Nerf Gun Debacle

This story is actually kind of sad. I was returning a nerf gun. It is toy gun that shoots soft nerf bullets. Well anywho she was there with her two kids, a 10 year old boy, and probably a 13 year old girl. We have been having issues with people returning empty boxes of these nerf guns, so I opened it and inside is legos. These legos aren’t loose; this woman actually taped them into the box to represent the gun. Now as if this isn’t classless enough, upon being confronted about the legos she begins to scream at her son. She is telling him how stupid he is, asking why he didn’t tell her that that’s how the box was when they bought it. She tells him how much he is embarrassing her. I felt incredibly sorry for both her son and her daughter. For this woman to react that way, she had to have been the one to do it. Well we didn’t do the return. And she ended up looking like a complete lunatic, another days work.

Woman who pretends not to speak English

The other day there was an Asian woman who was having problems with her store credit card. She came over to guest service and asked us to help her with her issue. The problem is that in store we have no access to any credit card information for security issues. As soon as we told her that she had to call the 1-800 number on the back of her card and talk to one of the credit representatives, she all of a sudden couldn’t speak English. It was like night and day. At first this was incredibly annoying, and then incredibly entertaining. Seeing my co-workers trying to reason with this woman who, we knew could understand them, but was pretending to be completely ignorant, was hilarious. They went so far as to find a team member who spoke her language to translate. The woman said that she couldn’t call because she doesn’t speak English. Long story short, we couldn’t help her, and she left looking like an lying idiot.

Returning condoms?

The title gives it away but leaves the best part out. Well, the story begins on a fairly slow Monday afternoon. A white man, average build in his mid thirties approaches the counter. He seems a bit nervous. He puts his bag on the counter takes a deep breath and takes out the item. Oh my gosh, it's condoms, Trojan Magnums to be exact. Well, anyone who knows anything about condoms knows that "Magnums" are meant for the larger sized man. When I saw this of course I stayed professional, so I asked him if there was anything wrong with the product. I don't even know why I asked. When people return them like that we can't put them back out on the shelf. He replies with probably the most funny return line I have ever heard...they were the wrong size. Now while I can't assume that they were too big, I will. At this point it is taking all of my energy not to laugh in this poor man's face. I waited until he left.

Crazy DVD Player Dude

This incident probably happened about a month ago. A skinny short white man came into the store and demanded that we give him his DVD player back. He had left it earlier after a return went bad. He said he had attempted to return the DVD player at 11. He had left to "get his receipt,". By this time is was 7 in the evening. Who leaves a DVD player that belongs to them at a store for 8 hours intentionally? Very fishy. On top of that he kept saying how he wasn't a "criminal". Who was calling him a criminal? Maybe the voice in his head. I of course made the mistake of saying, "Why did you leave it in the first place?" while the security guards were checking the tapes. This set him off. He was very fidigety to begin with but he started pacing, talking about how he knows someone who works for us and that he knows we can do the return. Well lo and behold when we got the confirmation that the DVD player was in fact his I couldn't do the return. He insisted that he knew better, still couldn't do it, he freaked out and left with the DVD player again in search of his receipt. All I have to say about this man is crack is whack.

Rude, rude, rude people

So today I was working doing my normal thing. A young blond girl, probably 18 or 19, comes up to the counter with a very bad attitude. I realize that when I say that I sound like a 65-year-old grandmother, but seriously, this girl was awful. The first thing she says when she walks up is, "You guys need to stop hiring stupid people." I don't know what she expected me to say, "Yes everyone who works here is a complete idiot, thank you for noticing"? What I actually did was take a moment to stop myself from slapping her, calm my voice, and say "Do you have a specific complaint about an individual?" She seemed flustered when I said this, probably because she didn't realize that I have a vocabulary. She responded with "her..." and pointed towards the front lanes, never really finishing her thought. I finished her return, and did not tell her to "have a good one". She didn't deserve it.

Crazy Eyes

This week I encountered a woman who literally scared me. While she didn't scream at me, or jump over the counter, she had the most frightening, intense eyes I have ever seen. Her eyes made it seem as if she was on the brink of insanity. She would ask a question such as, "Can I have this price adjusted?" and I would tell her our policy, and the expression in her eyes would change so dramatically that I would change my tone to bring the intensity down. Hey eyes made me feel like I was staring at a bull about to charge. I don't know if she was doing this intentionally or not, but I lean towards not being aware. I wonder if she realizes that everywhere she goes people are scared of her.

Intro to Dealing with the General Public

Before I start my blog I figure that I should give you, the reader, a little background into my subject. To begin I should tell you that I work for a large retail corporation in the guest service department. Working in guest service my duties include handling returns, processing defectives (all the opened and destroyed items that we can no longer sell), sorting reshop (random crap that you the customer/guest leave all over the place), and most importantly staying as cheerful as possible in the face of very aggravated/rude people. I will admit that many times I do have an incredible amount of difficulty staying nice in the face of true evil; but I'm only human.
Now with that out of the way we can dig into the juice that is the random crazy people that I deal with on a daily basis. I will start by talking about a "regular", someone who comes in often enough for me to actually recognize.
This particular woman likes to come in around closing time. Once she is spotted everyone who knows her will do whatever they can to avoid her, because once she spots you it is impossible to get away. She is like a pitbull. She latches on and will not let go. Now while I wish that I could get a still from a security camera to show you what this woman looks like (so that you can avoid her) this is the best I can do.
One night she came in about 2 hours before closing. First she came to guest service, asked a few pointless questions, and got a sales ad. She proceeded to spend about the next hour and a half in one of the motorized carts reading the sales ad, bothering employees passing by, and talking to random customers. Throughout this time my supervisor "D" (who is her favorite person) would periodically walk over and ask why she hadn't started shopping yet, to which she answered some nonsense.
Finally this woman actually goes out into the store (in the motorized cart). She is driving around everywhere, bumping into things, knocking over displays, just in general making a mess. I'm glad that I don't work on the salesfloor. So by this time the store is closing, announcements have been made but she is still shopping. People throughout the store politely tell her that the store is closed and finally she is led to the front to be rang up. This woman who closely resembles a bag lady spent more than a thousand dollars! By the look of her you would think that she is homeless. I mentioned this to one of my fellow employees and he told me that she does this all time time, spends an obscene amount of money on random crap. It is his opinion that she is a hoarder. He is probably right.
Anywho, this is one example of the many interesting/crazy people that I deal with on a day-to-day basis. More stories to come.