"You lied to me!" The customer of the day

I've told you guys about our retired-sergeant-major manager. Today he comes up shaking his head saying "you're not gonna believe this one." I'll believe damn near anything you tell me about a customer.

This one almost falls outside the "damn near" range.

A customer walked up to our service desk screaming that she wanted to see a manager because one of our associates lied to her.

When the sergeant major got there, she had a paint sample in one hand and her cell phone in the other.

"Your paint associate lied to me."
'How did he lie to you, ma'am?'
"I came in here last week to buy paint. He said this paint would look good on my walls, so I bought it and painted my whole house with it. Today I realized that I don't like the color, so I want you to pay a painter to repaint my whole house."
'Is there something wrong with the paint?'
"Except that it's ugly, no. If you don't promise to repaint my house right now, I'm going to call my lawyer at his home."

The sergeant major told her to call him.

I told the sergeant major I hope she DOES file a suit. Let's take it to court, man, judges need a good laugh too.

she'll probably win the suit. :eyes:

first :wow: , and then :rofl: !!! People just never cease to amaze me!

Guy comes up with two 16-foot 1x6 boards and wants them cut in half. We sell 8-foot 1x6 boards already, but if you buy a 16 and have it cut in half you save fifteen cents--no, I'm not kidding--so lots of people choose the 16-footer to save the fifteen cents.

I asked the guy if it was okay that the boards aren't straight--16-foot stuff almost never is; it's the nature of long boards to not be straight--and he said it was. So I put them on the radial-arm saw, marked them, lined up the mark and cut them.

Then I get a call from the returns desk about 20 minutes later. "This customer is upset because the boards are too long and they're not straight." How much too long? "One is 1/16" too long, the other is 3/32" too long." I told the guy the shit wasn't straight in the first place and he was okay with it. But 1/16" too long? The blade itself is 1/8" thick. I cannot get a board that close on my radial-arm.

Otherwise you will want to start looking for a nice mellow job at the post office.

Dealing with the public is no fun some days and retail is gawd awful at this time of year. I swear the loonies come out on parade between Thanksgiving and New Year's day--and every damn one of them is off their meds.

My sympathies to you, jmowreader. I NEVER want to work retail at the holidays EVER again!



Laura

That is MY season.

They tell me "black Friday" is the day a store goes into profitability. If you're Wal-Mart yeah, that's the case. If you're Home Depot, it's a different story.

In fact, until a couple of years ago we never really gave a damn about Black Friday anyway--yeah we opened, and yeah we had some stuff on display then, but it was just a normal day for us. Who in hell shops for Christmas presents in a lumberyard anyway?

Then someone figured out power tools make good Christmas gifts and we got in a bunch of one-day-only and holiday-only stuff--one of our buyers saw (this is no lie) three million 18-volt drills sitting in a Chinese warehouse. These poor bastards cranked out three million drills for Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart could tell 'em "oh, we'd rather have 12-volt drills instead and we want a Prestigious Brand Name on them, so don't worry about making the three million 18-volt drills we ordered four months ago." (Read below.) Our lady saw them sitting in the warehouse taking up space. There are exactly two retailers in America who can deal with three million friggin' drills at one whack and we're one of 'em, so our lady in Shenzhen was like "we'll take all those drills in one batch, whatcha want for 'em?" Five bucks with no name, seven if you want them branded. Oh yeah. We gave 'em seven apiece, had them branded Workforce, and put a shitload of them in every one of our stores at $9.98 a copy. You might get one for Christmas, or two if your giftor thought you might need a spare battery, but we didn't even have to worry about putting them on the shelf. Ten dollars for an 18v cordless drill? We got four skids and the CUSTOMERS tore the shrinkwrap off the pallets. Gone in about 20 minutes. No advertising. Nothing.

Below: I figured out how to kill Wal-Mart once and for all, or at least turn it back into a decent corporate citizen. All that needs to be done is for six or seven "must-carry" vendors to grow spines. There are brands you simply must carry if you're in retail. If you sell hardware, you carry Stanley. If you sell car stuff, you must have Pennzoil and Valvoline. If you sell food, you can't run the store without Nabisco products in it. You've got to have Colgate toothpaste, Max Factor and Revlon cosmetics, Mattel toys. You can't deal in consumer electronics unless you've got Xboxes and PS2s. These are things that people will not buy other brands of. If all of these vendors were to tell Wal-Mart that they didn't give a shit what Wal-Mart wanted to pay, Wal-Mart would be thoroughly screwed--Wal-Mart's whole financial model, which relies on their being able to dictate both vendor and customer prices so as to set profit margins, would die.

like the color? And what associate would tell a customer that a color of paint would look good on her walls, how would they know that? If SHE is going to LIE, why doesn't she at least make it believable? What the hell is wrong with people, anyway? Who would have the nerve to even suggest such a thing as wanting the store to pay for a whole house repaint simply because the color wasn't satisfactory to them?

It's perfect for the "True Tales of InDUHviduals" section! :dunce:

Have you lost faith in the human race, yet? Freepers are the worst customers. Around the time of the election, they were always using my precious time(in between being cheap-asses, ignorant and demanding crap for free or they will sue mantra)was telling me to vote for chimpy because of jebus:eyes:

I tell my troops that this job isn't exactly sales sometimes. Quite often it's zookeeping. "Huh?" Why yes, you're a curator at the Sandhills Fucking Idiot Preserve.

We have our share of freepers. We used to have some freeper truckers bringing stuff in, but the number of those have declined drastically in the past year. My third-favorite trucker is a guy who brings me pressure-treated fencing. In January of this year, he brought me a load and on the back of the trailer were four ribbons--two "support our troops" and two "freedom isn't free," and he had them paired over the light clusters. He also had a "I Support President Bush And Our Troops" sticker right in the middle of the trailer. That sticker is printed in red and blue ink, and the letters are knocked out of the blue. On Wednesday he brought another load and he'd made some changes to the back of his truck: both of the "Freedom Isn't Free" ribbons were gone. One of them was replaced with a breast cancer ribbon and the other with a POW/MIA ribbon. Move to the center of the trailer and you can see how he's taken blue paint and covered up all of the words on that sticker except "I Support Our Troops."

My second-favorite trucker is a woman who hauls shingles. She's become a ribbon collector. She terms them "modern Americana." When she sees a new one, she buys three--one in her scrapbook, one in a box that she's going to save for her grandchildren, and one for her sleeper. Man, there must be fifty ribbons on that thing. You name it and it's there. The lady's liberal as hell, but she's got ALL the freeper favorites. And right in the middle is a breast cancer one, I think she's got a child abuse one, she's got all these ribbons no actual freeper would be caught dead displaying.

My favorite trucker is a guy who runs tropicals up from Florida. He got a brand-new truck last year--first one he'd ever purchased straight from the factory. It's got a Caterpillar engine in it. You'd think it was a fuckin' Harley from all the Caterpillar shit he's got to go along with the engine. This guy has probably twenty different Cat apparel items, he's got "Cat Power" written on his mudflaps, he's got a big "Cat Power" painting on the side of the truck (a yellow cat (specifically, the same shade of yellow Caterpillar paints its engines) with bloodshot eyes jammin' gears), and even a Caterpillar logo tattoo. No idea as to his politics except he'd vote for a yellow dog instead of a Republican only if it was the right shade of yellow.

seems there was a thunderstorm going on outside--and this is the godawful truth-- she says: "You know, I could have been struck by lightening in your parking lot. I would have sued you if I did"

with that one-thanks....

Excellent point, dude. :rofl:

Funnier, because it's true.

Our local Christian center -- mostly good-minded folks, if a little goofy -- decided to hold this enormous music festival for the Lord in our little town's fairgrounds. Which was a great idea, except they held it at the height of thunderstorm season.

Yes, this story is going right where you want it to. :evilgrin:

In the "only funny because no one died" category: six festival-goers were struck by lightning, three because they ran back to the big metal-framed canvas tents for "safety."

I mean, if God's takin' pot shots at them, what the hell chance have I got?!? :D

A few years back, a tornado was busy rumbling its way through the middle of OKC. The tornado sirens had been screaming for some time, and every radio and television station with range was warning people that this thing can KILL YOU.

So, we're stuck at work, but thankfully we have a basement, which we promptly go to. Before long we hear someone banging, loudly, on the door. It doesn't stop, but gets louder. We start thinking someone is trapped and is looking for shelter, so the security guard takes stock of the latest report of where the tornado is and decides to risk it so whoever is up there doesn't die outside our building.

When he gets there, some oaf starts screaming at him about "sons'a'bitches" closing early, and he's gonna report us and have us all fired and he knows the owner, blah blah blah. (It's a corporate and doesn't have "a" owner.) Security guard is not one to take crap, so he informs the individual he will shut up and get inside the building immediately and not say another word. At that moment, the winds pick up significantly.

Security guard brough the guy downstairs and informed him, loudly, about what was going on. The guy didn't budge. "You lazy bastards ... loafing ...you have to serve me now ... I know my rights." He was flailing his arms about in threatening gestures. The security guard, who is an off-duty police officer, eventually had to restrain him with plastic wrist ties. The guy actually did later call the corporate office to complain.

I would have had the security guard throw him back outside. And had no qualms about doing it.

That was the official, unofficial advice given the security guard by his corporate supervisor. :-)

I like hearing these stories. :hi:

:D

People. Are. Nuts.

You gotta laugh. :)

For those of you who have ever shopped there, you might be familiar with the strange check procedure Old Navy has. They scan your check and then give it back to you. They figure there's less of a chance that the checks will get lost or tampered with this way (or something). But the check works the EXACT same way when the money comes out of your bank account.

I once had a customer come through the line, purchase tons of items, and she used a check to pay. I ran the check through and when I handed it back to her I politely explained the reason I was doing this.

She went insane! She started yelling at me at the top of her lungs only to slam her receipt on the counter, demand a refund, and she told me she would NEVER shop at Old Navy again.

I still don't really understand. :shrug:

Maybe she thought the scan did an "automatic withdrawl", and she went into the store with the mindset of "I have 85 cents in my checking account now, but- they can't cash a check immediately or anything, so I'll just write one out and then deposit the money into my account tomorrow!". That's the ONLY thing I can think of.

The money wouldn't come out of her account for several days. She still went ballistic. :shrug:

I had one today - lady comes into my liquor department and demands to know (not asks) where the Cook's Spumante ( :puke: ) is.

I told her politely I don't carry it.

"Well, you always have. I get it here all the time." In a nasty, patronizing tone that sounds like she expects me to apologize and then pull a couple of bottles out of my ass for her.

I tell her, "Well, in the four years I've been running this department, I've never carried it."

This shuts her up for about half a minute then she starts in again. "Well, why don't you carry it?"

Honestly, I could probably get it for her but she was so unpleasant, I had no interest in making any effort for her. So I explained that corporate decides what's in my set (true but I can bring other stuff in if it's available through our warehouse). So then she yelled at me for a while about how corporate runs their business. Like I can do anything about it.

I listen politely for a bit with that type then I offer to call a manager for them. They almost never take me up on it - they just want to yell at someone. They probably kick their dog too.

When fat people with no self-control can sue fast-food stores for making them fat, Lord knows when this madness will subside.

I guarantee you that some people will be sympathetic to her. Some people have that unshakable "The customer is ALWAYS right! ALWAYS!!" outlook.

True story- in my younger years, I used to work part-time at a video store. A customer called the store one time, very upset because he had apparently tried to dub copies of the movies he rented that weekend, and they came out "all messed up!" (ever hear of copy protection, sir?). What was worse than that- in telling this story to a friend at the time, the friend seriously told me "Well he PAID for those rentals! And he's a CUSTOMER, a paying customer! You should have given him brand-new manufacturer copies of those movies he was trying to copy, it's just good business". AAAAaaahhhhhhh..... lol.

You lied to me, now you're on the web making fun of me?! That shows malice...I'm gonna take you for everything.

This was froma while back before I was teaching the martial arts. This was also at a different dojo. Here I go.

A woman phones the dojo about what time the test starts for her daughter. The assistant looks in the scheduler and it's written in at 8:30. The assistant tells her that it's at 8:30, but to check the slip of paper which told her the time of the test. She told the assistant that she'd take his word. The test actually started 1 hour earlier. She comes in late at 8:15. The doors are locked to prevent distractions. She bangs on the door. A different instructor opens the door and informs her that she's late. Woman was yelling. Assistant was calm the whole way.

"An instructor told me that it started at 8:30!"
"Well, I'm sorry. But the tme WAS noted on the slip of paper."
"Do you know where we come from?! (insert name of city here). It takes over an hour to get to here and you say you can't take my daughter?!"
"I'm sorry, but we can't except anyone that's this late."
"That's ridiculous. I come all the way from (name of city) and you won't allow my daughter to test! I want to speak to the chief instructor now."
"He's proctoring the test. He's busy."
"That's it! We're not coming to this dojo anymore! I can't beleieve this!"

And she drives off. Two weeks later, the woman's back with her daughter and two weeks after that she tests and passes. :eyes: