4/30/02
A girl called and said she had a book on hold for "Kate." Usually when people give only their first name, that's what they either had it held under or ordered it under, so I looked under K and there was no book for Kate. I asked her if we called her, since we call people when their books are in. But she said we hadn't. So I decided to look her up on the computer to see if her book was coming in on the next truck. I asked for her phone number, and she gave it to me. Nothing came up under that number. So I asked her to give me her full name. And it turned out "Kate" was her first name and she failed to even mention her last name. At this point I found her book immediately under her last name (under L) and noticed that the book was ordered under a different phone number anyway. My problem with this whole thing is, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T SHE MENTION HER LAST NAME TO ME when she was inquiring about the book? Does she think she's the only one who ordered a book lately, and that we'd just know who "Kate" is? We have like two hundred books on hold. It'd probably be HELPFUL if you'd mention a last name--I just can't believe she didn't volunteer it or suggest it as a possibility when I didn't find the book the first time under "Kate." GRRR!
4/29/02
A college student who talked very loud wanted The Vagina Monologues today. While we were puttering around trying to find the section it should be in, she informed me that she *knew* we *must* have it because it is *very* popular. (Yeah, yeah, so I've heard.) When we found the section and it didn't contain the book, she freaked out: "WHAT?? No VAGINA MONOLOGUES?? SHIT!!! What the hell is this? GOD! Is there another bookstore around here?" You'd think she'd realize that it's not like we don't sell it; it's just that wonder of wonders, someone ELSE decided to pick up our copies before she got there.
4/28/02
Yet another day on the register had me looking up a man's discount card number. I didn't find it and told him so, and he said, "Well, that's IMPOSSIBLE. Last time I was here they found me." I had already explained to him that if his card was older than a year, it would be expired and not on the list, so if they found him last time it's obvious the card had just gone out of date since then. But no. "That's impossible." (He got a new one anyway, but wanted to make sure that if he found his card and it was still good, he could get the date extended. ::sigh::)
4/18/02
How ridiculous a question is this? "Hi, do you work here? Do you know anything about the books?" No, lady, I've been working here for two years wearing this damn apron that says I work here, and I don't know SHIT about books. I actually answered her that no I didn't know anything about books. Since she didn't laugh I think she might've actually believed me. Maybe she thinks only "book specialists" know about books; the rest of us just clean the bathrooms and vacuum.
A lady looking for a certain Bible stumped me today, since I had never heard of and couldn't see on the shelf anything like she was describing. Her response? "Well, I saw an older gentleman back at the desk. He's bound to know." AHHH! I see, anyone who's obviously over fifty knows things. I'm just a whippersnapper who doesn't know her shit, but I'm sure that "older gentleman" would know. Kids today! (As it happens, the person she was talking about was one of the newest and least knowledgeable in the store.)
4/14/02
Yesterday lots of people misunderstood the One-Day Sale deal, thinking a coupon sent with the ad was for that day too. Some people said they would be back the next day if we would put their book on hold for them. Well, by the end of the night yesterday we had a stack at the register, books with people's names on them, and just as is the procedure we brought them back to the Customer Service desk.
So of course, today, some woman comes up completely baffled that her book isn't still sitting at the checkout counter. I informed her that we take the books to Customer Service if they're on hold, and she was like, "But it was literally RIGHT THERE!" Well, you can see it's not RIGHT THERE now, can't you? Grr. So I told her she could get it at Customer Service, and she was like, "So, I'll have to go over to the desk and then come back here to pay you?" So I said that was the case, as there's no register over there. I said, "Sorry 'bout that," and she goes, "Yeah? Well, SO AM I!" and then she left in a huff, out the door without buying the book. I guess she could spend the time and effort to come out to the bookstore, but being asked to walk between the Customer Service desk and then back to the register . . . well, that's just asking way too much, and it broke this camel's back.
Some other lady had discount card issues today. She said, "I don't have my card anymore. Last time I was here, I asked the lady TWICE if she gave me my card back, and she said yes, and she did NOT." So, I looked her up. I couldn't find her on the list, which meant that either she was wrong about where she got it or wrong about when she got it. Faced with the possibility of not getting a discount, the lady opened her purse and dug, and then did find the card so I could scan it. Okay, now this bothers me. She made up a story about "the lady" not giving her her card back just because she hadn't done a thorough enough search to find her card in her damn wallet? I don't appreciate my co-workers being accused of such actions. It's not like we get something out of it if we manage to steal or withhold someone's discount card, it's not like we wanted it; why wouldn't she have given it back if you asked her TWICE? You're just the perfect customer, playing yourself up to be Miz Responsible, and blaming your disorganization on the previous cashier at my store. Fuck that. Jeez. People. (I don't know why that upset me so much. It just did.)
A funny thing today: Someone saw my "Muggles for Harry Potter" pin, and he read it to his kid, saying, "Look, she's a Muggle for Harry Potter." (If you didn't know, "Muggle" means "Non-magical person" in the Harry Potter books.) I informed him that I was only posing as a Muggle. Then he said, "Well, it's a dead giveaway if you go around wearing a pentagram, isn't it?" I pretended to be defeated and said, "Ya got me!" Heh.
4/13/02
One-Day Sale Hell.
I dealt all day with people who didn't understand the special discounts. One lady was especially difficult, not understanding that the simple fact was that EVERYONE got 10% off today, and discount card members still got their extra 10% off too. She wouldn't stop insisting that that meant she should get 20% off plus her discount card discount, totalling 30%. I was like, "NO, you get 10% for the one-day sale and 10% with the card." And then later she came up to me AGAIN to "clarify," and told me with this "I'm brilliant and I've figured you out" air, "Now, if EVERYONE is getting 20% today, now why don't you tell me what's the point of having the discount card?" ::banging head against wall:: You should have seen the face she made. She totally thought she blew the cover on some scam.
While cleaning up the Kids' section some, I was attacked by a guy. He didn't bother with an "excuse me" or any pleasantries, just a question yelled at me: "Where's your Hank?" My what? "Your Hank, Hank. You know . . . like, Hank the dog or something?" At that point I realized he was talking about the children's series Hank the Cow Dog, but damned if "Where's your Hank?" doesn't sound almost perverted.
Also, in other news, my boss admitted she was wrong today. Hell has frozen over.
4/9/02
Here is a customer interaction that resulted in self-inflicted bodily harm on my part.
An older man came up with a Wall Street Journal newspaper and said, "I got one of your discount cards." I said okay, but then what he took out of his wallet was a Winn-Dixie card, which in no way resembles ours. (Theirs is black, with a Winn-Dixie logo; ours is blue with a red stripe across the top.) I told him, "That's not our card, sir," and he responded, "Oh, then you don't need it? Fine then. . . ." And I just shrugged and rang up his paper, and then he goes, "How much money you want?" I told him a dollar, and he said, "No, but I had the discount card." I reminded him that it was not our card and told him that he had given me a Winn-Dixie card, to which he responded, "Well the other lady always gives me a discount!" I said, "You have to have OUR card for a discount, that was from WINN-DIXIE, if you have OUR card I can give you the discount," and he just goes, "Well it's always something, isn't it?" Then he shook his head, disgusted at my incompetence, and paid me and left.
I banged my head on the counter six times after he left.
It hurt.
4/7/02
I was standing at the checkout counter this morning and some woman came up wanting to buy her stuff . . . but she stopped about ten feet in front of the counter, looked around, and said to another lady who was coming up behind her, "Hey, isn't this the checkout?" Her companion said it was, and so the lady began looking around in bewilderment again. I didn't know what was confusing her so much, but then she kind of stepped back and called, somewhat loudly, "HELLO . . . ?" She thought no one was up there, and I was standing there in plain view looking right at her! Her companion joined her and said, "Go on, there's someone up there." Then she saw me and was like, "Oh, sorry, didn't see you." Now how can someone specifically looking for me not see me standing there?
Some dude writing a check put his wallet away before I could see his ID. A lot of people do that, so I said, "Oh wait, I still need to see your ID," and he looked at me like I was ridiculous and said, "That was NOT my ID. That was my wife's wallet!" Then he threw another card on the counter and said, "THAT'S my ID." Like I even got to look at it, jerko! Why would I think that was your ID if I even saw it?
4/6/02
I helped a lady find a book today. (Unusual, eh?) She came to Customer Service looking for Dr. Weil's book, saying that she'd already looked and couldn't find it, and since I happened to know it was an alternative health title, I was able to take her right to it. But for some reason, when I stepped into the alternative health aisle, the lady following me went past me and went into the next aisle (Diet and Nutrition), saying, "No, no, that's not the right place, it's supposed to be over here." Now, how does that make sense? You ask for help from an employee because YOU CAN'T FIND SOMETHING, and then you try to show them where it should be when you've already looked there and found nothing and the employee is trying a different option? What the hell? (I did find the book.)
We have a lookup system for those people who bought their discount cards within the year at our store. When a lady couldn't find hers, I asked for her name, promptly found her discount number, typed it into the computer and thus applied the discount. I explained all this to her as I did it. But for some reason she felt it was necessary to stand there at the register and dig through her purse, mumbling, "I KNOW I had it in here! It must be here somewhere! God, where is it? This is gonna bother me now!" I was like, "It's okay, I already applied the discount, that'll be $23.45 please" or whatever, but she was just adamant that she find her card!
Some lady seemed to have an inordinate amount of difficulty counting her money today. She looked at the four dollars she'd given me, looked at the readout screen that said "$4.85," said, "Okay, four eighty-five . . . so you need, what, a penny?" I thought she was kidding but she really didn't seem to know that a penny did not equal eighty-five cents. She was not foreign either.
4/3/02
I had a really nice customer today who seemed totally okay with having to wait while I finished a phone call that had come before he'd arrived. I was so surprised because usually you are not treated with courtesy by any customer who has to wait any length of time for your services. The guy did say something kinda annoying later, though: He suggested that we might be out of this particular liberal political book because "Maybe someone at your headquarters doesn't WANT that sort of thing being read, who knows, they might have a conservative agenda." And he nodded to himself as if he'd figured THEM out. I had to explain to him at that time that our home office people really don't care what people believe as long as they can sell books, and liberals' money is exactly the same as conservatives' money.
4/2/02
A guy asked me for books about arrowheads today. "You mean like antique arrowheads?" I said. He let out a guffaw and said, "Like there's any other kind?" I was kind of offended and said "Oh-kaaaay . . . well, let me show you the antique section, we'll see what we can do," and as we were walking to the section, he said kind of quietly, "Antique arrowheads . . . wait 'til I tell the guys at the office about that!" I said, "Excuse me?" and he was like, "No, I'm just kiddin'." So I said, "What, you think there's no such thing as arrowheads being made today?" and he said that that was the problem, people were making false ones and trying to sell them. He didn't seem to realize that I meant there IS a modern-day sport of archery that uses arrowheads, and I didn't know if he was talking about the antique ones or the blacksmithing hobby of making them and other metalcraft, or the different types available today for hunting, or whatever. ::shrug::
Someone wanted to dial an 800 number from our phone today. I said go ahead, and when he called he got a number not in service. He informed me that the problem was with MY PHONE. "It doesn't dial 800 numbers," he told me. I assured him that it did indeed dial 800 numbers, and he countered, "No, some company phones have long-distance blockages on them, and--" I cut him off by explaining that ours did not and that I call long distance all the time. "Really?" he asked. I assured him that I do indeed call customers who've ordered books long distance with no problem. And then he STILL thought the "1-800" extension was disallowed because of a block on our phone! When I informed him that our customer service website has an 800 number that I have been able to successfully dial, he finally accepted that he was not dialing the correct number, and surprisingly found the right one and got in touch with whoever he wanted to get in touch with. That bugs me when people think I don't know the attributes of my own freakin' phone.
Last one for today: A guy that tried my patience. I think I was a little rude to him but it was just so frustrating. He wanted a book and had the title, and I found it and told him we were supposed to have the paperback but for some reason couldn't even order the hardcover anymore. He seemed to only hear the last part of my sentence and was like, "All right, if you can't get it I guess that's okay," and started to go away! So I called him back and told him that we were supposed to have the paperback, it was only the hardcover we couldn't get, so I told him to come back to American History with me and we'd see if we could find it. I realized after I'd stepped out of the desk that I'd neglected to look at the author's name, so I asked the man if he knew it and he said he did. Well, when we got to the section, I asked the man what the author's name was and he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. It was as if he hadn't remembered that he'd told me he knew. So I just left it at that and went back to the computer, looked, and came back. I told him the author's name and began looking where it was supposed to be, and it wasn't there. As I was checking around seeing if it was conveniently misplaced somewhere nearby, he began to sort of anemically rant that we *should* have it and that scads of people were going to be coming in asking about this book (who knows, maybe they are). And then he mumbled, "I sure wish we knew the author to make this easier." I was kind of speechless because of that, because not only had he said he knew, but I had purposely gone to get the author, had announced the author's name, and had announced that it was not where it was supposed to be based on author's last name. I repeated it to him and he was like, "Oh, yeah! That's right!" I told him that we were probably just out and I could call the other store if he wanted. He kept looking at the shelves kind of mumbling, not seeming to understand that I was asking if he wanted me to call the other store. So I asked again. He just kind of said some dismissing statement like "Thank you for your help," but then his wife answered me when I asked AGAIN if he wanted me to check with the other store. She said she'd like me to go ahead. So I called over there, and they had one, and I had a little trouble getting her attention too. It was odd.
4/1/02
A man buying something from the antiques section decided to lecture me today: "You know, over there in the antique section . . . there is absolutely NO order over there. It is a total disorganized MESS." I told him I knew that. He looked surprised, and said, "You KNOW that and yet it's still like that?" Yes, sir, if a section is trashed it's only because we have no idea it's messy. It couldn't be because we clean it up and customers trash it and no one has time to organize it every day. Grr.
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