GENERAL COSUMER PUBLIC: RETARDED OR STUPID?

*RUINED MY WHOLE DAY ETC.

http://www.specialbrew.info/gigs/oldpics/mixing%20with%20the%20general%20public%20at%20the%20general%20wolfe.jpg

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j171/mdanielwalter/mixing20with20the20general20public2.jpg
^^This guy.

Okay, evidence (i.e. worst of several kinds of retail):

liquor store: man coming in and peeing on display

bookstore: finding, in the children's section, two children's book stuck together with poop

clothing store: woman who threw the pantyhose (in a box) she was going to purchase at me because she thought she should be next in line (she was a festive Xmas shopper)

I don't want to think too much about this, because it makes me hate people.

omgmhahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Was the guy in the liquor store John or FB?

Drunk guy used to come in and steal blue Mad Dog all the time. One time, I caught him in the act, but he pushed me into a L'Eggs pantyhose display and ran away.

Later, I "cornered" him (not trying very hard, but he was too wasted to do anything but wobble back and forth like a Pac-Man ghost) and called the cops. They scooped him up and gave him a criminal trespass notice.

Couple weeks later, he came back, marginally less drunk, and tried to buy some blue Mad Dog. I refused and told him about the CT notice. He just acted wounded & misunderstood. Then ran off with the blue Mad Dog and a bootleg Raiders hat. I chased him to the door, but once he got out of the parking lot, I didn't give a shit anymore.

A minute later, I was standing by the register, when I noticed something out by the pumps. I turned around to see the guy pointing a gun at me. The window exploded and I closed my eyes at about the same time. I hoped there wasn't a bullet in my brain. He ran away again, winding up holed up in his mom's house, holding off the cops at gunpoint for about 4 hours.

He defended himself in court. Did a pretty good job of it, too. Presentable, articulate, unimpared. Lost anyway. Fucker.

contenderizer - Wow!

xpost See what you miss by not spending a few years working in retail?

Also - neither John nor FB. Regrettably.

holy shit !!!!

The number of "people are stupid and/or dangerous" stories that I have is kind of staggering now that I come to think about it...

ha you don't even need to resort to retail, just catalogue the nonsense that happened in our high school

hahaha good point!

we keep a dry erase board up at work to catalog the stupidities of our customers:

"I'm looking at your diaphragm."
me: "Uh, diagram?"

"Is it okay to wear my Harley shirt to the ballet?"

"What language is Romeo and Juliette in?"
Uhh, the language of dance?

"What's the date on Friday the 8th?"

"Do I have to give you all the numbers on the card?"

in conclusion: STUPID AND RETARDED

"Do I have to give you all the numbers on the card?"

lololololololololololololololololol I'm going to start asking this

hahaha

Male customers are Victoria's Secret inevitably would follow one of two scripts:

Man: I'd like to buy my wife a bra.

Me: Okay, do you know her bra size?

Man: (looking slightly panicked) Uh. No. (pause, looks around helplessly) She's about your size.

******

Man: I'd like to buy my girlfriend some cologne... what's it called... Rupture*.

Me: Oh, yes, Rapture, it's right over here...

*occasionally a guy would say "Raptor" instead of "Rupture"

oh wau, hahahahahahahahahahaha "Rupture"

You really had to wonder what these guys thought that word meant.

"Do you also sell sexy jackhammers here?"

lolol

the minute someone makes a perfume called "raptor" or even better "velociraptor" i am buying 50 bottles of it for my girlfriend because it will smell like awesome

Ichthyosaurus: For Women

I would like to see the marketing campaign for those scents.

Actually, I'd also like to sit in on the meetings leading to the advertising campaigns.

"We're aiming to sell this fragrance to thirtysomething suburban men and women who grew up watching Land of the Lost..."

a patron just gave me a bottle of Glenlivet! Not all stupid and retarded then

@ Bose store i used to work in:

guy: you sell radios for the car
me: bose does manufacture car radios, but you'd need to go through your dealer
guy: fuckin shit my wife's gonna kill me
me: can i help you with something else?
guy: what about i buy one of those wave deals and stick it on the dashboard?
me: (5 minutes of reasons why this is a bad idea)
guy: listen, i'm gonna do this later.

(two weeks later)

guy: hey, you sold me a bose radio for my car
me: oh, hi
guy: i wanted to tell you, you're wrong, it works great.
me: that's good.
guy: you should sell pads, though, because it cracked my wife's windshield when she stopped fast.

remy... wow. Just wow.

xpost You're right; there are people out there who are really nice and cool, but somehow they are not as memorable as the stupid/evil people that you still have to try to be nice to.

Glenlivet!

i know, right? in a gift box with a nice card

NOW WHOS THE RETARDED:

ILX 2You have already voted in this poll and cannot vote again.

i dont even know where to begin with this one

there was the guy who called and said he wanted to come in for help because he had gotten his arm stuck in the hole of his acoustic guitar, which of course I took as a prank, especially after he said he couldn't come in until later because he couldn't drive his car with one arm stuck in his guitar so he had to wait for his wife to come home and give him a ride.

two hours later, he showed up. no shit.

wait

hahahahahahahahaha

Did you then say "Long time, no see 44r0n Hu3bsch!"?

Or did you say "R0n v0n B4rg3n! You got married???"

hahahahaha

I'm trying to imagine what his thinking was... "I'd better go to Eclipse instead of the Emergency Room..."

(also boggling over someone sitting for two hours at home with their arm stuck in a guitar... hahahahaha)

not as awesome as the guitar story, but i was working in a bookstore when Harry Potter #3 came out so I had to work the midnight party. at one point during all the mad ringing up and kids up way past their bedtime and a bunch of people running around in wizard hats the phone rang. when i answered it (keep in mind this is 1 in the morning. . .who calls a bookstore at 1 in the morning) the guy on the line asked me if i knew when the book about the president's penis was coming out. i hung up on him.

he called a few minutes later and cursed me out. i told him he was crazy and hung up on him again.

a few months later this horrible book pictured below came out and guess what? it features a talking presidential penis. LOL, me.

http://www.randomhouse.com/images/dyn/dcover/?source=9780375412523&trans=resize:150y%3Bborder:989595:1%3B

hahaha - wow.

So many random bookstore stories. My Very Last Day, my very last customer was some idiot who wanted to find a book specifically about doing S-corporation taxes... which were due the NEXT DAY. It took me about an hour to prove to him that even in a large bookstore, a book that specific was not available (books that were more general were not acceptable, apparently) - and he'd have to order one from the publisher if that is what he wanted to do. He was really kind of a jerk with no foresight was my impression.

The JERK impression was solidified when he came back a few minutes later asking for a copy of The Bell Curve.

Another request. "I'm looking for a book that was sitting here on this shelf yesterday." (points) "I don't know the title or the author, but it was blue. And it was about air."

(I don't think we ever figured that one out.)

Oh! When It Takes a Village came out a crazy right wing woman with seriously smeary eyeliner came in to the info. desk to rant to me about how Hillary had "plagiarized" the book. I don't know if she thought I was going to say, "oh, you're right; we'd better pull all the copies right away..." or what. Eventually her husband dragged her away.

yeah i worked in a bookstore through the later clinton years, starr report and monica's book. it was awful the crap they were publishing

It was really kind of depressing to see people buying it up, wasn't it.

One final boring bookstore story:

Customer: Do you have Marching Toward Armageddon by Bill Bennett?

Me: Uh, do you mean Slouching Toward Gomorrah by Robert Bork?

Customer: Yes, that's the book I'm looking for.

(I never would have caught that one if it hadn't been on the NYT best seller list)

When I was a student working part-time in B&Q (a hardware store) I got some belters:

Woman holding two barely distinguishable cans of off-white paint: Which one of these is more contemporary?

Man holding up a can of paint: Will this do my living room?
Me: What size is your living room?
Man: Living room size.

Man: is the 20% percent off for OAPs on a Wednesday 20% off everything in the store?
Me: Everything except the stuff in the showrooms; bathrooms and kitchens.
Man: Can I get 20% off a shower?

Woman: Have you got any (some size of gas canister I can't remember).
Me: I'll go and check.
I go and check. I return.
Me: Sorry, we don't have any in stock at the moment.
Woman walks off to the till. The manager is called down.
Woman (to the manager): Have you got any (some size of gas canister I can't remember).
Manager: I'll go check.
He goes and checks. He returns.
Manager: Sorry, we don't have any.
Woman leaves.

Woman holding two barely distinguishable cans of off-white paint: Which one of these is more contemporary?

facepunch time

i LOVE when people ask you something, and being answered in the negative, approach your manager to ask the same thing. my other favourite:

customer: can we get a table for two?
me: sorry we're booked out at the moment, if you come back in ---mins we'll have something for you then.
customer: what about that (empty) table there?
me: WE'RE BOOKED OUT
customer: what about that [table where ppl are getting up and leaving]
me: WE'RE BOOKED OUT

and also:

i work in an italian restaurant, and on the menu it clearly states the dishes which contain don't contain parmesan. so i'm so freakin happy when i take a dish out to a table, covered with parmesan, and the customer says "oh... i'm allergic to parmesan".

YOU'RE IN AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT IT MIGHT BE HELPFUL TO LET YOUR WAITER KNOW ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN CHEESE ALLERGY RETARD

ruby, you should give me the name of your restaurant/shoe store so one of these days i can go over to wellington and mystery shop you and then give itr a full report of how shouty you were.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

that's good to know!

estela, i fear i am getting shoutier by the day ;_;

good, for my report purposes, the shoutier the better.

Wait, COSUMER PUBLIC?

OK, the nice thing about being on the stupid side of the equation is that if you mess up, nobody zings you and makes you feel guilty and that you have to work hard to be a smarty again.

haha you got me. but i was writing the thread title in the heat of anger and was blinded by my bloodlust for ripping out the hearts of evil customers

evil cosumers. they are the worst.

we forgot the JARVIK option in this poll.

evil consumée, arguably worse.

(xp)

HOW IS THE JARVIK CONSOMME
IS IT BEATLESS ENOUGH TO YOU LIKING

INVENTOR OF THE JARVIK ARTIFICIAL CONSOMME
LIPITORLICIOUS!!! LIPITORLICIOUS!!

FUK U MR JARVIK
I WANT TO GO HOME

okay, here is my best/worst customer service story of all time, as well re-created as I can manage.

scene: me, working the counter at a gourmet indie coffee shop, age seventeen, 1997, for an ex-marine boss with a purple heart and a real violent streak frequently exercised on employees who didn't show adequate respect for 'the holy customer':

bitchy customer (giant boobs, super-low cut blouse, huge fake lips, sunburn, and giant straw tourist hat -- we'll call her Maxine): ahem.
me: i'll be with you when i've finished with these people, ma'am.
Maxine: i'm in a hurry, they can wait. please.
customer i'm waiting on: (old black guy, call him Hal) go back where you belong.
Maxine: don't think i won't slap you.
Hal (to me): you hear that? it was a threat. you should call the fucking cops.
me: uhh
Maxine: are you gonna take my order.
me: um
Hal: just do it, get her out of my face
Maxine: fuck you, old bastard
Hal: you too, ugly bitch
me: what would you like?
Maxine: me and Ricky want two iced cappuccinos, not too heavy on the ice.
me: okay. (I go to make them, bring them back)
Maxine: what are those?
me: iced cappuccinos.
Maxine: no they're not.
me: iced cappuccinos?
Maxine: i watched you make them, you made them wrong.
me: this is how we always make it. why don't you try it?
Maxine: (takes sip, makes face, spits drink ON COUNTER)
Hal: holy shit. kid, she's nuts, call the cops.
me: uhhh.
Maxine: here is how you make an iced cappuccino. (proceeds to give me instructions, identical to the ones i used)
me: i'll try again (i try again, come back) here you go.
Hal: i'm getting out of firing range, shoot.
Maxine: You're still here, Grandpa?
(Maxine leans forward over the counter, settling her huge fat boobs on the glass over the pastry case, to take a sip of the second round of iced cappuccinos I made)
Me: Better?
Maxine: It's ten fucking times better, but it isn't a goddamn iced cappuccino. MANAGER! MANAGER!
Me: (Shitting my pants at the reaming my boss is gonna give me)
(Boss storms out: 230 lbs of ex-marine with a glass eye and a six inch grenade scar on his neck)
Maxine: Finally someone with some goddamn sense.
My Boss: I can't talk to you and the twins both.
Maxine: What are you talking about?
My Boss: Your giant twins are on my pastry case, I don't want 'em breaking the glass.
Maxine: My twins?
My Boss: YOUR GIANT TITS! GET 'EM THE FUCK OUT OF MY STORE! AND WIPE UP THE SPIT YOU MADE ONMY COUNTER! DUMB SHIT GET OUT!
Me: ...
Hal ...
Maxine ... (leaves, horrified)
My Boss: (to me) I was watching you on CCTV, take the afternoon off.
Hal:... Can I get a free drink?
My Boss (Handing over a bottle of whisky kept behind the counter for Irish coffee) Keep it. On the house

holy shit.

o no jarvik

JESUS remy wins!!!

the boss fired me two years later for stealing (i wasn't, of course) and got busted in his own right on something like 30 corruption and money-laundering charges.

lol remy worked at the wire season 2

Now I really have to find time to watch The Wire. And any twinges of nostalgia for retail have totally disappeared!

the chef, who slept on a bed made out of old potato sacks in the basement, was this brilliant astronomer who'd had an illustrious, ascendant career in the Reagan Star Wars program @ DoD before an ill-informed romantic adventure had cost him a job, incited a nervous breakdown, and begun a twenty-year career of drifting around the US working in hotel kitchens in exchange for booze and bed. he had bad PTSD, and would dive to the floor whenever he heard helicopter noises.

this was hilarous to my boss (the ex-marine), who recorded helicopter noises on a pocket tape recorder and used it to fuck with the chef

I wonder if my dad knew your chef

P3t3r H34rn

also are you making this stuff up in a double-blind taste test experiment to see if ITR peeps like your latest spec script? bcz lol

If so, count me as one of your future viewers, remy!

the two i posted above are as true as i can write them. i have often wanted to pen a script about the coffee shop, but the whole thing was (obv) mob run, and i am afraid i will get traced down and shot.

henry hill's still alive.

xpost Just make sure to show the softer side of the mob and I'm sure they'll thank you kindly.

The only consumée service story worth telling is working in a cafe next door to that one cult. And they were always so nice and well-mannered anyway.

one time a russian grad student threatened to spit on me because i wouldnt remove his late fee!!

working at a video store was simultaneously amazing and awful, but i have either suppressed it or was too high while i was working to remember most of the bad stuff

there was an intercom and camera behind the counter connected to the porn room, and once a bunch of my friends were in there goofing around and i said into the intercom something like "take your hands out of your pants or i will call the police" and then like 10 seconds later a middle-aged guy (who i hadnt seen on the camera) hurriedly exited the room and booked it out of the store

haha

I want to watch a movie of remy's life

Best moment working @ place (not including the counter girl who fooled around with me w. me in an herb garden at the breakers after weeks of walk-in cooler fondling):

Phone call from boss's ancient dad at three a.m. on a Saturday night (remember, I am in high school) asking if I would mind driving caravan with him from Rhode Island to New Jersey –– he has somehow acquired a black van he needs to "leave" in a field. I say no, that I've got school on Monday. He bribes me "with five bens" at least, six if I can get him back by three p.m. the next day. "Leaving when?" I ask. "Half an hour?" He says. I get out of bed and shower, leave a note on the table to my mom ("pastry chef is sick") and proceed to earn $600 for helping my boss dump a car in a field hundreds of miles from home, no questions asked.

remy, I just want to sit around and listen to your life story for a while.

There's a great JW moment in one of these stories. Then I will stop typing them for now:

The same girl I fooled w. at the breakers agreed to come to a campfire party at JW's girlfriend's house. She was "taking some time apart" from a boyfriend, and pretty sensitive to the fact that she and I were together when her break from the ex- wasn't totally complete. She asked me not to say anything to anybody until she'd had a chance to really break it off with the BF. I only told Jon. Partway through the night we snuck off the property to mess around. Came back an horu later, grass and stuff in our hair, JW takes one look at us and says something like "so, did you just do it in the field?" Girl asked me to drive her home, dumps me on the spot. I owe JW a debt, though, because it turns out she had no intention of leaving the BF and was just using me for fun.

XOXO JW, if yer reading

You gotta love a friend who will be like, WELL I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN UP TO, MISTER

lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

SOMETIMES RETARDED 0

all or nothing yes indeed

I voted for "I WANT TO PUT A FORK IN YOUR EYE..."

Cuz I did.

"I don't know the title or the author, but it was blue. And it was about air."

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RTJ5MV28L._OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg

It's a good book.

tbh although that made me lol that is probably the kind of thing i might say.

OMG MYSTERY SOLVED AFTER ALL THIS TIME

Now I'm really bummed about time travel being currently impossible, because it would be a better story if I had actually found them the book. ;_;

weird family at restaurant last night:
me: would you like some garlic and pesto bread to start with?
them: we already *tried* ordering bread
me: what do you mean *tried*? [already in a bad mood for various work-related reasons]
them: well we *tried* to order some bread
me: OKAY a waiter come to your table and asked you if you'd like some bread?
them: yes
me: and did you say that you would indeed like some bread?
them: yes
me: i think your attempt to order bread was probably successful

5mins later, boss puts down bread board on their table

them: that's an order of garlic bread and an order of pesto bread?
my boss: yes it is
them: that's two orders of bread, one garlic and one pesto?
boss:...yessss...
them: on the same bread board?
boss:...yess...?????
them: so this is a garlic bread and a pesto bread on the same board
boss:....uhhhhh.... [walks off]

in 8 yrs i've never heard anyone make any comment about the fact we *mix* the bread

omg the garlic and the pesto, they might TOUCH

If we let that happen, who knows what will be next?!

SIN SIN SIN SIN SIN

customer on the ph: hi i need some help. i have a pair of eccos and there is the number 41 on the bottom of the shoe. what does that mean? is that size?
me: {screaming in my head 'OMFG ARE YOU RETARDED????'}
me: {out loud} that would most likely be the size