The Customer is ...a moron!

[Vypernight]

I decided to bring back the 'bash your customers' thread from the other board. We had a rather interesting one last night.

The lady called to order a cake. When asked what design she wanted, she stated she wanted the "Stroke Your Bear" cake and said it was in the book. We had no clue what she wanted (and I was ready to tell her that if that's her fetish, great, but we don't carry those kinds of cakes.

She kept insisting we carried the "Stroke Your Bear" cakes and even entered the store, cell phone in hand (I came dangerously close to a foot-in-mouth moment when I didn't realize it was her) and found the design in the book.

It was a baby shower cake that featured a stork and bear.

And plushie lady spoke Without any accent!

Take care,

Jay

[MSTKL]

I would just like to bring your attention to this site: notalwaysright.com/

You're not alone in dealing with moronic customers.

[Aqualung]

Yay! I don't have any current stupid customer stories, but I probably will after tonight....

[Green-Eyed Lilo]

I'd kinda like to see what a "Stroke Your Bear" cake would look like now!

I'm glad this thread got brought back, too, because it reminds me to be grateful that I no longer deal directly with the public. (Maybe for those of us who don't, or who at least don't very often, we also need a co-worker stupidity and/or boss stupidity thread.)

[Jebediah]

I work at a kennel/grooming salon, and we have this one lady who is obsessed with her dogs anals. She comes in about twice a month to relearn how to express the anal glands. She gets all upset because her dog always drags his but on the floor, so she thinks she isn’t doing it correctly. We keep telling her he’s probably doing that because his butt is sore from her poking at it all the time, but she doesn’t listen. She's so weird

[ldm]

Mar 7, 2009 11:41:44 GMT -5 MSTKL said:

I would just like to bring your attention to this site: notalwaysright.com/

You're not alone in dealing with moronic customers.

That's one of my favorite sites right now.

[Caitshidhe]

Do secondhand stories count?

I have a friend who's a manager at FYE (music and movies store) and hardly a day goes by where somebody doesn't accuse him of being a racist bastard because he stops them from shoplifting. One guy KEEPS coming in and trying to shoplift again and again, and he always gets caught--and he's always sure to whine about it being "COZ [HE'S] BLACK!" (My friend, by the way, is also black.)

[Aqualung]

Mar 7, 2009 20:27:24 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Do secondhand stories count?

I have a friend who's a manager at FYE (music and movies store) and hardly a day goes by where somebody doesn't accuse him of being a racist bastard because he stops them from shoplifting. One guy KEEPS coming in and trying to shoplift again and again, and he always gets caught--and he's always sure to whine about it being "COZ [HE'S] BLACK!" (My friend, by the way, is also black.)

*headdesk*

Tonight wasn't too bad. Just this one lady that came up to me riding one of those scooter carts and asked when we mark the donuts and stuff down, and then got all upset when I told her we don't mark things down any more. She was like 'so it all goes to Salvation Army now?' Yeah, pretty much. Then she was like well I don't want to go to Salvation Army; I've got money and I want to buy the stuff, I like buying it cheaper! To which I was like o_0. O....K. I told her it was because the company decided we couldn't do it any more because they don't have a good enough system to keep track of what we sell that way. (I don't know either.) So then she was like well, I'm gonna go home and write an angry letter to (the company)! I was like, ok, you do that.

On an unrelated note--they're always looking for ways to save the company money, of course. We're a family-oriented company and one of our things is to hand out free cookies to kids under age 12. It wouldn't hurt my feelings any if they stopped doing that. I did the math, and let's say we go through five boxes of cookies every day. That's a slow day. Anyway, if we stopped, we'd save at least $700 a month! I really wish I could bring this up but I'm sure they wouldn't go for it and I'd probably just look like the monster who doesn't want to give pwesious kiddies cookies. -_-;; Fuck that, I got shit to do, I don't want to stop what I'm doing every two seconds to hand out cookies!! GAH.

[Caitshidhe]

Holy cow. $700 a MONTH in free cookies to kids? With the state of things now, you'd think handing out freebies would be the FIRST thing that most businesses did away with. See if you can get some other people to back you up before bringing it up--though you're right, people are likely to paint you as an evil monster for wanting to deprive the kiddies of their FREE COOKIES. If you play up the cost aspect and pretend to be really upset about the prospect of denying them their treats, but it's something you just HAVE to do to save money in the economy.

[ausador]

This one is ancient...more than 20 years ago.

I was working at the customer service counter of a "Kash and Karry" supermarket in St. Petersburg, Florida. We dealt with a lot of older people on a regular basis and many of their complaints were quite comical. However this one has always stood out in my mind and continues to bring a chuckle even to this day.

So I'm at the customer service counter when a woman of perhaps 75 or so arrives with a shopping cart in which is a opened 20lb bag of kitty litter. "Can I help you maam?" I ask trying to be pleasent.

"I want to return this bag" she answered quite lucidly.

"Alright maam I can do that, what is wrong with it?" I asked while trying to imagine why someone would return kitty litter.

"My cat wont eat this stuff" she proclaimed indignantly.

"Your cat wont eat it?" I replied just a little too quickly not quite keeping the disbelief from my voice.

"Sonny I mixed tuna into it, hell I even put cream on it, and my cat still wont eat it!" she declared rather indignantly and now glareing at me.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I don't think I would have been able to resist the urge to tell her "It's kitty LITTER. The cat shits in it, it doesn't eat it."

[stormwarden]

actsofgord.com/

I am surprised no one brought up the acts of Gord.

[MaybeNever]

Mar 8, 2009 0:18:53 GMT -5 Napoleon the Clown said:

"...The cat shits in it, it doesn't eat it."

That, my friend, depends entirely on the cat in question.

[Vypernight]

Mar 7, 2009 23:03:17 GMT -5 Aqualung said:

Mar 7, 2009 20:27:24 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Do secondhand stories count?

I have a friend who's a manager at FYE (music and movies store) and hardly a day goes by where somebody doesn't accuse him of being a racist bastard because he stops them from shoplifting. One guy KEEPS coming in and trying to shoplift again and again, and he always gets caught--and he's always sure to whine about it being "COZ [HE'S] BLACK!" (My friend, by the way, is also black.)

*headdesk*

Tonight wasn't too bad. Just this one lady that came up to me riding one of those scooter carts and asked when we mark the donuts and stuff down, and then got all upset when I told her we don't mark things down any more. She was like 'so it all goes to Salvation Army now?' Yeah, pretty much. Then she was like well I don't want to go to Salvation Army; I've got money and I want to buy the stuff, I like buying it cheaper! To which I was like o_0. O....K. I told her it was because the company decided we couldn't do it any more because they don't have a good enough system to keep track of what we sell that way. (I don't know either.) So then she was like well, I'm gonna go home and write an angry letter to (the company)! I was like, ok, you do that.

On an unrelated note--they're always looking for ways to save the company money, of course. We're a family-oriented company and one of our things is to hand out free cookies to kids under age 12. It wouldn't hurt my feelings any if they stopped doing that. I did the math, and let's say we go through five boxes of cookies every day. That's a slow day. Anyway, if we stopped, we'd save at least $700 a month! I really wish I could bring this up but I'm sure they wouldn't go for it and I'd probably just look like the monster who doesn't want to give pwesious kiddies cookies. -_-;; Fuck that, I got shit to do, I don't want to stop what I'm doing every two seconds to hand out cookies!! GAH.

I hear you both. We get a lot of shoplifters and con artists, and unfortunately, most are black. I hate feeling like a racist, but I often start to feel cautious now when we get a black customer. I hate feeling like that, and not every black person is a thief. Unfortunately, so many try to rip us off (and too many succeed) that I just start to feel racist whenever I deal with one.

I hate the cookies too, and having to stop every few seconds. Then you get the adults who think they're also entitled to a @$## cookie. One old guy helped himself while my back was turned, then he wanted another. He got p!$$ed when I told him he had enough and that he tried to help himself. The prick then tried to deny it with the original cookie in his hand! And he wasn't even acting like he had some mental problems; he seemed very intelligent and alert.

I think some of those people just think they pay our paychecks so they can do whatever they want.

Are there any video games out there where you can shoot customers in a store?

Take care,

Jay

[Aqualung]

Mar 7, 2009 23:18:58 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Holy cow. $700 a MONTH in free cookies to kids? With the state of things now, you'd think handing out freebies would be the FIRST thing that most businesses did away with. See if you can get some other people to back you up before bringing it up--though you're right, people are likely to paint you as an evil monster for wanting to deprive the kiddies of their FREE COOKIES. If you play up the cost aspect and pretend to be really upset about the prospect of denying them their treats, but it's something you just HAVE to do to save money in the economy.

I know. Shit, I pay less than that for rent each month! And that's just our store; there are several smaller stores around the city and all over the state!! I was talking to a co-worker about this last Sunday, and she agrees with me, but to the actual cost she was like "wow, I never really thought of it that way!" So maybe at least she could back me up on this.