Customer Service: Crazy Customers

Next register please

2012-03-23T02:35:00.001-04:00

So this just baffles me. In my store there are 4 registers. At night we only use 1. I'll be standing at one and the other 3 out of the 4 have this sign. Why is it everyone chooses the register that says "next register please"?Then they wonder why I wont come help them.

Read the sign dumbass.

Joan

2012-03-17T09:41:00.004-04:00

One of my first posts Why just eat the candy bar when the wrapper is the best part? talked about a lady who I now know as a regular. For obvious privacy reasons we'll call her "Joan". I see this lady several times a week usually around 3AM when she buys chocolate and ice cream. She's always in a rush and has an appointment in 7 minutes. When I first saw her I thought she had a blue tooth. No she doesn't... She talks to herself, her candy and ice cream, sometimes I'm not even sure she's talking to me.
Joan's a very energetic older woma probably in her 50's. She's kind of short and has glasses. She has long white hair and is usually wearing one of those paperboy hats. She seems a bit out of it and slurs her words some what.
One time she told me she fought in Vietnam. I'm not sure if it's true I can vividly imagine her in camo crawling through the jungle with her gun and grenades.

She's a nice person, the first time I checked her out I gave her her change and told her to have a nice night. She walked half way out the door, turned around to me and said dramatically "I love you. DON'T kill yourself." and walked out. Ok... What scares me about her a little bit is that she's the one counseling the crazy people at the local mental home. I see a lot of people who work at the same place as her and they all know exactly who I'm talking about when I mention her. I've heard she sits in the parking lot at her job and smokes weed in her car. I would love to smoke a joint with this lady.

Joan is a very interesting and entertaining lady so I'm probably going to start posting about her more. Keep reading for more stories about the sweet, eccentric Joan!

Can't live without chocolate

2012-03-15T04:24:00.003-04:00

A white lady and a black guy come up to my register together. They were buying condoms and Reese's. The lady said "I can't live without chocolate!"

Afterwards I wondered which chocolate she meant?

Snooki on my intercom

2012-03-14T08:33:00.000-04:00

I'm not one to spend much time on Facebook, I'll just quickly check it on my iPhone every once in a while. However a week or 2 ago I was reading a friends status about Snooki's pregnancy that I found hilarious. It said her due date was the Mayan doomsday.

Btw, what happened to Lindsay Lohan's face? 0_o

The other night at work I had to page my supervisor for something, I can't even remember what. Apparently after I paged him I didn't hang up the phone properly. I continued ringing out customers and someone noticed US Weekly which currently has a pregnant Snooki on the cover. We started talking about her pregnancy and I started cracking jokes. A lot of them were from the status below, and a few of my own like if Snooki breast feeds her baby that kid will probably be constantly wasted and child services will probably go wait in the hospitals waiting room the second they hear she's gone into labor. I even quoted her from one of the few episodes I've seen. Personally I hate Jersey Shore. I think it gives whorible messages to our already retarded youth such as "this is the night to go all out and get drunk, steal a plant, have sex with an old man and get arrested"

Little do I realize everything I'm saying is being broadcast to the pharmacy and the back room. Thank god it wasn't through out the whole store.

After about 10 minutes my pharmacist friend I talked about in Crappy Finger Painting comes to the front. I said "oh hey _____ I've never seen you come up here before" he's laughing and says "just a tip you might want to hang up the phone"

Bearded lady

2012-03-14T07:44:00.000-04:00

This morning a hunched over old lady with a beard came through my line. I'm not talking about a little bit of hair, it wasn't as thick but it was as long as the picture above. I couldn't see her behind the magazine rack and thought she had left and I said to the customer behind her "huh, that lady had a beard." I didn't say it maliciously or anything, just casually commenting like 'oh thats interesting'. Then I saw her walking away. She didn't look back or say anything so I'm hoping she didn't hear me but I still feel like an asshole now.

Oops...

An important lesson in customer service, it's usually best to just keep your mouth shut.

Then start a blog and make all the comments you want on there.

Do you guys sell cigarettes?

2012-03-08T20:59:00.001-05:00

A kid comes in high as a kite, and I love how there's a cop right behind him. When they first walked in I thought they were together.
I'm standing behind the counter and the kid asks me "Do you guys sell cigarettes?"

Really? I'm only standing in front of hundreds of packs so I asked him "Is this a serious question?" his response was "I'm not from around here" I had to ID him for the cigarettes and he was from out of state but what does that even have to do with anything?

(not my stores actual cigarette display but it actually looks pretty close. Thank you Google)

I should have said "No sir we don't sell any cigarettes here."

Oh it's ok she was only attacked at knife point

2012-03-07T01:39:00.003-05:00

So a man comes in last night to my 3rd shift job and asks if I feel safe in here at night. I said for the most part yes. There's a million cameras in the store, one of my supervisors knows martial arts and we have cops that sit across the street at random.
The man tells me "oh well in the newspaper a few years ago there was a story about a female worker in this store that got sexually assaulted"
So when my manager came in that morning I asked her what was up with that. She says "oh it's ok she wasn't sexually assaulted just attacked at knife point"

X_x
and that's supposed to make me feel better?

I guess what happened was the girl had let someone into our back room o use the bathroom when the man attempted to sexually assault her and pulled out a knife. A male co-worker who was sleeping in the next room woke up to the commotion and scared the man off. They said he was caught during his attempted escape. I guess the girl had a scratch but was overall fine.

But I love how my managers response was "oh it's ok she was just attacked at knife point"

Ok that makes me feel much better... Fuck that between this post and Crappy Fingerpainting I'm not letting anyone use our bathroom anymore.

Lost in Mentaltown

2012-03-04T05:04:00.001-05:00

A man comes in around midnight and asks what town he's in. I said "This is Mentaltown (not saying what town I really live in online)". He says "Really? I've been wandering around for several hours trying to figure out where I am" I asked him where he was heading and he named a town about 20 miles away so I asked him if he wanted to use our phone to call a cab, he said "No I've got the money but I'm a firm believer in what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" I am too, but I'm not going to walk 20 miles somewhere I don't have directions to, in 20 degree weather. I asked the guy if he was sure, and he said yeah and left.

A few hours later he comes back to buy some Red Bull. I asked him how his travels were and he said "I got half way there and decided to come back"

The trick my co-worker played on me

2012-03-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

This post isn't about a customer, but my crazy co-worker at my night job who's name I promised not to use. My co-worker... 'Matt' is a really nice Fillipino immigrant. He's 2-3 years older than me and has 'adopted' me as his new American little sister. We tend to get side tracked alot with random conversations, but he works hard and still helps me finish my work.

I have pretty crappy eyesight. About a month ago, I forgot my glasses at work so I called the store to make sure they were there and went in the next day to get them. I picked up a pair that looked almost identical to mine, but didn't notice they were just plain black. Mine have some dragonfly designs on the side. It took me a few days to notice the difference since I don't constantly need my glasses.
I thought I had picked up someone elses glasses by mistake and looked for mine at work that night but couldn't find them anywhere. I asked one of my supervisors if they had seen a pair of glasses, they said no and if they were behind the counter the store manager hates clutter and had probably thrown them out. I had just got these a few weeks before and was devestated at the thought of them just being tossed in the trash and I felt bad thinking I had taken someone elses glasses now intentionally to replace my own. I was going to leave the 'other' pair for their owner but my supervisor said they would probably just get thrown out and to hold on to them and she would let me know if anyone else was missing their glasses.

A month goes by and my co-worker and I started talking about the glasses, he said "how much do you want to bet those aren't your glasses" At this point I had accepted and really believed mine were long gone. He took my glasses and peeled some black tape off the sides, my dragon flies showing again! He said he hadn't known at the time who they belonged to and was just bored, messing around.

If it had been anyone else in the world I would have killed them, for making me think I had lost mine, and guilty about supposedly taking someone elses, but I'm incapable of getting angry at him because he's such a nice guy. I was just relieved to have them back and realize I had them the whole time.

So word of advice, make sure you keep an eye on your personal belongings at work so you don't have to go through something like that.

Also I wanted to take a picture of my glasses to show the design on the sides, but I forgot them at my dads house a few days ago..

How 'bout some fries wih that shake?

2012-03-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

Like many stores, ours sells little paper placards for different charities throughout the year. You pay either $1 or $5, and we give you a little paper card to write your name (or anything you want, for that matter) on. We then display all the cards for everyone to see. Remember this. This will come up again in a later post. Pretend you're surprised. Anyway, the charity we're raising money for this month has, appropriately enough, shamrock-shaped cards.

During my shift yesterday, I had a customer who looked a lot like Carl from ATHF. Here. For reference:

When I asked him to purchase a shamrock for charity, he replied, in a very thick and nauseating voice, "I'll buy shamrocks if you tape them on (he gestured to my boobs) and give me a shamrock shake. Heh heh." I kept a completely straight face, looked him in the eye and replied "Sorry, sir. I'm not McDonalds. That's the only shamrock shake you'll be getting. You can find them across the street."

After this, I immediately went to my supervisor and told him that "anytime a customer buys 2 $5 charity placards, we should have to give them a mandatory shamrock shake. And not the kind they serve across the street". I then gave a little demonstration and walked away, leaving him staring open-mouthed at what I just did. Then from behind me I hear "Oh my god. Yes. Please do it."

Artichokes...My weapon of choice.

2012-03-02T00:31:00.003-05:00

In my line of work, you'd never think you'd have to contemplate what your weapon of choice would be if you needed to arm yourself in the grocery store. When you're a cashier, you have very limited resources. If you worked as a grocery stockperson, you already get to carry around a box cutter. As a cashier, yes we have guns, but they only shoot lasers. Weak lasers. In the shape of a 3" bar. Not what I'd consider useful. Just saying.

Fortunately for me, I learned that artichokes can be useful weapons. No, really. How did I discover this? An old man attacked me with some. About 12 of them actually. For you educationally challenged folk, yes, 12 is a whole dozen! I was nearing the end of my shift when an old Italian man with a heavy accent came through my line with a hibiscus plant and an armload of artichokes. First I scan the hibiscus, and I hear "No! No much!" Um, what? Apparently he meant that I was charging him too much. I pointed out the little price sticker that said $14.99. "No! Is $2.99!" The hell it is. To humor him, I got the floral department manager over. She politely told him that the hibiscus was $14.99 and that maybe he read another sign by accident. Surprise surprise, the guy decided he didn't want the plant. Fine by me. Whatever. So I ring up his artichokes. Being out of season at the time, they cost $2 each, so his order came to $24. "No! Too much! You no make it $24! Not pay that!" I respond with "I'm sorry, sir. They really are $2 each and I'm not allowed to change the price." At this point, he starts to leave and I assume I'll just be voiding his order and taking the next customer. Life is never that easy. He turns back around and begins throwing the artichokes at me and yelling god knows what in Italian. Not only are artichokes solid objects and not fun to get hit with from the get-go, but they have these tiny little prickers on them like cacti! After being hit with 4 or 5 of the dozen he threw, he makes a face at me and leaves the store.

So, if you ever find yourself in need of a way to defend yourself in the produce section, artichokes make great weapons and and should be your projectile of choice!

Greetings from the new guy. Erm...new gal!

2012-03-02T00:05:00.003-05:00

Hello faithful readers! My name is Anita, and I've been in the retail game for almost 15 years. (Kill me now. Please. Anyone? Bueller?) Anywho, I'm a 30ish year old female and I work as a cashier with MJ in Mentaltown. I've worked in various retail positions, including customer service at a department store, jewelry department manager, head cashier of a grocery store, etc. So as you can imagine, I've seen my fair share of things at work. I've been assaulted with groceries, I've threatened to kill a manager, I've been hit in the parking lot. What I'm trying to say is that I've got stories and you've got free time. Let's get together and waste some time, shall we?

Crappy finger painting

2012-02-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my pharmacist friend at work the other night and he told me this story.

Years ago when he worked at a different store, one day there was a boy around 12-13 who asked to use the bathroom. He led to the kid to the bathroom, but after being in there 20 minutes or so he knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok. The kid said yeah and he would be out in the minute.
The kid comes out of the bathroom and my pharmacist friend goes in to find that the kid had been doodling. Finger painting scribbles covered the bathroom wall, with shit.
The kid had been finger painting with his own shit, in a drug store bathroom...

My pharmacist friend went and found the mother and said "hey I'd like to show you something" and brought her and her son to the bathroom. The mother asked the kid if he had done it and he admitted. She slapped him and told him not only would he be cleaning up his mess, he would also be cleaning the entire bathroom until it was spotless.

Unlike in Potty Time I applaud that mother.

Fried chicken for seizures

2012-02-27T12:33:00.001-05:00

A guy at one of my jobs had a seizure the other day. At first I had no idea what was happening, my supervisor just said "go outside and wait for the ambulance to arrive" when I asked what happened he told me to just go outside and do what I was told.
I went outside and a manager sent me back in as the ambulance was arriving.

I had to help a customer find an item near the aisle where the guy had the seizure so after I helped them I was curious and walked down to see what happened.

My store manager had brought a chair over to the guy and was talking to him. He told me to go get the man fried chicken. I just said "yes sir" and did as I was told.

But I was thinking, out of all the things in this store that could possibly help this man, fried chicken?

The guy was fine in the end.

Potty time

2012-02-23T03:59:00.001-05:00

I was cleaning up behind the counter in the photo area when I stumbled on a left behind picture. At first I thought "this would be great for twitter and the blog" so I took the pic and tweeted it but on second thought I realized I could potentially get in trouble over it so I deleted it from twitter and my phone.

However I see nothing wrong with describing the picture.

The picture was of a little girl that looked wasted. Id guess she was between 2-4. She had fallen into the toilet and the caption said 'potty time'

My first reaction was lmfao.
Thinking about it, the pic was cute but as a parent why are you taking a picture instead of helping your kid put of the toilet? That's some great parenting lol.

Drunk lady wants douchebags

2012-02-21T14:22:00.001-05:00

This drunk lady that reminded me of an older trashier Snooki came in last night. Because I wasn't at the counter she yells at the top of her lungs "yo where y'all douche be at?" My supervisor and I went over when we heard someone tell, I heard what she said but he just heard yelling. I showed her to the aisle and she's standing there zoned out staring at it when my male supervisor comes over and asks if he can help her. She looks at me like she's embarrassed.

So now you're embarrassed after you yell it?

Apparently WW3 is being started next month by Canada?

2012-02-19T06:50:00.000-05:00

A dirty homeless looking guy came into the grocery store asking for help finding something so I went to help him and check him out. While I'm checking him out he looks around to see if anyone else is nearby and says to me "You know not many people know this but WW3 is starting in March. The Canadians, Chinese and Russians are all going to team up on Israel" I asked him why he thought that and he said he learned it listening to a show online every Saturday that he doesn't remember the name of. His story reminded me of this old video

He also told me Jesus is coming in 10 years.

5 things NOT to do at the store

2012-02-18T06:29:00.001-05:00

#1 Do NOT talk on your phone when you're checking out. I'm standing here waiting for you to pay, I'm busy, I have shit to do. Don't just stand there ignoring the cashier while you bull shit on the phone. It's rude assholes.

#2 DO NOT try and hit on the young attractive cashier if you're old and creepy. You're just embarrassing yourself and we're not interested.

#3 DO NOT throw away full open containers of beer, dunkin donuts, etx in our garbage cans outside its fucking disgusting when you have to change the over flowing garbage can and it's leaking beer and coffee everywhere. Just dump it out first or something.

#4 If you're at the grocery store and you decide at the last moment you don't want something or can't afford it, just give it to the cashier. Don't shove bacon, ice cream and other frozen foods in our magazine racks and then bitch that it's expensive. It's your fault for damaging our products. We lose money on that stuff and then you have to pay more.
Also you people aren't slick when you're shoving some unwanted item in the back of whatever.

#5 Especially during 3rd shift, contrary to popular belief we have a lot of stuff to get done, why do you think (most) stores look nice and well stocked when you come in in the morning.
DO NOT waste our time because you can't make up your mind what candy bar you want. Come to us when you make up your damn mind.
________________________________

Sorry this post is kinda pissy but god people is this stuff too much to ask for?

"your ass looks fine to me"

2012-02-18T03:37:00.001-05:00

An old fat man that reminds me of Danny Devito with what sounds like a russian accent comes into the store. He delivers the newspapers in the morning and came in early to buy cigarettes before his paper route. He says "I see you in here all the time, you seem like a hard worker" I said "yeah I'm working my ass off" he looks behind me like he's looking at the cigarettes and says "you're ass looks fine to me"

Caitlin and Grandmas weekly argument

2012-02-17T05:41:00.001-05:00

So at the grocery store we have Caitlin and her Grandma come in several times a week. Caitlin is a chubby little girl probably around 10 years old. Caitlin doesn't like to stay with grandma, she likes to wander around on her own and 'sneak' munchkins out of the donut boxes. You're not slick Caitlin I see what you're doing. As far as I know she's cut it out since I caught her.

Anyway they come in occasionally to do they're grocery shopping. It's bad though when us employees already know their routine. It goes something like this.

They come in and Caitlin wanders off to the candy or donuts. The store will be quiet when we hear grandma suddenly yell at the top of her lungs:

Grandma: "Caitlin! Where are ya Caitlin?!"
Caitlin: "I'm over here grandma!"
(Note these 2 are at opposite ends of the store yelling for everyone to hear)
Grandma: "get over here Caitlin!!"
Caitlin: "no grandma I don't wanna!"
Grandma: "I said get over here Caitlin!
Ya know what your doctor said about your donuts"
Caitlin: "I don't care I don't want to go over there"
Grandma: "that's it I've had it! Go to the car Caitlin!"
Caitlin: "no grandma I don't wanna"
Grandma: "I said go to the car Caitlin!!!"
Caitlin: "no grandma!!!"
________________________________

This goes on for about 10-15 minutes several times a week. Same thing.

Grandma, go get Caitlin a cell phone so we don't have to listen to this crap. No one wants to listen to you and your granddaughter argue across the store. And Caitlin get over your donut obsession, and treat your grandma with some respect.

"you can take those bananas and shove them up your ass"

2012-02-16T04:33:00.001-05:00

I was just bagging when I notice 2 customers arguing in the express lane. I go to the register and there's 2 men.

The first is a young guy with glasses, he hadn't noticed the 12 items or less sign which 90% of you people don't notice but most of the time we won't make a big deal about it. He had I don't know maybe 30 or so items.

The second man is an older guy in his late 50's early 60's. He actually saw the sign and was angry with the guy in front of him and was making unnecessary comments like " the sign says 12 items or less don't your glasses work?" and "you can take those bananas and shove them up your ass"

Meanwhile my coworker on register is trying his hardest to just keep his mouth shut and not to laugh at the immaturity of the older gentleman.

I applaud the younger guy for not giving in and commenting back.

I decide to step in and say "ok sir let's just calm down" he replies "no you need to not tell me to calm down, you're not the one who had to wait in line. I didn't say it but I'm thinking to myself "gee sit you're right. I've never had to wait in a line before."

I can understand if he'd been waiting a while but I saw him get in line, he'd only been waiting 5 minutes.

No one likes to wait in a line but you just have to be patient and wait your fucking turn. This guy was acting like a child.

He was very upset so I asked "would you like to speak with my supervisor?" he says "not if it's the fat useless one" so now I'm trying not to laugh and say "I'm not sure which one you're referring to but if that's how you feel I'll go get the store manager.

I go to ask my supervisor to get the store manager and don't even have to explain the situation the man had been loud enough for her to hear 20 feet away and agrees the man is being ridiculous.

My store manager comes over and before he has a chance to say anything the customer says "oh god this guy? Never mind I'm leaving"

I didn't say it but I'm thinking ok that's cool if you're going to be a douche don't come back either.
Instead of telling that guy to shove his bananas up his ass, why don't you get your head out of your ass first sir.

Why just eat the candy bar when the wrapper is the best part?

2012-02-15T20:54:00.002-05:00

A lady comes up to my register this morning with a bunch of Dove candy bars, already half way through eating one. There all the same so I just scanned one 5 times while she's enjoying it, when I notice she's eating the tin foil wrapper too. I pointed it out and said "Ma'am I think you just ate part of the wrapper too." She says "I know. It's cool."

I guess why just eat the candy bar when the wrapper is just as good.

Empty Beer

2012-02-14T02:58:00.000-05:00

During 3rd shift the store was pretty dead so I was going around doing my work. I come back to my register and someone was nice enough to leave an empty clear plastic cup of beer on my counter. Who walks around with a clear plastic cup of beer at 4 in the morning? Yeah, you're cool.

Next time a beer is left at my register let it be an un-opened Bud Light.

Personal chats with Satan

2012-02-14T02:15:00.000-05:00

A dirty looking man comes through my line carrying a large bag that probably carrys all his possessions. He's been in line for a while and keeps staring at the floor muttering to himself. He hands me a bunch of bottle reciepts and asks if I've been 'saved'. I told him I was atheist, he asks "so you worship the devil?", I told him no I don't worship anything, I don't believe in religion. He starts rambling about how the world is full of sinners and how we are all going to Hell. I will say I agree that the world sucks.

Suddenly he stops and looks down, muttering to himself. He says in all seriousness "I talked to Satan." "Oh really?" I replied. He said "Yeah, he told me you're going to Hell"

Right...

So I go to my supervisor a little freaked out and tell her what happened. Her response "Where's your name tag?"

Buy One Get One Free

2012-02-13T03:29:00.000-05:00

The night of the super bowl, after it's ended 2 men come in around 3 am. We had a special Super Bowl sale where you bought a bag of Doritos and got a second bag free. We also had Tostitos dip next to the display. However a sign clearly stateted it was buy some chips and get the second bag free.

The man comes up to me and the conversation went something like this:

Customer: So what's this sale? I buy something and I get something free?
Me: Yeah, you buy a bag of chips and you get the second for free.
Customer: So I buy a bag of chips and get some dip for free?
Me: No sir, you buy a bag of chips and you get the second one for free.
Customer: So I don't get any dip?
Me: If you want to buy it seperatly then sure.
Customer: But it's not part of the sale?
Me: No.
Customer: So why's the dip here?
Me: Because people like chips and dip? The store assumes you'll just buy it since you're buying chips anyway.
Customer: But I don't get the dip for free?
Me: No.
Customer: So what do I get for free if I don't get the dip
Me (ready to bang my head against the wall): You buy 1 bag of Doritos. You get a second bag of Doritos for free.
Customer: You know I'm just trying to understand the sale and now you're giving me a hard time..

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I don't know how else I can explain you buy a bag of chips and get a second for free. X_x
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Finally the man buys one bag of chips and decides to start hitting on me. He's chewing with his mouth open, now spitting Dorito's all over my counter and floor. I know every woman finds that so attractive...

To top it all off this man thinks he's in a different town which is about 20 miles away. The internet doesn't need to know which specific state/city I live in so my hometown is just going to be referred to as Mentaltown.

Customer: By the way isn't this Waterbury?
Me: No sir this is Mentaltown.
Customer: Nahhhhh you's fuckin with me right? This is Waterbury
Me: No this is Mentaltown
Customer: Nah you're lying.
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Ok sir, just to entertain myself I'm 'lying' about what town you're in.
Ever heard of a GPS dumbass?
Sadly that's not the only time someone's came in thinking this was a totally different town. X_x