January 24, 2009
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Fun times at work
OK… not really.
So last night, there was a guy who came in with a whole pile of calendars he wanted to return. The calendars were recently marked down to $4, which he obviously knew because as the end of the transaction neared, he goes, “Can I buy those back for $4?”
I said, “Well you can, but it’s very dishonest.”
“What do you mean it’s dishonest?” he says with a sneer. Then after a few seconds of me basically ignoring him as I rang other customers through the line, he grumbles, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Okaaaaay. I wasn’t. It was all I could do not to laugh at him. I should be ashamed?? I think not. He was the one returning a mountain of calendars and then rebuying them at $4, basically stiffing the store for the difference. I’m all for customer service. If a customer comes in a day after missing a sale and wants a price adjustment, fine. But what this guy did was intrinsically dishonest, and he knew it. It was always his intent to rebuy the calendars at $4. Asking if he could was just a formality. What were we going to do, tell him no?
Well, as he continued to berate me for my honesty (and his lack of ethics), he says in a tone that implies he’s doing us a favor, “Fine then, I will buy them,” as if that were ever in question. Then he says, “You should apologize to me.”
Nope. Not going to do it. They can fire me, but if I had apologized,1) it would have come out sopping in sarcasm
2) I would be validating his view that he was entitled, and he wasn’t
3) allowing bad customers to get away with crap like this is why people who work in retail begin to hate their jobs after a while. Because you know, customer service is going to crawl up his butt to make him happy, and I’m wrong to be honest about this form of theft. I should just bend over and drop my pants, right?
He asked for my name, and I told him quite clearly and loudly my name and my position with the store. I told him, when I was done ringing up customers, I would get him the customer service number if he would go to the information desk. Apparently, he couldn’t wait for me to get done with the line and was stalking all around the info desk looking for someone to give him the customer service number. So when I went over I ignored him, went right over, took out a piece of paper, wrote down my name and underlined it and then wrote the customer service number in big numbers so there’d be no mistake. I underlined by name, and I gave it to him.
He demanded to talk to a manager and I said, “There is no manager here right now. I’m the supervisor on duty.”
Then as he was leaving, he said, “I spend thousands of dollars here every year.”Really? Do you? Because honest to gods, I’ve never seen you here before and your money oriented litany is something every problem customer like you says to try and get under a retail worker’s skin. I just said, “uh huh,” in a tone that made it quite clear what I thought of that statement.
“I hope you like your life,” he announced as he was leaving.
Thinly veiled threat? Yeah… apparently he’s gunning for my job. Whatever. I don’t care any more. The company is all about cutting costs and saving money and then bozos like this guy come in and steal by “working the system.” Fire me for telling him I knew what he was doing. I couldn’t care less.
So the other day, we had a meeting and our boss reiterated that our 401K will remain and that we’re welcome to put money in, but the company won’t be matching. It’s been like that for a year already. She also said that this year there is a freeze on raises all the way up the line to corporate. That doesn’t impress me. Even if the president of Borders and his cronies don’t get a raise, I’m betting there will be bonuses for them. The cost of benefits will also be going up… great. And she also said that, aside from bestsellers and the BOGO (buy1, get1) sale there will be no more in store discounts starting Tuesday. So I’ve been unstickering stuff like mad.
I really do think that our store will be closing within the year. We consistently don’t make plan and they’re trying to cut corners across the board. Then we have fools like the customer last night who basically feel they’re entitled. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I couldn’t tell him what I really thought of him. I said enough just telling him his actions where dishonest, and then he had the nerve to ask me what was dishonest about them. Well, I could have told him, but if he needed such a simple ethical dilemma explained to him, then obviously he wouldn’t understand my answer.
So maybe when I go in today, I’ll be fired. I’ll miss my coworkers, but frankly, I won’t miss the job or the idiots who are gouging us right out of business.What do you think? Was I right or wrong? I mean, yeah it was pretty stupid to blurt that out, but was he being unethical or was I being too discerning? I’d be the first to admit I have a very strong moral and ethical imperative and that people often disappoint me, but I think he knew he was wrong and that my honesty just pi$$ed him off because he knew I knew it was always his intent to rip us off.
January 24th
The Cornish Tinner’s and Seafarer’s Day is an old Labor Day celebrating a new season of sailing and mining.
The 10th day of Pamenot is the Day of the Coming of Thoth.
The Fair of Alasitas, a Bolivian holiday, is held in honor of Ekeko, the Andean dwarf god of fecundity, joy, abundance and prosperity. It is depicted as a dumpy and smiling personage, loaded down with a variety of products. Bolivians buy little trinkets representing their desires for the coming year. A shaman often blesses the trinkets with incense, flower petals and rubbing alcohol, but natives will also visit Our Lady of La Paz for the blessings of the Roman Catholic priests as well.
The Alpha-Carinids meteor shower begins now and ends on February ninth. It is a little known southern hemisphere shower. The best viewing occurs on January thirty-first.
Comments (7)
When one door closes another swings open. I think we’ve spoke of that before when you were talking about the book store. I don’t think you did a thing wrong. He asked and you responded. Keep your integrity, you’re doing just fine!
Some people don’t have any moral or ethical standards. That bozo was clearly one of those people. You were a lot nicer to him than I would have been. I would have told him, “No,” and then I would have told him he either needs to buy something or leave (this is why I should never work in retail). What was he doing with a pile of calendars, anyway? Who has that many calendars and doesn’t unwrap them when the year starts? Weird.
I hope you’re not fired. If they do try to fire you, you should shout, “Well, you can’t fire me, because I QUIT!!!!” Then storm out in righteous indignation.
Some people will do anything for a little extra money. I would have been frustrated with that guy as well!
I really hate people like that. At my store this year, I’ve seen a HUGE increase in the amount of people trying to scam us. One example is that they’ll go to a store in another mall and buy stuff with a coupon. Then they come to our store and return a few items (hoping that we don’t notice that a coupon was used), trying to get the full price of the items. When I tell them the amount of money or credit they’ll get back, they’re like, “Oh, no, I only used the coupon on this item” and I’ll explain that a $10 off coupon works by taking a percentage off of *each* item. Most of the time they’re like, “Oh, never mind then. I’ll keep it” (Probably to try returning it at another store). It’s even more irritating when they try to return an item they got for FREE with a coupon. Ticks me off beyond belief. I know the economy is bad, but people like that are just hurting businesses even more.
i don’t think you were wrong. i would have however told him that he could buy the things back after 24 hours. someone would have to inspect the calendars and make sure there was no damage or that they couldn’t be sent back to the manufacturers (we send stuff back all the time if it’s damage i don’t know if you have to check stuff out ahead of time or whatever at your store though) if they were still there tomorrow he could buy them etc.
I ought to make a clean breast that the whole lot you utter can be faithful
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