Retail Rage

These people survived their own personal retail horror shows, and lived to tell their tales. And oh my goodness, there is not enough money in the world to make me deal with the types of awful, entitled customers and horrible coworkers.


1. A Giggling Fit

It was getting near closing time and I was cleaning the self-checkout machines while my manager was topping up the coins and receipt paper. This woman, just shy of 50, came up to the checkout and just stood there with her mostly empty cart. I was waiting to see if she would walk up to the actual register for service, but no; she just stood there. Oh boy, here we go.

I finally asked her, "Do you need help?" She replied, "No," and kept standing there. Then, she started giggling loudly to herself in a way that made other people around her uncomfortable.

I just kept cleaning and my manager continued filling the machines, all of which were devoid of customers. Finally, the woman spoke loudly, to no one in particular, saying the rudest thing ever: “Do you want to work or not?”

I let out a long breath, then dropped my cloth and spray bottle down. Suddenly, my manager stepped in and replied loudly, "She does have work! She's cleaning right now". Then she motioned for me to keep cleaning.

Well, the woman giggled again, really loudly and snottily this time, and said, "I want a checkout". My manager replied, "You had your chance. She asked you if you wanted help. You said no. And now, you're going to have to check yourself out".

The lady started freaking out and demanded to see the manager. My manager destroyed her with one sentence: "You're looking at her". The woman sheepishly checked her own items out while we both watched her. And then my manager giggled loudly, just like the woman had done. It was glorious.

ZookeepergameSea3890

Cranky Customers Facts

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2. Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer

I worked at a photo printing lab, and we got people in all the time who claimed we were stupid and had messed up their pictures. One woman had us print 800 vacation pictures. They were bad quality, dark, and out of focus. Basically a nightmare to work with. But that wasn’t all.

When she came to pick them up, she insisted that we had ruined them, that they were perfect in her camera, and that she had a very expensive camera and so there was no way the pictures could be dark or out of focus.

We finally gave her her money back, even though we had done nothing wrong and were out a lot of time and paper.

She called us 30 minutes later and told us she was at a store across town, and they had reprinted all of her pictures and they were beautiful, in focus, and nice and bright. I had the best comeback.

I got to tell her that the same person who owned our store also owned the store across town, and that not only would it have taken that store several hours to reprint 800 pictures, but their printer was down that day, so they couldn't have printed anything.

She hung up on me.

laidymondegreen

My Life Is Over Facts

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3. Wet And Wild

I used to work in Best Buy services. It was sort of like Geek Squad before Geek Squad and it dealt with everything like TVs and VCRs and junk. One day we had a guy come in and complain about his little video camera not working.

I agree to take a look at it even though there's not much I can do but send it back to the manufacturer for him.

It will take some time, but that was 90% of the problem people had with services. Naturally, this guy wants a new one on the spot and he starts getting REALLY loud about it. So I call the manager. While I'm waiting for them to come up, I'm still tinkering with the camera in the back. I get some tools out and, hey, look I got the thing open for the guy. When I saw what was on it, I knew we had him. 

A minute or so later I come back out when the manager gets there. The manager is talking to the guy as I move a computer up to the counter. I jump in and say, "Hey, I don't think we should give this guy a new unit".

The guy gives me dagger eyes and the manager is like, "Oh? why's that?"

Then I play the footage of what is unmistakably someone running around a pool, dropping the camera, which tumbles into the pool. He had taken out the tape but it was recorded to the memory stick. Guy takes his camera and quietly leaves the store.

barron42

Customer Service Gotcha Facts

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4. I’ve Got A Package For You

Working at a shipping store, a customer tried to drop off a package to be shipped back to Clearwire (an internet company). He had the box wrapped in shipping paper and twine.

Instead of a prepaid shipping label, he had printed out the directions on how to obtain the shipping label. I tried to explain to him that he needed to go back to his email, click on the link, and print the shipping label.

He was adamant that he did everything correctly and kept saying he was going to leave the package there and that it was our problem. My boss, hearing this, comes from the back and explains that if the customer leaves the package, my boss will throw it out the door. The guy turns around, leaves the package, and says again, "Not my problem". He got exactly what he asked for, and then some.

My boss, true to his word, follows him and throws the package towards the customer. The package bounces a few times on the sidewalk right past the customer and the guy keeps on walking.

The package stayed outside for 15 minutes in heavy rain before my boss relents and took the package inside. The package was still under a counter four months later when I left the job.

Ryno3639

Customer Service Gotcha Facts

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