The Retail Horror Thread 2: More Tales to Chill your Bones

[Majora]

The only "celebrity" to ever come into my store was Troy Polamalu and I had zero idea who he was until after he left and the entire store didn't skip a beat to inform me who i just served.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

The only "celebrity" to ever come into my store was Troy Polamalu and I had zero idea who he was until after he left and the entire store didn't skip a beat to inform me who i just served.

Only other one for ours was my friends cousin who was in a shitty manufactured pop group, I had a little bit of a thing for her when I was younger and he said he'd introduce me to her so I could do some pathetic teenage fawning. He brought her into the store because he only lived a little way down the road (rich as fuck side of town) and he did. She said 'hi' in a disinterested way, I pretended it was her 'music' I liked and not her arse and then she left. At the risk of de-railing this into a celeb encounters at work thread I did a brief stint at a radio station and Myleen Klass sat on my lap for about an hour. She looked like this at the time (shes gone to seed these days)

EDIT: I just googled the dude in your post. He'd be one of those Hand-Egg chappies you yanks are so jolly enthusiastic about yes? He looks like a rum sort.

 

[Majora]

EDIT: I just googled the dude in your post. He'd be one of those Hand-Egg chappies you yanks are so jolly enthusiastic about yes? He looks like a rum sort.

yeah, I don't know shit about any kind of sport so I wasn't dumbfounded by his arrival.

but back to being on topic, we have this guy that always is an ass every time he comes in. one day he bought a NBA game and came back hours later losing his god damn mind that we didn't put the game in and because of the new "solution selling" thing Gamestop is doing we are just supposed to take their word so we gave him a new copy of the game and later checked the DVR and you can see us clear as day putting the game in the case the first time. THEN he comes back the very next day and puts an application in.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

yeah, I don't know shit about any kind of sport so I wasn't dumbfounded by his arrival.

but back to being on topic, we have this guy that always is an ass every time he comes in. one day he bought a NBA game and came back hours later losing his god damn mind that we didn't put the game in and because of the new "solution selling" thing Gamestop is doing we are just supposed to take their word so we gave him a new copy of the game and later checked the DVR and you can see us clear as day putting the game in the case the first time. THEN he comes back the very next day and puts an application in.

I guess you guys in the big retail chains have it harder. I only ever did one midnight launch and that was locked door, invite only. One of the big chain stores in my local city got its windows smashed by two chavs who saw them unloading copies of Assassins Creed 2 a couple of the days prior to release. Apparently they had a massive freakout in store when they were refused sale and pushed a demo unit over smashing the windows.

 

[Surtur]

Christ these stories are fucking beautiful.

 

[LordGoomy]

I do have a story from my pharmacy technician externship at a big chain pharmacy/convenience store. It sounds like something out of a reality show. Long, so I spoiler'd it.

Spoiler: Story

It was nearing 6pm or so, what the other employees referred to as "rush hour" since most people are getting off of work and coming through the pharmacy to pick up their prescriptions before heading home, or poking into the store to grab a soda or a gallon of milk or something. This pharmacy also had a drive-thru but was woefully understaffed, even with me present to pick up a little of the slack, so rush hour sucked pretty hard having 2 people maximum to go around and actually take care of the money-handling.

Anyway, I'm in there with one other technician and the pharmacy manager. The pharmacy manager had been on the phone for several minutes, trying to work out an insurance dispute with a patient and having to balance a couple of phone calls at a time, repeatedly putting one or another on hold to keep working out this issue.

Now, this wasn't really a problem since we weren't very busy yet, and the few patients coming in had their medicines in the lettered bins up front or in the bin full of filled 'scripts that had already been given the okay by the manager but hadn't been put in the bins yet. For those unaware, the process of filling a prescription goes like this: print the patient insert, grab the drug, scan it, count it & weight it, print the label, fill the bottle, add the label, bag it up and put it in the (usually) red bin to be checked by the pharmacist or pharmacy manager. Technicians are not allowed to hand the medicine to the patient unless it's been looked over and okay-ed by one of those two people. As an added bonus, as an extern, I was not allowed to handle money, so actually performing a transaction was left to the actual employees.

We start getting a little busy but are handling things fine until a rather overweight man approaches the counter. I greet him and ask him if he's picking up a prescription - he says yes, gives me his name so I look him up in the system and it says his stuff is ready. I poke around in the bins for his medicine, but don't find them in the bin they ought to be in. This is actually a pretty common error, so I check adjacent bins. Nothing for this guy. At this point there's another woman up at the counter and I ask the other tech to take care of her. I check in the bin of checked medications - not there either. A bit exasperated, I go back and check the red bin. Not there. My co-worker is alerted to the situation and we both start going through every individual bin in the front looking for this guy's shit. Co-worker has to break off quite often at this point to go help other patients coming to get their prescriptions filled or picked up, but I make it through every bin unsuccessful.

It's at this point I notice a stack of insulin boxes on the counter and check the leaflet on the top - sure enough, this is what I was looking for. But it wasn't bagged up, nor was it actually in the green bin of checked meds, so I wanted to be responsible and have the pharmacy manager check it before I bagged it and handed it off. For the life of me, I could not get this guy's attention, though.

This devolved into waiting around by the manager until he was off the phone so we could give this guy his stuff and be done. Customers began piling in at this point and every "could you please check this, we're getting crowded up there" was met with "I'll be off the phone in just a sec." It was sort of a nightmare. I asked the gentleman with the insulin to step off to one side so I could help other customers but it wasn't a lot of help since the one other tech was split between the front end and the drive-thru taking care of the actual money-handling. It was a good half-hour of running around like chickens with our heads cut off as everything got busy and still, the manager is on the goddamn phone. Taking care of each person took a lot longer than it should have and it took a fair amount of time for a cashier to come back to help with the front end (after I had to ask over the intercom system) so I could start working on the ever-growing stack of scripts that needed filling in the back. We spent a good hour and a half backed-up as more and more people walked in, probably some of them from the drive-thru line that got sick of sitting out in their car wanting to give the employees a piece of their mind or something. Manager was on the phone for a lot of this.

One soccer-mom looking woman in particular got incredibly uppity and to this day it just makes me laugh because of how surreal it felt. I hear horror stories of these people all the time but experiencing it was something else. It was before we got the additional help with transactions, so as I bagged up her pills and mentioned her total, I tacked on that I was just an extern and would be unable to complete her transaction, but if she'd wait for just one more moment my co-worker would be over as soon as he could to assist her. Immediately she starts raising her voice at me. By the end of it she was red-faced and I'd be surprised if the entire street didn't hear her.

"Why can't you just swipe my card? It'll take you like five seconds." "Ma'am, I'm not actually an employee here so -" "Well why the hell are you back there if you don't work here?!" "As I was saying, ma'am, I'm not an employee, I'm an extern from [university here] and [store]company policy p-" "I don't care, just swipe my card." "[store] company policy prevents me from handling money or credit cards as it presents a liability for the company." "Are you retar.ded?" "Ma'am?" "I asked if you were slow in the head." "No, ma'am." "You sure act it. I told you I do not give a damn about whatever you're saying, I have dinner to cook and a house to clean and the sooner I get home, the sooner I can get all that done. Swipe my card so I can go." "As I told you before, ma'am, I cannot do that. [store] -" "FUCK YOU, I WILL CALL MY HUSBAND WHO IS AN ATTORNEY TO COME DOWN HERE AND SUE THE HELL OUT OF YOU!" () "Ma'am, my co-workers are both very busy but if you just wait one moment the gentleman over there -points to co-worker- will help you." "Who the hell is your manager?" "That would be Mr.[manager]. -points to my manager, on the phone- He's currently on the phone with another patient so you'll have to wait to speak with him." "This is ridiculous." "I agree, ma'am." "Don't you mock me!"

This went on for a solid five minutes, her screaming and saying she'd sue us, she'd sue me personally for everything I had, she'd sue my university, why can't I just swipe her card so she can go, she was going to get me fired/expelled etc. - anything I said in response was somehow an attack on her personally and she was always ready to correct or scold me for it. I saw someone with their phone out, probably recording the ordeal. It took a lot of effort to keep my composure, but I did eventually walk away from the counter while she slung insults at me because I'd said everything I could possibly say to placate her and repeated it all at least twice. Aforementioned co-worker did get to her though - his excuse for not stepping in while I was trying to deal with her was that "it was just so crazy to see one woman's face get so fucking red. I thought she was gonna pop!" He started helping other customers while she was distracted with her tirade at me, which makes it all funnier to me.

The guy did get his insulin, though, once my manager finally got off the phone, and was showered with apologies for the insane wait. I was lauded for having the "patience of a saint" which, in my opinion, is arguable, but I thanked him anyway.

The only other interesting thing from the externship is when some tweaker tried to hop over the counter to pile his arms full of the allergy/cold medicine we kept on the shelves behind it. Co-worker caught him on the other side before his feet ever hit the ground and slid him back over the counter. The guy stumbled out and knocked over a display just to be spiteful.

 

[Big Nasty]

Short update: We now have a clear suspect in the case of the mystery shitter responsible for the diarrheageddon in the ladies' toilet. The most likely culprit seems to be the female janitor. She will be fired anyway, since she doesn't actually clean anything. She usually empties trash cans by putting their contents in another trash can.

 

[Platypus]

I've worked my fair share of retail/customer service. I have at least one good story from each, so I'll spoiler them.

Spoiler: Not So Great Clips

My first job was as a receptionist at a Great Clips (for all you non-US Kiwis, its a "cheap" hair salon/barber chain). My main duties involved cleaning up after the stylists, getting lunch/snacks, running the register and setting up appointments. Nowadays I believe they're all semi-automated in this, and have an ipad or tablet that you log into when you walk in.

Anyway, the store I worked at had an empty chair that they were looking to fill, so they started testing out various applicants. This is when I learned that (at least at the time) once you got your cosmetology license, it never expired. The worst applicant I bared witness to was an older woman, probably late 50s/early 60s, and she was slooooooow. Keep in mind, these stores have metrics in place, so if you take too long on haircuts you could lose your job. The poor guinea pi-er...man that I assigned to her might as well have walked out mid-haircut, since it would have looked the same either way. She took THREE HOURS for a simple generic men's haircut. I don't know if the man was a saint or simply lapsed into a coma, but either way, even after one of the other stylists tried to salvage his hair, he walked out of that store an uglier man. The worst part was that it was the weekend, so the store was absolutely slammed, and over 30 people bore witness to how badly she butchered that haircut. The district manager had to be called, and she was escorted out of the store.

They eventually ended up hiring another woman who was also shit at haircuts, but didn't take 3 hours to be shit at it. Bonus shit: I once had to hold someone's toddler on my hip while running the register for an hour while they got their hair done, and almost all of the stylists were sharing prozac and pot.

Spoiler: Worked at Gamestop twice, must have has a stroke.

I worked at Gamestop once as a grunt and then years later at a couple different stores as a keyholder. Overall I worked at 3 different stores, and they were all shit.
-First store: Manager was twice my age, kept trying to get into my pants via Redbull, cigarettes, and tales of drunk old lesbians scissoring at parties. All were ineffective, maybe it was his gut, maybe it was his tongue ring, but that was a solid "no".

-Second store: I mostly opened, so shit wouldn't start hitting the fan until around 11 or so when 30 people wanting to buy CODBLOPS for little Billy all at the same time. During the slow hours I noticed a guy coming in quite often, we'll call him Ted. Ted looked a little awkward, but shit it's GS. After a couple weeks he started talking to me whenever he came in, which wasn't terrible since he didn't smell bad and liked some of the same games I did. I mentioned in passing that I played a lot of games with my boyfriend, but Ted didn't seem phased by this, and started asking me personal questions like "What's your last name?, What kind of car do you have? Where do you live?". By this point I was more than skeeved, and moved to closing shifts. Ted apparently didn't have anything else to do, so once he figured out that my schedule had changed, he adjusted accordingly. This all came to a head at the end of my time at that store. I knew I would be moving to a different store, and made sure no one else told Ted where I was going. Ted showed up on the second to last day at the mall and did his usual hovering until I went to lunch, as I was walking out of the front to go to lunch, there was no Ted in sight, whew. Then I got out to the parking lot, and there was Ted. Ted stopped me, but I told him I needed to leave and walked away. Ted followed me to my car, demanding my last name so he could add me on Facebook. I rushed into my car and locked the doors, and that night my boyfriend walked me to my car.

MONTHS LATER at my new store, Ted shows up. I tried to go into the back before he spotted me, but to no avail. He then, in a very frustrated manner, told me that he had been looking for me. My coworkers from the other store had apparently told him that I was at a store about 45 minutes away, so naturally Ted took a fucking bus there to look for me, and then over the course of a few months went to EVERY GS IN THE AREA to find me. One of the other employees called me into the back when she saw how uncomfortable I was, and I stayed there until Ted left. I was at the end of my 2 weeks, so thankfully I never saw Ted again. I feel lucky to have all my skin and bits.

-Third Store: Went through two managers in a 5 month time span, was also in a not so great part of town. First manager was a walking hobo version of r/redpill, memes and all. He once walked into a different store drinking from a carton of milk. He didn't live anywhere near that store. He was eventually fired for stealing consoles and using a friend to run this whole gift card money laundering scheme. He was also an absolute cunt, so there's that.

Second manager was a very very large man, height and width wise. He didn't know anything about games at all, but had recently gotten fired from his job running a Cricket store, so our DM (who was fired soon after that) decided he was a good hire. He was the laziest person I've ever worked with, and coupled with an almost-as-lazy Assistant Manager, left the entirety of running the store up to me. The ASM eventually left to achieve his dream of doing nothing but mooching off of his girlfriend, and I was offered the position. I declined, several times, rather forcefully, which led to the manager disliking me greatly. I left a few weeks later knowing that the store was in the hands of a smug idiot and a bunch of grunts. He got fired not soon after for stealing money, specifically through pre-orders. He would copy down or memorize customers' phone numbers after a transaction, and then go into a new transaction and cash out old and forgotten $5 pre-orders. He fucked up when he started cancelling collector's edition and console pre-orders, which require larger deposits. From what I've heard he is currently in court with GS for that. The store was manager-less for several months, and turned into an even bigger shithole.

PS. Don't buy from Gamestop. They treat their employees worse than garbage, pay next to nothing, and give no benefits. They have extremely scummy practices concerning customers too. The only positive thing I have to say is that the customer support from headquarters can be great sometimes. Other than that, it's all shit.

I've also worked at a Dollar General and Charter Communications (Comcast's twin). I've got more stories from those, so I'll throw some out if there's any interest.

 

[yasscat]

I've also worked at a Dollar General and Charter Communications (Comcast's twin). I've got more stories from those, so I'll throw some out if there's any interest.

Do tell!

 

[Platypus]

Do tell!

I've only got enough time right now for one set, but I'll have some good Charter stories for tomorrow.

Spoiler: Dollar General: The Trailerpark in a store

I was a keyholder here too, unfortunately.

-My Manager was an alcoholic woman with more kids than I have fingers. She would start projects and leave halfway through them, like filling the entire floor of an aisle with bottles of grape juice and then peacing out. She also would offer to give me extra days off if I would babysit her spawn (I declined).

One time the fire alarm started blaring in the store around 10AM. There was no fire. It was just me and a stock boy, so I left him to fend for himself on the register while I searched for anything to turn it off. I found what was labeled as the box for it, but when I called the number I found out that it was from the OLD fire alarm company. I tried calling my manager several times to no avail. My other coworkers and even the DM had no idea what to do. My manager finally picked up around 4PM, drunk as fuck, and proceeded to laugh at me then hang up. The alarm stopped by itself around 6PM. I'm pretty sure I have tinnitus from that.

-The laziest stock boy was a 30 year old man who played WoW on an RP server. I've played WoW on and off for 8 years now, so this wasn't a big deal. What was a bid deal was him constantly talking about his WoW RP guild, his RP girlfriend, and their super srs raiding. He didn't just talk to me about it, he talked to EVERYONE about it, including customers. He turned into a giant asshole in about two weeks, and I learned that this was his first job. He previously stuck to living with his momma and playing WoW all day, with the occasional trip to 7-11, but his mom made him get a job. He was fired after I found him sleeping in the back on empty stock trolleys about 8 times in a month.

-There was a lady who made her living by trying to steal/do snatch-and-grabs from our store.

First time I caught her she had walked into the store, went to the bathroom, came out with a more empty looking purse, and proceeded to grab an armful of shitty DVDs and waltz to the back of the store. When I caught up with her she was in the pillow aisle trying to wrestle off the giant plastic anti-theft DVD holders. As son as she saw me she dropped the DVDs and ran out of the store.

Second time she ran into the store, grabbed whatever she could from the DVD bin, ran out, and dove headfirst into the passenger side window of her getaway car. She was fat, so as the car drove away her ass got stuck and her legs went straight into the air.

The last time she actually tripped and fell trying to run out of the store with an armful of shitty make up, and a cop happened to be in the store, so she got arrested.

-Misc shit:
Girl from the Taco Bell across the street would come in and get high in the bathroom then go back to work.
Some guy went into the men's bathroom, which was a single stall, and power-shit all over the toilet, sink, and wall. I ended up having to clean it with a mop.
The Eckhart meat guy didn't show up for 4 months. The bacon, sausages, beef jerky, etc was all severely out of date and growing new life forms in the fridge along with any other frozen stuff we sold. Manager said to bag it and put it in the corner of the fridge.
Milk guy delivered entire frozen gallons of milk on several occasions, put in a complaint against me because I made him come back and give us new milk.
Lady tried to coerce her son into stealing a Snickers bar with a NASCAR driver on it because it was "co-lect-bull".
Little Debbie (over processed snack foods) guy tried to get in my pants by offering expired ho-ho's. It was a no go.
General over entitlement from customers, threatening to get me fired for not kissing their asses, leaving children in the store alone like it was a fucking daycare, etc.

 

[Majora]

@Platypus we have a "Ted" except he has a real bad stalker charm for my SM who is also a dude. He'll call up and ask if hes working and if he happens to come in on a day he is he'll ALWAYS shake his hand, pull him real close, and whisper in his ear if we have any posters he can take. He is also trying to get his last name for probably facebook as well, but nobody will tell him it. and he'll flip his shit if games don't come with an instruction book.

 

[Platypus]

@Platypus we have a "Ted" except he has a real bad stalker charm for my SM who is also a dude. He'll call up and ask if hes working and if he happens to come in on a day he is he'll ALWAYS shake his hand, pull him real close, and whisper in his ear if we have any posters he can take. He is also trying to get his last name for probably facebook as well, but nobody will tell him it. and he'll flip his shit if games don't come with an instruction book.

We had this guy that was a menace to the whole fucking district. His name was Lorenzo and I'm 100% certain that he had a good case of the 'tism. You were lucky if Lorenzo didn't call your store more than 10 times a day, and keep you on the phone telling his life story, then ask you about what you looked like, and when you wouldn't tell him that, he would start asking what iPod touch models were in stock and ask ridiculously specific questions about them that no one could possibly answer.

Every store in the district knew who Lorenzo was, not only because of his flow-chart style of questioning, but also because every sentence after he asked your name started out with "H-hey hey Platypus, did you know that...?". Eventually nearly every keyholder/ASM/manager got fucking tired of it and forcefully told him to stop calling. He persisted, but would avoid certain people. So say if he called and got me, he would either hang up or ask if someone else he knew from the store was working. Keep in mind that no one had ever seen Lorenzo.

It was annoying as fuck, but I partially felt bad for him since we all knew he was so lonely. Looking back at it now though it's funny to me. We essentially had our own district-wide autistic terrorist lolcow.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

I guess the thing that all us Game retail workers need to be grateful for is that none of us have a story that goes like: "This one time a poorly dressed transvestite came into our store, vandalized some cases, threw a tantrum and then maced me as he left."

 

[Platypus]

I guess the thing that all us Game retail workers need to be grateful for is that none of us have a story that goes like: "This one time a poorly dressed transvestite came into our store, vandalized some cases, threw a tantrum and then maced me as he left."

I've been assaulted by smell, does that count? There was seriously a guy that came in once a week who I'm sure hadn't bathed in years. His nails were long and brown/yellow, his skin was...bumpy? and oily, and his hair was a long, tangled, oily, clusterfuck. His teeth...JFC his teeth were there but they probably wouldn't be for much longer, some were piss yellow, some were brown and dead. You could legitimately smell him for HOURS after he had left. I would probably take OPL impotently macing me over smelling that guy again.

Alright, Charter stories. This is a bit long so I'll spoiler again.

Spoiler: That time when I was literally Hitler

I'll start by saying that this job paid well for having mostly retail/manager experience, and the nice benefits came in handy when I had to have back-to-back surgeries and multiple hospital/ER visits. That being said, I would not work there again.

I was hired during their "mass hiring" stage. Charter had recently cut ties with some of its largest call centers in India, so they were hiring hundreds of people for CS/billing, but not nearly as many as they had contracted overseas.

-Every single call is monitored and recorded. No joke, they hire people specifically to screen all calls and they score them according to certain metrics, like call length, key phrases to be used, etc etc. At the end of the week you're given an average score from that, and you sit down with your manager and listen to some of your calls. Your job depends on all of this, and they ride you about it.

All of this had been implemented around the time my "wave" was hired, so the people who had been at that call center for years absolutely HATED the new people, because they felt like they were being replaced, and because Charter was cracking down on them (plus a ridiculously higher rate of calls, like 10 fucking seconds between calls). They also use to have their own permanent desks, but in order to pack more people into the call center, they got smaller desks and just sat people in new desks as they got to work, making it loud as fuck, among other things.

-One of my first calls was this old guy who was fucking pissed. That was normal. What wasn't normal was that he stayed pissed for an hour and a half. There was no appeasing this man. I would have loved to have handed him over to a supervisor, but we weren't allowed to ask for one unless the customer requested one. He believed we had "stolen" his phone number when we ported it from his old provider to Charter. Despite explaining to him several times how the process works, he refused to believe that I wasn't personally responsible, and swore at me for the entire duration. This is one of the few cases where there was actually no wrongdoing, the guy himself had fucked up the process. I don't know why I didn't quit then and there.

-We had bi-weekly "group trainings" that consisted of basically attempting to brainwash us into thinking we weren't fucking people over, then teaching us knew ways to fuck people over. Billing reps have little to no power anyway, we were just there to tell you how much we were ripping you off for, explain our overpriced services, try to sell you additional services/packages, and get you off the phone.

-We had many people who called in to dispute Adult pay-per-view charges. You could actually order almost any TV package or service just through your set top box, but to get rid of them you had to call in. Also we can see the names of the titles, so if you ordered "Big Booty Bitches XVII: The Porkening" we would know as we were talking to you.

One woman called in because her 13-year-old autistic son had decided to make a game of pressing buttons on the remote, and ordered over $2000 worth of porn in the span of half an hour. A supervisor had to be called, and Charter refused to cancel or refund any of the charges. Watched or not, they had been ordered, so she had to pay (Felt like shit after that one).

Many angry wives or moms called in to dispute porn charges, because "THERE AIN'T NO ONE HERE BUT ME AND MY SON/HUSBAND, NO ONE ORDERED THIS SHIT!". Unfortunately ma'am, little Billy and/or Papa Billy don't know how to use the internet to get spank material, so you gotta pay up.

-I got one call that was a guy complaining about his service going out, and after an extensive conversation it was revealed that he lived in a trailer park in Buttfuck Nowhere, North Carolina, and people were shimmying up the fucking poles and splicing their own lines in. This had been going on for years, and eventually Charter went out and put a locked cage at the top of the pole. This didn't deter them, because within a week they had ripped off the cage and spliced over 30 lines in, essentially making the service unusable to ANYBODY, paying or not.

-Lots of people called in thinking they could cancel their service, and then start it up again in a couple months, or even a year, and get new customer pricing. That use to be the case, but now they track you, and they'll give you the same insane after-into rates as when you left. This upset people to no end, made for many hours spent listening to people scream.

-Best call might have been with an elderly black man (I had an early shift, so most of the people I got were old and pissed off). I don't even remember what he called in for, but the call got escalated FOUR TIMES. I was the only female in that chain, but he swore up and down that every single person was just me using different manly voices to tell him the same thing. This went on for over an hour, but I essentially got an hour's break with entertainment, so I didn't mind.

-In order to maintain sanity I brought different things to work to fiddle with, mostly small stuffed animals (minecraft plushes, WoW/Starcraft/Diablo plushes, etc. This was actually pretty common). Accidentally unmuted myself on a call with an upset woman while I was talking to one of the floor managers and said clear as day "I call him my spaghetti monster" (referring to an Enderman plush). The woman stopped ranting, lost her shit laughing, and said "I want a spaghetti monster too." Call went better after that.

Extra shit:
Some people have no shame and would rip major ass on the call floor.
We would note peoples' account every call, and each was traceable to our employee ID. Some people would note things like "CALLER WAS BITCH, TALKED ABT NOTHING FOR HOUR, WILL CALL BACK".
We were suppose to do warm transfers (handing people off to another department after explaining the situation to the next rep) for tech support. Most people didn't and would mute their headset, declare things like "INTO THE VOID YOU FUCK!" or "NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM!", and throw people into another queue, even after they had already been holding for over an hour. Stone cold, man.

Possibly most stressful job ever.

 

[DrJonesHat]

I applied to Gamestop once when I was desperate for work. I now feel glad that I didn't get hired.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

-I got one call that was a guy complaining about his service going out, and after an extensive conversation it was revealed that he lived in a trailer park in Buttfuck Nowhere, North Carolina, and people were shimmying up the fucking poles and splicing their own lines in. This had been going on for years, and eventually Charter went out and put a locked cage at the top of the pole. This didn't deter them, because within a week they had ripped off the cage and spliced over 30 lines in, essentially making the service unusable to ANYBODY, paying or not.

 

[Frank Rizzo]

So, years ago, I worked at an Eckerd's Drug store, and one night, I was going around the store changing sale price stickers in various sections. On this particular night, I had a big sticker sheet full of product names with their prices, and for most of the time I was working on this product, I had my nose buried in the sheet to look over my next move.

Fast forward towards the middle of my shift, I'm walking down an aisle, looking at the stickers, thinking I was alone, when suddenly, I hear a booming female voice from behind me:

"AH-HEM! EXCUSE ME! YOU.....YEAH YOU! I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

I look up to see a middle aged, white trash looking woman staring at me, arms crossed, tapping her foot angrily. She was standing with a girl who I presume was her daughter. I was quite confused as to the woman's anger, but I shrugged it off at first:

Me: Hi, is there anything I can help you with miss?

Woman: Uh, yeah there is....I don't much appreciate you following me around the store!

Me: Err....I'm sorry?

Woman: You've been following me for the last 10 minutes! And don't try to deny it, cause you're making it very FUCKING OBVIOUS! I AIN'T STEALING SHIT!

Me: Ma'am, I had no idea you were even in this aisle till just now...

Woman: BULL-SHIT! Lemme give you a piece of advise.....if you're gonna follow a "suspicious customer", at least be subtle about it.... (Under her breath, walking away) fucking piece of shit....

At this point, I just watched the woman walk away in a huge state of disbelief. Finally, the girl shook her head and walked over to me and was all "I'm really sorry about that....she's just very paranoid about being followed. I know you weren't actually following her, just doing your job..."

After-math: The woman and girl paid for their stuff and left. As they were walking out, I remember the girl saying to the woman "Why do you *always* have to make a scene when we go out to a store? That guy didn't even notice you for Christ's sake!"

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

So, years ago, I worked at an Eckerd's Drug store, and one night, I was going around the store changing sale price stickers in various sections. On this particular night, I had a big sticker sheet full of product names with their prices, and for most of the time I was working on this product, I had my nose buried in the sheet to look over my next move.

Fast forward towards the middle of my shift, I'm walking down an aisle, looking at the stickers, thinking I was alone, when suddenly, I hear a booming female voice from behind me:

"AH-HEM! EXCUSE ME! YOU.....YEAH YOU! I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

I look up to see a middle aged, white trash looking woman staring at me, arms crossed, tapping her foot angrily. She was standing with a girl who I presume was her daughter. I was quite confused as to the woman's anger, but I shrugged it off at first:

Me: Hi, is there anything I can help you with miss?

Woman: Uh, yeah there is....I don't much appreciate you following me around the store!

Me: Err....I'm sorry?

Woman: You've been following me for the last 10 minutes! And don't try to deny it, cause you're making it very FUCKING OBVIOUS! I AIN'T STEALING SHIT!

Me: Ma'am, I had no idea you were even in this aisle till just now...

Woman: BULL-SHIT! Lemme give you a piece of advise.....if you're gonna follow a "suspicious customer", at least be subtle about it.... (Under her breath, walking away) fucking piece of shit....

At this point, I just watched the woman walk away in a huge state of disbelief. Finally, the girl shook her head and walked over to me and was all "I'm really sorry about that....she's just very paranoid about being followed. I know you weren't actually following her, just doing your job..."

After-math: The woman and girl paid for their stuff and left. As they were walking out, I remember the girl saying to the woman "Why do you *always* have to make a scene when we go out to a store? That guy didn't even notice you for Christ's sake!"

That happened to me once at a Big Lots and I didn't even work there

 

[Trapped_Fairy]

I work as a self checkout "attendant"(read overglorified cashier/customer sitter) at a small southern grocery chain. It's a pretty simple job, save for the rush hours where I have six customers all needing me at once. But dear god, the stupidity and entitlement of some of these customers just blows me the fuck away sometimes. I suck at telling stories, but here we go.

Well, one day I was working at a regular register, there was maybe an hour left on my shift when I got this dude in my line. He looked like a normal everyday guy. I gave the usual retail script and scanned through his items and everything was running smoothly up until I asked him a simple question.

"Debit or Credit?"
"The pin pad says it's waiting for you."
"That's why I need to know what you're paying with, sir."
"BUT IT SAYS IT'S WAITING FOR YOU!" Great, he's getting pissy with me.

I was dumbfounded. Who the hell gets confrontational over being asked if they're paying with debit or credit? I shake it off and put on my best customer service smile.
"I know it does, sir, so if you could just tell me whether your card is a debit card or a credit card, you won't have to wait anymore."
"Look, I swiped my card and put in my pin and now it says it's waiting for you!"

He's starting to yell at this point and I'm seriously done with this asshole. The second I heard the word pin, I double tapped debit and sent the fucker on his way with a forced smile. My bagger, a kindly old man, just looks at me once he's gone and we both are like "The hell just happened?"

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

I work as a self checkout "attendant"(read overglorified cashier/customer sitter) at a small southern grocery chain. It's a pretty simple job, save for the rush hours where I have six customers all needing me at once. But dear god, the stupidity and entitlement of some of these customers just blows me the fuck away sometimes. I suck at telling stories, but here we go.

Well, one day I was working at a regular register, there was maybe an hour left on my shift when I got this dude in my line. He looked like a normal everyday guy. I gave the usual retail script and scanned through his items and everything was running smoothly up until I asked him a simple question.

"Debit or Credit?"
"The pin pad says it's waiting for you."
"That's why I need to know what you're paying with, sir."
"BUT IT SAYS IT'S WAITING FOR YOU!" Great, he's getting pissy with me.

I was dumbfounded. Who the hell gets confrontational over being asked if they're paying with debit or credit? I shake it off and put on my best customer service smile.
"I know it does, sir, so if you could just tell me whether your card is a debit card or a credit card, you won't have to wait anymore."
"Look, I swiped my card and put in my pin and now it says it's waiting for you!"

He's starting to yell at this point and I'm seriously done with this asshole. The second I heard the word pin, I double tapped debit and sent the fucker on his way with a forced smile. My bagger, a kindly old man, just looks at me once he's gone and we both are like "The hell just happened?"

People like that are the worst. I did once have a guy who couldn't understand what I meant when I said his card had been declined. He just kept insisting I was trying to steal his money even though the receipt had "Transaction Declined" in big-ass-fucking-letters across the top and bottom.