There's nothing more exhilarating than
pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?
-- Randall
So, as brought up in another thread, I'm sure you all have some pretty hellish or comedic (or both) customer service stories to share.
Meredith said (in regards to working as a barista): We were only allowed to use the espresso bar for hot water if we were actually working the bar. Otherwise I used the spigot out of the coffee makers unless a bitchy customer would state that they only drank it out of the hot water faucet. Which of course they would only tell me after I had poured the whole thing.
Share your rants, bitching, or simply funny stories inside...
ed [email] said at 4:13 PM 10-12-2004: No customer service-related ones, but comedic coworker bits:
I had a coworker who loved to fart. Loud or stinky, or preferably both, would send him into fits of hysterical laughter. It should be mentioned that my department sat in a "U" arrangement. Or like a square with one side open. We called it "the bullpen". Rick sat right in the middle of the U. Pat, our 72-year-old coworker, sat at the tip of one of the sides - as far away from Rick's desk as was possible. One day, Rick drops a FOUL, PRIMORDIAL SBD. I smell the first, ominous waft, and walk quickly across the room to the workbench and watch Rick start giggling.
"Pat, could you come here and look at this error message on my screen?"
Poor old Pat, whose eyesight is terrible, shuffles over into the almost-visible fog. He stands there looking at the screen.
"I don't see any error message."
I'm falling across the workbench with the effort of stifling my laughter.
"Right there." Rick points.
Pat leans in closer. Squints. "I don't see it."
I literally fell down, tears of laughter streaming from my eyes as I burst out in hysterics. Rick loses it. Pat looks at me as if I'm insane.
"What's your problem?"
"Pat, man... don't you smell anything?"
"Well, to tell the truth, I feel like my eyebrows are burning off. Smells like someone ate a bucket of sulfur."
I'm literally gasping for air, rolling on the ground. "Then WHY are you standing there?"
"Because Rick asked me for help!" Exasperated, like I'm dense.
"Pat, THERE IS NO ERROR MESSAGE. He did that to get you to come over and smell his fart!"
Pat turns and casts a baleful glare at Rick. "You rotten sonofabitch." And shuffles back to his own desk.
ed [email] said at 8:13 PM 10-12-2004: Pat suffered many an indignity at the hands of the rest of our department.
My other favorite Pat anecdote is the time he left to go to the restroom and came back with HUGE OBVIOUS moist trails down the front of his khaki pants. After we hooted and hollered for a good two minutes, he gave us the baleful glare (this was his specialty) and said, "I'm 72. I have a prostate the size of a bagel."
ed [email] said at 8:46 PM 10-12-2004: Oooh! Last Pat anecdote, I promise:
He went to go fix someone's computer in another department. He had a question, so he called me from this other person's phone. I didn't happen to be at my desk at the time, so he got my voicemail. I almost pissed myself when I got back to my desk. My voicemail message light was lit. So I called it, and got this message:
"Ed, it's Pat. If you're there, pick up,"
This piece of voicemail lore lives on, even though I haven't worked at said corporation since 2002. People I know have forwarded it back and forth to keep the actual message alive since then.
abby [email] said at 4:16 PM 10-12-2004: coffee service is full of the uppity, the demanding, the easily insulted and the self-important. i wouldn't know where to begin. every day offers new dicklicks for me to jone on.
abby [email] said at 5:15 PM 10-12-2004: ehh.. they're all very "you had to be there". they're also very "you won't understand this, and you'll think i'm a fucking retard unless you are currently employed by starbucks". but i will think of something good for you.
kevin [email] said at 5:17 PM 10-12-2004: strabucks needs like a frappachino slurpee machine! it must suck ass making all those blended drinks for the people.
kevin [email] said at 5:43 PM 10-12-2004: damn. i will have to check that out at the 7-11. everytime i'm at starbucks it seems the majority of the orders are for frapp drinks.
courtney [email] said at 6:06 PM 10-12-2004: cos it's not even coffee. I can't even taste the coffee anymore in their espresso drinks... not like it's quality coffee or anything... I often go to starbies if I want a dessert, something sweet.
meredith [email] said at 6:37 PM 10-12-2004: It does suck making fraps. Especially because families of 12 will order 27 different kinds and insist that they be decaf and look exactly like 'that poster on I-12, you know the one? By the Stevenson's maybe?' no, you fucker, if I had a fucking car I wouldn't be working in this place.
chrispy said at 5:39 PM 10-12-2004: Oooh.. Starbucks. Anyone working there has to have damn near superhuman levels of patience. I get chills just thinking what it would be like to work there.
meredith [email] said at 6:38 PM 10-12-2004: I was horrid and bitter. I had at least two people complain about me WHILE I WAS STANDING THERE. Luckily I was immensely popular with the staff. They loved my witticisms. Whether the customers did or not.
courtney [email] said at 4:54 PM 10-12-2004: I once sat near a drive-thru for starbucks and documented what people would order and/or say. The one that perplexed me most was the one that said "tall non-fat 190 degree chai". They're specifying the temperature now?
Also, the girl that kept saying "Tail" to order a Tall frappuccino. ("what size again?" "TAIL!")
abby [email] said at 5:09 PM 10-12-2004: yes, it will always be either 135 degrees (lukewarm) or 180+ (fucking scalding, morons)
what is great about this is that, you can't be exacting with steamed milk. you can guess, you can ballpark, and when you present it to the customer you kindof cutesy wince and bite your lip and say "ooh it might not be exaactly wtf degrees.. i can make it again if you like!" to which they will always reply "oh no, it doesn't really fucking matter."
myriam [email] said at 5:45 PM 10-12-2004: the best are the customers who ask for skim milk, and then bitch at you for being slow with their drink. it's like, you have a choice, mister. either you take whatever milk is hot already from just being steamed, and you get a speedy drink, or you make me steam a whole new cup to satisfy your pickiness and you stand and wait.
abby [email] said at 6:02 PM 10-12-2004: mostly they ask you at every step of the drink if you remember their not-out-of-the-ordinary and dully memorable preferences.
"is that skim/soy/2%?" repeat three or four times.
myriam [email] said at 6:07 PM 10-12-2004: "no, but i'll tell you it is so you leave me alone while I fill 8 drink orders."
i don't think i ever went out of my way to steam a particular milk unless i had no other drinks to fill and the customer was standing right there.
although recently i was shamed for this when i overheard some girl at starbucks ask for the barista to remake her drink with the right milk as she explained that she gets sick from the wrong kind.
myriam [email] said at 6:10 PM 10-12-2004: i know, i know. i have a story i'll post in here later, though, that accounts for any illwill i may feel towards customers.
abby [email] said at 5:20 PM 10-12-2004: mis-pronunciations are funny at first, but then they all blend together. it is starbuck's fault for being so fucking faggoty about it.
abby [email] said at 6:06 PM 10-12-2004: complaining about this in a siskian forum is making me nervous because sisk is bound to say "GO TO COLLEGE ABBY"
myriam [email] said at 6:18 PM 10-12-2004: oh yes! i thought i was the only person that loved the espresso brownies--i always have to get them to get a new box out of the back.
milky [email] said at 5:13 PM 10-12-2004: God, it was both.
The place was a dump. I had to keep the porno renters out of the porno room if they'd been there an hour and weren't doing any renting.
julie [email] said at 5:21 PM 10-12-2004: I worked at a video store for a few months in college. I would always flat-out refuse to go in the porno room. Even to return movies to the shelves. (What if they were sticky!?!?) Even though we had one of those see-aroung-the-corner mirrors in there. Because I didn't want to go in there and find someone doing something, NOR did I want to be in there alone if someone came in and decided to do something.
I also screwed up one time by telling a customer out loud what his overdue titles were-- they were adult titles. Apparently, if a customer is like, "What the hell? What do you mean I can't check out more movies because I have overdue movies? What movies do I have?" you're not supposed to be all, "Black Anaconda 8, Big Juicy Butts, and The Loin King." No, you're just supposed to give them a meaningful look and say "you have (wink wink) TWO titles checked out (wink wink) from the adult section."
I HATED working at that video store, I think I lasted 2 months there.
milky [email] said at 5:35 PM 10-12-2004: I had a blast reciting titles. And since it was a town of 12,000...I got to say "hey, i know you from church services...or i went to school with your daughter!" The porno room had a closed circuit camera monitor.
I charged FULL price on overdue titles like Blockbuster does, although it wasn't store policy: "That's right, 20 DAMN DOLLARS, PAY IT UP!"
Under my watch, the store MADE money. I was paid cash under the table, always. In PHAT bills. It was the owners' policy.
chrispy said at 5:05 PM 10-12-2004: In the short interlude between my service in Desert Storm and me deciding to go back into military service (I mean, who dosen't like getting shot at, right?) I was working as "night manager" at a little burger shack in Natchitoches, one of the upper levels of hell. We had this one old miserable son of a bitch who came up all the damn time to buy his hamburgers, and complain about any damn thing that he could. For awhile I put up with him, then he was on one of his "I"M NEVER COMING BACK" rants. I said, "Of course you are coming back."
"NO I"M NOT"
"Sure you are. You are too damn cheap to go to a real resturant and to lazy to cook. You'll be back."
It took a week and a half. He came back.
me: "You're BACK! Boy, am I glad you're BACK! I was starting to thing you would't come BACK, but you're BACK!"
Him: "mumble... hamburger plate...mumble".
I managed to work "back" into the conversation several more times before the hamburger was ready.
meredith [email] said at 6:46 PM 10-12-2004: Okay, here are a few of my best Starbucks stories. They are made even better because I worked at the third busiest Starbucks in Chicagoland and it was in the Southloop. So we were in the perfect area for: students, businesspeople, tourists AND the crazies.
Story #1 - The hot tea. I was making tea for a customer. She watches me brew the entire large cup, cap it, put the sleeve on and hand it to her and ring her total before she says, "You know, whenever you guys pour it out of that spigot, it's never really hot, so I really prefer it to be poured out of the faucet." Me: "Yes, ma'am that can sometimes happen early in the morning when we are brewing a lot of coffee, but it's been moderate the past few hours so it should be fine." She gives me a look. Me "But of course if you don't like it, I"ll make it over." She pretends to sip, "See, no, that's tepid." So I turn around and try not to be huffy as I dump the perfectly good scalding ass tea down the drain. Another girl comes up because there is a line forming "Meredith, can I do something for you?" Me, "Yes, can you please make her another Earl Grey tea with water from THAT faucet?" The girl suddenly gains the power to speak to someone busy on the other side of the counter, "OKay, you didn't have to say it like that." Me, "Well, I had to make sure she did it the way you wanted it. Ma'am."
Okay, I have to get ready for rehearsal. I'll tell the good ones later. My last day was the best. I told one customer off.
abby [email] said at 1:33 PM 10-14-2004: it is always the fucking tea.
when i take a tea order, i urge the tea-drinker to select teabags from the dozen or so boxes facing them. they slide the bags to me, i ask if they want honey, i open everything up and drop it into that scalding hell-water. tea!
one woman, large, big-shouldered, with bigass thick bangs and mauve lipstick, drops her teabags on the counter and, after saying yes give me honey, stops me as i begin to cut the honey packets open.
woman: "wait, wait, don't do all that. i can do that myself."
me: "oh, alright."
i put the packets on top of the teabags, and but the stack neatly on top of her cup. she looks up at me in disgusted puzzlement.
woman: "well, you can put the teabags in there! i mean, god!"
me: (silent, dutiful response)
woman: (over shoulder, to customers) "i tells ya.. you send em to school, you give em a job, then watch out!!"
me: "um. thanks?"
that's not even regular-rude, that's just stupid, no-one can stand talking to you, your life is an abyss rude. i am told she is a regular is yes, she is always like that.
The worst job besides right now was when I worked at this upscale S+M store, working on commission.
Frustration is helping sweaty, excited crossdressers into thousands of dollars worth of clothes, shoes, and wigs only to have him funk it all up with his various juices and walk out empty handed, a fuzzy glow on his face.
NEVER AGAIN!
courtney [email] said at 11:02 PM 10-12-2004: stupid computer rental stories:
woman asks, "how do you make the pointing thing move?" (the cursor) I say, "use the mouse." She promptly puts the mouse on the screen and tries to move the pointing thing.
senior citizen says her mouse doesn't work. I ask her to show me what happens when she tries to use it. She turns the mouse upside-down and tries to use it, trackball-style.
shady-looking men coming in and renting the computers to look at porn. during peak business hours.
people that come in, sit down, and use the computer without asking any questions about the fees and ignore any signs, use it for and hour and print 100 pages, then bitch about how expensive it is after the fact, and demand a discount
chrispy said at 11:55 PM 10-12-2004: I used to be a bouncer....
What joy. Dealing with drunken/stoned assholes all night and chasing the kiddies away. It's amazing what grown people will do after a few (dozen) drinks. Here are a few of my quotes from those days:
"When I said just piss against the building, I meant OUTSIDE."
"Someone else is going to sit there, stop it!"
"Very nice, now that we've all seen it, would you please get down from there ma'am?"
" PLEASE just put the pool cue down and go home, please." (It's amazing what can be averted by a polite request)
"NO DANCING ON THE BAR, DAMMIT!"
"Excuse me, sir, do you realize that this is the ladies' restroom?"
"Excuse me, ma'am, do you realize that this is the mens' restroom?"
"Hey, you two, we have only one stall in here and people have to go, get out."
courtney [email] said at 12:00 AM 10-13-2004: GAWD I LOVE THIS SITE... quotes to graphic designers from clients. Should I be scared that so many of these sound so familiar?
