Experiences with Idiots working at Stores

I think you misunderstand here. The point is that these "Human Beings" are treating me like a piece of shit because they think I can't afford to be standing in the room. Everybody's been a clerk at some point in their life, you just don't have to be a jerk off about it just because you're wearing a "Bloomingdales" or "Sachs" badge or whatever. You treat customers with a little respect and they'll generally treat you back like that.

You might want to go back and re-read before you stand up for the basic human rights of assholes everywhere.

Wow, again you misunderstand and take this too far. I said "just a fucking clerk" in the sense of "you don't own this shop to be giving me the stinkface. You just work here." Make no mistake - I'm not insulting you or the blue collar workers around the world. I'm one too. If you've got a worker's rebellion to start, be my guest.

No, I'm talking about the assholes who feel the need to make you feel like shit for not being wealthy when they live right next door to you. The difference between you and them is that they get to surround themselves with the trappings of wealth at work and forget that it ain't their's. Now if you need to hate me for that knock yourself out.

By the way, I dug your contortion set. You and it are very sexy. Screw those guys for turning it down.

I'm just a recluse artist type, but these stories ... like the "Dilbert" strip ... always depress me.

I hate that too.

I'm from the SF bay area, and I like some pretty nice stuff. Not Gucci or whatever, but I like shopping at some relatively expensive and nice department stores. I've grown up with them, and save up for and love nice clothing.

Anyway, I guess I am used to CA where everyone wears flip-flops and whatever. Now that I moved to Europe I get absolute SHIT every time I go into ANY kind of store other than H&M. The town where I live has a number of nice stores, equal to Nordstrom or Macy's.

EVERY time I go in those stores I get shit from the people who work there. I'm not sure why the attitude is so different, but it really is. I get followed around and practically harassed. I touched a stack of Seven jeans and held one up to me. The sales girl stood next to me and would not go away. When I put the jeans down she folded them all up and asked me if she could help me totally snotty. I said I wanted to see what styles there were since I was a fan of the jeans. She then told me they were very expensive jeans. I told her I KNEW THEY WERE "expensive" because I had a bunch of pairs at home. It was admittingly the
lamest conversation I have had since grade 8.

Oh well, it is pretty lame when you are treated like that in stores. I never got it until now, though.

I think it would help everyone to be more personable.


It's amazing what a simple smile and acknowledgement of someone elses existence will do these days.

this ones not that bad, just irritating.
i had this rich lady come into my work the other day. they were doing construction and for some reason a pipe started slowly leaking. so we put a towel down to soak up most of the water and put up one of those bright yellow wet floor signs.
so she walks into the water and almost slips. then she comes up to me all pissed off yelling
"you know theres a big puddle of water over there, you need to clean that up!"
"oh really, where at?"
and she points, "over there!"
"oh right behind that wet floor sign? ill get right on that "

I had a good one the other day... A new clothes shop has just opened in town, and Emily and I were having a look around. She found a few things she liked and tried them on, then went back to looking for more stuff. When she went to try on some jeans, I waited outside the changing area holding the sweater she liked, which had (pink, orange and lime-green horizontal stripes (Actually looked nice) After a few minutes, the gimp monitoring the changing area asked
"Are you waiting to try that on?"

I just shook my head and said I was waiting for my fiance.
Asking a guy if he wants to wear women's clothes... Great customer service there, motherfucker
Looking back, I should've complained to the manager and said I was really offended. Might've got Emily some discount off the stuff she chose.

In fairness, though, there's plenty of guys around who wear women's tops, stuff like that. It's all part of that metrosexual thing that's going down.

Dude, that was sooo last year This was a top that not even David Beckham would have worn at the height of his sarrong-wearing Not only was it blatantly a woman's top, it was also several sizes too small for me, and I was waiting nearly 10 feet from the waiting area, it wasn't as if I was standing in line to go in The guy was just a dim-witted mong (probably care in the community or something)

i worked for a stint as relief key at lane bryant. this meant i was manager when the real managers wanted a day off. i knew how to do everything in the store...but gawd forbid they pay me like a manager.
anyway. returns were always a big problem. most people would try to do cash returns in the morning for like 80 dollars worth of clothes. Our cash drawers only had 100 dollars in them to start and that was all the money we had. People were so upset that we couldn't give them their cash back or they had to come back later.
but one day I got a phone call from another store. They asked if we'd heard from a lady who's $10 shirt was ruined becuz we left the tag on it and she washed it. I said we hadn't. The girl from the other store said ok. She just wondered becuz they lady called in and said she'd bought it at our store but called theirs to ask if she could return it. But she didn't return it to their store. She returned it to mine.
She tells me her story of how she bought it, washed it, and the ink tag exploded and ruined her shirt. She did have a receipt. It was from a month earlier. She said the she'd gone to the other store and they removed the tag but said she had to return it to the store she bought it at. :cough: bullshit :cough:
So I said maam I can not return this shirt. Not only do we not tag our t-shirts but we don't have ink tags. It wasn't an ink tag that ruined your shirt in the wash. (the stains weren't even blue or black either) and she got pissed at me and screamed that she was never shopping there again. and she even made a complaint against me. I was told by the real managers that I should've returned it. The customer is always right.
so there you go. the customer is always right...even when they're obviously trying to bullshit you.

That sucks that you didn't have the support of your managers. Back when I was the assistant manager of a video store (with a company policy that when the manager isn't in the store, the Asst.Manager is the manager) I had some tosspiece come in and try to return a load of DVDs without a reciept. I refused the return because there wasn't a receipt, and after much arguing on both parts, I told the guy to go fuck himself and get the hell out. Needless to say, he called Head Office, and they told the manager to let him come in and exchange the DVDs regardless of him having a reciept. Our manager wasn't one for taking shit from customers or Head Office, and always stood up for staff against customers. When the guy came back in, the manager scanned the DVDs, and they weren't even on the stock list. He'd never even bought them from the store in the first place At this point, the manager then told the guy to fuck off out of his store, quit wasting his staff's time, and that he wasn't welcome to come back again. We never saw or heard from the twat again

You guys should try shopping in different countries where there is no such thing as customer service. Seriously, if someone in a grocery store wants to be rude to you as a customer, they are allowed to. If they want to ignore you, they can. It's really weird coming from America where salespeople HAVE to be nice to you.
Some of this is good, some of it bad.



[Edited on Sep 05, 2005 by zwiebel]

i fucking hate people..

we used to have a really lax policy about returns at work. so of course some people abused it. we still take back flat irons that are broken after 2 years in the store (even though they are supposed to send in the warranty and mail them into the company) and almost empty shampoo bottles. but some people were ripping the store off. one lady would come in a few times a month when different people were working and say stuff like " well, i got this as a present and i don't really need anything else here" so, we'd give her cash back. well, she did this over a few months and Ifinally noticed (my manager is a fucking moron who doesn't know how to work the computer system) that this one lady kept returning stuff. i looked up her sales vs. returns and she had $500 more in returns than sales. she was stealing stuff then returning it for cash. she was doing at another one of our stores too. so they finally called her (she tried to return stuff 3 more times after we figured it all out) and told her not to come back into the store. then she left some message on our answering machine about how she was going to take legal action against the store and that her "lawyer" (who happened to have the same last name as her sister) would be calling. so.. i guess she thought she was gonna sue for not being allowed in the store??
p.s. someone saw her at a meth clinic a few months later..
ugh
i have like 8 more stories..

I used to be a hair stylist.

I only experienced 3 really bad customers.

Number one: An old lady who didnt know she had an infected scalp.

Her hair was set in a 40's style pin curl thing and she came in to get it re-set.
So I sat her down at the basins to shampoo her hair and the minuite I toucher her hair it felt a little squishy. So I pulled it away to look at her scalp and it was crusted in thick green puss that stank of rotting fish and sewage. She refused to beleive it even when I showed her the puss in a mirror.
She got pissed so I called my manager over who refered her to a doctor.

Number two: Someone who kept stealing product.

She came in with her daughter to get her hair relaxed and her daughters hair done for a party. I did the relaxing and when ever I turned my back to get some boards from my 2nd trolley she would scoop some relaxing cream into a little ziplock baggie. I noticed about the 5th time she did it and told her off. She got pissed at me and sreamed for the manager. He came over and spoke to her, asked for the product back and she denied having any. So he stood with me while I finished.

She paid - didnt leave a tip - and left. Half an hour later she came back in screeching about her cell and bag being ruined by the product she had stolen and demanded for it to be replace. We asked her to leave and she wouldnt so we threatened to call the police and charge her with shoplifting the product. She left and never came back.

Number three: Mother from hell.

I had to cut her kids hair. The child would have been about 7 or so and I told her to keep very still and look right ahead while I cut the hair. She was really good and did exactly as I asked. Untill her mother shouted at the kid for not looking at her while she was speaking. I asked the mother to calm down and explained that the kid had to keep her head still and facing ahead. She then told me not to tell her how to parent and to 'cut the fucking hair bitch'.

So I ignored it and kept going. I asked them both if she wanted her bangs trimmed and mother and daughter both aggreed. So I go to cut them and mum goes to get a magazine. She comes back throws the mags on the floor and slaps my hand out of the way as I was cutting a section of hair. It caused my scissors to slip and I cut right through my finger to the bone. Shes shouting at me telling me 'dont cut them that way'. I put my stuff down tell her to fuck off and not tell me how to do my job and walk off to get the first aid kit. My manager goes over to try diffuse the situation and Im told to go to the doctor and get my hand stiched up. All the while shes hollering about how Im rude and lazy and she demands that I finish the cut. She was told to leave and never come back.

We heard from her lawyers 2 weeks later. She was sueing us for damages because we apparently cause her and the kid signifigant mental stress and trauma. We counter sued and won. I got 2grand in damages because the cut was so deep i couldnt work for a month.

I never went back.

People who sue are the worst. It's amazing what people think up. Suing is fucking retarded. I've been poisioned by oysters at a sushi place and almost died.. I didn't SUE. I knew the owners and they were awesome people and very upset. I've been given the wrong meds at a pharmacy and I didn't SUE.. I noticed luckily after only taking 2 of them. Really bad thing and the person who filled it got in really big trouble, but I was NOT HURT.. why should I sue?

I think about 90% of the time suing is trashy and totally fucked up. I know people who own businesses and are constantly getting sued. People trip on a PUBLIC sidewalk outside the business and try to sue because they got a bruised knee. People act like assholes and then when the employees lose it they try and sue.

working in a salon can be brutal.

Congratulations on being a white collar worker.

If you hate to see people treated badly, then why was it so dificult to see that I was the one being mistreated? And while I would never take that kind of treatment from a storeowner either, at least he would have the right to tell me to get out or refuse to serve me. It's his shop. These other guys do it just because they're jerks who've forgotten what it's like to treat people with a little respect and dignity. I worked in retail for 7 years and I made it my number one priority. These people didn't walk in to get a face full of my attitude. They just wanna buy a guitar, or whatever. In fact it's why I did so well - my customers came back to me because I wasn't "too cool to be bothered."

(Oh, and the "stinkface" (we've all seen it) is when someone scrunches their face up as though they've smelled something awful, or they're forced to deal with someone beneath their station. It's particularly nice when someone uses it in reference to you.)

Just out of curiousity, what's all this misplaced hostility towards me? I'm just some idiot posting that I hate being treated like shit by assholes (forgive the terrible pun.) With all due respect, pick your battles carefully.

I'm done.



[Edited on Sep 05, 2005 by rivethead1000]

Yep.
I still cringe whenever I see someone be an asshole to a hair stylist...

Oh, I just thought of another one...
I've been doing some part-time hours in an opticians recently to help save towards expanding my graphics business. It's interesting work, and the other people are nice. However, the manager doesn't have the first clue as how to actually run a store or legal issues. A while back, he tried to say that I couldn't come to work with my hair bleached. The Senior Partner said he'd have to see it, but that he didn't think it would be a problem. Before I get to see the Senior Partner, the manager says that "it's not an issue anymore..." Meaning the Senior Partner must have pointed out what an actionable situation he had put the business in, and if I'd've been fired and sued them, I'd've been able to take them to the cleaners. When I did then see the Senior Partner, he said all was fine... Fast forward to saturday last week... A couple come in and after much umming and ahhing, decide to buy two pairs of glasses (close to £1000) all together, but on monday, there is a nice letter asking if they can cancel the order and get a refund... The manager then tells them that it's a) not company policy to give refunds, and b) the people had effectively made a contract to purchase the glasses, so he didn't have to refund them
Now, I can agree that as the lenses had to be cut specifically for the frames (rather than just sent as blanks that could be put in storage) they wouldn't've been of any use to anyone else, but, that shouldn't mean the person still has to pay for them if they've changed their mind... My father in law often orders goods online, but then finds it cheaper elsewhere and cancels the order, but he's never been made to pay for something because he made the initial order... I'm just waiting for the manager to get himself in such a position that it costs him his job... I can't see myself having to wait long
[Edit for spelling]

[Edited on Sep 05, 2005 by Spike]

I work for cell phone companies, mostly, and people are CRAZY about their cell phones.

I have tons and tons of people who decline the cell phone insurance (because you only get one discount per contract, basically- phones are expensive electronic equipment, similar to an mp3 player or digital camera- why does no one understand this?). Anyway, about 2 days later they come in with a phone that's been dropped in the toilet or whatever, and then demand that I replace it for free. Uhhh... no.

I think that 90% of people don't understand what the word "warranty" means. Warranty means replace/repair of a manufacturer's defect. Warranty does NOT mean YOU dropped/gargled with/peed on your phone and you should get another for free.
I had a lady come in who had previously spoken to our greeter in the store. From what they both told me, the lady had come in with a phone without the original faceplate on it. With a lot of cellphones, the faceplate can only be changed if you remove little rubber things on the inside, and then unscrew it, making the speakers/lcd screen/camera vulnerable while you are changing it. This voids the manufacturer's warranty, usually. Anyway, the lady told our greeter that the screen was messed up. When our greeter looked at it, on the little outside display there seemed to be some strange looking dark marks. She explained to the lady about how the faceplate voids the warranty sometimes, and recommended that she change the faceplate back to the original and we could try sending it in for repair.
So lady comes back in with the original faceplate on and gets me. And look! There is a crack on the original faceplate directly above the dark marks. I point out the crack to her, show her how the crack directly lines up with the splotches, and explain to her that it is physical damage, and is not under warranty. She gets all defensive at this point, explaining she didn't do anything to the phone, and the dark mark was there since day one, and it's just gotten bigger since then. I explained to her that we have a 30 day return policy on manufacturer's defects, we explain this policy in detail to every new customer, and we attach a form explaining it to every receipt and contract. I asked her why she didn't return it as soon as she saw it was defective if that was the case. Oh, she was too busy.
I again explain that I will not send her phone in to be repaired under warranty, and explain the different options for replacing/repairing her phone. She again insists that she didn't do anything to it, and then lets me know that it's her teenage daughter's phone. I suggest that possibly something happened to the phone while in her daughter's care, such as being in a backpack and the corner of a book hitting the screen.
The woman FLIPS out and screams at me that her daughter has had a cellphone since she was 12, and she would NEVER lie to her. I explain the policy one more time and show her the crack again, and she leaves, telling me she'll be calling my manager (which she never did). I just shook my head, thinking, if this lady doesn't think her teenage daughter lies to her, she's more delusional than I thought.