The customer is always right
mole started a thread about some con artist that tried to get their hands on a free GPS thingy that seems to have turned into yet another “retail horror stories” thread. Reading it made me reminisce about my days working in a grocery store deli/bakery back in college—the one and only job I’ve ever worked where interacting with dumbass customers is/was an integral part of the job—and, since I only bring interesting, hard-hitting content to this blog, here are a few of my fondest memories of that job, presented in no particular order, in a countdown format.
The year was 1999…
#3
The store was understaffed on an unusually busy day, so the courtesy booth clerk and assistant manager were forced into checker/bagging duty, making it our job in the bakery/deli to answer the store’s phone. I was the lucky one to answer this call:
“Good afternoon, thanks for calling Brookshire Bros. How can I help you today?”
“Uh, yeah…I’ve got a question for you.”
“Ok.”
“Are ya’ll still gonna sell gas after Y2K? ‘Cuz, uh, you know, I hear there won’t be gas and stuff like that.”
“Yes, sir, I imagine we will.”
“Oh. Well, ok. That’s good.”
*click*
#2
One week, there was an unadvertised sale of 8-piece fried chicken dinners for $2.99 (insert joke here). Or at least it was supposed to be unadvertised—when the weekly circular ad ran in the paper that Sunday, the 8-piece deal was listed. Problem was that, since it was supposed to be unadvertised, our manager had only ordered a bit more than our usual amount of raw chicken for the first part of the week.
I’m sure you can guess what happened. By early Tuesday afternoon, we ran out of chicken. This was bad news for me since I worked the evening shift.
So this one bluehair comes in around 5:00 or so and, of course, asks for the special. I launched into the same “I’m sorry; we don’t have any more chicken” speech I’d already given 35 times in the past 3 hours. This was incomprehensible to her.
“But your ad says you have chicken meals for $3.”
“I know, ma’am. But we are completely out of fried chicken.”
“So if you don’t sell chicken, why do have chicken on sale in the paper?”
“No, ma’am. We do sell fried chicken. We just don’t have any in stock at the moment.”
…
(points to the rotisserie chickens) “But isn’t that a chicken right there?”
“Yes ma’am, but that is a rotisserie chicken. It’s not on sale.”
“So which chicken is on sale then?”
“The fried chicken.”
“But I can’t buy any?”
“No, because we don’t have any in the store.”
…
“I don’t understand why I can’t buy that chicken right there.”
“You can buy it. But it’s not on sale.”
“I can’t buy that chicken for $3?”
“No.”
“Well, I just don’t think that’s right.”
And just like that she was gone.
#1
It was a normal Saturday afternoon. I had been mostly working the meat slicer that afternoon, but thanks to my coworker’s impeccable timing, he went on break just minutes before a big, angry guy came into storming over to our counter, carrying a bag of our fried chicken. He put the bag on the counter and said, “I need a refund.”
“Ok, sir. What’s the problem?”
“This chicken ain’t cooked, man. It’s all raw.”
“Alright, well, I apologize for that. I can definitely help you out. Would you just like another bag of chicken instead?”
“Nah…I just want my money back.”
“Ok. Give me just one moment.” I took the bag and looked inside to see if the chicken was actually raw. What did I find inside?
A pile of chicken bones, stripped almost completely clean.
After a double-take, I spoke up. “Sir, did you eat this chicken?”
“Well, yeah, man. How the hell do you think I know it ain’t cooked?”
“So…wait a minute. You ate this chicken, even though it was raw?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I can’t give you a refund.”
“Why not?”
“Because you ate the chicken!”
He protested again and asked that I call for the manager, which I was more than happy to do. The manager, who wasn’t all that sympathetic to customers’ problems to begin with, listened to my recap of the story, took one look in the bag and told the guy that not only would he not be receiving a refund but that he was not to order chicken or anything else from our bakery/deli or bother any of his store’s staff with anything else ever again. After bowing up and trying to look intimidating, the big guy declared this to be “shitty customer service” before leaving rather quietly.
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