Holiday Hell Spawn Encounter

From Arcade Anarchist

So I have made it no secret that the top two things I hate most about retail are:

1: Misbehaved Hell Spawn.

2: Customers that dont speak English.

Now it's the Christmas season and my job is normally pretty easy going. So I tend to do a little extra for the season, even if it isn't company policy.

I've worn elf hats cause I just love wearing em, and this year I bought a big supply of miniature candy canes to give out so people will stop in front of the arcade and maybe come in. This was a big mistake this Sunday (last Sunday before the big over-consumerized holiday).

Parents complained that it was not good customer service for me not to give their kid a second (or third) candy cane. This would normally lead to me having to explain that it was indeed good cause the money for the canes was not the stores but my own.

After working 2 full open to close days, including a 12 hour Saturday of answering dumb questions about how much a game was, if it worked, or if it took quarters, I was still in a surprisingly jolly mood.

So on Sunday, about 4 hours into being there, roughly half my day, I was on my second energy drink for the day, walking the arcade handing out my candy canes. It was fairly full so I had to keep an eye on some of the problem areas of the shop.

Mind you I've always thought the skeeball would be an issue at some point. But I always figured it would be thrown back during a swing and clonk me or another customer right in the head.

This day my fears came to fruition but not in the way I expected.

A small family - a boy a girl and a dad, were getting ready to play.

ON THE FIRST BALL, the little girl hucked the ball into the scoreboard of our mint condition 50's shuffleboard and pulverized it, shattering the irreplaceable glass covering of one of the few games that doesn't even use computers. Glass flew everywhere.

This Demon Child is a little super villian!!!! To huck a wooden ball with enough force to basically make 2 inch thick glass shatter like that, gives her X-men powers - especially since she is just small girl.

So now I had to call my boss and talk to her parent to figure out how I should handle it. At this point, I discover that neither the parent or the little girl can fucking speak English.

All my holiday spirit is gone at this point. So I haft to talk with the son who can barely understand and ask for a name and number in case my boss needs to get a hold of them for whatever reason.

They give in, and comply. A little bit of my spirit restored but not much. Perhaps these customers were going to take some responsibility for their actions.

I call my boss and most everything is fine. He tells me the next day he will come and fix it up. Now I haft to clean up the glass.

The real kicker to this is that an hour later my boss calls again and tells me that they gave me the number for domino's pizza.

Arcade Anarchist.

Comments

[Michael]

What's this? A custy claiming to not know English after their child caused expensive damages in the establishment?

That's a regular occurrence in this area. Even MORE regular if you're a white police officer trying to ask the person for anything. Too bad now that most the officers study be fluent in Spanish, so they can't slide by on that excuse. Too bad there's no bonus in it for retail hellions if we work to do the same.

[Maddie]

Yeah. I do nooooot miss working in an arcade. All those snot-nosed brats running around, and parents just leaving their brats for you to babysit...

That's pretty bad of him though, not offering to pay. Sure, there's a language barrier, but I hope something can be worked out.

[Sian]

For some reason, many of my customers think I speak fluent Spanish, when in fact the only Spanish I know, I learned from watching Dora when I babysat, and the numbers one through ten from watching Sesame Street as a kid.

So when they start yelling at me in Spanish, I just go, "Swiper, no swiping?" and they go yell at my boss, who knows less Spanish than I do.

[Charissa]

oh god, I am crying from laughing Sian! I'm fortunate enough to know just enough Spanish to get by if I can't grab a Spanish speaking co worker,and enough to know if I'm being called a not so nice name. Most of my customers are appreciative, thankfully.

[Penny]

What's fun for me though, is that many customers think that as a dumb American I don't know any other language whatsoever. In fact, I'm proficient (although not fluent) in Spanish. The look on their faces when I call them out on something they said is priceless.