Dumb Customers

Well, in my work we sell envelopes, large one’s small ones, well, yesterday this old woman came into work with a box of chocolates, she wanted to send it to someone and wanted to see our range of envelopes (now, she’s actually a recurring customer, so why she was asking I don’t know) so I take her down to that end of the store, showing her all our envelopes it’s obvious that none will fit the box she brought, but she picks up every envelope in turn and asks if it’s big enough, the only one large enough was twice the size and it’s no good using such a large envelope, my suggestion was to buy bubble wrap and brown paper and wrap it herself, but she moves onto our white envelopes (identical in size to the one’s she previously saw) and asked the exact same questions, then after the white she went back to the original envelopes and asked me everything again… then after I gave up… she asked the exact same questions of my coworker, tell me, how much customer service do you earn for 49 pence?

Though it’s technically wrong, I was in another store, kneeling on the floor comparing two different products when one woman walks up to me and begins quizing me upon the products because she ‘cant see the one she needs’, if the fact I wasn’t wearing that store’s bright green uniform didn’t clue her in to my not working there, I just couldn’t bring myself to telling her the truth…

One thursday night, on the run up to Christmas (we stayed open late on Thursdays) an old lady came into store and was served by one of my colleagues, now he’s the politest guy you could meet, now, this old lady buys some of our gift vouchers, my colleague, being the nice guy he is, wraps the vouchers and card in a small plastic bag and places them in the old woman’s shopping cart type thing (a bag with wheels.. you know what I mean).

Now myself and the manager were standing there and both saw this so imagine my surprise when the next day I receive a phone call from the old woman telling me she left without her vouchers, I didn’t hesitate in forwarding her call to the manager with the comment of ‘Am I crazy but didn’t we both see the vouchers in her bag when she left..’

I dunno if she was having us on or if she really couldn’t find them but considering the situation there was nothing we could do..

I’ve been working part time in this store for nearly a month, and not a day goes past without a customer asking the price of one of our dvd’s or cd’s, they all turn rather red faced when they’re shown the price sticker in the top left hand corner of every product.

Recently we have had some staffing issues at work, so I have worked a couple of extra hours here and there and have even had to work with relief workers for I shall not be allowed to work alone in the store.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I’m working with one relief manager and cause I don’t know how much of a joke I can have with her I’m working hard for once, I spend the entire day on the tills and she spends the entire day out the back door smoking, I thought fine, but at least she can’t accuse me of not working.

Now imagine my surprise when the following day I’ve been told that my till was down, then I was told that the same thing happened last time the manager was there…

As she approached she was grumbling loudly on the theme of how “absolutely ridiculous” something was. I could tell this was going to be a fun one.
“Don’t you keep any books?!” she barked at me. “Erm… We keep a couple in stock” I replied meekly raising my hands to try and illustrate the fact that we were surrounded by books “Are you looking for anyone in particular?”. “No, just books! Where are they?”. I again illustrated our surroundings by picking up a book of the shelf. “Oh, they’re there..” she replied.

Despite further explanation she still didn’t look beyond that one drop for any books..

It’s a common occurance for customers to bring two products to me and ask me how much they cost together, now if they can’t do the simple arithmetic and work out 12.99 + 12.99 - 5.00 then why should I know? Every time I get asked I make a big fuss of finding a calculator and doing the sum right in front of the customer, acting shocked when the end result arrives, like it’s the climax of some spiraling storyline..

We have this one guy at work, who sits on one counter while I sit upon another, now, this guy is constantly told to not ring for help unless he gets a queue of people (holding slightly more than a paper) yet every day, without fail, if he gets more than three people in a queue, no matter what they’re buying, he’ll ring his bell, now by the time someone else stops doing what they’re doing, walks to the front counter and sit down, this meager queue has vanished.

Yet he always does it, hell, in the two months I’ve been working there I’ve never rung my bell, (just because due to this guy everyone now ignores the bells) but oh well, maybe it’s how he gets his thrills, you just don’t know.

A customer walks up to my till, hands me a product retailing at £4.99, now the customer (in an attempt to be “cool”) slides a 50p piece across to me, to my reply of “right, I’ll need another £4.49″ the customer tapped the 50p, three seconds later he went bright red and realised it wasn’t enough…