Customer Service Thread

Last five years now, for all holidays, I just flat tell people it's a matter of supply and demand: so long as you all come out and throw cash at us, we'll be here to catch it.

@budgie aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

oh god, the sugars... ours told about how many spoons each gave, and smalls have two parts of milk, mediums like three and so on, so if someone asked it light i fiddled with it, and if they were being nice enough and seemed REALLY worried about their caffeine-hell-brew tasting right, i'd let them eyeball it before adding coffee. or just. work via 'lightness'

ahhh coffeeshops....so many interesting times

'this is too bitter'
'its half expresso'
'it wasn't this bitter last time'

gods save us all from 'last time' customers

 

i know!! like all the people who are like "wow, i don't know why they're open today, today should be a day we spend with our families!!" i just wanna grab 'em and shake em like youuuu you are the reason that i am here, you chose to come here today!!!!

ugh

 

Good luck to everyone on Black Friday. I'm required to come in on my day off and I don't wanna. I feel like butts :c

 

Re: the one cream thing, I assume people are referring to the amount found in the individual creamer cups you get at diners and the like - about 15 ml or one tablespoon.

I work in catering at a fast casual restaurant these days, so my customer interaction is limited, but I used to wait tables and do prep at a raw food vegan cafe. That was a trip sometimes. I had one person interrogate me about the GMO status of our produce, which I had no way to find out because it's not like the produce people labeled it on the box, and we had a good mix of farmer's market daily vegetables besides. I also once had a couple tell me that they were terribly sorry to tell me, because all the food had been good and nothing had had disposable harmful plastics, but our air freshener was full of so many toxic chemicals. The air freshener in question was an essential oil warmer. This place was also where I picked up my intense hatred of the alkaline diet, because beside being scientifically unsound, it also meant people would come in for five or ten gallons of alkaline water from our special machine, and I would have to haul it out to their car for them.

 

no, we cannot help you recover your Yahoo account. We, the four employees of this shop in a 5000 pop. town, are not Yahoo.

 

Today the music system was stuck on a neverending loop of Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby.

 

[kmart flashbacks intensify]

 

yes

very yes

 

The prices went up. On one hand, I'm glad no one behaved as if it was Me Personally who raised them. On the other hand, I am very slightly disappointed I didn't get to use any of my prepared sarcastic responses, such as:

"I'm sorry, I'll bring it up at the next corporate lunch."

and:

"It's in the spirit of Christmas, we're all chipping in to buy one of our CEOs a new yacht."

 

/working register right next to frozen aisles
/guy asks where ice cream is
/look up and it's literally right there
/?????
/keep sarcasm to self until much later on the internets

 

Just spent an hour and a half writing orders for a guy who kept calling his wife every couple minutes and texting her photos of the pieces for her approval.

She was home sick apparently which...ok...but he'd spend 5 minutes talking to her in Russian and then be like "she didn't like it" but apparently she wasn't telling him WHY she didn't like it, so we were just picking stuff at random and hoping she'd approve.

He was nice enough just. He handed his phone to me once and she spoke to me in perfect English to ask about discounts and I'm thinking WHY CANT I ASK HER WHAT HER TASTES ARE SO I CAN MATCH THEM INSTEAD OF PLAYING THIS GUESSING GAME. AHHHH.

 

Dear People Who Decide To Do A Return On Black Friday Weekend,

Yes, this is quite a long line. Yes, I see you glaring at me although it's my fault that my computer terminal has crashed for the second time today, and no, that isn't going to make it suddenly start working better. Also, if you could hand me your receipt instead of flinging it at me like an insect carcass, so I don't have to play a quick game of impromptu baseball for every customer, that would also help your return go much faster.

And yes, I'm sorry you had to wait in the looooooongest line everrrrrr up at front, only to be told that you were in the wrong spot and had to come alllllllllllll the way back here and wait in and even longerrrrrrrrrr line but I am not psychic, and do not know every customer who comes into the store. Oh, and I apologize that they didn't accurately explain how our coupons work up front, and yelling at me isn't going to magically get you the discount you seek. No, I can't tell "them" up front how the coupons work, because I have no idea who you talked to. Oh okay, go ahead and keep screaming at me, that's fine. You still can't use this coupon, ma'am.

Sincerely,

I have worked a total of 26 hours this weekend and I have had it with your bullshit

 

Thiiiiiis. Thiiiiiissssss.

Related but slightly less infuriating: look at me when you hand me your money!!

 

My last retail job was in a luggage store. The store ended up closing down because the shopping centre increased the rent and they couldn't afford it any more. So, the area manager, myself and another girl that worked there came in on the final day to pack up all the remaining stock and clean up etc. We had the shutter open only about knee-height, and we raised it only so we could go to the garbage room.

We had to keep the shutter at knee-height, despite how annoying it was to constantly raise and lower it, because if it was any higher people would crawl under the shutter and start shopping. Or they would just stick their head after and ask, "Are you open?" to three women who were wearing dirt-covered labouring clothes and packing suitcases and piles of handbags into cardboard boxes. There was no merch on the walls, or posters or anything. The shutter was half closed. Like. DO we. Look open????

We let a few people who needed to do returns in, and inevitably other people would try to enter. We'd be like, "Sorry, we're closed. These people are just doing a return, they're not buying anything." We'd get, "I just want to look! Why can't I buy a suitcase anyway? You have all of them right there!" because we're NOT ACTUALLY OPEN GO AWAY, WE HAVE TO MAIL THIS STUFF BACK TO HQ.

And then there were the people personally offended that we had not personally informed them that we were closing. Like buddy, I don't even know who you are, fuck off.

Our manager bought us cupcakes tho so that was nice.

 

We also had a closing down sale and I have seen hell. I went non-verbal and just bagged people's stuff because I Could Not.

That job also lead to me having a truly spectacular autistic burnout which I have only sorta kinda recently recovered from. The job was like, 2.5 years ago and I only did it for 3 months. So uh. Yeah. Fuck retail.

 

Like the first couple times it happens you try not to take it personally but after a while it's like... hi yes, hello, I am an actual real human being, not a money-dispensing automaton, eye contact is a thing we could be doing here. Maybe that would be nice?? To talk to me like a person?? No??? Oh okay that's fine.

 

How about please no because eye contact is stressful and scary and i have a hard time even faking it reliably

 

i know i do a thing at cash registers where i don't look at people really, but i also make an effort to respond verbally and smile
also, when i go shopping i have earbuds in, so i remove the earbuds when i come up to the counter. it's like tipping a hat.

working at officemax was fucky for my brain in general, but i think my least favorite people were the people who cut me off halfway through asking something and then treated me like i was an idiot for still trying to ask the questions i was required to ask.

once, a couple told me they were in a hurry & didn't want to deal with all the questions, so i didn't ask if they wanted a ream of paper, which was a promotion we were pushing. it also said on my register that if you didn't ask if they wanted paper, then they got a free case of water. they seemed really nice, so i let it go.
They came back an hour later to tell my manager i hadn't asked about paper, and were laughing as they walked out of the store with their water.
my manager gave me a really long talk afterwards about making sure i had to ask everyone about everything.

....and so, even if i say "no thanks" to everything, I make sure i listen and respond, even if i don't generally look at people's faces

 

i love everyone in this thread. i have so many shitty retail stories to share but i'm going to tell you my favourite/the stupidest one because it was like three years ago and i'm still mad.

i used to work at this cafe/bakery place, and it was usually pretty boring, one day this old man comes in and he asks very loudly and pointedly for a gingerbreadMAN with his coffee. so i bag up his gingerbread and carry on but no, apparently he's not done. the label says "gingerbread person" and he's PISSED. "That's a gingerbreadMAN!" he says. "Okay." I say. "NONE OF THIS PC NONSENSE, IT'S ALWAYS BEEN-" Jesus christ. It's a fucking biscuit. it doesn't have a gender just eat the fucking biscuit and leave, but no, he's still going. my nonbinary ass is standing there listening to him rant about the proper (MANLY) nomenclature for a fucking biscuit like



He tried to demand i changed the label. i said i couldn't, and i hope he enjoyed his gingerbread person and goodbye :)

honestly retail/food is like a magical journey into an alternate universe.