From August, 2011, Ilia's first post as Bookstore Slave:

Hello all, you can call me Bookstore Slave. 

Now on this day, I was a fellow customer in this store. I had no uniform, no name tag, and a purse over my shoulder. I was carrying a basket of books I was planning to purchase, and stopped frequently to READ the goddamn excerpts on the inside cover.

Custy: Can you tell me where to find [insert obscure book title here]?

Me: Unfortunately I can't. I'm not an employee. You can ask them at the information desk though.

I point out the info desk, which is a whole 15 feet away.  

Custy: I don't want to walk that far! Just tell me where it is!

Me: Lady, I don't work here.

I walk away and select another book that catches my interest.

Custy: HELLO! EXCUSE ME! HELLO! HELLO!

She follows me down the aisle, yelling and banging her fist on the shelving.

Me: LADY! I don't fucking work here! Ask a goddamn employee!

The woman goes fucking ballistic and a manager arrives at a dead run, probably thinking somebody's getting murdered. 

Custy: Fire this bitch! She swore at me and refuses to help me!

The manager looks at me, looks at the customer and then says: Ma'am, this is not one of our employees.

Custy: This woman was rude to me and I won't stand for it! You fire her right now or I'm calling your corporate office!

Manager to me: You're fired.

The woman strutted off like it was her birthday and I got a coupon for the trouble. To this day I don't know whether she was stupid, or just that goddamn determined to get SOMEBODY fired that day.

--Bookstore Slave

read more from Bookstore Slave here

read more Bookstore Hell here

for more Mistaken Identity tales go here

From December, 2010:

Hey there RHU! Queer Geek back again with another delightful holiday story.

Now many of you may not realize this but good ol’ Queer Geek here not only solves custy problems at his job but moonlights as a free therapist as well.  Just call me Dr. Pill because I’d rather swallow a bottle of Prozac than deal with any more crazy custys this Christmas!

What do I mean by that?  Well let me explain.

Being a Big Fancy office slave, I help my store with menial tasks from answering idiotic custy questions like can I return used underwear to can I get an 80% discount on a defective item to researching lost custy shipments.

On this particular day, I got a call from a custy who I shall refer to as Drama Queen because she literally kept me on the phone for an entire hour trying to solve her problem.

“Thanks for calling the Big Fancy, this is Queer Geek.”

“Hello, my name is Drama Queen and I’m very upset," she told me, "Your employee did not ship me out my make-up order, my free gifts with purchase, and my free samples.”

Now let me mention here that I have sympathy for anyone who works in the cosmetics industry. Beauty Slave, if you’re reading this. I feel your pain. Ever since the make-up companies decided to do gifts with purchases and offering free samples to consumers if they bought some of their make-up products, custys have been trained to have a sense of an entitlement where they can get anything free from cosmetic samples to makeovers.  Basically they are wasting the make-up person’s time and money by not really buying anything and asking for a handout. Drama Queen was no different but more on that in my story.

“I’m sorry about that,” I tell her.  “Let me fix the problem. What is it you ordered and I’ll see about getting you your gifts with purchase and samples and ship them out to you ASAP.”

“I ordered the Such and Such make-up but I was specific about my samples and gifts with purchase,” she informs me. “I wanted the blah blah sample with the blah blah gift with purchase that does the blah blah blah. I don’t want the blah blah sample because I didn’t ask for the blah blah blah when I particularly ask for the blah blah blah…"

At this point my eyes roll to the back of my head from her demands. “Miss Drama Queen, we can replace the order you originally had and ship it out but some of those free requests and gifts you may no longer available so I can substitute it with something comparable.”

“I DON’T WANT THOSE GIFTS! I WANT THE SAMPLES I ASKED FOR! THAT IS WHAT YOUR EMPLOYEE PROMISED ME!” screeches Drama Queen.  “I WANT THE BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…”

Appalled at how unreasonable she is being, I try to rationalize with her with trying to resolve her issue but she is not having it so I tell her on the phone that I’ll see what I can do but then the conversation turns bizarre.

“I’m sorry but I’m just really depressed,” she starts off. “I just lost both my parents passed away this month and my dog is sick and I’m struggling financially. Did I mention my parents had passed away and my dog is sick?”

Okay I can understand her displaced anger toward me but then she starts bawling on the phone and that is when the therapist gene in me kicks in and she has to tell me her whole life story.

“I have to work two jobs just to make ends meat,” she cries.  “It is so difficult with the economy being the way it is.  You know people are struggling right now. You know everyone needs a job so I can to work two jobs to support my family. That is why I’m going to apply part time at another retail store so I can pay for school and have Christmas dinner for my family. Then my parents passed away this month and now my dog sick. Did I mention that my parents passed away and my dog is sick?”

This conversation turns into an entire hour of her repeating herself and I’m trying desperately to end the call but like a leech she keeps sucking me back in to which I politely inform her.

“Okay Miss Drama Queen, I work on your issue and get this taken care off.”

“But I didn’t tell you about my son who is going play at his high school concert. He is a really good musician…”

*CLICK*

Epilogue: I finally ship her replacement package and samples (which I had to hunt tothe ends of Earth to find for her) and leave her a message hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with her.

Everything would have been fine until she called me back….

“QUEER GEEK!” she screeched on the phone, “DID YOU SHIP MY PACKAGE AND MY BLAH BLAH BLAH SAMPLES?”

“Yes I did,” I replied. “It’s arriving this week.”

“Good,” Drama Queen responds. “Did I tell you my parents passed away this month and my dog is sick right before Christmas too?  Oh and that I’m struggling with money like everyone in the economy?  Oh and my foot is starting to ache. I think it's gout? Do you think it is gout?  It could be cancerous..."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

--Queer Geek

read more Holiday Tales here

From DV-DIVA, January, 2011, right before all the video stores closed:

There is a custy whom I have had the "pleasure" to serve in two different stores now.

I've worked in a total of four stores over the several years I've been employed with my company. His name is John. (Name changed to protect the ignorant.)

John is special. And by special, I mean...certifiable. At my original store, he would frequently bring my employees half a ream of computer paper printed up with information on alien abduction.

No one ever asked him for this information, I think it was more like John felt that he was providing them a service.

What he was actually providing was a good amount of scratch paper for our office.

My distaste for John and his eccentricities began when he came in to return a copy of "Hairspray" that he had rented.

We had the following conversation:

Me: *Generally tolerant of him at this point, but knowing he wasn't all there* "How'd you like the movie, John?"

John: "I found it to be disturbing, and totally without any sense of reality whatsoever."

Me: *Blinks* "I um...it's just a fun musical, really...I guess I can understand people thinking it's disturbing though."

John: "What disturbed me most is that the obese young woman found love with the good looking young man."

He eyes me up and down as I stand there slack-jawed. I, myself, am overweight. An important detail at this point.

John: "Honestly...Do YOU ever expect to find love?"

From that moment on, my feelings toward John and his eccentricities revolve around the various parts of his anatomy that he can stick them in. I'm only as polite to him as my job dictates that I must be.

This past week though, he took the cake...

He came in, complaining that the new store I'm in is too far away. Since the original store closed down a year ago, he now has a further distance to travel in order to get his movies and hand out his alien abduction books.

John depends solely on public transportation, and the bus stop is too far away for him to walk from it to our store. This is upsetting to John. But John has come up with a plan. He comes into the store, and asks to speak with me. 

I go over, and he lets me know that he has decided that he's going to ask us to set aside a couple hours a week for an employee to go to his house, pick him up, bring him to the store, allow him to pick out his movies, and then take him back home.

I could barely stand there and keep a straight face while he laid this plan out.

Of course, I told him that this wasn't a possibility, and he attempted to argue with me, but I stood my ground.

The impromptu staffing meeting he was holding ended with him telling me that this would be the LAST time he ever came to our store, because we were unreasonable, and more interested in the interests of "Big Brother" than in the well-being of our customers.

Now that I think about it...I should have told him to ask one of his alien buddies for a ride.

Apparently, they like picking people up.

--DV-Diva

 for more Retail Hell Memories go here

and checkout more crazy custy here...

We do also have a category for Video Store Hell here  (doesn't have a lot in it, but there are few more tales from DV-Diva!)

From Molly_Mog, June, 2014

So it was a lovely insane day at the petrol forecourt, everyone was  a little, umm, odd. There were the middle-aged little boys who stamped out of the shop because the coffee machine was working at that moment, cursing and swearing about how unfair it was and how shit we are. There were the idiots who come in the exit and park the wrong way, who when we ask them, politely, to turn around go into a fit about how they aren't thieves and how dare we! (Pump and runners often face the wrong way so we have been told by the area manager to make them turn around, this is an area manager suck.) One even tried to scare me by turning around and moving as fast as possible as if he was going to hit the pumps or the bollards, which actually made me laugh because, well, pumps and bollards will hurt his car more than he'd ever hurt me.

Then there was Mr Important, he'd spent the best part of ten minutes slowly making a coffee while talking over Important Things on his phone and blocking anyone else from being able to because obviously he's the only person in the shop. Then he continues to wander around the tiny little shop talking loudly and Importantly. Then another customer comes in to pay and tells me that a Range Rover is blocking the middle of the pumps. I knew it had to be him. So I asked him if it was his, of course it was, so could he please move it as it is blocking the pumps for other customers to use. He said he would and didn't. After a few minutes I asked him again and he shouts that he can't while he's on the phone. I don't have to be sickly sweet to arsehole customers, thankfully, so I suggested that he actually hang up and move the car. He slams his unpaid coffee down and storms out, still on his phone and I think no more, of well we lost a sale of coffee just because he didn't want to get his hair wet. Weirdly, ten minutes later he comes back in hands me a tenner and says "Large coffee £2.40" as if I can't read or don't know my job and when I hand him the change silently he snaps "£7.60 right?" I just smiled. He was not happy. He really needed that coffee.

Finally there was Mr Creepy. He's new-ish to our place but has become a semi-regular for about a month. He's very loud and very imposing, though not to me as it's hard to cow me, he looks like Brian Blessed and Boris Johnsons' love child. I listen to the radio at work, it helps my sanity levels, and I dance and mime along to the words (I don't inflict people with my singing) and I genuinely don't care what others think about it. Mr Creepy likes me singing along, he really likes it. He asked me many questions the first time he came in and saw me, including does my husband approve? Because I need permission from a man/woman/wookie to do what I wish that doesn't hurt others.  I told him my ex-husband had no say in what I did and I knew it was a mistake because then came all the creepy questions. Just ugh. This time I wasn't singing or dancing because there was nothing on I wanted to join in with and immediately he starts commenting about it. Then he tells me to start singing. My polite smile drops and I refuse point blank, then he asks when I'll be singing again, to which I said later, "Oh when later?" to which I replied I didn't know, because you know I don't run of a bloody schedule, spankfish. I didn't say that last bit to him but the tone did. He finally left and I really, really felt like taking a long shower in boiling water.

Today was a funny day but I really am so very tired of the adult children.

*

June, 2014

All the talk about sock and boob and, shudder, pants money has reminded me of a fairly recent horror.

It was an early Sunday morning and a couple were getting coffee from our machine and a couple of other bits and pieces. They came up to the till and then the woman pulled out her purse and removed a rolled up £10 note only to giggle in a little girl way (hideous in anyone over the age of 7) and said to her partner: "Oh it's the one from partying, it's all I've got."

Then she hands me the rolled up note, I unroll it, and you are probably way ahead of me here, I get white powder all over my hands as I unroll it. My face becomes a mask, trying not to show the horror, then hand her the change. Thankfully it's Sunday and no one else is there yet so I tell my manager that I need to wash the money and my hands thoroughly before I scream hysterically.

I'm not a germaphobe, I don't think you can be when you work with money that much, but the white powder absolutely freaked me out.

*

 October 2016

I finally encountered it, after all the years in retail, reading the sites saying that the customer just stared at the person as if the stare would change the answer they didn't like.

It finally happened to me.

I'm in the bakery/coffee bar and a customer comes up and asks if there are any more croissants available. There had been a rush and I had some in the oven so I told him so. He just stared at me.

So I said I was sorry there were no more croissants left and we were baking some.

He just stared at me some more.

I think my brain left for the moment because I just ended up staring back at him until I tried one more time: No there are no croissants, they're in the oven and they won't be available for at least 20 minutes (including cooling time).

Finally he stopped staring and asked me for a coffee. I've never encountered anyone like him before, he has a coffee loyalty card, he's going to be back.

Help.

--Molly_Mog

read more Crazy Customer stories here

and more Hellspawn Tales here

 to check out more Gas Station Hell go here

From Riferous:

Sometimes, you can just feel yourself dying a little inside.

I just got a call from a little old lady.

She had bought some brand name mayo and couldn't get the lid off.

Yes, she called and asked to speak to a manager because she couldn't get the lid off of her mayo.

And asked if I had any suggestions.

I said, "Well, have you tried wrapping a towel around it?", but alas, that wasn't the kind of innovative logic she was looking for.

She asks, "Well would there be a plastic wrapper around it, and where would that be?"

"Well, there could be, and it would cover the lid and part of the bottle itself."

"Can you go check that for me?"

I'm halfway through a company mandated video that will be followed by a test, upstairs, in the back, on the opposite end of the building.

"Sure, let me put you on old. I mean hold." (I didn't really say that, but that's funny right there.)

So I get to the mayo aisle, ask her which one in particular it was.

She only then decides to tell me that it was a squeeze bottle.

For those not familiar with a squeeze bottle of mayo, they have a screw on lid (at least most do), which is not tight, because there is an inner seal. 

"Well, the ones I'm checking are pretty easy, they just twist right off, and then there is a seal across the neck of the bottle..."

"With a pull tab?", she interjects, telling me that she probably knows better what she is doing than she thinks she does.

"Yes, you grab that pull tab and pull off the seal, and put the lid back on.

"Do you have to take that seal off before you can get the lid off?"

What? "No, you have to take the lid off to take the seal off. It's on the neck blah blah same thing I've already said."

"Now I got some of the [other name brand she can't pronounce, here's a clue, sounds a HELL of a lot like SMELLMANN'S], and it had a wrapper around the lid."

"Yes, it does."

"Would it have that seal inside?"

"No, that's what the outer seal is for."

At this point I'm thinking that she's going to actually have to drive back in and have me open the damn bottle for her.

Or she's going to demand that I come to her house, open the bottle, and spend three hours listening to stories about her dead husband and her 28 cats.

But aha! I have an idea!

"You can get the flip top lid up, right?"

"Yes."

"If you stick a knife in that slot and poke through the seal you will be able to squeeze it out."

Genius, right?

"Well, you don't think that lid was made into the bottle, do you?"

*Pause while brain tries to regain traction.*

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you don't think it's attached to the bottle, all one piece, do you?"

Would I still be having this conversation if that's what I thought?

"No, it comes off."

"Well if I stick a knife in through that slot and poke a hole in the seal, will that be sufficient?"

You mean what I told you to do two minutes ago???

Yeah, I think that will be fucking sufficient!!!

I wish, I wish, I wish I didn't have to be back here at 7 in the morning, so I could go kill enough brain cells to understand people.

Fuck.

--Riferous

read more Old People Hell Tales here

and for Grocery Store Hell stories and pics go here

From July, 2011

Phone Wench gets a Retail Balls Award for giving a crusty old crazy hag great service, but refusing to take her abusive threats:

Hi there, RHU! Long-time reader, first-time poster. Call me Phone Wench.

I graduated college recently, and now work for a large cellular provider... let's call them Whorizon. Except I don't actually work for them. My store is a locally owned indirect agent, meaning we're licensed to sell phones, sign people up for contracts and all that jazz, but we can't provide all the services of an actual corporate location. Nor can we match online prices/deals/etc. Not only would we get run out of business in about five minutes if we did that, but corporate legally won't let us. 

Not that this stops the custys! Or should I say crustys, since the place I live is basically one enormous hyper-wealthy retirement community. Think hellspawn are bad? You've never dealt with an 80 year old woman demanding to know how to make her iPhone's screen bigger. (Yes. Not the display or the font, the actual screen. "Don't you people sell bigger phones than this? You really ought to consider your customers more.")

I have people continually turning up in my store demanding free phones, which of course I can't give to them; the best I can do is give them a $50 phone with a $50 rebate, and even that varies depending on corporate's promotions. Can you get it for free online? Probably. Is it going to be used? Probably. Are you going to turn up in my store two weeks later, pissed that you have a used phone, and demanding that I exchange it for a new one? Probably, and then I will laugh at you. 

Most of the time, if you're polite and firm, the customers will either capitulate and buy the damn phone, or give up and go to the corporate store (which also won't fulfill online deals and is on the other side of town to boot.) Most of the time. 

Then there's..... Glenda. Glenda (not her real name) is an infamously terrible customer, to the point where none of the senior sales reps will serve her and even the manager doesn't want to deal with her. Why Glenda continues to shop with us, I will never know, since apparently her cell reception is terrible, none of her phones work, her internet is too slow, and every sales rep she deals with is surly and rude to her.

My first encounter with Glenda came a couple weeks ago, as I was cashing in my drawer at the start of my shift. The phone rings, I look around, the other sales rep is busy, so I pick up. "Welcome to Wireless Hell, my name is Phone Wench, how can I help you?"

"MY INTERNET."

"....Yes, ma'am?"

"MY INTERNET."

"Are you a Whorizon internet customer, ma'am? How can I help you?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say, as she burst into a tirade about how she's been a Whorizon customer for ten years and how I should know her and how I AM SO RUDE, etc, etc.

Before hanging up on me, she screams that she's coming into the store directly because "YOU CLEARLY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING" and tells me she's going to make sure I get fired. 

I hang up, mildly shaken, and go back to cashing in. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later a car pulls up right in front of our door (which is a no-parking zone) and an older woman gets out and stomps in.

The senior sales rep looks up, and immediately decides to go hover over a browsing customer. I am alone at the desk. The woman storms up, slams a Mifi (wireless internet) device down on the counter, and snarls, "MY INTERNET IS DOWN. THIS PIECE OF SHIT WON'T TURN ON." 

Now, I really don't appreciate being sworn at, but I also know it can be frustrating when equipment doesn't work. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt. I take the device, look at it, pop the battery out and back in again*, and plug it into my charger. A little green light comes on; the device is perfectly functional. I say, as softly and politely as I can, "I think it just needs to be charged, ma'am. If it's been having problems charging, I can replace the battery for you."

CUE THE HOUNDS OF HELL. I am told I am surly, I am rude, I am worthless, I don't know anything about technology, how this device HAS NEVER WORKED (yet somehow she's had it for six months now), and WILL NEVER WORK, and I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. I cower under this torrent of abuse, until suddenly an idea occurs to me. "Ma'am, let me talk to my manager, and see if I can replace the device for you." 

And while a shriek of WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE rises behind me, I escape into the back. My manager is back there, laughing hysterically, and hands me another Mifi device. "I heard everything. Give her this and we can resell her old one."

I take the Mifi, head back out, and switch her account over to the new device, while Glenda continues to hurl abuse at me. "Here, ma'am, this one will work, and if it doesn't, come right back and we'll exchange it. Thank you for choosing Wireless Hell, and have an excellent day."

This is not enough for Glenda. "IF THIS ONE DOESN'T WORK, I'M COMING BACK HERE AND THROWING IT AT YOU!"

I sit bolt upright. "Ma'am, if you do that, I will happily CALL THE POLICE." My voice is loud and firm, and the other customers in the store turn to look. I have had ENOUGH, and I'm not putting up with any more of this. "As long as you can refrain from committing assault, I will be happy to serve you. If not, you are more than welcome to take your business to corporate."

She stares at me. I stare back.

Eventually she drops her eyes, snatches up the new device, and scurries out with a half-snarled "Thank you." 

Phone Wench: 1, Crazy Bitch: 0.

Working for Whorizon means you put up with a lot of customer abuse, usually for things that aren't your fault and could never have been, but this time I feel like I managed to keep a little of my dignity intact. 

(*Footnote*: Popping the battery out and back in again solves a lot of glitches. Please, customers, for the love of whatever deity you hold sacred, TRY THAT FIRST before you come in and yell at the sales rep. We are not tech support and can't be.)

--Phone Wench

 read more Phone Store Hell here

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