The Customer is always an Ass, Part 2

Virgin Megastore Tales #8122

Customer: I'm bringing this game back because it doesn't work.

Me: (checks receipt) Okay, you bought this game two months ago. You've only just discovered that it doesn't work?

Customer: Well, I've only just got to the last level, but then the game freezes, the screen goes green and all these numbers start coming up. (Yes, he actually said this.)

Me: (arched eyebrow) I see. Well, let me go get a replacement copy for you...

Customer: No, I want to get a different game.

Me: Well, this game right here is the one that's faulty and that's the one we're going to replace with a working copy.

Customer: NO! I'M GETTING A DIFFERENT GAME!

Me: Look, every 6-8 weeks you come into our store claiming that a game crashes on the last level, demanding we change it for a completely different game. You've been doing this for about a year now, so we're no longer extending you the benefit of the doubt regarding your claims. The £30 you paid a year ago has gone a long way and given you at least 8 brand new, full-price games. From now on, we're only replacing your faulty games with a copy of the same game, otherwise you'll need to shop elsewhere.

Customer: THAT'S BULLSHIT! I'M NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN!

Me: You haven't technically shopped here for a year anyway. Goodbye.

I'm working at my old job, an ice cream parlor, over the summer between college. I guess it's okay, it's good money for an ice cream place, but last night I had probably one of the worst customers ever (which reminded me a lot of the people in other stories in this thread). As the situation unfolded, I was keeping in the back of my mind the dialogue verbatim so I could go back and post it on the interweb like a cool kid.

A family of four comes in. A mom, a dad, and their two little girls. The first thing the mother asks me is how much a small sundae is. This is always semi-irritating, because the entire menu is in bold red letters on giant signs behind and above me, listing all the prices. But whatever, it happens, it's cool. I turn around, read the sign she should have been reading, and tell her.

Then we get on the topic of a difference between a small cup and a small sundae. A small cup is a... small cup of ice cream. A small sundae is a wider cup, and includes one topping in the price. This woman did not understand the concept, and why the prices were different, and thus, was getting pissed. I kept my cool, because I considered the whole exchange like a fun game. She finally settles on a small sundae after I explain the difference about four times. "Okay, but that's not how Friendly's does it", she says.

The family all get small sundaes with whipped cream. It's a little bit crowded at this time of night, so she's having a hard time getting to the counter.

"Watch out, honey," she says to her daughter. A man mistakes her for talking to him and promptly moves with an "Oh, I'm sorry".

"Not you", she snaps.

I wanted to give the man a secret sympathetic but I wanted to focus on getting her out of here as fast as possible.

The lady asks for the receipt after I ring them up. She'll be back to bitch about something later, I thought.

Sho' nuff, about fifteen minutes later, the woman comes back in. She's holding two more than half eaten sundaes.

"My kids don't like whipped cream."

"Hm, okay."

"Is there something else you can make them? Something smaller?"

"Hm, um, okay, hold on one second." I go into the back.

It's not really a problem when a kid doesn't like what they got, basically because it's so rare. So I go in the back and OK it with the dude in charge to make them something else.

I end up making the two little girls two small cups with sprinkles. As I'm putting the lids on in front of her and handing them to her, the woman hoists her purse up onto the counter.

"Oh, don't worry about it, it's fine", I smile.

"But isn't there a price difference?"

I'm not really comprehending what she's saying, because I didn't even fathom to think what she was really getting at.

"No, no, it's no problem."

She points to the disgusting, melty sundaes. "These were more than the small cups. There's a price difference. I have the receipt!"

I look at her in absolute disbelief. Okay lady, we're giving you free ice cream, and you refuse to pay for what you already bought (and pretty much consumed). And basically, the price difference between what she bought and what we gave her was about 75 cents. If the kids really didn't like whipped cream, you could have scraped it off when they realized it instead of eating whatever garbage you certainly didn't need and let it all melt into a disgusting mess, then try to basically return them and expect to get your money back? Are you kidding me, you cunt?

"Oh, um, hm. Heh, okay, just hold on one more second!" I go to the back again and bitch to the manager. He sighs, concedes, and says to give her a five dollar gift certificate.

"It's not worth losing a customer over", he says.

Sure it is, if the customer is that lady.

So I hand it to her, and her pudgy puppy dog face comes out.

"Oh really? Oh, now I feel bad! I feel bad!" I make a mental note that she does not say "Thank you" once.

"Don't worry about it, it's no problem."

After the fact, I ponder the whole thing being a scam, as she had specifically asked for the receipt. Either that or she was just a stupid bitch.

So the story doesn't have a "happy" ending, per se, but it's certainly one of those kind of stories. I can only hope that the lady is perpetually miserable, which is why she feels the need to nitpick every little detail of every day life.

I work simultaneously as both a host in a resteraunt and doing retail at Gamestop. A double dose of un-fun customers. Problems from customers when I'm hosting are usually easy to deal with because I can pass them off to their servers. But I figured I'd post another retail story.

I was going to my gamestop one afternoon after I had just gotten off work at my other job. I wanted to stick a reserve down for a DS game coming out in a few days that I knew I wanted to buy. Anyone who's worked at a store like gamestop knows how much it can suck trying to meet your reservaton and subs total, so I try to help out my coworkers. Anyways, I'm standing in line behind some woman and her kid. Both clerks are busy on registers doing long transactions. I think one guy was trying to trade in like 4 different systems, and we have to test all them to see if they work. This woman is on her phone and being really irritating. I guess she got fed up with waiting like 5 minutes for her turn because she says outloud, "Could this go any slower, I'm trying to get some help."

I wasn't in a rush to be anywhere so I decided I'd go behind the counter and help this woman out. The first thing she wanted was to get a gameboy game for her daughter. Only her kid had no idea what she wanted. No problem, you can see all our gameboy games in the glass cases they are in. That's not good enough for this woman, she demands I freaking pull all of them out so her kid can look each one over. Fine, whatever woman. I oblige her and start pulling out games until her kid finds one. I kind of take pride in helping people get good games so I don't really let it get to me.

Then this woman wants more help. Apparently, she bought an Xbox from one of our stores a good year ago but it stopped working recently. She wanted to get it replaced. I told her that unless she had bought a product-replacement- plan, there was nothing I could do past the initial defective guarentee we have. She gets pissed because she still has her receipt, which impressive as that is, doesn't help her. I told her that there was literally nothing we could do, but I knew a place nearby that repairs systems. The woman gets angry at me because we should guarentee all the merchandise we sell for life. I tried explaining to her that if she were to buy a car from a dealership, she cant go an completely destroy it years later then expect a replacement. Usually a car buying analogy works on people, but no, not this freaking woman. Let me remind you, she has been and still is having a conversation on her phone the whole time.

Fine, she can go have her attitude somewhere else. I just wanted to reserve a freaking game. I told her "Lady, I'm normally a really polite person, but you can go take you problem to somebody who still cares." At this point, she finally puts down her phone to retort, but I wasn't going to give her the chance. I walked out from behind the counter and got in the back of the line. She said something like, "You're going to just leave? This store has the worst customer service I have ever seen." I explained to her that I didn't work in the store, "I'm just tired of you being a bitch." Which in retrospect I shouldn't said in front of a kid. She turned beet red and just left the store without getting any of her transactions done.

After she left and people were staring at me, I explained I actually did work there and just wanted the woman to freaking cut it out. After that the 2-3 people there thought it was pretty funny. I suppose it was kind of a jerk thing to do, but at the time I didn't really care because I was tired after working all morning.