My Record of Work: The Annoying, the Interesting, and the Just Plain Weird--The Year 2002.

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MARCH!


3/31/02

I was reading the book Book of Shadows by Curott, and some guy in my checkout line saw the cover and commented on it looking interesting. It pictures a circle of women in white gowns touching hands and dancing around a bunch of flowers. I told him it was very interesting so far and that it is a true story about a female lawyer who became a Witch. He said, "Oh, so she went from one kind of devil to another, eh?" I kind of spluttered, "Uh, 'scuse me?" and he assured me he was just kidding and busting on lawyers. All righty then. . . .

We have "Buy our discount card!" advertisements all over the store at different locations, explaining how the card works and how much it costs per year. A lady buying some books had seen the club card sign and misinterpreted it somehow to mean that the books near it were five dollars apiece and was perplexed that they were ringing up for their correct price, $6.95. I was confused when she described the sign, saying "There was a sign by these saying they're five dollars," but when she further described it, I figured out she was talking about a club card sign. It's strange how people will read and see the big "$5," and let that get totally stuck in their brains, but refuse to read anything else on the sign that would eliminate mistakes like these.

A preteen girl was buying a book and had a death grip on her mom's discount card. As soon as she'd handed me her Olsen twins book or whatever, she started *shoving the card at my face* like I couldn't see it. I just kind of backed up and did the appropriate procedures to ring up the book, and right before I got to the discount card screen, she finally shoved it further into my face and said, "UM, I have this!!!" I said, "I know, I see it!" Finally when it was time, I scanned it and gave her her freakin' discount. Okay, I'll excuse her 'cause she's a kid, but adults do this too, not realizing that it is part of my job to try to sell them a card if they don't have one yet, so of course I'm going to ask if they have one. ::sigh:: I think they think if they don't actively defend their right to a discount, I will do my best to avoid giving it to them.


3/30/02

Our district manager made a visit today, and while being informed of something surprising, she said "Oh, SHIT!" rather loudly in front of a woman buying a Bible from me. Hehe. She apologized and covered her mouth, and that is the first time I've ever seen her look uncomfortable.

A woman was buying two John Edward books and ranting about what an amazing psychic Mr. Edward is and how she totally buys into him even though she thinks most psychics are phonys. Then she turned around and felt compelled to ask the lady behind her if SHE was familiar with Mr. Edward. Well, the other lady began to lecture both of us on the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and that if it's not the Holy Spirit telling us things, it's the devil or whatever and that psychics who aren't being worked through by God are evil. It was kind of funny to watch the first lady try to extricate herself from the conversation she'd started without being rude.

Some guy at the register was inordinately perplexed that our credit card machine was taking longer than usual. I told him it was just taking its time, that it did that sometimes, but after it had been more than fifteen seconds he went headfirst into an all-out panic ritual dance. I assured him that this was normal and it had been working fine all day, but he still wouldn't shut up about it and started frantically searching his wallet to see if he had enough cash to cover it if the machine wouldn't work. He was like, "I don't think it's going to go through!" Finally it went through. It bugs me that he seemed to think he knew better than I did how my credit card machine should behave.


3/29/02

Wow. I was on the phone at the Customer Service counter, trying to help a woman who wanted to order three books and put one book on hold, so I had to locate each book on the computer and get all her information. Near the beginning of my call with the woman, another woman walked up to the Customer Service desk and looked pointedly at me. I nodded at her and indicated the phone just to let her know I was taking an order. Then the other line began to ring, so I put the nice lady on the phone on hold and answered it. It was a call for a manager, so I paged the manager and went back to the call. Then the phone rang again, and I did the same thing, except this time it was a woman wanting a book, so I told her I'd help her in a second because I was with another customer. The in-store lady was still standing there looking at me. I decided I had too much to do so I called for backup, but no one came to help. I kept helping the woman on the phone, and when the order was finished and I was going to go get the one book off the shelf for her, I put her on hold, picked up the other line and told the lady I hadn't forgotten about her but I was still helping someone else, and to please wait. Then I said I'd be right back to the lady waiting there, and got the book from the Christian Living section and put it on hold for the first woman on the phone. I told the lady on the phone that it was ready for her to get it, and finally hung up with her. Finally I got to help the lady in the store. She was about to have a shit fit!

First of all she had asked her question at checkout and was disappointed that they couldn't help her with customer service questions there due to lack of a computer. Then she told me she'd been through all the books in the Caribbean section that covered cruises, and none of them had itemized comparative Caribbean cruises, which is what she wanted. I told her it would not really be possible for me to find that information just in the computer, and if there was no book that had it she might have to get that information from like a travel agent, and that was when she started to look really fried. I looked at the phone and the light had stopped blinking, so I kind of said to myself, "Oh, the other line hung up," and she goes, "Well *I* would have too, after waiting FIFTEEN MINUTES to ask about a book!" I was thinking, oh yeah, fifteen minutes . . . no, I don't think so. Anyway, I told her I would type in Caribbean Cruises and see what happened in the computer, and see if I could tell her anything that looking on the shelves didn't. I came up with only a couple books, two of which were in the store. She exploded and told me that there had been at least five over there that covered Caribbean Cruises, and if I couldn't even find the ones in the store I was doing something wrong. She started shaking her head like I had to be completely incompetent, and she was like, "They're right there IN THE STORE and you can't even find THOSE," and so I tried to explain to her that a keyword search on "Caribbean Cruises" wouldn't necessarily bring up every book with that information in it, but that if I put in just "cruises," I would get too many results . . . but somewhere before I got to say anything particularly informative, she just shook her head and said, "No, no, never mind . . . I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT!!!" and she left in a huff.

And, as a bonus, I found out later she CALLED HOME OFFICE ABOUT ME and mentioned me by name, saying I was inattentive and made her stand at the Customer Service counter for "half an hour" without acknowledging her. I hope they know at home office that most people who would call home office to whine about bad customer service would not stand to wait *five* minutes for help, much less "half an hour." Who stands at a desk for thirty minutes? I guess she waited half an hour just like the woman on the phone waited fifteen minutes (translation: four or five). And I didn't acknowledge her WITH WORDS at first, because I was ON THE PHONE--I'd be willing to bet that if she was the one on the phone with me, she'd be annoyed if I stopped talking to her to help someone else. It's not my fault I was too busy to help her at the exact moment she showed up, or that my backup didn't come. It really irks me that she filed a complaint on me when I did my best to help her.


3/26/02

I think the jackasses have a club or something and they are collecting at our store, in my checkout line no less. Here are some of the leaders of their organization.

A guy buying a book produced his discount card. I rang him up and gave him the total, and he responded with, "WHOA whoa whoa," and proceeded to explain that that could not be right because HE had a DISCOUNT card and it should be much more off. I had to explain that ten percent just isn't very much, especially when you have to pay tax. He still looked at me like I was being shady and ripping him off, though he could not find anything else to complain about and just left, giving me the eye.

A guy with a discount card with an expiration date of 1995 tried to argue with me that his card was still good! He was like, "Well, it's always worked before! They never gave me any trouble before!" It's like, sir, your card has been no good for more than half a freakin' decade! This guy also found it necessary to call me "baby" at various points throughout our transaction.

A funny coincidence: In the fantasy novels I write, the main character is Ivy and her best friend is Weaver. I sold a discount card to a woman whose name was Ivy, and then the next lady after that made me look up her discount card under the name "Weaver." I just thought that was interesting.

This is funny too. I made an announcement that I needed assistance at Customer Service, and a moment later one of my managers came up to the register and said, expectantly, "Yes?" I was like, "Huh? What?" and he replied, "What do you need?" We figured out that he thought I'd paged him to the register. Okay, fine. But then, not five minutes later, I had to make another announcement that the Customer Service desk needed assistance, so I said it especially clearly that time. This time a different manager approached and asked me what I wanted, same story! What is going on?


3/24/02

I got a dollar today on which someone had scrawled the words: "Read 'Ishmael' by D. Quinn." Strange. About ten years ago I wrote something similar on a bathroom wall about the same book. It's that kind of book.

I was running the register today and an older gentleman approached the counter . . . and went to the wrong register. We try to make it pretty clear which one is open by piling a bunch of displays and junk on the counters that are closed, while the open one not only is clear but has a PERSON standing behind it. This man found a way to move the displays aside, put his stuff down, and begin gazing around patiently, ready to wait for me to come to him. I could swear he saw me, but I was thinking maybe he didn't. So, I said "Hi!" to him. He didn't respond, but he looked at me about ten seconds later. I thought maybe he was waiting on his wife to catch up to him or was looking at the magazines at that counter or something, so I figured, damned if I'm going to go over there and ask him if he wants me to check him out when I can't check him out on that register anyway. So I made it obvious that I was open and kind of stared into space and drummed my fingers, until finally a different customer came up and checked out with me. At this point, the older man noticed that this chap was getting service, and got in line behind him. I started laughing inside, thinking, Oh, man, I gotta hear this guy's story. Well, when he got to me, he opened with, "If he hadn't come to check out I woulda been standing there all day!" Uh? So I said, "Oh, could you not see me?" I am rather short, after all, and some of the displays could have been in his line of vision, but I didn't think so. That wasn't the problem though: "No, I saw you all right . . . I just figured you were busy, and you'd get to me when you were finished with whatever you were doing." What, that whole ultra important-looking sequence of finger-drumming I was doing?? Okay. He proceeded to tell me that he had always checked out at that register before and didn't even know there was another place at the counter to check out. (Which is odd, considering the register he stood at is rarely used for anything but managerial assistance and paid outs for merchants.) He seemed sort of slightly irate that his misconception stopped him from checking out earlier. But he couldn't find a way to make it my fault, so he shut up and left. I was amused.


3/19/02

Some lady was looking at this rack of bookmarks today and she knocked the thing down on herself. Another employee came over and helped her clean it up, and when they were done she continued to look at the bookmarks on it. She found one that she liked, but it was damaged (hmm, mysteriously . . . I wonder if that's because the whole thing just fell?), so she wanted a pristine one and asked if we had any more of that kind, this time coming to me. I told her what she saw was what she got, and so she wanted to know when we'd get more and if we could order them and whatnot. Um. So I told her they are supplied by an outside company and we can't "order" them; they just get replaced once in a while by the representative. She wanted me to call the other store and find out if they had this particular bookmark. At this point I was a bit annoyed, but I told her they'd do that for her at Customer Service because at the register the phones don't dial out. Well, walking to the Customer Service counter proved to be too much work for this lady, so she requested that I call the counter, describe the bookmark to them, have THEM call the other store and relay the description to THEM, and find out if they had one. After all that, we discovered that the other store either didn't have them or something was scrambled in the translation of the telephone game. So when I told her they didn't find any, guess what her response was? Blank stare, then "Okay." And she walked out the door without another word. Nice huh? I suppose our horrible customer service wasn't worthy of a "thank you."


3/17/02

One of my Pagan books that I ordered came in today. I was informed of it because my manager told me my book on devil-worship was in. Grr.

I had a woman freak out that every book she was buying was not on some kind of deep sale, and she said, "I thought this store USED to be a 'super discount store!'" Um. We're not a yard sale of books; we're a regular bookstore with some sales. If what you want to buy is not on sale, I can't help you.

I was very polite and helpful to one woman while on the register, I even sold her a club card, and at the end she said, "You're a nice little saleslady." I thought that was cute.

I signed up one other guy for a discount card, and he seemed flummoxed that I was asking for information from him since it was a renewal. Okay. I told him that I didn't have any info on him except his last name because that was scrawled on the old card, but still when I asked him for the new information he informed me that it was "the same as last time," and when I explained the situation a second time he still seemed very perplexed when having to offer up his first name and address. ::sigh::


3/11/02

Today I made a special effort to give customers what they asked for, behavior-wise. It was especially amusing when someone came to the counter and said she had special-ordered a book. If I was in a nice mood, I just would have asked her what her name was and grabbed it for her, but since I was feeling a bit mischievous, I just said "Yes . . . ?" to her statement. She informed me then that they had called her saying it was in. Who are you? I'm thinking. Just tell me your name and we'll be fine. ". . . And I'm here to pick it up . . . ?" she says questioningly. I obligingly say "Okay!" And continue to wait for the info I need. Now at this point, I'm wondering if she thinks everyone in the world automatically knows her and what book she ordered, or if she thinks that she is the only person who's special-ordered a book recently and therefore we'd be expecting her. (There are only about 120 other people's books there.) Finally she just kind of laughed confusedly and nervously, waiting for me to do something about the fact that she didn't know what to do. I prompted her for her name and she was like "OH . . ." and gave it to me. I gave her the book. It was kinda funny.


3/10/02

A guy wanted a contraption that would hold your book open for you. I told him we don't sell those. He gave me a positively shocked and halfway offended look, backed away from the counter, and went away. Then I overheard him asking someone else. For some reason he accepted it that time when the manager told him we didn't have anything like that, so he returned to my counter to pay for his stuff. He set it down and immediately looked at the register display and said, "So, what's the damage, lady?" I had to sputter in surprise, then inform him that I had to RING UP HIS STUFF before I knew that. This surprised him too.


3/9/02

"Do you carry movies?" I told this guy we did not carry movies. This became his cue to begin naming movies he wanted and to ask after each one, "Do you have something like that?" I must have told him six times that we do not carry movies!

I asked a lady if she had our discount card. She seemed surprised and then said, "No, do you have one?" No, actually, I was trying to see if you would fall for it . . . this "discount card" I was asking you if you had is actually a figment of my imagination.

"There's no toilet tissue in the bathroom," said a man. I offered to get the manager to put some in there, since I both cannot leave the counter and cannot enter the men's bathroom since I'm all female and stuff, but he just started looking all offended and miffed, and walked away shaking his head, pissed that I didn't hand him a roll right there or snap my fingers and say "it is done."

And lastly . . . we have this train set for the kidlets to play with, and it includes some samples of toys we used to sell but don't anymore. We figured there was no reason to throw out the toys for kids to play with simply because we didn't carry them anymore, but that seems to have backfired today. A man brought me a helicopter toy and asked where we keep the boxed ones. I told him it was a BRIO brand helicopter and we only carry the Thomas brand stuff now. So he found it necessary to scold me and say it was "mean" to put stuff out there to tempt the kids and then not have any to give them. I retorted (politely, of course, because I'm SO polite), saying that we just put them there to play with and found no reason why we shouldn't have them just to play with, and he seemed to back off and accept that logic. After all, McDonald's doesn't sell their PLAYGROUND, do they? Doctor's offices don't sell their magazines. I wonder if they get asked that. Probably not. The people probably just steal them.


3/6/02

A woman told me she wanted a book but had been unable to find it on the internet or on our website or whatever. She told me the title and I also got nothing. Then she made this weird condescending noise (don't know how to explain it) and said, "Um, but you can't even ORDER it?" It's like, man, if you can't find any trace of this book anywhere, what makes you think we can order it any better than Amazon.com can? Jeez.

Here's a funny one, though: Our magazine specialist was helping at Customer Service, and he fielded a question about religious books. She wasn't sure of the name of the author but thought it was Joseph Bean. He pulled up a list of books by that author, but they were not remotely religious, and he told her so. She pressed on, demanding to know the titles. He did not want to say the titles out loud because they were S&M books. She insisted, and he read the least "offensive" one: "Flogging." He told her she didn't want to hear the rest, and she finally gave up. Some of the other titles were Leathersex, My Private Life: Real Experiences of A Dominant Woman, The Masters Manuals: Handbook of Erotic Dominance, and Ties That Bind: The SM/Leather/Fetish/Erotic Style.

In other news, we received a box in the FedEx today that contained nothing but packing peanuts. (The invoice, when examined, even said "Box with Packing Peanuts." I think we're supposed to send our old music system back in it.)


3/4/02

Enter Rude Lady. A girl who just started working here had to field an unusual call: Another bookstore was calling us at the request of Rude Lady, asking us if we carried a certain magazine that her son was on. We carried the magazine, but they didn't ask us to hold it or anything; she simply told the bookstore guy that we carried it, and he thanked her and hung up. Then Rude Lady came in expecting us to have held the magazine, which we didn't. The girl who'd handled it was on break, so I went back and asked her if she put one on hold, and she said no. So I went back out and there was Rude Lady, waiting for me at the door, scouring the magazines. "Did she pull one for me?" she asked. I told her she hadn't, and then she burst out with, "THEN WHY CAN'T I FIND IT???" I said I didn't know, and said I'd help her look. She started whining at me, "Well, can't you go GET her off her break? It'll only take two minutes if she already found it once. Go get her!" I refused to do that and said I could help her just as easily. I did so, finding it in under seven seconds. I gave her a copy and she was like, "NO, not just ONE, that's my SON there!" She grabbed all we had and left. Pleasant.


3/3/02

Today a lady seemed offended that we were out of the New York Times. It was funny.

Ass prize for today: Pen girl. This girl bought a pen, then came back in ten minutes to exchange it for a different pen. Problem: The pen she was bringing back HAD NO CAP. I asked her why she wanted to exchange it and she said, "Because my sister just lost the cap and we can't find it. So I want a new one." Okay! Now, you damage your merchandise AFTER you have bought it, and then you want the establishment to just replace it for you? I don't think so. I told her that wasn't fair. She left.


On to April!


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