6/27/01
THE FREAKIEST CUSTOMER EVER!
This dude came up and started describing to me this mirror collectible put out by the Budweiser company. He said he'd already been in the antiques and collectibles section and there wasn't anything on it, and he wanted me to find him a book that would have his mirror in it. He continued to describe it but he was kind of mumbling and sounded rednecky and I swore he said "n***er mirror." I was like . . . no way, he couldn't have said that, and just waited for him to finish rambling.
I told him I would see if there was a Budweiser collectibles book, but there wasn't, so he asked if I could check under Anheuser-Busch. I typed in both "Anheuser" and "Busch" but there was nothing. I figured it for a lost cause (there's NO way without a title or keyword that you can find out what collectibles are listed IN books we don't even have), but then he just KEPT talking about it and trying to describe it in more detail!
He said, "It's like this mirror, and it has this big fat black pipe-smoking, pimp-lookin' dude on it, with like some Africans dancing in the background, and it says 'Budweiser' on it," blah blah blah . . . and I'm all like I can't help you unless you have some other idea of what to search under; describing it to me doesn't make books appear about it. So he goes, "Well, it wouldn't be under 'n***er,' would it?" I wasn't sure whether to be super super offended or to start laughing ridiculously because he seemed to think that was actually a possibility. "Yes sir, let me take you to the 'n***er' section . . . Oh, wait, that's right, the n***er mirror, of course, why didn't you say so?" ACK!
So, in response to his question about whether it would be under "n***er," I replied, "No, I very much doubt it would be," and kind of turned away and got very interested in arranging my hold pile. And so he goes, "Hey, well THERE'S some black folks, I'll go and ask them." WHAT??? Of course, in the black community, everyone knows of THE "n***er mirror." WHAT THE HELL??? I just hope for his sake that he didn't say "n***er" to them, but I kind of hope he did and they took him out back and slugged him.
Oh yes, and I had a regular run-of-the-mill ASS customer too. I had three people in line at Customer Service and two on the phone, and I was taking great care to help everyone in the order they'd arrived. This one lady arrived and didn't seem to realize that she was not first in line and kept trying to flag me down while I was on the phone. She finally just yelled, "Can I just get my book?" I assumed she meant one that was just on hold for her, and I could understand her not wanting to wait a long time just for me to hand her a book that was right there, so after I was done talking to one guy on the phone I asked for her last name. She gave it to me and I got her book, and she goes, "I wanna order another one too. How long will THAT take, half an hour?" I just kind of let the world stop as I stared at her and gave her sort of a pitied look, and she looked embarrassed, and then I said, "Unfortunately everyone just decided to come up here at the same time, I guess." And she goes, "Well isn't there someone else you can get up here?" and I told her I would find out if my manager was available and called her to Customer Service, then went away to help the person who was actually next. It turned out the lady couldn't even wait for the backup to arrive and went and hounded the cashier to do it, and later I heard from the cashier that the lady claimed she'd been waiting at the desk for my help for twenty minutes. Sorry, but whiners like that can't even wait for a minute without FREAKING OUT; there is no way she would have waited twenty, and I watched her walk up there and act impatient right from the first second. Yeah right twenty minutes! JERK.
6/26/01
My boss and I went to the bank today and he told me that he can't write good songs. He said he wrote a song parody of "Baby Got Back" called "Lickin' My Ass" and it's about his dog. Ugh.
6/25/01
Firstly, a Chinese man asked the customer service girl if she could find a certain book for him, but all he knew about it was that it was by a woman and was on the New York Times bestseller list about two years ago. She told him she could not find it given that information, and he got all snotty and said, "You Americans . . . you can never help me, I have been looking for this book for two years and you can never help me!" She replied, "It's not because we're AMERICAN, it's because YOU don't know the title or the author!" Grr!
Secondly, some lady insisted that she got her discount card at my store but she wasn't on the list of people with valid in-date cards. She wouldn't stop telling me that she KNEW she got it in December and spelling her name again and again as if that would somehow make it show up on the list. I hate when people get rude with me over things that aren't my fault.
Oh, and a lady I helped for like a full five minutes with Kids' bibles left them thrown all over the section like a goddamn toddler. Nice. Really.
6/24/01
Some lady with diabetes wanted a book on menus for diabetics today. She had a VERY BAD HABIT of interrupting. I tried to help her but she wouldn't let me finish anything I was saying! I would try to suggest something but she'd be looking through another book and exclaiming about how such and such recipe looked disgusting, or that too many of the books suggested eggs and she was allergic to those, or that none of the books had what she wanted (even though I was attempting to suggest some but she was too set on making negative comments to listen). So I just stood there and didn't help her, and she didn't notice. And weirdly, as she was leaving, she walked by and thanked me for all my help. Okay.
6/23/01
Someone cut out a picture of the Superfriends and put it by the register. Then today I discovered that someone drew penises on a few of the characters. It is REALLY funny.
6/17/01
I rode my bike to work today and when I got there there was a frog in my hair.
Also some dude ordered a book about how Witchcraft is infiltrating the churches. Yes, that's what we do in our spare time, infest the worship houses of CHRISTIANS, our mortal enemies. ::shakes head:: When will they learn that we really don't CARE what they do as long as they leave us alone (the way we do them)?
6/16/01
Today my genius boss decided to schedule three people for the whole morning shift on one of the busiest days of the year: The day before Father's Day. So all my customers were shitty! I had to call to check on a price and some lady who didn't want to wait through the customer service line tried to interrupt everything to ask me a question, and asked the lady I was price checking for, "Is she on a PERSONAL CALL???" Okay yeah like I would stand there with a line of ten people and just talk on the phone. Uh huh. I told her to go to Customer Service. And another lady I sent to Customer Service misunderstood me and thought I was bringing an associate to come to HER, so when she came back and asked me why no one had come to help her I didn't quite know what to say and she acted all offended, until I realized she'd misunderstood me and told her again that SHE would have to go to THEM. Weird.
6/11/01
An old guy patted me on the head like a child for showing him where the magazines were. An old lady asked the lady in front of her if she could borrow her discount card and they didn't even know each other. And my boss wrote "Tenacious D Time!" on the white board in the back room because he wants the rest of us to think he's hip and cool.
6/10/01
We have this promotion where if someone buys a book from the religious section they get a free copy of the book Left Behind. Two guys paying separately but hanging out together came up to my register to check out. One of them had a religious book so I gave him a free copy and he was happy. The other guy was just buying a journal or something and he kind of teasingly asked me if he got any special free stuff. I'm not sure where it came from but I said, "Uh, you get this . . . free bag!" and put his stuff in a plastic bag. He acted delighted.
6/9/01
Today a group of customers were making fun of the conversation cards in the display at the register, and it amused me. They are Conversation Cards For Dummies and they are supposed to be things you use to talk about in a group if you're too unoriginal to come up with something to talk about. There is one about Success, one about Business, whatever . . . and then there's one about Sex. There is a "sample" conversation card for each, and one customer read the "Sex" one aloud: "From balling, boinking and burying the weenie to shtupping, horizontaling and hiding the salami, people have many euphemisms for describing the act of sexual intercourse. What's your favorite slang expression for sex? Why?" The customer laughed and said, "I can't believe these are right here where the little kids buying their Pokémon cards can see--HEY! POKÉMON! That's a great word for it! Pokémon, gotta catch 'em all!" I couldn't breathe for a few minutes.
6/5/01
Today my boss told me to put out some workbooks in a section that was already pretty full of workbooks. I told him they probably wouldn't fit, and he said, "Yes they will. Have faith." I gave him a look and told him I was not too big on faith, and he goes, "Oh yeah," in a way that made me realize he thought I was talking about religious beliefs, and then he added, "Well, have happy . . . spiritual feelings that they'll fit." I called him a jackass.
6/1/01
A lady banged on the "exit" door to be let in. I kind of looked at her strangely, and then opened the door to see what she wanted. She looked almost panicked and very bewildered, and she's like, "Where's the entrance???" I pointed to the very obvious entrance door. She was like, "OH." Um.
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