I got the name for this thread from another thread on another messageboard I go to. Anyway, post your work related tales of horror here. Weather it be bad/stupid costumers or co-workers there all welcome. The only thing kinda bad that happened to me in the last month was a guy got frustrated with the register takeing a while to prosess his credit card. He said "Is this going to take all night?" In a nasty tone. To which I replied "Well, Excuse me!" That guy did not get the obligatory "Have a nice day" when he left. Post away!
Once had a guy wanting a refund on his money order. When I wouldn't give him one (store policy, just go to a bank, and cash the thing) he first threatened to stand in the way, and prevent me from doing business, then he threatened to call the cops. Took everything I had not to laugh in his face, and offer to dial.
I use to work at Kirklands, and this one time I had just finished straighting up a wall display when I notice a group of three women walking down the aisle. Being the good employee that I am, quickly jet up to the cash registers so I wouldn't have to 'greet' them. Not five minutes later the group walk up to the register wanting to return an item...I think it was a picture or something(this was like 7 years ago). The item caught my attention because it was one of the things I had just arranged and was the last one in the display. I return to the back of the store to check the display, and sure enough the space was empty. I knew the customers had stolen the item to return(they were the only ones in the store). I got the manager, but because I didn't see them actually steal the item we couldn't charge with anything. I still confronted them much to my managers displeasure and a huge ruckus erupted. Sadly, they got the money, but not before I got to called them no good mother fuckers.
I used to work as a public safety assistant with the campus police at U of Alabama. great job for the most part except that i was shot at once. but, as the evening escort driver i had 2 moments where it was awesome- in a bad way. 1. the frats and so-whor-ity chicks used us to get the the strip and back for free. picked up this smoking hot brunette one night and as i am taking her back to the dorm, the campus cops request me to pick up another ride. using 10 codes, the girl in the backseat didn't understand, so when we got behind Ten Hoor hall, there are 2 cop cars with lights on, and a drunk dude on his knees hurling pumpkin chunks. that bitch freaked and offered me tons of things to keep driving. she thought i was busting her. then she got pissed because i wouldn't let her ride up front with me after puke boy got in. he was funky smelling. 2. Went to a party just off campus on Reid Street apartments and spent about 4 hours drinking 151 and goldschlagger. well, i walked my way home and stopped at the police station (adams hall it was) and found out from the dispatcher babe that their escort driver called in sick. so i offered to drive. a cop gave me the keys to a Crown Vic and i drove girls home all night. (i don't endorse drunk driving, but when you are drunk, you are stupid.) one last thing. same job. the PSA's are security guards who patrol the parking lots and nearby streets, escorting students who ask, or giving golf cart rides along the way. we had an awesome blonde girl who only 3 weeks into the job, got fired. she drove 15 minutes across town to campus and went inside to see our boss, who was a Sgt. she told him she couldn't work that night and he asked her why. "i am drunk." and after that, he got her to confess to DUI, and she got a stay at County Jail and a boot on her car. oh, the memories.
I had a 2nd job as a cashier at a gas station. I almost punched a guy one day, and yell at people several other days. It was probably the worst job I ever had.
Heres a good one: I get called up to the front end to look over a return. A man brought in a VCR and was asking for his money back and as the electronics associate I gotta look it over. It was all there and anything but he lacked a recite. It was indeed something WM sold and all but I told the man no to the return. He got frustrated at me until i pointed out our return policy was 90 days and the VCR he was trying to pawn off on us was over 3 years old (the box i havent seen in years and the thing had a production date on it from 2003... and it was 2007). My manager was up on another register and he was chuckling when the man asked to see a manager. While helping a older gal he turned around and said nope and the man left in disgust swearing all the way out the door. Apparently he tried it again in the morning just as i was leaving and my manager was there in customer service telling him no yet again. Another time just after I started as the Overnight electronics position fulltime I loved to mess around with the stupid kids wanting the M-rated games. Legally I didn't have to tell them about the proof of age requirements we had and it was a hoot (Id take them up to the front end and let the cashiers know in advance. sometimes they had a parent/reliatice/hobo and the times they didnt we just laugh at their stuipidy). One time a parent came in to chew me out until I pointed to the game in question (I think it was GTA: Vice City). She was steamed that i didn't sell it to him (a 12 year old kid) and then wanted to buy it for him. We got to registers and right as she sumggly handed me the money for the game I asked for her ID. She went ballistic saying I was hounding her and i turned the display around to show her that i couldnt complete the purchase without Age verifcation. She handed me her drivers licence and it was out of date by almost a year. Long story short she didnt get the game for her kid and my manager was laughing his ass off when i had to call him up to explain why i cant sell her a videogame since her ID wasnt valid. To this day she sees me and refuses to go by Electonics.
Years back, I worked in a bookshop. We were having a sale in the centre of the mall and I was on duty to watch the tables and punch up any sales. It was a quiet afternoon when an attractive girl walked into the jumble of tables and started looking around. I made some brief eye contact with her while she browsed. She smiled at me, I smiled back. A few minutes later she walked over, still with her coy smile and handed me a book. She asked me, "Have you read this? Can you recommend it?". She never took her eyes off me. I took a glance at the book and said, "I'm sorry no, I haven't read this one." Her face kinda fell and her whole tone changed. She left the book on the table, muttered a rather half-hearted thank you, and left. I was a little puzzled, then took a closer look at the title of the book: The Art of Seduction Yeah, I kinda screwed that up.
After 11 years in retail, I've got plenty of stories to tell, but one of my favorites is from when I worked as the manager of the shoe dept for Kohl's. One Sunday I had an elderly lady come up to ask me about a particular pair of shoes. I told her that I didn't think that the store carried that particular shoe as it didn't sound familiar. She told me that she had just seen it that morning in the Sunday flier. I told her it was possible that not all stores got the same stock in, or that we simply hadn't received it yet. She got really belligerent with me, telling me it was false advertising, a scam, blah blah blah. I told her I was really sorry, there was nothing I could do for her, having just set the ad that morning, I knew what stock we had in the store and the particular shoe she was looking for was not there. She said something along the line of, "Young man, I have a copy of your ad right here, and unless you tell me where this shoe is at, I'll call your corporate office and report you," or something to that effect. She handed me the ad, I took a look at it, and politely told her she could go up the street to Mervyn's, whose ad it was, and ask them there if they had the shoe in stock that they were advertising, smiled and walked away from her.
I only work in retail a few months out of the year as a second job... and it's the gift shop at Jones Beach, so I don't have TOO many horror stories. (Well, none that I wasn't already familiar with - 300lb ladies in thongs, old men in Speedos, people who don't speak English getting angry at me for not speaking/understanding THEIR language, etc.) I was the unfortunate witness to a mother coming in with her three little (eight and under) kids, telling them to grab a bunch of toys, and then walking out without even looking at the register. My coworker, a very petite high school girl, went out there to stop her, and the woman started hollaring and cursing - I thought she was going to take a swing at the poor girl, so I went out there. I asked what the problem was, she spit a few curses at me - I politely asked to see her receipt. More curses. "If you can't produce a receipt then I'm sorry but you'll have to return everything to the store." She started going through the roof, screaming and cursing - now I've got the attention of one of the park managers, who I used to work for directly. That would have been enough, but even more fun - two of the Park Police officers that I knew came walking up at the exact right moment. Without pointing out the situation at hand, I said hello to the officers and they were all "Hey, good to see you back again!" They walked away, I smiled back at the woman. "Now... can you show me your receipt, ma'am?" Not another word from her - she told the kids to go put the stuff back, and they did. She got a polite (and somewhat smug) "Have a great day!" as she left. My MAIN job is in the delightful field of Eminent Domain (aka "We need to build a road so we're taking your house, here's a big check, GTFO and have a nice day")... you can imagine I have a ton of horror stories there, but none are really interesting.
I had a few retail jobs in high school and college. The last one I had was at CompUSA. I worked there the summer after my freshman year and we had a guy that would come in every few weeks and return his computer and buy a new one. The guy was a total cheapskate and figured that this way, he could always have the latest and greatest system. It worked too because while he abused the hell out of the store's return policy, there was nothing we could really do about it.
"So-whor-ity" girls...that's priceless. I did my time in call center hell. It was almost all bad. "How do you sleep at night?" "Go to hell!" Etc, etc. A website I just ran into - Not Always Right - is quite entertaining.
I spent over an hour calling Walmarts in 2 states looking for a different color Power Wheels car for a customer. Apparently they really wanted the red one, even though we had a black one. RACISTS.
The story I tell is not for the faint of heart. If you are at all squeemish, DON'T READ THIS POST!!!! You have been warned. I have worked in the Restaurant/ Gas business for a while now, and have a ton of stories. Here is a gem for you all. One day last year I had to open the gas station, 6AM, and work till 9. I then had to come back and run the Restaurant from 11-8, then close the gas station at 9. At 10:20 AM I got a call from the gal who replaced me at the station. She sounded really frustrated. She told me to get back there right away. She wouldn't tell me why. I was worried that we were robbed. I run out to my car and drive to the station as fast as I could. When I get there I still see the building was still standing. That was good. I get inside and the place looked fine. I asked her what was going on. She told me. I regretted knowing. There is this man who is morbidly obese. Every year he comes and harasses us for money for a walk-a-thon. How he can do it is beyond me, because he is easily 500 lbs. Well when he came in to beg for money he had to go to the bathroom, really, really badly. He didn't quite make it to the toilet. After he was done in there he came out, with his pants all messy, and then begged for money. Then he left for a while. I went into the bathroom and it looked like a bomb went off in there . It was all over the toilet, floor,and walls. The stench could kill a horse. It was my "fun job" to clean up this mess. It took me a half hour to do so, because I had to leave often to go outside to get air. As I stated to clean it up, he came back in. He then asked me if I had ever used slim-fast. I know I am a little chunky, but within my weight guidelines for my height. I said no. He then blamed what happened on slim fast. I just tried to ignore him and start cleaning up the disaster. While this was going on my business partner came in , and he was begging him for money, in his dirty pants. My business partner kicked him out of the store and banned him from coming back, because he wasn't a customer. He never bought ANYTHING from us. He sat on the bench outside (which we disinfected later) for a while, then left. Oh and in the explosion I could still see undigested apple peals.
