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

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MAY!


5/29/02

Some girl was complaining to her mother today that she liked another bookstore better because "this store is always so messy." How do you think it gets that way, you ass? Customers like you who don't give a shit!


5/28/02

A rather annoying young man called me asking for R.L. Stine books. His first fault was that he refused to speak clearly so I asked him to repeat himself multiple times. Then he also refused to understand the things I said, such as a time when I told him we only had two of the miniseries he wanted and he replied, "Okay, then I'll just take the first four." WHAT? Anyway, he came up to the register to get his books (despite the fact that I'd told him they'd be at Customer Service), and he didn't say who he was, just that he was looking for R.L. Stine. I sent him to Customer Service and he didn't bother to mention THERE either that he had books on hold, so the customer service guy didn't know, and called ME (because I am Kids' specialist) to ask where R.L. Stine books are, and I told him to check for the guy's books on hold. Finally it got straightened out and he came up to buy them, and in an hour he was calling back saying he accidentally bought two of the same book and could he return it. I explained to him that it'd be easiest if he brought in ALL the books and let us void the sale, re-do the whole sale minus the duplicate book, and give him the change back. He ignored me, of course, and we had to do a return. I hate when people refuse to listen.

I quoted a rather large price to a man asking about a rare book, and his response to hearing the triple-digit price was the following: "Great gobs of hen poop!" HAHAH!


5/27/02

Today we had a sale of buy one get one half off on all regular priced hardback books. A lady unaware of the sale happened to be buying two regular priced hardback books, so I happily told her she got a surprise discount on the second one. Her response?

"Oh, no thanks."

What? I said, "What do you mean, 'no thanks,' it's a free discount," and explained that it was just what we were doing today for the sale, and proceeded to ring up her books. She explained to me that she never listens to people like me because we're always just trying to sell her something, so she automatically says "no thanks." I hate people like her.

Someone was confused by the lack of 30% off sale on a paperback book she was buying. She had this harebrained idea that it was 30% off, so I asked her what gave her that idea and she told me there was a sign near it that said "30% off." I asked her to show me the sign, and it was a sign saying "Top ten paperback books, 30% off," with the top ten right under it, all clearly stickered with a 30% off sticker. The other paperbacks, numbers 11 through 30 on the bestseller list, were not stickered. Her friend asked, when we got back to the register, if it was discounted, and she was like, "No, I got taken in by their deceptive little sign." People have this conception that we're doing everything we can to trick people into buying things that aren't really discounted through misleading advertisement. Come on! If it isn't discounted, they find out pretty quickly. We're not trying to trick you, we just expect that people buying BOOKS would READ the signs!

I got another person at the register who asked a crappy question.
"Okay, how much?"
"$12.47."
"Total?"
What? No, that's the slightly less than total price, and after you write your check I'm going to tell you how much you owe me in tax so you'll have to pay that in cash. What else would I be giving you at the end of the sale besides the damn TOTAL?


5/26/02

A guy told me at the register today that he wanted to be my boyfriend.


5/25/02

A jerk lady came up and said, "Excuse me. Where are the Angelina ones?" My response was "the Angelina WHATs?" She held up the package she was carrying and wanted to know if we had any of the dolls that were like that except Angelina instead of whatever other Angelina character that was. At that point it made sense, but it would have made a lot more sense if she had made any effort to SHOW me the "ones" she already had rather than just walk up holding it so I couldn't see it.


5/20/02

"Do you work here?"
No, actually, regular customers are often seen standing behind checkout counters wearing aprons with the store name on them. No, sir, I'm A FUCKING CUSTOMER. GOD, you're oblivious.

A customer decided one of my coworkers was rude today. She had to do a return but it was really non-standard; usually, if a customer returns something and they paid with a credit card, it gets charged back onto their card. But these people came in saying they needed to have it charged to a different card, because that card had been stolen and replaced. Being that it's store policy to charge back only to the card it was bought on, she decided to ask the manager what to do, since it was always possible that the receipt could have been found by someone, the book located on the shelf, and the money "refunded" to a person's card who'd never bought the book in the first place. So, she called the manager, who said to charge it to the old card, and it should forward to the new. So she went to do that, and the lady said, "You know, there was a better way to take care of this." My coworker was like "what?" and the customer said, "I just think you were very rude." She just didn't quite know what to say, considering there was nothing RUDE about calling the manager in a non-standard situation. God! Some people suck so bad! I officially dub THOSE people exceedingly rude JERKS.

As for me, I had a customer who refused to make things easy by just listening to the words coming out of my mouth. He wanted to order a book, and found me in a section of the store other than Customer Service, so I went up to the desk and he just followed me behind the desk obliviously. I asked for his name and he just nodded and said "okay," then didn't reply. I had to prompt him for his name again. Then I pointed to the screen when his account came up and asked if that was his phone number. He nodded and said "yep," so I ordered it for him, and then he was like, "Oh, and you need my phone number, don't you." ARGH! You have no fucking excuse for that behavior. I pointed to the screen, you looked, and you said yes! Damn! Then he asked where we hid our restrooms. Jeeeeeez.


5/19/02

A guy asking about the availability of a book at Customer Service decided that it was ludicrous that our computer couldn't tell him how many of a book we had on the shelf of our store. "That's a pretty poor system, isn't it?" he said, condescendingly, shaking his head like if he shamed me enough I'd be able to snap my fingers and make it a more effective system. Grr.

A little kid has it firmly implanted in his mind that adults are all oblivious. He didn't expect me to understand at all the complexities of what he wanted. He asked if we had any Pokémon theme decks. I asked him which theme deck he wanted, as I'm well aware we have the original two-player starter set, plus lots of different Base 2 sets (like Zap and Brushfire) and then the Neo Light and Dark sets, et cetera. But the kid would have none of this. He informed me seriously that theme decks were large packs of Pokémon cards. ARGH. I sent him to the collector's case to see what we had.

In 20 minutes or so he was back, and just walked up to me and said "How much for the little ones?"

Excuse me? Little . . . ones. I imagined he was talking about Pokémon booster packs, but I told him, "You're gonna have to be a little bit more specific there. What 'little ones'?" He just kind of waved his hand and said, "Ya know, the small ones. Little packs." It'd be nice if you spoke English, kid, so that next time you talk to a normal adult who has their head up their ass, they'll be able to find their way to your wavelength.

A guy apparently sick of seeing Star Wars merchandise everywhere said snidely to me, "So, pushin' Star Wars here too, huh?" As if I choose what we put up for sale, or as if it's bad to make available lots of a product people are interested in. He started whining about how he just wasn't sure HE needed to waste his time with this next movie seeing as how The Phantom Menace was so crappy, and then a girl joined him as we were wrapping up his purchase. He asked if I'd seen Episode Two yet and I said I hadn't but was planning on seeing it later that week, and was excited to see Yoda fight. He seemed surprised by that, the idea of Yoda fighting, and agreed that would be pretty cool. On the way out the girl with him suggested they go see it since it sounded pretty badass, and he said, "Oh, I don't know if I really want to pay $7.50 to see a stupid puppet fly around." Whatever. Yoda kicks ass.


5/18/02

A funny lady and her friend wanted a book entitled God's Diet. Once I'd begun to look it up, the lady realized she wasn't entirely sure that it was called "God's Diet," and said, "Actually, maybe it's Jesus's Cookin'." She started giggling and then said, "Oh, please don't hit me Lord, you know I'm only kiddin'!" I reminded her that if God created everything, He created humor too. Heh.

A boy shopping for a friend's birthday party wanted Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I told him that there were episodic books for the TV series, and then there were books for fans of the TV show, about the episodes, actors, and other things. He didn't seem to understand why I was giving him more than one choice and he repeated, "I just need Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's for a fourteen-year-old's party." So I accepted that he had no idea that Buffy was even a show, and showed him the entertainment section and then the young-adult books with Buffy and Angel stuff. He seemed a bit shocked at being taken to the Kids' section for young adult, and informed me in a very serious tone, "I just don't understand why they would put THESE in the Kids' section. This is for a fourteen-year-old." I had to smother my giggles. Hell, on my next birthday at this point I'll be turning a quarter century, and I still think of myself as a kid. Damned if a fourteen-year-old isn't.


5/15/02

My manager really must know sometimes that she makes no freakin' sense. Today she asked me to fill out these "My Dad Loves . . . " book recommendation cards for Father's Day, and she told me to do it "in my spare time," so when I was asked to watch the register temporarily while the cashier went potty and got something out of her truck, I filled them out. Then I went and asked the manager what she wanted me to do with them. Her response? "I would have rather you had been putting out books instead of wasting your time on those." ACK! Excuse me? She said do it in "spare time." That was "spare time." And when I explained that to her, her response, as always, was just to walk away without saying anything, because acknowledging that she was wrong to "correct" me when I was right is just beneath her.

A lady who's been a regular customer for a while was shocked to find we'd removed the table from our Kids' section. (We took it out 'cause people kept leaving their shit on it; it was like an invitation to make a mess.) But instead of ASKING me why it was gone, like she really wanted to, she looked over and saw me stocking nearby and started to make a big deal out of its disappearance . . . under the guise of saying it to her two-year-old. "*Gasp* They took the mommy table! Wow, now Mommy has nowhere to sit! I WONDER WHY THEY DID THAT? [Glance at me] I guess I have to sit on the floor now! It's a shame that there's no mommy table!" Finally figuring out that I didn't give a shit that there was no longer a mommy table, she said "excuse me" and asked about the table going missing. I told her that people kept leaving large stacks of things on it, and that the manager had decided it encouraged people to leave things in the Kids' section that didn't belong there. She gave me a mini-lecture on how SHE always puts her stuff up and how now she is getting punished for such things. I told her there wasn't anything I could do about it but I was sorry that other people being jerks had caused such a thing. She left me alone after that.


5/14/02

There was some confusion, apparently, over which manager was supposed to open this morning, so neither one came and we were all sitting outside waiting to get in. People kept driving up in their cars and getting out to go inside, and we'd tell them that the store wasn't open yet, and most of them still felt compelled by some Jackass God to tug on the door and look blankly through the darkened windows. It amused me. One guy even looked at the hours printed on the door and challenged us: "NO, it's open at nine!" Well, wouldn't it be nice if everything had gone according to plan today, but the fact that the store is dark and the doors are locked should tell you something (i.e., today it is NOT, in fact, open at nine).


5/13/02

A really annoying lady with a horrid grating voice was in the Kids' section today. She was watching a child not her own, and kept asking the child if she wanted things and saying "Huh?" or "Okay?" repeatedly if she didn't get an immediate answer. "Do you want this book? Huh? Huh? Huh?" "I don't have the money for that book, we'll ask your mommy to get it for you, okay? Okay? Okay?" "Time to go now, okay? Okay? You ready? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? HUH?????" AGGHGHGHGH!!!! At one point she saw me and said I looked "so sad" (I was having a shitty day because my section is crap) and she was like, "I wish there was something I could do to cheer you up!" Well, lady, it really would help if you would stop saying "Okay?" and "Huh?" thousands of times in my section. No wonder the kid didn't answer; she was used to tuning her out. I would.

Another instance of rampant jerkitude gone unpunished occurred at the register today. I told a guy that he should get the discount card because it would save him 55˘ overall today and then work for a year afterwards. He asked how much it cost, and I told him it costs five dollars but today saved him five dollars and fifty-five cents. His response was to laugh and say, "Well, it's hardly worth it then, is it? Fifty-five cents?" I explained again to him that his purchase was 55˘ cheaper today if he gets it, plus he can come in and use it for a ten percent discount for one full year, but he just told me it wasn't worth it, with this condescending tone like he'd figured out my game and that he wasn't REALLY saving money and wouldn't fall for my corporate slave tricks. Whatever.

A lady threw what she thought to be her discount card on the counter. It was an ABC Liquor card. Sometimes it's hard to be tactful and tell them they've got the wrong card, but before I got a chance and had gotten out an "Um," she was like, "What?" like I was being difficult or something. I told her, "Well, this is an ABC Liquor card, do you have ours?" She apologized and got out our card, and I made light of it because actually that does happen a lot. So I rang up her purchase and her total was almost eight bucks--I told her the total and her response was to hand me a five-dollar bill and make no move to give me more money. ::sigh::


5/12/02

Today I was asking one of my managers what he would name a new male character, since I wasn't sure I was going to keep the name a new male character had used to introduce himself in my new book. He gave me some off-the-wall suggestions and then said he should have one "real" name but have everyone else call him different things. I said, "You're weird." At this point another manager heard me and started laughing. She burst out with, "LOOK WHO'S TALKING!" and they started walking away together. Heh. Apparently I am not allowed to tell other people they're weird since that applies to me too.


5/5/02

An assy lady was buying a new discount card and I rang her up and stuff, and while I was making her a new discount card she prompted me, in this ridiculously condescending tone, "And . . . my CARD?" holding out her hand. Um, I'm not done making it! I haven't forgotten to give it to you! Leave me the hell alone!


5/4/02

Some kid asked me if we had any Pokémon card folders for sale. I said no since we used to have a few but they have since disappeared, presumably purchased. So then, for some reason, after I already told him we didn't have any, he goes, "Well, do you have, like, any . . . Pokémon folders? Ya know, the ones you put the cards in?" I had to tell him no again! Like right after the first time I said no! What, did he think the answer would change? Maybe that works with Mom if you ask her twice if you can stay home from school, but asking me again doesn't make more folders appear! Honestly!


5/1/02

The district and regional managers made a visit today. Earlier in the week, our general manager had a fit and took the table out of the Kids' section, because she was tired of parents and students using it to study or read on and then leaving their crap on it. The general manager asked the district manager what she thought our section was missing, and she studied it long and hard and then replied, "Monkeys?" That amused me, except that she actually meant that she thought we'd taken the stand of monkey puppets out when in fact they'd never been there. I just found it funny that she thought my section was missing monkeys. And then after that we explained the situation and the district manager asked if the general manager just had a "temper tantrum." I said yes. It was funny.


On to June!


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