I...really...hate...customers sometimes. I always have, and I probably always will. I honestly don't understand how people can be so pissed off over something that REALLY has no significance to anything. They've got to bitch, moan, and try to get any type of free thing they can, and I will never understand it.
One time at Borders, I had a customer attack me so hard and so much that it was the first time I legitimately wanted to just leave and go home. I was working with Baney and this guy comes up and says he wants a piece of carrot cake. Well, our order hadn't gone through, so we honestly had NOTHING to eat. It was basically just finding whatever we could to put out there and doing the best we could. I told him we didn't have any. He freaked out, then decided he wanted a piece of Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake. Mind you, that was a new item. I had put out the new food that we weren't necessarily supposed to put out yet, but we needed something. Every food item has its own code we're supposed to type in. I pulled it out to find the code and he said, "It's $2.15."
I absolutely HATE it when people tell me the price of stuff. I don't care what the price is, numbskull, I care about the code. If the customer is nice and it seems like they're just trying to help me out, I'll just say "Oh, yeah, but there's a code..." blah blah and show them. This guy, I just told him there was a code and blew him off. Because he was really short and I didn't care.
Well, just my luck. Either the code hadn't been printed yet, or someone had crossed it out (because someone got the great idea to cross out random food items?) Anyway, I told him I couldn't find the code. He turned around and then turned back and asked if I had found it yet. I told him someone had crossed it out, and he flipped on me. He told me I was obviously an incompetent retard who didn't know what I was doing, and told me if I didn't know how to do my job maybe I should find a new one and let someone who could actually comprehend stuff take over (and yes, he actually said this.)
I tried to explain how I did know what I was doing, but someone had crossed out the code for it. He flipped out completely and made me call a manager over, all the while telling me how retarded and stupid I am. He went on for 15 minutes (because we were really busy and Irene, the manager, couldn't drop everything and come over, which pissed him off even more.) He didn't stop, at all, in those 15 minutes. Just continuous insults. Want to know what I did? For the first time ever, I told a customer to just shut up. LUCKILY, he didn't hear me, but I was just getting sick of it. I mean, I can deal with customers being cranky, but personally attacking me for 15 minutes DOES get a little old.
When Irene got over, he started to tell her how retarded I was. I interjected and told her to let ME tell her what happened, so she just found a way to ring him up for $2.15 and all was good (and she apologized to me for having to deal with such an asshole.) And at the end, he said, "I don't want to be an asshole, I just had a bad day." Seriously? That's what you have to say to me after that? Get the hell out of my store before I jump over the counter and sock you in the face.
Another time, a guy comes up, and he's holding a cup. I figured he was going to ask for a refill, which I knew I wasn't going to give to him because we had been open for 10 minutes and I knew he hadn't been served yet. He comes up, sets the cup on the counter, and says, "I bought this chai last night."
Ok? Cool. Thanks for sharing. I don't care.
He then proceeds to tell me he tasted it "this morning" and "it was bitter." Are you kidding me? I asked him if he had refridgerated it and he said no. So I said, "You bought it yesterday, left it out all night, tasted it this morning, and it was bad?" Not understanding how STUPID he sounded, he said, "Yes." So I asked what he wanted me to do about it and HE WANTED ME TO MAKE HIM A NEW ONE! SERIOUSLY?! So I said no. I'm sorry, you're retarded. It's milk, hombre, it's going to go bad if you keep it out all night.
So this dumbass makes me call the manager. Ugh. So I get on the radio and say a customer bought something the day before and it had gone bad and wanted a new one. Thank GOD Kim (of ZombieKim.com) said no, because unfortunately (retard) things do go bad when they're parishable and left out overnight.
It's absolutely ridiculous. I had a customer yell at me because we have a return policy (like every...other...store...) and it's that you must have a receipt and it must be within a month. This lady had bought her stuff in August (and it was January) and had no receipt, and yelled and ranted and moaned for a half an hour about how it's illegal for us to take her money and not give it back. Uh, no, you airhead, you got something for your money, so shut up and get out of my face.
Those are just some Borders horror stories. When I worked at the movie theater, I had to ask to be taken off door (where you tear the tickets) because I kept getting threatened. The rules state there are no outside food or drinks. There was a sign when you bought the tickets, one on a sign right in front of the door, and one on the podium you stand at. Pretty obvious. Some guy tried to sneak stuff in, and I told him he couldn't. He flipped out and tried to fight me, but I said he couldn't. So this guy takes the drinks, starts to throw them and takes a swing at me! His poor wife stepped in the middle and said, "Not worth it." I should have kicked him out, but I didn't care enough. He just walked away and he didn't get his sodas.
Another time, a guy was stoned so bad I could smell it when he opened the door. Same thing. I'm actually kind of glad he was stoned, because I'm pretty sure this fool thought the podium was a wall protecting me, or he probably would have attacked me. He called me a Nazi and told me I should join the circus (because Nazi's were definitely part of the circus) because I obviously knew how to follow the rules (?).
He then proceeded to go outside, take out his camera, AND TAKE PICTURES OF ME! WHAT THE HELL! After that, THE GUY FOUND ME ON MYSPACE! That was weird.
Those are just the stories that come off the top of my head, because somehow I get lucky and only have a few customer experiences that actually result in the need for a story. A lot of the times it's just annoying, every day complaints that I roll my eyes to and ignore.
But customers are stupid. They're inconsiderate. They're mean. And I don't get it. Why do you want to ruin other people's days? No matter WHAT I am ALWAYS nice to the workers when I go places. If I'm having a bad day, I make sure I don't ruin theirs. Maybe it's because I have respect. I don't know. But it drives me crazy.