customer service tales

Anyone out there ever worked in any kind of customer service, sales, or retail job?Have any fun war stories?Do share.

No retail stories but I did spend 10 years working in a residential facility for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.I not only have the war stories, but I have the scars to boot.My local police station has my name listed on more calls than many criminals and the 8x10 glossies of my neck are a sight to behold. LOL

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"select * from USERS where CLUE > 0http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

ever seen office space?know that printer scene?i've actually done that.

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אָרַח

Got a call from a bank one Saturday afternoon about the printer that they used to print the certified checks being down. When I got there the Branch manager met me at the door with "I hear you charge a minimum of $75.00 for a visit so don't just jiggle some wire and present your bill. And I already looked and it's plugged into the wall so don't give me that."We'll, I walked over and as he said it was plugged into the wall, but not to the computer. But having been warned not to just "jiggle some wires and present a bill", I packed the printer up to take it back to the office for service. The Manager explained they needed that printer and would pay extra if we'd work on it Sunday so it would be ready Monday morning. He'd pay whatever surcharge that would entail. LOL

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Here's one from two days back:A man walks past the cash register and suddenly stops. He looks at me and starts singin "It's a summersurprise, a summersurprise...".Then he farted.

Hi Scraf:I worked retail sales for a number of years before returning to College. I have always fellt that everyone should be required to work in either the fast-food industry or retail sales during the Christmas Holiday period at least once in their lives. Perhaps then they would understand just how stressful dealing with the American Consumer Public can be.I know most people will probably respond to this thread with a "war" story, so I'll tell one on a more "enjoyable" level. Our changing room (I once worked at a major sporting goods store) was designed such that it consisted of multiple individual changing stalls located inside of a larger room that only had one door, and that door was kept locked. This particular day I had the key and was letting quite a few people in the room to try on their outfits. While I was standing there, letting an individual in, a mother walked past with more swim suits for her 17-18 year old daughter to try on. Well she proceeded to open up the stall door in which her daughter was standing, and handed her the suits. Never mind that her daughter was completely naked! She casually hands her stark naked daughter the suits like it’s no big deal. Her daughter takes them, thanks her, and closes the stall door. I just kinda stood there, silently thanking whoever it was that put me in charge of the changing room that afternoon.Of course, I do have plenty of stories of the other kind (drunken husbands on Christmas Eve, shop lifters, screaming customers, etc). I did, on one very busy occasion, staple my thumb to a bag. The staple went clean through the nail and even bent over as if pierced the flesh. The customer looked at me and said I’ll bet that hurts. I said yep, excused myself and went to the back offices to remove the staple. I returned a couple minutes later with a bandaged thumb, only to face the wrath of a pissed off store manger for leaving my post (I was only assisting the cashier by helping her bag stuff, she was doing just fine without me) and the other customers in line actually came to my defense and basically told my boss to lighten up. It was pretty cool.Also, just so ya know, I was in your Deli a couple weekends back (you were not there) and purchased the Pasolive olive oil for my wife, who returns from Beaver Island next week and can once again do some cooking (she can’t waitand neither can I).

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I worked retail sales for a number of years before returning to College. I have always fellt that everyone should be required to work in either the fast-food industry or retail sales during the Christmas Holiday period at least once in their lives. Perhaps then they would understand just how stressful dealing with the American Consumer Public can be.

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It's why I do all my shopping online - removes all the stress!

Well, that would be a real Christmas miracle then, what with me living in the Netherlands an' all. Unless of course the entire American Consumer Public moves over here during the Christmas Holiday.Sorry FliesOnly, I just couldn't resist. I realise you probably meant well, but sometimes I'd like to yell to you Americans that the world is bigger than the USA.I have never worked in a shop or anything, but I've been a customer often enough and I have a story. First, you should know that, despite my avatar, I am male. Once I was in a department store with my girl friend and she bought some lingerie. When we went to the cashier, a young girl, to pay for them, my girl friend put the lingerie on the counter and then found out she was short on cash and asked me if I had some. I answered,: "Only if you'll let me wear it once in while." The look on the girl's face is something I'll never forget.

Parasomnium:Ah, but you see, I meant to say American Consumer public because having dealt with them, I feel that many can be some of the most rude..give me, give me , give me...I want it, I want it, I want it...mine, mine, mine...it's all about me, people on the planet.Since I've never dealt with other Countries consumers during the Christmas Holidays, I have no basis of comparison. If you have the same sort of jerks in the Netherlands...well then I apologize. I certainly didn't want to make it sound like we (the good ole U.S. of A) have a monopoly on assholes, but it's not really something to be proud of you know.

Well, there may be a similar subgroup of bossy, helpless customer with a huge sense of entitlement in other countries, but I don't know.I do know that in the US, service is viewed as something to aspire to receive, not to provide. People in the service sector are typically viewed by society as low-skill, uneducated, unimportant, low-status, non-people.This is not true everyhere else. In France, for example, waiters are very highly trained and paid and have a lengthy apprenticeship. It's considered a very important job, because people in France revere the entire restaurant experience.It has been very interesting to see the respect that I get when I am amongst other specialty food retail professionals and they find out I am a Zingerman's product specialist, but that the everyday customer at the store sometimes treats me like I'm an idiot.I believe that to be a valid response, though, seeing as how most retail employees are completely untrained and the pay scale they usually get is not likely to attract the best and brightest.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-19-2005 02:53 PM

FliesOnly,Thank you for pointing me my place. I hadn't realised that what I said could be understood as you did. Sure, we have our own allotment of jerks in the Netherlands. But I'll gladly let you have more of them if you like.This reminds me of a commercial we had on TV a few years ago. A typical American tourist visits the Netherlands and comments on things he is shown by his Dutch hosts. When shown a wide view, he says: "Our prairies are muuuuuuch bigger!" When shown a tall building, he says: "Our skyscrapers are muuuuuch taller!" Then they take him to a fastfood restaurant and he is served a really huge hamburger. He falls silent for a moment, but then brightens up and exclaims: "But our plates are muuuuuch bigger!"Anyway, my country has the nasty habit of picking up every fad that blows over from the USA. For some people here, everything you Americans do is a great idea by definition.Take horseback riding for instance. (Are you listening, Schraf?) For as long as anyone can remember, we've quietly been riding European (English/German) style over here. Then, some years ago, western style riding was discovered among horse people. All of a sudden everyone had to wear long riding chaps - you know, the ones that make the crotch of your jeans stand out preposterously - with a cow's hide worth of fringes alongside, their heads crowned with the ineluctable Stetson. Horses now had to do all sorts of leg ruining movements at the touch of a rope. (What cruel methods must be used to teach them this, one wonders?) And then there's the line dancing! I mean, these people are adults, for God's sake! What the hell went wrong here?Sorry for the rant, I had to get it off my chest.

Oh my, I had no idea that the Dutch were playing cowboy!I'm so sorry.

Well, I may have exaggerated a bit. Not every Dutch rider partakes in this nonsense. But ever since a "western experience" - they haven't even bothered to find a proper Dutch term for it - is a must-have for every self-respecting horse show nowadays, I've completely lost my appetite for such events. Instead, I saddle my horse with an English saddle, don a safety helmet, and go for a quiet ride in the woods.P.S.: If I remember correctly, your previous avatar was a picture of yourself in mid-jump, in what I would call 'normal' riding clothes. Good for you!

I worked general retail for quite some time, but my really good stories are from when I became a computer technician working out of retail computer shops.While working at Gateway, a woman came into the tech center and said she had been on the phone with tech support and they told her to take the "batteries" out of her computer. She had been having issues with her system's internal clock, and reseating or replacing the battery will typically fix that. However, when she tried to put the "batteries" back in to the computer, they wouldn't syat! So, she brought the system down to us.My co-worker greeted her at the front counter, and when she handed him the batteries, he had to quickly run around to the back to hold in the laughter. When he showed the rest of us what she had actually given to him, we saw that she had actually ripped a pair of capacitors (which, admittedly, look a lot like camera batteries) off of the motherboard! Being soldered on to the board, she had to work pretty hard to get them out, and was lucky not to get zapped. We covered it under warranty because it was a reasonable mistake.Another customer brought in a computer with some issues, and we needed to use the floppy drive. Unfortunately, ssomething was in the way, stuck in the drive. We used a pair of pliers, and pulled out...an American Express Blue card, the kind with the microchip! The guy told us later that he had been trying to pay his bills online, had tried to use his card in the "card slot," and it got stuck. Note that this was NOT the reason he had brought the computer in, and we discovered it by accident.Then there was the old lady with the computer that wouldn't turn on. It shot sparks out the back whenver you plugged it in! Upon questioning her, we found out that she had spilled water directly into the power supply. She became outraged when we told her that she would have to pay for the repair (phyisical damage not being covered by the warranty) - after all, it was only water!I've got a million of these stories. Computers seem to make even otherwise intelligent people suddenly very stupid.