[dvallere]

A girly story for you.

Used to work in a spa/salon where one of our services was waxing. Mother and 30-ish daughter came in one day, and the daughter came to the front desk to make an appointment for eyebrow & upper lip waxing. Mother then asks me (and the receptionist), "Doesn't waxing cause wrinkles?"

Huh? How could you tell? Even if you start wrinkling, it could be genetics, sun damage, whatever. And if she really thought it caused wrinkles, why would she let her daughter do it? I suppose it might be hard for guys to understand but this was a really mind-boggling question to people who spend all their time studying skin care treatments.

The receptionist was quicker than I was, though...she said that waxing actually helps eliminate wrinkles...which is probably bogus, but the lady appeared to accept it as a legit answer.

Had a non-work one a few weeks ago. Talking home decor with my neighbor, I mentioned we needed more bookcases.

Neighbor: What for?
Me (

) Books?
Neighbor: Why do you have all those books?
Me (

) Duh, because we LIKE to READ!

(Then I felt like, whoops, that was kind of rude...but she didn't seem to notice.)

 

[darkisz]

I worked in a toy store in DC for over 10 years, so I've heard customers ask the most obvious questions thousands of times. Like:

"Why won't this game play on my iMac?"
"Because it says 'For WindowsXP'."

"Why did this <generic electronic toy> stop working after a few hours?"
"Because the batteries ran out?"

<Buying a building toy>
"Do I have to put this together?"

But the one question that was the end all be all bane of my existance, was:

"Did you take the price off that?"

We did free, ultra-fast gift wrapping at the store. I can't guess how many tens of thousands of gifts I wrapped during my years there. The very first thing I learned, and taught anyone that we hired, about gift wrapping is "Always take off the price tag." I mean, Duh. Obvious, right? But I heard this question at least 10 times a day, and on busy days (any Saturday or Sunday, or school holiday, and basically the entire months of November and December) I'd get asked 40-100+ times. Every time I'd tell the customer that we always take the price tag off.

Early on, I started sticking the removed price tags to my pants leg. I always had between 3 and 100 tags sticking to me. Still, customers would ask me if I remembered to take the tags off thier gifts. I'd tell them "we always take the price tag off" and point to my leg, hoping that I could at least get through to some of our regular customers. No luck, we still got asked as much as ever.

After being there about 6 years, we put up a sign at the gift wrap station reading "All price tags will be removed." About a month later we took it down because noone bothered to read it before asking, and if we pointed to the sign in response to the customer's question, we were chastised for "being smart."

Finally, I accepted the fact that somehow, this question has engrained itself on the evolution of our society, and that someday, I'll be in a toy store on the Saturday before Christmas buying a gift for my grandkid, and I'll be that customer that asks the poor frazzled giftwrapper:

"Hey, Did you take the price off that?"

 

[james__bean]

I've been doing customer service work for like 5 years now. I work in the electronics section in a department store. I took a year off from school a couple years back and did nothing but one hour photo all year. Its amazing the stupidity that you'll see on any given day.

This has happened about 10,000 times
Customer: How do I make prints on this thing?
Me: What does it say on the screen
Customer: Um... press here to make prints
Me: Ok... (waits for common sense to kick in)

If you do it just right your coworkers will have to walk to the back so they don't burst out laughing in front of the customer.

Customer: I want to turn this film in to be developed
Me: Ok, just fill out one of the envelopes and put the roll inside.
Customer: Which one do I use for one hour?
Me: The one that says one hour on it.

There's a billion variations of that one. It just comes down to people being too lazy to read the writing thats right in front of them.

This actually happened to me a couple weeks ago.
Elderly Woman: I came to pick up my photos
Me: I'm sorry we weren't able to print these due to explicit content.
Elderly Woman: Explicit content, what does that mean?
Me: Well, there were naked pictures... of an elderly woman.
Elderly Woman:

Oh... ok.

Then I made the mistake of looking over at a co-worker at the register and his face was bright red. I had to turn away from the customer because I almost burst out laughing. She obviously didn't know what was on the roll when she turned it in, which just made telling her that much more hilarious.

I honestly have like a billion of these stories. Retail work can really suck, but its damn funny at times.

 

[DJ Mauler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TenaciousO I used to work pt as a circulation clerk at the local library. We had this shelf full of used books that we sold for $.50 with all the proceeds going to charity. One guy actually tried to bargain down to $.25 for a book. Yeah. Oh, probably the most ridiculous thing that I've heard from customers is that "the customer is always right." No they're not. The sad thing is that a lot of us have this engrained in our minds like it's one of the 10 Commandments.

haha i work at a dealership and there was a service advisor who prior to that was a salesman... and someone was like haha jason the customer is always right and he looked at the guy and sayed The Customer is always Full Of S*** hehe when i read your post this popped into my mind

 

[Jahn]

This is still my favorite - FAST FOOD 911!

Here's a part of it-

Dispatcher: Ma'am, then I suggest you get your money back and go somewhere else. This is . . . this is not a criminal issue. We can't go out there and make them make you a cheeseburger the way you want it.

Woman: Well . . . that is . . . that . . . you're supposed to be here to protect me.

Dispatcher: Well, what are we protecting you from, a wrong cheeseburger?

Woman: No . . .

Dispatcher: Is this like . . . is this a harmful cheeseburger or something? I don't understand what you want us to do.

 

[Homeless]

My brother used to work tech support for HP a few years back. The best story he told me was when he got a call from a guy who was wondering what was wrong with his CD burner he had bought. My brother said he went through all the common questions you'd ask and when he finally said to the guy "your computer is on right?" the guy replied..."I need a computer?" lol...Whenever he tells the story he can't get through it becuase he keeps laughing...I can only imagine what tech support have to hear on a daily basis...

 

[SennFan]

2 stories:

1) I remember sitting in an Olive Garden a few years ago when someone snapped their fingers a few tables over and asked the waitress with a straight face for a bottle of "MUR-LOTT" for his table...i.e. Merlot wine.


One of the Best...
2) My friend worked in his University's campus security office as an undergrad. There he had the responsibility of writing parking tickets. He describes his boss as being around 35 years old and reasonably intelligent. However, what he was about to tell me totally contradicts this and makes you question humanity...

After writing tickets one day he went into the office to clock out and noticed his boss angrily pocking at his computer tower murmuring screw, d*** and other expletives under his breath. Concerned, he appraoched his boss to ask if he needed help and he said, "Yeah, I just ordered some stuff of _______ and it said to enter my credit card so I put it in here (floppy drive) and I can't get it out!"

 

[Graz]

I always think it's funny(?) when I see enormously, disgustingly fat people gorging themselves at an all you can eat buffet...







...and asking the waitress for a diet coke.

Peace,

Graz

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tennisets Another guy bought a new pair of Vandersteen 5A speakers. After we had swiped his credit card and given him his receipt, he promptly tore it up and asked to put it in our garbage can. We asked him why he did that and he said, "I do that for anything expensive that I don't want my wife finding out how much it costs. If that receipt even left this store, I can guarantee you she would find it. It's much easier for me to just "lose" it now and not risk the consequences." We laughed at that too.

LOL, I'll bet he has his credit card statement sent to a PO box.

Those guys need to learn to Ninja© their stuff.

-Ed

 

[warchua]

I ordered a colonel burger at KFC a while back. The girl repeats my order "so thats one 'co-lo-nel' burger?"

I ordered home delivery from a fastfood chain
Me: What rice dishes do you have?
Her: we have rice with one piece of chicken.
Me: Do you have any other dishes?
Her: Yes we do. we have rice with 2 pieces of chicken as well.
I couldn't stop laughing at that one.

 

[McRat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graz ...and asking the waitress for a diet coke.

Ditto! I was working for a year at the local hamburger place as a cashier and the best was definitely one "slightly" overweight teenage girl who ordered the largest, fattest burger on the menu with double mayo... (I couldn't even consume that one with regular ridiculous amount of mayo in it.)

...and a diet coke.

I had real trouble staying calm.

 

[MASantos]

I did a training as a waiter in a5 star hotel some time ago and one of the hotel's restaurant policies was to keep the ine glasses of the guests always with wine. One guy was drinking white wine and when the bottle got empty I asked if they would like to have another bottle and he complained that I had poured the wine too quickly during the meal! But he had asked for it!

 

[Elec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by james__bean There's a billion variations of that one. It just comes down to people being too lazy to read the writing thats right in front of them.

Yeah that kind of stuff always bugged me at the hardware store. We had a lot of people who you could actually watch walk through the door and take two steps directly over to the customer service desk (which was by the door, and the reason you could watch 'em come in). So they'd walk in and immediately ask where something was. Never looked around. Didn't read the signs. Just asked.

One of the most common ones was lightbulbs. People would come in and think "Hey, I only need a lightbulb, not gonna waste MY time looking for that." So they'd ask. And we'd point. And they'd see that if they had kept walking straight rather than stopping at the counter, they'd have walked right into the lightbulb aisle. There was even a nice sign that said lightbulbs and had a bulb on it. And usually an endcap full of bulbs.

 

[dokebi]

Working in auto parts a customer comes in complaining about the bill.

Him: Why did you charge me 127.23?
Me: Can I see your receipt and bag please?
Me: You bought a battery 59.99, 4 motor oils etc etc. (everything was correct.)
Him: No it's not..you overcharged me!
Me: (Rung up the order again making sure he watches as everything got added up on the register display) Can you do math?
Him: (quiet)
Other customers in line:

 

[ken36]

Let's use my car.