Stupid Customers You've Had? — Page 4

I just want to point out that there are people out there looking for a fight. Retail is a quick and easy way for them to get one. I worked the cash register in retail for a couple of years, and I saw this happen daily.

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my friend who works on book floor has gotten this.."I'm looking for a book i don't know what its called or who wrote it but i know what its about." yes because we take the time to read every single book in the store!

I totally did that once!
Of course, I started with "ok, so this is possibly the dumbest question you're going to get today, so I understand if you can't help me, but on the off chance that you can..." because I knew how not helpful I was being- I was trying to find a book where I knew the author's *first* name, but couldn't remember the last name and/or the full title of the book. And the awesome folks at Strand Books (who possibly have read every book in the store between them) were actually able to help me find it!!

This was not me, but this happened to one of my co-workers. A lady who was trying on a white cotton summer dress spilt her coffee all over it. It was the only one we had in her size and so she demanded to get a discount because the dress she was buying was "damaged".

Speaking of damaged items, I had a client who brought her clothes to the register and pointed out that the pants she was buying was missing a button. I noted that it had been forcefully pulled out, but anyone could have done that. For things like ripped seams, missing buttons, etc. we will give a 15% discount on the item since it is damaged. This client left her credit card on the counter after she checked out. I went to go clean out her dressing room, and I found the missing button under a pile of clothes on the floor. I put the button and the credit card in a drawer hoping she would come back. When she did, I handed her the credit card and button saying "Hey Look! I found the button on the floor of the dressing room! Now you can sew it back on!" The lady turned white and rushed out of the store.

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"lso, having taught for 25 years, I have little tolerance for the 350 kids screaming when they enter the theater. Do the teachers/chaperones do anything to try to quiet them down? Nope. I have to do it, and then the teachers glare at me."

But Jane! They're trying to build the kids' self esteem! Don't you know that the world revolves around each and every pwecious student?

I have worked retail and in telecommunications and stupidity is not limited to retail. I once had a woman call in for help in programming her phone. I specifically told her the speed dial buttons ABOVE her dial pad about 20 times. She just couldn't get it to program. In the end I figured out, she was trying to program her speed dial onto her dial pad. If I had been in her house I could have programmed her entire phone system in under 5 minutes. I was on the phone with her for an hour an a half. I was thanking G*d for mute buttons.

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There was a customer who came into our store who wanted to pay in gold bricks. He kept talking to everyone around the store about who knows what. Most of it was incoherent rambling. I caught a few things of what he said to me, which was something along the lines of, "if someone asks you if they can break your arm, don't do it, it hurts." Then something about how he couldn't call his wife so he had to sleep in the car. I think he may have skipped his meds that day.

This happened to my sister, she works the fitting room a lot at Old Navy and apparently there is this policy that the fitting room attendant has to take the clothes from the customer and hang them up inside the fitting room for them.
Anyways, this sketchtastic middle aged fellow (my sister is 17, a minor) comes in w/ some clothes and she does her thing and goes to hang them up. She turns around and said sketchy guy is standing directly behind her. He then proceeds to close the door, with both of them still inside the fitting room. My sister says "Excuse me," very politely and goes to move past the guy and get the hell out. He puts his hand on the door knob, says no and even steps towards her. So what does my sister do? She yells "excuse me," this time and the guy backs off and lets her out claiming that he was "just kidding."
Everyone in the dressing room heard what was going on and even some customers were getting up to check on her because she was the only employee in the fitting room at the time. The manager then took over the fitting room until the sketchy man had left the store.
People working in retail do *not* get paid enough for the **** they have to put up with IMO

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I worked at Bath and Body Works for a few years and I will never forget this one customer I had. She brought her messy, loud, annoying toddler with her and proceeded to let the child run around "playing" in the store. She wasn't watching the child at all and didn't seem to notice that she was throwing things off of every shelf she could reach. She got to the aromatherapy section and smashed about 4 glass bottles on the floor. The noise scared her and she started crying. The mom finally pulled her head out of her butt and ran over to her. She then proceeded to yell at us for putting her child in danger. Luckily my manager was having a bad day and didn't hold her tongue like normal. She told the woman that if she had been watching her child like a good parent that none of this would have happened. The mom started to yell and then stopped and grabbed her child and walked out muttering to herself.

We had another "customer" who we caught shoplifting. We asked her if she needed a basket to put her items in so that she didn't have to carry them in her coat. *eye roll* She turned on the manager and started throwing the items from her coat and purse at her and then spat in her face. We called the police and when they found her (shoplifting in another store no less) she claimed that we put the items in her coat for her to "warm the lotion up for her"

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I had even worse customers at Best Buy. We had a guy stuff a game down the front of his pants. I had to be the one to confront him about it. I brought a cart up and said, "Sir I'm sure that that game would be more comfortable for you in here." He called me a very rude name and said I was laying. I said fine and then turned the corner of the aisle. From the corner of my eye I saw him remove the game and put it on a shelf behind some cd binders.

Then there were the guys who used a kid in a wheelchair to help them steal about 20 cds. They would slide them under his butt in the chair and then they took him to the bathroom where they proceeded to open the cds and take the discs out and then put the cases in the toilet. To make things even better they peed all over them. My manager tried to get me to fish them out of the toilet. I just laughed in his face, clocked out and went home (It was the end of my shift anyways).

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This drives me completely nuts. People will ask me what kind of juice we serve, and I'll give them the list, "Orange juice, apple juice, cranberry, pineapple, grape, grapefruit..."

And then they'll look at me and say stuff like "You only have like... all natural? You don't have lemonade or fruit punch?" "Juice... Like tea?" or even once "I meant like root beer."

WHAT THE CRAP.

the manager of the Barnes and Noble where i worked starts the closing announcements at 10:30 and again at 10:45 and again at 10:50 and 10:55 then finally the last at 11:00 which is when we close. this guy i saw wondering the store at 10:45, at 10:58 he decides to come to the cafe and order a cappuccino my friend who was on register made it for him while i started to put the chairs up. after he gets his drink its now 11:02 he takes down one of the chairs and sits to drink his drink! i was like, "sir im sorry but we are closed you need to leave." he proceeds to freak out, " how was i sposed to know! the girl at the counter didn't tell me, you didn't tell me, so i am going to sit here and drink my drink where else can i go?" i said, "there are benched outside and all along the rest of 'the walk' (the development where the store was located) but my manager has been making announcements since 10:30" he's like "well i didn't hear them." i said, "really sir? in a quiet book store you couldn't hear a man speaking over the intercom! if this is going to be a problem i will go get my manager right now!' i guess the thought of my manager coming scared him because he flicked me off and left. i just shouted after him, "thanks for your business come again!"

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Wow, so many come to mind, but one simple, true one that needs no set up. At a restaurant I work in:

Customer: I know the menu says no substitutions, but I can I make substitutions?

""Anyway during the intermission people would be walking in the room were we had the food and severing themselves"

Ignoring other mistakes, I sure hope they weren't severing themselves!!

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