From Veronica:

I was a cake decorator at a major grocery store before I left it to raise my sons at home and I never regret a day of it. 

The worst experience was when our store used to make wedding cakes. First off, outside of baking and frosting your own cake, a grocery store wedding cake cannot get any cheaper.  Yet, people would come in and complain about having to pay $110 dollars for a cake that feeds 150 people. For comparison sake, I paid 600 dollars for my wedding cake at a REAL wedding cake designer/baker and it fed 250 people and even that is considered pretty cheap.  Second, women who plan their own weddings are the rudest bitches on the planet. It's as if the whole world needs to stop and focus on HER wedding!

We used to have several rules at the bakery, but of course if the person got the right manager and bitched louder they could get anything they want, which leads me to the very last wedding cake I ever made for the store. 

The customer comes in about 2 weeks before the wedding and orders the cake, which is not unusual since most people who use grocery stores have no concept of time and planning. The transaction is normal and actually quite pleasant.

Fast forward to the day of pick up- complete 360 and the bitch from hell shows up. 

First the bitch swears the cake is not the one she ordered.

Second she all of a sudden has no memory of ever talking to me the decorator, even though she took 25 minutes going over every ridiculous detail.

Third, she produces some picture of a cake that our bakery doesn't even produce. 

The last and final draw was when it came time to pay.

The crazy bitch whips out her EBT card. 

Food Stamps! 

My jaw hit the floor because we don't take EBT cards for decorated cakes/party trays/5 foot sub sandwiches and I knew this cake that took me 4 hours was going to crush my shrink quota. 

Long story short, my manager ended up calling up the department of social services to check to see if someone COULD use food stamps to purchase a wedding cake and the woman on the other line said, "As long as said food is for human consumption and is not heated, alcoholic, or an energy drink- it's valid." 

So guess who got their wedding cake for free? 

From Riferous

Here's a Dumbass Custy for you. 

I get a phone call. To sum up, the guy says he has called five times for Floral, and the people answering the phone know there is nobody in Floral, but they keep paging them anyway.  He's upset and feeling disrespected, so he asked for the manager, which is me. 

I finally ask him what it is that he needs, and he needs to know if we have lilies. 

I, not being a Floral clerk and not being anywhere near Floral, say that I don't know, I'll have to go look. I heard the sound that you all know, the inarticulate gust of wind that says "You don't know what you sell in your own store?", so I say I'll be just a second and put him on hold.

Now keep in mind that today is December 31, and our wonderful government decided to hand out Food Stamps a day early because of the holiday, as if we didn't have enough to deal with, so we are busy as shit, and I'm in a bad mood to boot. 

So on my way to Floral I call up to the front desk to see if this guy has really called 5 times, and the lady that answered said, "Seriously, yes," which should have been my first clue, but I instead expressed my frustration with the fact that he had not been helped yet.

So, I see that no, we do not have lilies, but we do have a special on roses. I tell him the several colors that we have, and he decides on three dozen. I tell him that I will have them ready for him in a few minutes, he says he will be in shortly, all is well. 

Or so I think.  

I wrapped them and left them in the cooler, and tell the other lady at the desk that they are ready and where they are.

This other clerk tells me that she answered the phone for the guy three times, because - and here's where I realize that we are not, in fact, at fault - she told him that there was nobody in Floral, and she would help him as soon as she could, but they had a line at the office as well, and put him on hold. (Busy as hell, remember.) So apparently he thinks that he will get helped faster if he hangs up and calls back, and this is why he has called five times, not because he hung on the phone forever waiting for somebody to answer.

But it gets better.

When he came in for the flowers, he asked for me, but the clerk knew what he wanted, so she said that she would help him. He said, "Good, I didn't want to deal with him anyway. He made me mad."

WHAT THE FUCK???  How did I make him mad, by doing his shopping for him?

Oh well.  Gotta go unload a truck.  Maybe a skid will fall on me.

Happy Fucking New Year!

Riferous

Forget Hallowthanksmus...now we have Happy New Valentines! Nothing says Happy New Year like valentines chocolate and cards. Pics taken at Raley's grocery store on December 30th at 6pm. It's a good thing chocolate and candy have long shelf lives...

A few Return Hell Stories to scare you to death. From RHU's comments...

Claire:

I had a guy return a new CD because he didn't like the mixing and he "had a recording studio in his basement and so knew sound quality," puffing himself up like a strutting rooster when he said it.

He swore at me and I went all school marm "That language is not acceptable or appreciated."

He apologized, but, as my grandmother always said, a good reputation is an easy thing to lose and a near impossible thing to replace.

Another customer pointed out that if he had a recording studio he could have fixed the damned sound and felt not like a useless twat.

It's a new cd, we can't predict if it's mixed up to your high standards.

Write EMI.

Macy's Blows:

God, I can't count how many times people bring in empty jars of cream and want money back. Or even worse, filled up with something that is obviously not $135 moisturizer.

Seriously, do people think I can't tell the difference between the stuff I've been selling for 4 years and Garnier Fructise Conditioner?

Sian:

I love it when people try and return makeup with a competitor's price stickers still on them. I also love the look on their face when I tell them I can't take it back.

Kit:

Yups. Some thing worse happened. A few weeks ago, some stupid girl wanted to return a sandwich she said was the wrong order.

We would've done it EXCEPT for three things that had happened previously:

1. She had already returned a sandwich before for another.

2. She once again returned another sandwich.

3. The third time, she had already eaten half the damn sandwich.

Seriously ... and the girl that had come to us the first two times wasn't even the actual customer.

The third time she came with the actual eater, in which the friend told the eater, "They won't take it because you ate half of it, bitch.'

Why do people who return every thing they buy think they are customers?

They actually COST the store money.

The store has to pay someone to ring up the sale,return the sale and fool around with the paperwork associated with the return(sending product back to the vender or whatever).

I think chronic returners should pay the store a service fee at least.At least we could get something for our trouble.

I once had a woman return a sunscreen because,she said,it made bees chase her.Another woman dropped an eyeshadow from her second floor balcony and complained that it broke and demanded a replacement.

Not to be outdone, one annoying skank returned a bodysuit because the snaps made her crotch break out in a rash.

Yeah, like I really needed to hear that.

I hate bullshit returns and the people who do them!

Mario Speedwagon:

A few months back in my Hardly Normal store, I had a customer try to return a laser printer - 1 day short of being a year since purchase.

Apparently, they only just realized that it was a mono-function printer, not a multifunction.

I flat out said no way, so they kicked up a fuss saying that they spoke to David on the phone (we don't have a David or anyone with a similar name).

In the end my manager returned it and refunded it for them.

Unbelievable.

Spritzy:

I had a lady walk up to me with a bathrobe in a bag and asked me if the bathrobe came from our store and if she could return it.

I looked it over and it obviously didn't come from our store.

I told her that our store only has Blah-Blah brand of bathrobes and it's not ours and wouldn't be able to return it...

She paused and looked at me with a disgusted face and said..."..SO?!"