "follow her mama, she knows where all the pretty ones are." Then, dad came in, obviously wearing clothes several weeks past due laundry time. He was teasing his daughter in a less than fatherly way shall we say? All right in front of us. Meanwhile my manager and I are fighting the urge to giggle incessantly and start quoting deliverance. The daughter walked right in on her mom in the dressing room and then they planned their big night out to waffle house--mom bought some purdy purple scrubs and they left the store, got into their big truck and left. My manager and I immediately fall on the desk uttering something not unlike "you got a purdy mouth..." while our poor other customers just sorta stand there staring out the door in a mix of shock and fear.


I'm so glad I got out of it when I did...

[Stine]

Great thread by the way...

I used to work at a Little Professor Book Center up in Troy Ohio. North. Some might say a little hillbilly-ish.

I've had someone come in and ask me if we sold "Thess-er-esses?"
"Do you mean a Thesaurus sir?"
"Yeah! What exactly is that anyway?"
Wow.
I've also had someone come in and ask if he could borrow our books - ?! No sir, we're not a library.

[monkey neck]

I gave Wally World 6 years of my life and the one instance that stands out in my mind the most was at "Back to School" time, the worst time of the year in retail besides Christmas. Everybody and their brother are packed arseholes to elbows in 2 aisles. It was probably THE day before school started, so as you know, everything is gone by that time. This lady asks me if we have any looseleaf paper. And, of course, we don't. She said (In true soccer-power-mom style), "Why don't you have any paper? It's "Back to School" time, you know?"

Are you sure?

[MissKitty]

I worked 12 years in an indie record store, and we got up to all sorts of crazy things. We used to smoke up in the back hallway and then try to keep a straight face for the rest of the evening. The store also sold head-shop materials, so whenever customers would ring up and ask "Do you guys sell rush?" we'd always say "yes" and then wait for them to come in and find that we only sold the band, not the high.

We used to played a game (with very complicated scoring) which consisted of kicking a hacky-sak across the store and trying to knock off the country music artists cassettes at the tape counter.

We had a customer who used to phone harrass us about Prince, and when I say harrass I mean EXTREMELY nasty, rude comments whenever we told him there wasn't a new single slated for release that week. The guy called EVERY OTHER DAY and was the nastiest mouthed guy ever. So when one of us finally got the guys phone number, every employee made a copy of it and whenever we were out and about we'd call him collect and prank him from pay phones.

[DogStarMan]

Originally posted by MissKitty
We had a customer who used to phone harrass us about Prince, and when I say harrass I mean EXTREMELY nasty, rude comments whenever we told him there wasn't a new single slated for release that week. The guy called EVERY OTHER DAY and was the nastiest mouthed guy ever. So when one of us finally got the guys phone number, every employee made a copy of it and whenever we were out and about we'd call him collect and prank him from pay phones.
Are you sure that wasn't c-lando with her voice disguised? :p

[Murphy]

one I can remember was 'White Chunk Macadamia' being called 'White Chump Macedonians'

I am still giggling from this... too funny.

[SteelTown Boy]

i used to work for the state liquor store board system as a clerk.

[Kwyjibo]

Ah jeez, you asked for it...

Hardware store:

Once had a customer come up to me while I was in the saw room ripping down some 2X4s, which was only supposed to be a courtesy to our customers so that they could tie them to the roof of their car if they were too long. I have a feeling though that there are more than a few houses in the Florence area in which I cut every board in the house to the length it is today. Anyway, this particular genius was carrying a four foot flourescent bulb and asked if I could cut it in half for him. I responded without thinking, "no sir, the bulb cutter's broken". Probably a record for smartass comebacks for me, I usually think of something like that afterwards.

I used to love to tell customers that they needed some kind of bizarre tool to do their project like a left handed screwdriver, a skyhook or a board stretcher. And I'd always tell them that the tool department was "downstairs", obviously this was a one floor building.

I once had a lady ask me if I could recommend a drill to her. She said it was for her husband, and that he was an electrician. He usually used a cordless she said, but sometimes there was no functional outlet around, and he couldn't recharge it, so she wanted to get him a regular one. Of course, I sold her the best (most expensive) drill for the job.

Restaurant:

There was a regular that was always full of demands. He came in every day around noon. He expected fresh coffee, so we'd stash a pot away around eight, and microwave it when he got there. He had a bowl of cereal every day, with a banana, and he'd always inform us of where we kept the bananas. And he'd have wheat toast dry, toasted twice. Once, the toaster hadn't been cleaned out in a while, and we set the toaster on the highest setting. The toast actually caught fire. He sat there yelling that the toast was on fire and my buddy just looked at him and said, well it's got to be toasted twice, and it's not done yet.

We had another regular (we had a lot of regulars) who came in every day, and although the sign said "please wait to be seated", he'd seat himself everytime. He was a pain in the ass to wait on, he got a fish sandwich, and he wanted it cooked "light" if it was the slightest bit brown he'd send it back, so we had to cook his fish on the french toast setting on the fryer, which was literally twenty seconds or so. He had iced tea, and we had to water it down for him. He seldom left a tip. Eventually, we got sick of him, so when he sat himself, we'd just ignore him, and when he finally got belligerent about it, we'd say, oh, who sat you? I didn't even know you were there. He eventually quit coming.

I was always amazed at the requests people had. Fries with no salt (um yeah, we're gonna cook a whole basket of fries, just for you), chili with no beans, vegetable soup with no vegetables (no foolin'), hamburger's with no meat (like there was any meat in them anyway).

A friend of mine was working the drive thru once. A woman pulled up and without even being spoken to started rambling off an order, he told her that she'd have to wait a minute. After about thirty seconds or so, she said "are you ready yet?", my friend, talking to our co-workers that had heard her said, "If I'd have been ready, I'd have said fire away cunt". Those of you familiar with drive through headsets know that typically there are two buttons, one that allows you to talk to the person outside to take their order, and one to talk to the others with headsets inside. My friend had pressed the wrong button, and we ended up with a very angry, beligerent, decidedly obese woman screaming obsenities in through the drive thru window loudly enough that she could be heard in the dining room.

[Big Dog Daddy]

I worked in many bike shops in Cincinanti from 88 thru 99. In that time I have come to understand that the custome is usually wrong.

case and point.

I customer comes in with Huffy MTB with a flat tire. He asks for a innetube to repair it. We sell him the appropraite tube and he walks out. 2 minutes latter he come back in saying this is the wrong size. Sometimes we get the boxes mixed up or the compay we get the tube from screws up and puts 24 in tubes into boxes marked 26 so we think no big deal. In this case we are baffled. we check the box marked 26x1.5 thru 26x2.0. we check the tube markes exactly the same. adv him it is right he informs us he needs a tube that is 26x1&3/4. we adv him that is inbetween 1.5 - 2.0 . he insists we are wrong. we do the math and show him that 1 $3/4 equals 1.75 which is between 1.5 and 2.0 . He takes the tube throws it on the floor and walks out. the 3 of that were working just look at each other and laugh.

Another customer wants his kids bike fixed. The rule at the shop was if the brakes did not work we did not touch it unless it left the shop with working brakes. (shops have been sued for less, we were just covering our butts) This bike had NO brakes on it what so ever, and a flat front tire. We are on top of a hill no whre to go but down. we advise the customer of our policy and offer to sell him the parts and he can fix it himself. He insists on wanting us to do the work so his kid can ride home 9down the hill) . we advise then he needs to but a set of brakes and have them installed as well them. he starts yelling that we just don't want to help him because he is black. calls us every name under the sun. we refuse he threatens to sue us and leaves. again we all just look at each other and laugh.


BDD

[classicgrrl]

and we have another nominee for the best thread of the year award...these are great....I'm gonna print this out.

Used to work at Kings Island (before Paramount bought and ruined the park) at Skyline Chilli. Once had a customer not understand that she had to pay the sales tax on park food. Got real pissed off. "you dont pay sales tax in grocery stores?" she said. you dont eat the food in the grocery stores either (i didnt say this).

My fav question of all time was "wheres the Eiffle Tower?" Usually we either told them in France or just pointed up.

I am assistant manager in a bookstore. Had a customer all pissed off one day that his 15 year old daughter had come in and bought "How to have simultaneous orgasms" or some such nonsense. His ex wife from FL where the girl usually lived yelled at him. So he came in and yelled at me. I calmed him down and literally told him that no, it was not our job to babysit for 15 year olds left to their own devices and no it was not against the law for her to purchase it. However, we do have some father-daughter parenting books in the Family/Childcare section if he was interested. :rolleyes:

My book store is in Hyde Park. We get customers coming in asking if they can borrow books on a daily basis. This scares me.

My favorite customers are those that order the Art Of Spanking.

My all time favorite customer was the one who ordered The Companion Ritual Workbook for the Satanic Bible.

Got a customer the other day looking for gormet dog cookbooks. Meaning she wanted to cook her dog gormet food. I told her we didnt have any in stock in the store but I could order one for her. She got ticked and asked if i could at least give her a list of titles. I said sure and proceeded to print out the list of Asian cookbooks that came up for dogs as a delicacy :p

Wheres Lady Jo she's got some good ones too!

[DudeMan]

These posts are fantastic. I'm glad I never worked with any of youze guyz, 'cause I probably woulda been fired within a week.

Back to the record store I worked at many moons ago...

Like Miss Kitty, we used to fire up a spleef quite often, either before the shift started, when we were taking the trash out to the dumpster, or when on lunch break. Made the day much more bearable. Also fun was to play baseball with the CD cases as bats and a big tape-ball as the bseball. Hit it over by New Age and it's a foul ball. Hit it off the cassette wall and it's a double, etc.

Stupid customer: we sold laser discs (the big 'ole things that were the precursars to DVDs), and a woman came in with a return one day saying, "It doesn't play... it just makes this awful scratching sound." Turns out she actually put it on a turntable and tried to play it like a record.

One fun thing we did with laser discs was that we would be at the front of the store near the window and hold it up to the sunlight and aim the sunlight at annoying customers who were in the very back reaches of the store. They would sense something, look up, and be blinded by a nice dose of refracted sunlight.

Back in the day before the Ticketmaster monopoly, there used to be Ticketron and Ticketmaster. We had Ticketron, so very frequently people would call up looking for tickets to a venue that was handled by Ticketmaster. We would explain the difference and give them the number for Ticketmaster. Well, some people used to get really really pissy and beligerant that we didn't have the tickets we were looking for, like we had any friggin control over who sold what tickets. To those people we would give Ticketmaster's phone number: 347-1111. (Cincinnatians will know the number)

Another thing we used to do was dare each other to say certain words when they were waiting on customers. So, if the word was 'Penis', for instance, it would go like this, Customer: "Can you help me with something?" Me: "NoproblemPeniswhatcanIdoforyou?" Customer (confusedly): "What did you just say?" Me: "IsaidnoproblemPenishowcanIhelpyou?" Oddly enough, we never got in trouble once for that. You'd be standing there being really friendly and act as though nothing was awry, and people probably thought they were going crazy or hearing things.

Most annoying customers: people who returned things all the friggin' time, as if it was a lending library. Not just once in a while like we've all probably done, but week after week after week. Our ultra-liberal return policy was the most hated thing in the world among the employees, because these particular customers were the most annoying, slimy bastards you could imagine. We would run their credit cards over the security de-magnetizer as a step toward restoring order to the universe.

The funnest was busting shoplifters. The kids we busted were usually just goof-ball teens, but the adults were almost all total scumbag types, so that was fantastic. We always prosecuted, and I would get paid for the time I went to the courthouse to testify in the cases where it went to trial. Nothin' finer when you're working by the hour.

[Kwyjibo]

I totally forgot one.

Whilst working at the hardware store, a group of us noticed a guy with a gigantic jacket on that was, well, a little lumpy. A group of three or four of us started following him around the store. As he got more nervous, the pack of employees grew to six or eight.

The kid couldn't put the stuff back, well, he could have, but I guess he felt he still had a chance of not getting fingered. Now I've never understood the shop lifting laws in KY but I had been told, that we weren't allowed to do anything about a shoplifter once they'd left the store, unless you could prove it. Of course, you're also not allowed to do anything while they're in the store. I know, somebody didn't have it right somewhere along the way, but they weren't my rules, I just followed them.

Eventually, the guy made his way out the door, and we continued to follow him. For some bizarre reason the guy climbed into the bed of his pick up truck, closed the gate on the cap and locked himself in.

We stood around in shifts until way past closing, and it was a pretty hot day. We'd talk to him, sit on his bumper smoking, drink big glasses of water and coke (you know that guy was hot and thirsty), we made that guys life a living hell for quite sometime.

[doctort13]

I have been in retail most of my adult life.

So many stories, so little time (today).

Here's a quick tale from my 10 years with Kinko's Copy Center:

I was the manager of the Boston College Kinko's on Commonwealth Avenue. We would lose electricity almost every summer. As we sat outside waiting for the power to come back on, we had to explain to college students that there is NO electricity on the WHOLE @#$! street. They just couldn't grasp that, and would say "but I only need one copy".


people are funny animals:p

[MissKitty]

Busting shoplifters was excellent! One time a really obnoxious couple of guys was in the store, and one engaged another employee in conversation whilst the other asked me to locate CDs for him. As I was locating Sting's "Bring On The Night" double CD (which at the time was an import only) he kept shoving LPs in my face and asking me if I liked them. Did he really not think I noticed him shoving the double CD (complete with liftlock) into his jeans!? Hello!?

He and his obnoxious mate dashed from the store and into a convertable MG. My collegue got the license number as he was running after them. I called the cops. They got stopped and were arrested because the f*cking MG was stolen too! The store prosecuted them, we went to court, were paid for our time and those two bastards got 2 years.

[monkey neck]

Ahh, shoplifters...

Our store security guard (now a good friend of mine) had to take down a 60 year-old woman one night. If you could imagine, this guy is a big guy, 300 pounds or so. He asked her to come back inside and she just started kicking him. After once demanding she stop, he wrapped her up pretty quickly. Just as quickly, he took out his police badge and laid it out so people wouldn't think she's getting mugged or something.

At Wally World, we weren't really allowed to do anything, or even say anything to people even if we saw them concealing merchandise for fear they'd be sued. I did the ol' sarcastic smile-and-wave when they saw me. It was so fun to watch people's faces turn white. I followed this one girl all around the store, then she finally went into the ladies room and promptly tossed her lunch.

Good times.

[Jeff]

My granddaddy share cropped and I'm pretty sure from the stories my dad tells about growing up during the 30's that working retail is nothing like share cropping. not even metaphoricly. (SP?)

Anyway, I'm a former shoplifter and never worked retail on the 'right ' side o the counter. My favorite shoplifting story involves living with some bikers in NJ when I was in my early 20's. It was a rent a room house and I happened upon the room for rent not really understanding exactly what I was getting into. Rough crowd who took to me for some bizarre reason while beating up the other stranger roomate nightly, principly because he rode a Japanese bike. I was and still am a pretty good cook., so they made me the house cook. In between the local police raids and screwing thier women on the couch, the biker boys would take me to the local supermarket, and I'd tell them what to steal. I would literally have a shoping list and we'd go aisle by aisle, me pointing, them stealing. Nice symbiosis, I think. I lasted 3 months. The motorcylce crashing through my bedroom door at 4am and running up on the bed and over my legs was the last straw.

[classicgrrl]

once again - Jeff has killed a thread.

[LiceKrispy]

I love this thread!

Ok,

Electronics store:
CUSTOMER: I need a phone battery.
ME: What's the model number of your phone?
CUSTOMER: (believe it or not he actually knew it) It's a "blah blah blah 317-6a"
ME: Ok, let me see. (started looking for it)
CUSTOMER after one second: Can I talk to someone that knows what the hell they're talking about?
I take a step back and sideways and look up at him with my hands on my hips and a serious face. So, he shrinks down an inch and quietly says, "Sorry." I continue looking.

I get a call from customer service telling me that someone wants a device that will let them hook up headphones to their TV. She also adds, "Now, this guy is OLD, so be PATIENT." I roll my eyes and take the call.
ME: How can I help you?
OLD MAN (in a loud, confused yet determined voice): I need a....a headphone thing for my TV.
ME: Does your TV have a jack in the front or back for heaphones?
OLD MAN: What?
ME: Does it have a place where you can plug headphones in?
OLD MAN: Well, I don't know....I have a hearing problem, and I live in an apartment. I need something to where I can turn it up loud while the other people are sleeping.
ME: How old is your TV?
OLD MAN: It's a Mitsubishi.
ME: Let me transfer you to the TV department.

Later, someone from the TV department walks up to me and tells me, "I just had this crazy old guy on the phone, I had no idea what he was talking about. All he said was, 'Uhh....I need a headphone thing!' I said, 'Well, this is the wrong department,' and he was like, 'No, you don't understand,' 'What do you need, sir?' 'My neighbor stomped on the floor cause the TV was too loud!' So I hung up on him."

An honourable mention goes to the customers who tell you random things about themselves in the middle of a phone call, like, "I need a boom box for my son. I need one that plays CD's and tapes, and I'm terminally ill, and I've had a JVC before, but it wasn't very good..."

One day at that place, I was so fed up with customers, that I actually took it out on a old lady. She was buying one of those Casio keyboards, and after I brought it out, she asked me if I could carry it to her car. (She was probably in her late 70's, very frail.) I said, "Well, do you think you could pick it up? It's not that heavy." She looked at me weird and said, "Well, I'm not that strong!" and laughed. I said, "Just see if you can pick it up." So she bent down and started to reach for it all wobbly and shaking, when another worker ran up sayin' "Heyyy, whoa, whoa, you don't have to do that. I can't believe you were gonna make her carry that." So he carried it out for her. I felt bad later, but, you know.....these jobs turn you into a different person!

Chick-Fil-A:
People that came in and ordered "Chicken McNuggets."
The various mispronunciations, (Chick'-Fil"-Uh), (Chick"-uh-Fil'), and yes, even "Chick-Flick."
A woman would come in everyday the minute we opened the gate with an old cup and ask for a refill. We had lenient management, so we were'nt allowed to tell her no. One time I asked her if she bought that here today. She said yes. Damn it, I had to say ok and give her a refill.

Giving lessons at a music store:
A woman marches in after her son's lesson that I was 20 minutes early for.
BEE-OTCH: I am getting sick and tired of you being late!
ME: I've never been late.
BEE-OTCH: You were late today! I don't care if that clock is fast!
ME: I have never been late to one of your lessons. You have, though.
BEE-OTCH: I will not tolerate this! I want a refund!
ME: I can give you a refund for the rest of this month, but you still have to pay for today's lesson.
BEE-OTCH: But you were late!!
ME: Your kid spit on the piano.
BEE-OTCH: I don't care. I will not stand here and be told I'm wrong!
It then went into the hands of the innocent store owner. I later prank called her with a layered tape loop of me shrieking and growling that sounded like a wooly mamouth giving birth to a meteor.

[monkey neck]

Originally posted by LiceKrispy
Chick-Fil-A:
People that came in and ordered "Chicken McNuggets."
The various mispronunciations, (Chick'-Fil"-Uh), (Chick"-uh-Fil'), and yes, even "Chick-Flick."

This brings up an interesting point. Can someone start an ad campaign that will educate hilljacks about the names of stores. They don't all end with an 's', i.e. Wal-Marts , K-marts , etc. I don't know why, but that always bothered me.

[Kwyjibo]

Originally posted by DudeMan

So don't leave us hanging, dude... what happened???

With the guy in the truck. I don't really know whatever happened to him. All I know is that there were employees hanging around his truck in shifts until a little past closing time (it had been several hours by then). I assume they eventually packed it in and went home, and he eventually got out of the truck and did the same. I know one thing though, that guy was scared out of his mind with all of us hanging around like that for hours on end.

Another thing that always annoyed me about retail... name tags. Jeez. It always drove me nuts when some customer would be talking to you, make a concerted effort to look at your name tag, and then call you by name like you were there best damn pal in the world. When I worked at Bigg's, I finally got sick of it. I went back to the meat department where we sold a Hillshire Farms product called "yard o' beef"... it's like a summer sausage or something I guess. Anyway, I had them print me out a price sticker for it, and I carefully cut out the product name and placed it over my own name on my name tag. From then until the evil management made me remove it, customers would talk to me and say, "How are you doing today..." *looking at my name tag* "...Siiiiir". Hehe, I loved that.

[AmericanScience]

This thread is a delight.

I had some good and some crappy jobs in my day:

* Early Morning Newspaper Delivery Bikeboy
* Theater Projectionist
* Lifeguard/Swim Instructor
* Cast Iron Foundry Worker
* (A handful of engineering related jobs)
* IRS Covington KY Night Data Entry
* Bartender/Waiter at a Dive Bar in Clifton

My hometown is tiny. One of my crotchety paper customers was infuriated when I couldn't get the morning paper to him before 6AM for four days in a week - even when they weren't delivered to me 'til after 5:30 those days. He called my mom, who is his niece or something like that. That pisses me off so I make his paper really wet the next day, though its a dry day. Another call. So I stop delivering altogether. And he calls mom. And then the Dayton Journal's office. And my boss calls me. So I explain to her that he claims he *NEEDS* the paper before six so she says that I can decide on my own what to do. So ol' Norb never got another Dayton Journal delivered to his damn door for a year and a half while I was still in junior high.

At IRS, it was my fellow co-workers that were dumb. Dumber than rocks. We trained for two weeks to enter some numbers from a paper into a computer - it could have been done in 8 hours. Anyway, prior to the first "real" day on the job, we had orientation. They gather us there, and have us fill out form after form, and explicitly tell us four times on a map and point to the door where we should enter each night, no matter what. The facility there is pretty vast. The nice ladies then tell us where to park, where not to park, and tell us for the fifth time what door to enter. A question from the ranks: "Well, what door do we use if we take the bus in?" The whole orientation session was like that. One lady didn't know her date of birth. ?!?

At my engineering job, people talk for a half hour on the phone with me and it's all just blather that I filter out 1 minutes worth of useful information. So I surf the web, do whatever, while it's all going on. One lady called and was furious that I didn't have the right rental equipment for her at the instant she wanted it, and then yelled at her husband for chopping down a tree in the front yard, and kept me on the phone for nothing. Finally, she settled on some equipment that wouldn't do the job that she wanted. She claimed it would be fine. She gets it, claims it's not working, wants another. We send it. The first one doesn't come back until a month later even though requested back. When it comes back, both units have been used. She denies it vehemently. And it's not arguable - it's like sending back a cell phone with an active call log and saying it never was used to make a call. And she pays 120 days late.

So the next time she calls, I say we have none of ANY of the equipment she wants. She calls my boss and our Production Manager. They back me up. She gets nothing.

Six months later, she has a co-op call and won't tell me the company name and you can tell he's nervous and being coached. Finally, I get him to give me his phone number so I can call to let him know if we have the stuff, and check it with our records, it's the same company. That beeyatch.

My dad is a whiz at lightly pissing people off at retail, but in fun and clever ways. Too much to go into right now..

[AmericanScience]

Teak - the Thai restaurant in Mt Adams - has a great thing in their menu. Something about "The saying is that customers are always right. We don't believe that the customer is always right, but we DO believe they have the right to..." blah blah blah and then list good characteristics like service and quality of food. But it concludes with something like, "yelling at your waitstaff won't get you anywhere." It's fun.

[Sovrana]

waited tables at a Hilton hotel in Columbus long long long long time ago and they offered a pretty intensive training session and the first thing we learned was that the customer was NOT always right.

I don't work retail and haven't waited tables since then but it still irks me to hear customers make that claim....grrrrr!!!

[postfeminist]

this is the best thread ever... i was laughing out loud last night when i was reading these stories for the first time...absolutely hilarious. i've been working for almost 10 years, so i have some good stories...i'm just trying to pick and choose wisely. i'll post later when i'm not at work. (who am i kidding? i should feel obligated to post this while i'm at work.)

[Smem]

Just last night we had a gentleman come in with his George Foreman Grill from several years ago that he wanted to return. His reason for thinking it was defective: "It burned everything".

[MissKitty]

One morning, just after I had opened the store (at 8 bloody a.m.), a middle-aged man came into the store and began yelling at me because an employee had sold his son "filth" and produced a CD from his suit pocket. The CD was a jazz artist on the Windham Hill label. WTF?

I informed the guy that because the CD was opened we could only swap it for another of the same title, or we could buy it back as used for a few bucks. That wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to know why our store was selling "trash like that" to his precious young'un. I asked him why he hadn't accompanied his precious young'un to the store to make sure he didn't buy anything deemed unworthy. He didn't like my smart answer, cuz he snatched the jewelbox from my hands, pulled out the CD and proceeded to snap it in half in my face. Anyone who has broken a CD in this fashion will know that the disc splinters into a blue million bits and shards go everywhere. The shards hit me in the face, and I turned away from the guy and grabbed the phone and called the cops on him. Luckily for me (and unluckily for him) the police station is right behind the store. Heehee. He was escorted from the store and into a waiting police cruiser. I didn't press charges, agreeing instead that he and his bratty kid be banned from the store.

[postfeminist]

The key for me in working retail is to do it in five week stints; the winter break here is six weeks long, so this year i worked at borders back home. i worked in music and my favorite thing was the people who ask "do you have that song they play on the radio?" and that was all they could tell you. i actually had a lot of fun with this one...

i don't listen to much contemporary country music. so when a customer would sing a line from something, or describe the video, i'd call my dad at work and find out what it was from him. customers thought this was hysterical.

a customer wondered if i thought avril levigne was appropriate for her ten year old daughter. i discussed the pros and cons with her, and then finally said, "yeah, i bought it for my ten year old daughter." she stared at me incredulously, put the cd on the counter and walked away. (i'm 25 but i don't look a day over 20 most of the time.)

all my good stories are either about teaching school or working in a restaurant...so maybe i'll start a thread about the shit kids said to me when i was teaching, and someone else can start a restaurant job thread.

either way, gotta go...meeting Candyass uptown to sit on the porch at the coffeeshop and waste time on this gorgeous day.

yo.

[mwng]

My favorite (worst) Borders experience was watching the cafe workers battle with the customers.

One dude that would sit at the table in the cafe and look at porn magazines. He'd occasionally make eye contact with the baristas. Then he'd walk up and tell a barista that implants were not necessary because he liked women natural.

And then he'd ask for her number.

The guy was asked to leave but bans were never inforced and he'd come back around from time to time.

My personal hell involved an autistic customer who could buy a CD,( Jefferson Airplane for example) return it several days later, buy another CD he already owned (Billy Joel's Greatest Hits), return that one several days later, and buy back the Jefferson Airplane. I finally figured out that if the plastic packaging was scratched or smudged in any way, he'd bring it back. Anyway, corporate sent us a letter inquiring why we'd authorized returns involving over $2,000 worth of merchanise in a year from this customer.

I know he couldn't help it. But he lived with his mother and she'd just drop him off for several hours and have us watch out for him while she did her thing.

I never had a problem with clowns until the day an actual circus clown came in the store. He was off work but he didn't go a good job cleaning off the makeup. He was highly intoxicated at 10 a.m. and he demanded a copy of Sousa's Greatest Hits.

All my fond childhood memories of the circus were crushed as I watched him stumble around and mutter to himsef.

[gnahc79]

ah poo, my work stories aren't as exciting, but here I go:

caddy at muirfield village golf club back in h.s:
it's a no cart club, meaning you have to drag a caddy around. the course isn't too friendly for carts anyways. All too often some gophers have carts because of a medical condition and can't walk that long...further proof golf isn't too much exercise except for the caddy. Sometimes inbetween holes we caddies have to hop onto the back of the cart as the golfers speed onto the next tee. The back is a luggage-rack thing that holds only two golf bags. Definitely not meant for people. Imagine two h.s. guys clinging onto the back of the cart as it flies around corners and down steep hills....and sudden braking. I'm sure this experience will come in handy when I'm clinging onto the roof of a getaway car .

register dude at best buy...again in h.s.:
For some reason people like to get in line all at once...one minute we have no one, the next minute 20 people are in line with only 2 registers. Anyways, one time there was this super long line and I was doing my best shoveling people through. The old guy comes up frustrated and just peeved in general. He says something like "Now I know why your stock isn't doing so well"....like I give a crap. I'm a minimum wage h.s. student that just wants some flaming gas money. Sorry to waste 10 min of your super super busy life. I could care less if 50 people prance out of here with big screen TVs without paying :D. So I ask for his driver's license and bunch of other crap to make his stay a little longer...should have run his card over the magnetic thing, oh well.

IT intern for a sales dept in a large corporation: I don't remember anything in particular, but dang some business peeps are dumb. Something along the lines of "Um, did you try turning the computer on first?"

that's all I can think of right now

[LiceKrispy]

Originally posted by gnahc79
"Um, did you try turning the computer on first?"



I hear that line ALL the time. It's a recent trend that started a few years ago. It came in with the "sometimes the solution is simpler than you think" attitude of the late 90's.

[slow-dog]

Originally posted by postfeminist

a customer wondered if i thought avril levigne was appropriate for her ten year old daughter. i discussed the pros and cons with her, and then finally said, "yeah, i bought it for my ten year old daughter." she stared at me incredulously, put the cd on the counter and walked away. (i'm 25 but i don't look a day over 20 most of the time.)

Brilliant! :)

[LadyJo]

I work in a bookstore, and the sheer stupidity of some of the patrons is amazing. Some of us employees have started a quote book and here are a few of the gems that we've heard:

Do you have an Australian to English Dictionary?
(And no, not the aboriginal languages)

What kind of books do you sell?

Where is the non-fiction section?

Do you have a 1940s section?

Do you have recipes for dog biscuits?

Do you have a notary?

I'm looking for this band, their name starts with or ends with an N and they sound like Good Charlotte.

I'm looking for a book, I forgot the author and title, but I saw it on Oprah.

I'm looking for a book, I forgot the author and the title but the cover is green.

Can I make payments on this book? You know, like when you run a tab at a bar?
(I hate to break it to ya toots, but running a tab does not mean making payments. )


And then there's restroom trauma. Various sex books are sometimes found in the restrooms , and there have been customers who take a magazine or newspaper into the shitter and make themselves comfortable just like they were at home.

One of the most priceless moments happened last Sunday. Some brainiac was back in music smoking a cigar, and got pissed off when one of the managers politely informed him that he had to extinguish it!

[monkey neck]

In my job now, I talk to people from all over the country on the phone . So I get quite the assortment of morons. I sell auto and home insurance and some of the gems here are as follows:

Me: (Auto insurance quote) "What are your coverages for Bodily Injury Liability?"
Customer: "Yes".

Me: "How far do you drive to work, one way?"
Customer: "Oh, I drive both ways."
(Believe it or not, we get this one on a regular basis)

Me: (Home insurance) "Do your home have any bay windows or skylights?"
Customer: "Well, I do have a window that looks toward the Bay. And you can kind of see the skyline."
(He was foreign, so I had to give him a little credit. Of course the foreign ones are the funniest. I know, that's so un-PC)

The one that cracks me up (and you might have to be in the inshorance biz to truly appreciate this one...) was this woman who I sold a home policy to and she said, "OK, now my mortgage company needs a 'notebook', or something."

"Do you mean a 'Binder', Ma'am?"


Some of the people's names crack me up. I've talked to Mr. Fischedick, Mr. Momboy, and Mr. Mohead.
*Hoping none of you have those last names...*

[MissKitty]

When I worked indie music retail, my boss was very anal about certain things, the biggest of which was something called "The Things List." Each morning he would write up a list of tasks to keep us peons occupied during the day. This list caused us endless grief, but also much merriment because the boss always spelled even the simplest words wrong, and had the worst subject-verb agreement I'd ever seen.

We also had an employee who used to buy booze for underage high school students for a $5 fee. They'd come into the store when he was working, slip him the cash and he'd go next door to the beer & wine emporium and get them whatever they'd requested. All the staff knew he did it, and we all warned him against it. Of course it was easy money for him so he never took heed to our warnings.

We decided to play a prank on this employee one day, after he'd bought booze for 3 different sets of students the night before. After the boss had left for the day (he was alway out of the store by 10am and didn't come back) I and a fellow prankster employee "faked" the bosses handwriting and wrote out a somewhat illiterate rant about the employee who bought booze for the kids. We attached it to the bottom of The Things List. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. So when the other employee got in and read The Things List, his face turned white and he started totally freaking out. Of course part of his paranoia was due to the fact that he came into work stoned (which he did each and every day). He paced around the store for over an hour before finally working up the courage to call the boss and take his lumps.

So then we other employees finally burst into gales of laughter and told him that we'd got him good. He was so relieved not to be in REAL trouble that he wasn't mad at us for setting him up.

[Jeff]

I use to live in Hollywood where I was one of the many out of work actors trying for his big break. Work is hard to come by out here. Without a good job, pussy is too.

One time I took a job cleaning pools. It was a good way to keep my tan and to see how the truly wealthy lived. Most of the time the people weren’t even home. I doubt they swam in the damn pool either but my paycheck cashed and I had free time for auditions.

One time I was cleaning a pool in the hills and the owner was around. She was an older woman, probably in her early 40’s. She looked pretty good for her age in a way that money helps. It was a hot day and I wasn’t wearing a shirt while I worked. She sat inside the house watching me. I first noticed her looking while I was getting chlorine she was in the kitchen looking out the window. Later when I was cleaning the bugs out of the filter I spotted her looking at me from the sun room.

After I had finished and before I left, she asked me if I wanted something cold to drink. I wanted something to drink alright. I agreed. I asked her if her husband was around. She said she was not married. She lived alone. I should have known, the place was as tidy as could be. It looked like Martha Stewart’s place.

My host asked if a number of clients come on to me. I told her that I had just started and that she was the first. I am not coming onto you! she stammered. She was embarrassed.

I am sorry, I can go I said.

No, please stay. She continued with I am all alone

I began to feel bad for her. She had obviously found success enough to afford this home yet she was still alone. I introduced myself as Jim. Her name was Tina.

Tina looked like an attractive woman. She was wearing white cotton pants, a long sleeve shirt, and white sneakers. She was very preppy and not really my type.

It has been a long time since I have been with a man She said. I didn’t know if it there had been women in the meantime or if she was trying to talk about her dry spell. I think she was alluding to a long bout of bad luck. I didn’t know what to say so I sat there silently.

Do you think I am attractive Jim? She asked.

I do. I think you look very nice in your outfit I said. Where the fuck did I come up with that? Outfit? What was I thinking? Tina leaned over and started kissing me. It was a little awkward like a fifth grade spin the bottle kiss. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing. Soon though she opened her mouth a little and we explored each other with our tongues.

As we went down the hall to the bedroom Tina again said something about not being with someone in a long time. I didn’t know what to say so I just kept my mouth shut. Didn’t Ben Franklin once say it is better to keep your mouth shut and to be thought an idiot than to open it and not get laid? Either way I followed Tina to the bedroom.

I was already shirtless so I began to take off my shoes, socks, and pants. I was free-balling that day and I was very quickly naked. Tina gasped at my naked body. She was really staring at my penis.

I moved closer to her and started to remove her top. I tried to do this in a sensual way but it was a little clumsy. The neck of her top got stuck on her chin and for a while she looked like the loser in a hockey fight. While she was struggling to remove her top I noticed the wrinkled skin of her upper chest. I had only been with younger women at this point and this excess skin did not strike me as attractive. Soon her top was off and we were kissing again. I removed her bra. Fortunately, that went more smoothly. It wasn’t an Arthur Fonzarelli one-hander but it was close. Her breasts were small and fairly firm. I was very excited to touch them and she reacted positively.

I bent down to remove her pants. I gently nudged her to lay down on the bed while I wrestled her chinos off of her hips. I grabbed her panties at the same time and off it all went. I looked down to see what appeared to be 40 years worth of pubic hair growth. It looked as if a man with an afro had beat me to the cunnilingus portion of today’s event. I couldn’t believe the size of her bush. Damn, I thought, she needs to sleep with the guy that trims the fucking hedges.

Regardless, I figured a woman like this was used to the best so I went down. It was a little uncomfortable with all of that hair but I managed to go under it and do my thing. She was very appreciative. So I guess it was worth it. Despite all of the strange things that I was experiencing my unit was ready to go. I slowly got on top of Tina and inserted my cock into her pussy. She cooed and moaned that it felt so good. It did feel good. I did my best to make love to her in a sensual way despite the fact that I didn’t know a thing about her. I wondered if this is how gigolos feel. Eventually, it seemed that Tina had enough. I thought of something erotic and got myself off.

When I was done Tina told me That was great but not in a very convincing fashion. I left the house soon afterward and drove home. The next week the boss told me I was fired. He said it just wasn’t working out.

Signed,
http://www.saviodsilva.com/letter.htm

Blessings wage slaves! Remember to floss after eating!

[sadgirlseven]

i don't know that i can follow jeff's "story." heh.

best questions i've been asked while working a coffee job:

* do you have water?
* do you have milk?
* do you have anything that's NOT coffee?

when i worked at kinko's, i had an elderly woman ask me if i could fax a ring to her daughter in california. i was stunned. she truly did not understand that fax machines were not teleporters. so i had to kindly explain that i could send her daughter a photo of the ring, but not the actual ring. she was really confused and decided not to send the fax.

the downtown kinko's in cincinnati is a virtual playground for weird people. we used to see the construction clown once in awhile. almost every shift i worked, i saw reese. reese is an older guy who wears a trenchcoat (even in august!) and carries an umbrella, which he claims picks up radio signals. he also claims to be a cousin of the queen of england. he writes her letters almost every day to inform her of what's going on in cincinnati. reese once told us that our huge glass windows overlooking fountain square were bulletproof per the orders of ronald reagan. i never wanted to deal with him, but i had other coworkers who would have fun with him and ask all kinds of weird questions about national security, since reese seemed to know more about that than we did. :rolleyes:

every retail or food service job i've ever had has had its share of grumpy moronic customers. i've come to realise that i truly despise having to serve anyone anything. right now, i tolerate it 'cos i have to pay the rent, but one day, i hope i can either work by myself, work from home or be a musician and deal with a different kind of bullshit. heh.

[classicgrrl]

Originally posted by sadgirlseven
i don't know that i can follow jeff's "story." heh.
* do you have anything that's NOT coffee?


*hangs head in shame*
I did this. I cant have caffiene and wanted to know what else you guys had to drink to go with that great coffee cake...

[sadgirlseven]

i didn't even remember that you did that, but believe me, i get it about once every couple of weeks and it makes me cringe. i'm like, umm, hello, you're in a coffeeshop?! the question makes sense - it just annoys me, i guess.

the other thing i find annoying is that people can't read for themselves. we have a huge menu board for a reason. i'm glad to answer questions, but i mean, at least take the time to read the damned thing before you ask me.

[LiceKrispy]

is there caffine in coffee cake?

[sadgirlseven]

that would be a resounding NO, smartass. ;) it's to go WITH coffee. sheesh. you newbies.

[LiceKrispy]

Newbie!:mad: I'll have you know, even though, I've only 371 posts, I've read at least 400!

[sadgirlseven]

erm, i meant newbie in the coffee sense. ah well. ;)

[LiceKrispy]

actually, I'm an ignorantie. I've been eating coffee cake for years and all this time I thought that dark stuff was coffee grounds! I guess that might not taste too good, come to think of it.

[#1 Knack Fan]

sharecropping is for necrobitches! WORDDDD

[Handy Smurf]

An honourable mention goes to the customers who tell you random things about themselves in the middle of a phone call, like, "I need a boom box for my son. I need one that plays CD's and tapes, and I'm terminally ill, and I've had a JVC before, but it wasn't very good..."
this reminds me of a story my friend told me...hw works at a call center as a customer service rep, helping people with phone and internet problems. He was talking to some billy from the sticks one time and mentioned something about a problem with one of the drivers (or something like that) to which the guy responded, "...Speaking of drivers, Jeff Gordon is my favorite."

I later prank called her with a layered tape loop of me shrieking and growling that sounded like a wooly mamouth giving birth to a meteor.
2+ years later, this is still funny as hell

[Handy Smurf]

all my good stories are either about teaching school or working in a restaurant...so maybe i'll start a thread about the shit kids said to me when i was teaching,


My friend Matt was substitute teaching at an area HS, and administering a test to the students. He ended up looking over some of their work at the end of the period. There was an essay question that had something to do with giving a general description of a historical period--I don't remember when, but it was around the 1400s or so. One student's answer was, "Them times was crazy."

[ThomasC]

There was an employee bathroom that was shared by four stores or so. Apparently, there's some culture that believes toilet paper, after it's been used, should be thrown into a wastebasket instead of flushed. Nastier than it sounds...
That would be Taiwan, and probably some other Asian countries as well. I'm not sure of the exact reason, but I think their septic systems can't handle the paper. It's not uncommon to see signs saying "Do not flush toilet paper."

[Handy Smurf]

almost every shift i worked, i saw reese. reese is an older guy who wears a trenchcoat (even in august!) and carries an umbrella, which he claims picks up radio signals. he also claims to be a cousin of the queen of england. he writes her letters almost every day to inform her of what's going on in cincinnati. reese once told us that our huge glass windows overlooking fountain square were bulletproof per the orders of ronald reagan. i never wanted to deal with him, but i had other coworkers who would have fun with him and ask all kinds of weird questions about national security, since reese seemed to know more about that than we did. :rolleyes:

Holy Christ, Reese comes into the bar that I frequent! The last time I was in there when Reese was around, he was in the bathroom for an hour talking to aliens through the "transmitter" in the end of his umbrella

[wildblue]

OMG... this brings back memories... I could write a book.

I worked at a now defunct electronics store about 10-12 years ago. I mainly sold computers - this was when everyone and their brother wanted a computer, but didn't really know why. We ended up being used as technical support, and we got them all - "The pedal isn't working" (mouse on the floor) "Where's the 'any' key?" etc. A good one was a lady came back into the store with a 3.5 inch floppy and said "Where exactly does this go? It fits here (puts it in 3.5" drive) and it fits here (puts it in CD-ROM tray) and it fits in here (puts it in zip drive)" A coworker of mine, after an exceptionally long tech-support call actually used the time "Yes sir, you'll need to box that up and bring it back to the store" ... "No sir, it's not broken, you're too stupid to use it"

I actually had a customer that became legendary at the store. Her last name was Ennis or Innis. She came in with her family, complete with obese little girl wearing kool-aid stained shirt, wanting to use the "hairatence" she just got to buy a computer. She ended up with an "A 'n T" computer and "digikal" printer. The problems and support calls went on for about a year. When it finally stopped working she brought it back to exchange it. The service department found a healthy supply of cockroaches in it. :eek:

Customers could rip the store off pretty easy. More than once the 80 year old rent-a-cop sitting at the front door attempted to run after some kid after the alarm went off. Internally though, we had the Chuck Norris of loss prevention. There was an employee one time that he watched take some stuff, followed him to his 'fence' then followed him to another store (meijer's I believe) and watched him try to shoplift there. The guy's girlfriend worked in the store too - she was in tears after he questioned her. There were rumors of him staking out stores from his van or even the roof to catch employees coming back to retrieve stashed loot.

We did the "dare you to slip in a word" game and the "make up technical jargon" game all the time. My favorite game was the covert-ops to other stores to 'shop' their prices or to bust those shoppers in our store.

Of course, working retail did give me a strong dislike for Christmas.

[ICONOCLAST420]

I used to work at wally-world as a second job nights and weekends, not only was there a lot of theft but people using things in the store so they would not have to pay for them. One night someone took a pregnancy test off the shelf and used it in the women's fitting room, not the women's restroom (that would make too much sense) and yes, it was the kind you had to pee on.

[Trevour]

One of the worst days of my life - back in December 2002:

When I was still living in Ohio, I worked at a Michaels store as a department manager in Beavercreek... pretty much next in line to run the store when the actual managers weren't there. Saturday nights were usually late ones, because as you all know in retail, setting ads and signs in the store for the new ad week is the norm. I was in charge of closing the store one Saturday night (10 pm), and after setting all the ads, we got outta there around midnight.

I had to be right back to the store the following morning to open it up again, at 8am. I lived half an hour away from work (over closer to Englewood), so it was always just a big pain driving back and forth so far, getting up super early (hated it on the weekends, don't we all?), and getting home later than I wanted. Anyway after relaxing for a few hours after getting home so late, I didn't end up getting to bed until close to 4am that night... and well, I set my alarm for 6:30 am. I slept through the entire alarm, and groggily woke up at around EIGHT-THIRTY!!! I was in a state of panic. Why? Because I was the only one with keys to the store, and other people were coming in to work at 8 too. So then I was wondering, what was going on for the past half hour with the other employees?? Just sitting in the parking lot? I feared the worst... including them calling up THE Manager of the store, ON HER DAY OFF, WHO LIVED AN HOUR AWAY, who wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world to me. I trembled in her presence.

So I literally took a 60-second shower, threw on some clothes as fast as I could, shouted multiple profanities as I sprinted out to my car. The length of time between me waking up and me taking off for work was only a couple minutes, I recall. And since I was already a HALF HOUR late, by the time I would get there, I would be AN HOUR late. With more employees showing up at 9am. And then I kept fearing that the store actually OPENED at 9, but no, it was 10am on Sundays. So I was safe there... but still, I was dreading my arrival to see how everything would turn out.

Sunday morning, and traffic was naturally light. SO I WAS SPEEDING THE ENTIRE WAY. I was averaging 75-80... and here's where my horrible morning just got worse... about a mile away from work, on the I-675, I zipped right past a cop, still speeding... yep, you guessed it... I got pulled over and was written a citation. My first speeding ticket ever - I had never been pulled over before in my life. Not even a warning either.

I was going 81 in a 65 speed limit. And it took a good 15 minutes to get that all taken care of, so that made me even MORE late. Well, I finally got to work, and there were 3-4 cars sitting there, everybody was just sitting in their car. They saw me arrive, and immediately got out of their cars, followed me in, I was grumbling to myself, didn't say a word to them. Once we got in, I told them my story, and everybody seemed cool with it, but at the same time I felt like an idiot for cutting in on everyone's hours. Our OTHER manager (the one I liked and got along with) was already on her way to the store, because one of the employees scheduled for 8am had called her on her cellphone... she called the store just as she was arriving there, this was about 9:15am, and I talked to her. She was cool with everything too, after I explained my whole morning.

For the rest of the morning I was irritable, pissed off, and just overall didn't wanna be there. Plus the fact that I didn't shave, didn't comb my wet hair, and threw on sloppy clothes - I felt like crap.

There's another half to this HORRIBLE DAY, and that occured later in the evening (I had to work until close - a fun 12-hour day for me).

I always thought a person couldn't just walk into a store and use someone else's credit card to make a purchase. Legally, aren't you supposed to show your ID, with YOUR signature on the card itself, so the cashier looks at it and verifies that it's you? And that makes it all a legitimate credit card transaction in the end. Anyway - it sems like 9 out of 10 retail establishments don't enforce this practice heavily onto their employees (laziness?). So it seems the typical consumer has become comfortable with this practice of the store not looking closely at signatures. Or am I misinformed?

Well, at Michaels, we typically did not take a credit card from somebody if their name was not on the card. At all. Even if it was a family member, I was always told from management that corporate would get on our asses. So I just followed the rules.

So this lady and her 2 children came in that same night and purchase a cartload of Christmas ornaments. Well, all was good until she presented HER HUSBAND'S CARD for the purchase. I, as the manager of the store for the night, was called up to the cashier's register where this lady was checking out... the cashier asked me if she could swipe the lady's husband's card. I had still been stressed out the whole day, and just said something like, "we can't accept it, regardless if it's your husband's card, if your name isn't on there, we can't take it."

So this lady was telling me she never has a problem anywhere else. Well I just said, hey, this isn't a rule I make, it's store policy. Me, just telling her these things, as politely as possible. She didn't like that very well, so she just let out a big sigh and said something like, "I don't believe this, come on, kids" and just took off. Left the whole cart there and everything. So we voided the sale and thought, that was the end of that.

So about an HOUR later... I was called up to a register, again. I saw that lady again, and her kids, and I was like, GREAT. Now there was also a big tall man accompanying them. It was her husband. As soon as I approached them, I could see his FIREY RED EYES AND HIS FOAMING FANGS... and he was FURIOUSLY MAD, staring me right in the eyes, getting right up to my face, yelling stuff like, "I understand you didn't let my wife use my credit card, that you couldn't accept it because it was store policy... I WANT TO SEE THIS 'STORE POLICY' IN WRITING!!!" And of course this whole time his evil energy was piercing right through me. I immediately went to the office, SCARED OUT OF MY MIND, because I had never dealt with a customer THAT ANGRY before... I did over the phone at an old customer service job, but this time it was face to face.

Tears were welling up inside of me just because this came so sudden and I wasn't prepared at all to deal with it. But I got myself together, and decided to call one of my managers at home... I called her up, and told her the whole situation, and she said for me to go back out and tell him WHY we didn't accept it, all these best reasons I could give him, and so I put her on hold and went back out there, and he was still ANGRIER THAN HELL ITSELF, I tried to explain to him everything, but he just kept turning everything around on me. He claimed I "publicly humiliated my wife" and that "it's my business who can use my card, not yours" and I was like, it is too our business. So anyway, I still had my manager on hold, and said he could talk to her, but he didn't want to do that, he wanted to talk to someone 'higher up,' but it was Sunday night, there was nobody he could talk to even if he wanted to. So I went back to the office and got some contact info, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. By this time 5 more minutes had passed, and when I went back out there, he was suddenly all calm and stuff. So either he realized how stupid he was being, or me giving him the district manager's information REALLY MEANT that I wasn't B.S.'ing with what I was telling him.

I'm sure the lady went home, told her husband all about her horrendous experience, and he was like, "oh no he di-ent" so he had to come defend his trophy wife's honor. And about me publicly humiliating her? I think there were 2 or 3 people within earshot of me (who were probably all employees) when I originally told her we wouldn't take the card.

So that family left without any more incidents. I really was afraid that after we closed the store that night, that he was gonna be waiting there by the door for me, with a big aluminum bat.

And then I remember after work that night I backed into a light post at Steak N Shake. Just the cherry on top of my craptacular day. And then my seat belt didn't work, it was locked up or something, so I was uncomfortable with that on the way back home.

And actually, I worked again the next day, and my EVIL boss didn't say a word to me. I knew something bad was coming. And then we had this sleet storm that glazed everything over in ice that day, including our outdoor storage trailers out back. One of the locks froze and when I put the key in, I bent it off and left part of the key stuck inside the lock. So then we had to use a lock cutter, which irked evil boss even more. She finally brought me into her office near the end of my shift, and I thought, "yep, I'm getting fired." She gave me this intense lecture on how she had never had a store opened late EVER in her 30 years of retail. And telling me how I should probably be demoted back to a regular cashier if I couldn't handle my responsibilities. All I know is there was no encouragement or any positive outcome from that session in her office... and when I went home that afternoon, I decided I was going to quit. So I did. And I never went back.

[classicgrrl]

I'm sure mine are all in this thread somewhere.

once had a lady who applied for a Barnes and Noble card, the kind where you pay $25 and get 10% all purchases for a year. Under place for credit card info she wrote "charge it to God'.

[purple_octopus]

It's not exactly retail, but once when I was working a night shift at the hotel, this guy tried to rob me. I told the idiot that we didn't have any cash because we only accepted credit cards. I told him that he might try breaking into the vending machine, but that we didn't own it so I couldn't give him a key.

That dumb motherfucker actually believed me. While it's true that *most* of our business was credit cards, I was sitting on a pile of money in the cash drawer, plus another $200 in the change box. There was no way I was giving it to that loser. He just left, but I was really hoping he'd give me a reason to kick his ass.

[indigobunting]

oop's I crapped my pants.

[DaHood]

It's not exactly retail, but once when I was working a night shift at the hotel, this guy tried to rob me. I told the idiot that we didn't have any cash because we only accepted credit cards. I told him that he might try breaking into the vending machine, but that we didn't own it so I couldn't give him a key.

That dumb motherfucker actually believed me. While it's true that *most* of our business was credit cards, I was sitting on a pile of money in the cash drawer, plus another $200 in the change box. There was no way I was giving it to that loser. He just left, but I was really hoping he'd give me a reason to kick his ass.
<3 You have balls <3

:D

[purple_octopus]

It's not like he was armed or anything. Balls would be if I took his gun away from him and beat him to death with it. (Which I would have at least tried to do if he pointed a gun at me.)

[DaHood]

It's not like he was armed or anything. Balls would be if I took his gun away from him and beat him to death with it. (Which I would have at least tried to do if he pointed a gun at me.)
Yep, you have balls. :D

[Homsar]

"DON'T DIE POOH!! DON'T DIE!!!!"

That's so money, it's my new sig. BTW, why was Pooh slapping her?

[DudeMan]

::sniff::

it does my heart good to see my thread still going strong, three years later!

maybe i should start coming back to the woxy boards! nahhh...