Rude Customers >:(

eyelinerprincess

spadoosh wrote: »

The most annoying question has to be
customer: 'do you sell plugs?' (can have variants of any product which name has many meanings)
me: 'what type of plugs'
customer: 'you know, plugs!'
me: 'your right, i do, is that a bath plug, sink plug, 13A plug, ear plug, plug socket, plant plug or wall plug?!'
customer: 'o right, ermhh, a wall plug please.'
me: 'sure, this way'

I had this question before, though slightly different:

Customer (male): Do you sell plugs?
Me: Yes, what kind of plugs are you looking for?
Customer: Erm, lady's plugs (tampons).

Once had someone ask for "incest sticks" (inscence sticks).

I have to say, however, the shop I work in now, the customers are generally from the more deprived side of town (drugs, drink, high unemployment etc.), and I've found the customers are the nicest I've ever served. There is the odd one who will be an absolute pain in the @rse, but the rest of them are great

pulliptears

eyelinerprincess wrote: »

I had this question before, though slightly different:

Customer (male): Do you sell plugs?
Me: Yes, what kind of plugs are you looking for?
Customer: Erm, lady's plugs (tampons).

Once had someone ask for "incest sticks" (inscence sticks).

I have to say, however, the shop I work in now, the customers are generally from the more deprived side of town (drugs, drink, high unemployment etc.), and I've found the customers are the nicest I've ever served. There is the odd one who will be an absolute pain in the @rse, but the rest of them are great

I have to agree, the 'posher' customers were the rudest when I was in retail.

I worked in a toy store and some of the things that I saw in there were amazing. I remember one family coming in with 2 small kids under 7 wearing backpacks. The parents shoplifted over £200 worth of stock into their backpacks. Unfortunately for the parents they were on CCTV and I recognised them from my daughters school and he was jailed for the thefts.

We used to offer a lay by scheme for Christmas but as there wasn't much room for storing stock it was very much first come first served. Long after we had run out of room one of these 'posh' customers played holy hell with me because we couldn't store something for her. She was exceptionally arsey from the off, had she not have been I'd have tried to sort something for her but she marched out with "I'll go to Argos then!". I pointed out as she headed for the door that A, Argos were more expensive and B, they wouldn't store her stuff for her either.

I threw out a tramp like shoplifter once as well, ripping open his coat and removing the £30 worth of toys he was stealing, all while my colleague stood and watched and did nothing.

In the end I walked out. My boss was an !!!!!! (he claimed he used to work for MI5 and was licensed to carry guns lmao) who liked nothing better than belittling me in front of customers. I was in the fortunate position to not really need the job so I got to the point where he did it one day and much to the customers amazement I told him where he could stick his job and walked out.

The owner (not my boss, the owner worked in another store some miles away) was fuming with the boss as his incompetence and attitude were on CCTV which she reviewed. She told me she was looking to replace him. 2 months later she closed the store altogether and he went back to the dole queue. Made my day anyway.

spadoosh

Because the posh ones are used to getting their bottoms licked! And the more deprived/normal/average bod, understand your not a genius getting paid £6.08 and hour. That and they tend to be fellow shop workers or other lower income jobs who have to deal with the shame sh!te!.

I do like getting into a 'discussions' with snobby customers and fortunately (i believe anyway) im quite good with words and am generally pretty quick thinking, they can get a bit of a shock when they don't get the 'yes sir, no sir' response and get intellectually beaten by a 'monkey' in retail.

I would say im a bit of a 'plodder'. My education suggests i could earn a lot more than i do in retail, yet i do really enjoy my job. I enjoy the people i work with, i enjoy working with people (customers), i love the fact you have no idea what your going to get when someone approaches you. I should be looking for a job where i could earn more but my skills are office based and thats something i really do not enjoy doing, so there are some of us out there who do the job more for pleasure than money.

Azari

pulliptears wrote: »

2 months later she closed the store altogether and he went back to the dole queue.

Probably went straight back to MI5. :rotfl:

(My Imagination 5, that is.)

tincat

MamaMoo wrote: »

I was doing a store fit for Gamesation once. There were big posters in the window "Opening Monday xx/xx/xxxx at 9:00am"
People kept knocking on the door, about a week beforehand asking "are you open?" and "when do you open?"
The mind boggles.
And the amount of abuse I used to get for refusing to sell Grand Theft Auto to 7 year olds. Oh, not from the 7 year olds, from their parents!!!

I know I'm coming in late to this, but surely if the parents are there they would have bought it? Or is it like some supermarkets and alcohol, that if you have a kid with you they won't sell you any wine? Enquiring minds want to know.

spike7451

I once went to a cable fault when I was at NTL in a Nationalist area & the customer refused to speak to me in English so I was unable to fix the fault.He said 'Hello' when I knocked on his flat door & he answered but as soon as I spoke (I am English,from Birmingham) he started talking Gealic...

In general tho,I've found that the 'common man (or woman) ' living in a normal council type house is friendly,polite & keeps the house clean & tidy.A lot of those with money & big homes are rude & arrogant & the home is quite a tip.I realise that the are exceptions to this but over the years working as a service engineer & going into customers homes,this is what I've found in my experience.

pulliptears

Azari wrote: »

Probably went straight back to MI5. :rotfl:

(My Imagination 5, that is.)

The sad thing was there was another woman who worked with me under him who knew full well what he was like. I'd asked her to back me with the boss before I told him where to go, but typically when it came down to it she said nothing.

Little sympathy from me then when she also found herself unemployed.

JamesK10

tincat wrote: »

I know I'm coming in late to this, but surely if the parents are there they would have bought [The 18-rated game]? Or is it like some supermarkets and alcohol, that if you have a kid with you they won't sell you any wine? Enquiring minds want to know.

I can't remember the exact law and whether it's the same grouping as ciggies and alcohol, but since the makers of GTA use the BBFC for classification and not the European PEGI ratings, the seller and business can be done for selling to someone underage. So the staff have to refuse because they never know if it's an undercover test or have the parent try to use it as leverage later on even if they'd have bought it for the kid themselves.

It's annoying and the parents should just get them online with credit cards then everyone would know that the buyer at least, if not the player, was 18.

CrazyRatLady_2

Gettingtherequickly wrote: »

I went into a shop one day to be greeted by the manager tearing strips off an employee. Took one look at her and said that I didn't think much of her managerial skills and walked out, to a grateful look from the employee and look to kill from manager.

That didn't happen to be a Pets at Home did it? I used to work in one and the assistant manager was a right cow! She hated everyone and had a problem with everything you did. Once we were both on the tills, but there weren't many customers and one woman came over and asked me to show her where a product was and talk her through how to use it. As the AM was at the tills, there was no reason why I couldn't go and help, so I walked the customer down the appropriate aisle.

We started talking about said product when the AM screamed across the shop 'GET BACK ON THE TILL!' I'd absolutely had it with her at this point so I quietly said 'sorry for this' to the customer and shouted back that I was currently serving someone. Finished conversation about the product and the customer came back to the tills with me to purchase it (bearing in mind again that there was no one waiting to be served). The customer watched the AM give me an evil look and said to me 'I'd tell her to go f**k herself if I were you' to which I replied I was getting very close to it!

The next week I handed my notice in as I got offered another job, still in retail, but more in line with my degree. Pets at Home later sent me a questionnaire about why I left so I was honest, but the AM still works there - don't know if anything was said to her about it. I know other people I worked with and at least one customer complained about her attitude too.

Anyway the job I went to is/was (I'm leaving in July to go self employed) so much better - I work with the shop owners and they are lovely, even if they're a bit moody sometimes because something has gone wrong, I know that they're not having a go at me.

We do sometimes get customers that make you want to throttle them, but I just match my attitude to theirs - I can quite happily spend an hour chatting to a lovely customer and selling them something that meets their requirements, or I can be blunt to those who are that way to me. Just last week I asked someone if I could help them, they looked at me with a blank expression, turned around and walked out - if they were foreign and didn't understand English they could have at least smiled in recognition, he definately knew I was talking to him.

barbiedoll

I now work for the NHS (where we don't have patients any longer, we have "clients" or "service users") and in many respects, it's the the same as working in retail. I work in maternity services and the vast majority of my "clients" are very happy with our service, they know that most of us work hard and do our best under some difficult circumstances. But some women (and their partners) have completely unrealistic expectations. They think that a "named midwife" means a person who is on call 24/7 to answer their idiotic questions (Example: "My baby has been crying at night and seems to be hungry, what should I do?"...I received this text last night at 1.50am!!) They moan at us because they can't park their car right outside the clinic......How are we supposed to solve that one? They think that they can have a free scan whenever they like and get most upset when they are told that they can't have one. And today, I had a request from a woman who wants her baby to be induced 3 weeks early because her mum is going on holiday and wants to be present at the birth! It's very hard to keep smiling when speaking to people sometimes and we spend most of our lunch hour (in reality, 10 mins with a cup of tea and a cake) swapping horror stories.

But then I get a thank you card from the mum who's still breastfeeding thanks to my help. Or a box of chocs from a grateful grandmother who has watched her daughter go through 9 miscarriages before having her baby. And it does make it worthwhile. It's the same satisfaction as selling the perfect item to a customer, it just makes you feel as though you have brightened someone's day. It's a nice feeling and makes up for all of the crap that you sometimes have to put up with in a customer-facing role.