The Humbug! Awards

[racestark]

Well, fellow retailers, it's our favorite time of year again. You know, the time where everyone's all just so cheery, completely understanding and complete and total ****ing morons.
And since today was our first REAL busy day, I'm starting this thread so we can vent to each other. (Actually, it's more of a cleverly disguised way for me to rant about how much my life and job, which are pretty much synonymous at this point, suck. But if I have to suffer, everyone's gonna have to.)
The first Humbug! Award winner goes to this old man who yelled at me for 45 minutes over the phone about a coupon. I don't know if any of you read the fine print on those things, and if you don't, please do, but they usually say take "X% OFF" in real big lettering and "the regular retail price" in slightly smaller lettering below it. The % off in bigger font is just supposed to be the attention grabber.
This guy calls to speak to a manager. I get on the phone with him and he yells at me because he bought the "March of the Penguins" DVD. We have it sale priced at $19.99 down from $29.99 retail. He comes in with our current coupon, "25% OFF the regular price of one item." He gets home and realizes that he didn't get 25% off the sale price. I explained it to him and he goes on a rant about, and I quote, "Well, that's very deceptive on Border's part. You know, this is the holidays and people ain't got time to read all that stuff on the coupon. I've been coming to your store for eight years (we've been open six this upcoming summer) and I don't now if I'll ever be back know after this deception you've pulled!"
I didn't know a coupon was a piece of literature and I didn't know offering savings to customers was a deception. Huh.

Anyway, for those of you out there in the Christmas rush being good little consumers and not working in retail, please consider the feelings and sanity of the person behind the register or information desk or on the phone. We're people, too. And besides, if you catch on the wrong day, we'll just leap over that counter and tear your freakin' head off! HOW'S THAT FOR 25% OFF?!!

[Talus]

Race man breath..... Then pour yourself a pint of scotch and enjoy. It only lasts just over a month.

[moulinous]

And next time i call i better get my way you little punk! The coupon said 25% off and that is what i should have got! (hehe)

[racestark]

Way ahead of you, Talus.
*looks between Moulinous and the counter with a scowl*

[DM Grizwald]

Man i know how you feel racestark. I work in the hotel buisness but unlike you, i dont have a counter. Its been a busy week with people coming to visit family and such here. I've now been written up 4 times by my managers in a week but they really cant fire me cause im one of the only ones with a liscence to drive a limo. So i just flip them off and continue my day!

[moulinous]

in all honesty i should share my Wally mart story. Worked one year for extra cash as a temp there and was a cashier. My trainer never showed up and since somebody had already signed on to the register i just started ringing people with the cashier next to me answering any questions if i had any. That was my first day, 8 hours, no break, and apparently everybody ina bad mood. Second day, four shift, three people call in sickthat work as cashiers and we were even busier. My third day that i come in, i am given mt little cash drawer and told that we are going to only have four checkers on a busy holiday sunday and that we just need to do the best we could. Well, anout an hour later i am getting yelled at by this little old devil in a green sweater and matching skirt with holly leaves and she is really tearing in to me as she has waited in line for twenty mins already. I pointed out to her so had everyone else and the people behind her were still inline. She said i was the reason that Wal mart was so horrible to shop at and that i was something else as well. The last thing i did not hear as i just opened my drawer, took out my money, walked it over to the lady who was in charge and told her i was going. She says no , that my break was not for another two hours. I told her she did not understand, i was going home and then out drinking. I gave her my drawer and left. Never even picked up my check,lol. But anyhow, i know your pain as i have done it before in retail and now if i ever get a second job, well, it will be as a bartender so when someone makes me mad, shot of Jager and it is allllll bettttter.

[Booze Hound]

*snicker* oh you think bartender is where the roses grow huh? *chuckles and shakes head* well lemme tell ya a story about bartending...hell I'll even make it a Christmas bartending story for ya. I have been slinging drinks for almost 10 years now all over the place. Alaska, Louisiana, Hawaii, Montana...all over the place. So I got plenty of them.

*scratches chin* now which one shall I tell...

I got it...one that will make ya feel better about us poor workers getting revenge. I was the manager and head bartender of the bar at the ski resort in Montana. for extra cash during the busy holoday weekends ad such, I moonlighted at the back bar at the Snow Creek Saloon.

A little background on the Snowrceek...I have a swell scar/lump on my forehead from a beer bottle...I have bartended for a half an hour with someone else's blood caked on my shirt until someone else pointed it out cause it was so damn hot and dark and loud anyways...I have done burnouts on my harley on the dance floor, and tequilla shots from horseback, then rode out the back door...and more often tan not I have to serve drinks between the legs of women dancing on the bar.

sounds fun I know...but hoo boy, come Christmas time, all the No-Daks come in. If you are from North Dakota, I am sorry, but N0-Daks are the worst tourists ever. So one of these Jolly nights during Christmas, after a full day at the ski resort where I had to be nice to all these people all day and pacify them, I get to work at the Snow Creek for the night. *chuckles* whole new ball game...so this one group of No-Daks come in and they start ordering...the place is full of screaming people, and there is a rock band above me, I gotta wear ear plugs to hear any thing, and just like at the ski resort he orders one thing, I make it, he orders another thing, I make it, he orders anoter thing and I tell him to piss off and tell it all to me at once, and go help someone else. I come back 15 minutes or so later, and he's all steamed up. So I cooly ask him what he needs as if I don't even remember him, and he orders one thing, and I make it, and orders one thing...again I tell him to piss off, and go help others. Well he decids that he deserves his drinks, and so when I come around he starts holler ing at me across the bar he says something like "You #$$%&$ Why don't you come out side you little &^%&*^% and I'll-"

That's when I grabbed his ear and yeanked his face down onto the bar, busting his nose and his eye. He slid down under the bar, and the bouncer threw him out into the snow. I had a shot of Bushmills, chugged a Highlife, and continued making a hell of a lot of cash.

so Merry Christmas! ;D

[moulinous]

i bartended all through college and so i can kinda relate to you there logandoug. LOL Only in Cali and Vegas though and mostly,well always, at foo foo bars, so never mind, cannot relate. But i love the story! I think Guldar and you would have been pretty good pals...

[DM Grizwald]

Nicely done....the best i got is i flipped off an invester here at the hotel.

[Spooks]

Yah yah, you know that the guy clocked you and the bouncers took him out XD.

J/k It just seems a bit too Kickass for an FRC player... I know I would be out having alot more fun in the real world if I had experiences like that.

[Booze Hound]

that's why I am on here so much these days, it keeps me outta trouble while I am going to school. Also why I decided going to school in Montana was not the best place to concentrate, so I am going to school in the Baptist Bible Belt to keep me in line

[marklar]

i have a wal-mart story! i used to work in the automotive area. i worked on the cars and it was middle on dec and this man wanted 4 new tires on his big green truck(truck tires are a b*tch!). well i took of all this guys tires and the new tires he was supposed to get were the wrong size! and we were one short of the full 4 in the right size. so i went and told the man and he started to yell at me telling me how he's a mechanic and blah blah blah. eventually he says to put the old ones back on a i'll %^%$'ing go elsewhere. so i told him i'd givem a blance and throw them back on to be nice. so after i balanced them i began to put them on, and when i started to impact gun them on next thing i know the second lug nut stops way before it's supposed to. so i try to reverse it up, doesn't happen the bolt broke off! so i went and told the guy, the guy freaked! basically told me to put them on regardless and once again that he's a mechanic. so i but all the tires on 2 more broke on the same tire and 1 more on each tire. and while i was tightening the others he watched me asking me what i did. i told him all i did. then he asked how tight i was making them and that he did it to 140 pounds, in my head i started to laugh because 100 pounds is the manufactures recommended strength of tightness. if he really was a mechanic he would have known that, it was a common truck. so then i'm about to get in his truck and back it out, and he jumps the fence(waist high) and into his truck and i said if you drive it we're not liable for the truck if he hits something. he got pissed of again and backed it out and got out of his truck and walked to me saying the mechanic BS so i said to him ok whatever buddy see ya later. he replied no you f**king won't, i said maybe i'll see you around. then he got in his truck and rolled down the close window and said go f**k yourself peeled out and i never saw him again.

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

wow, everyone has so much negative energy. As an engineer all i have to do is fill out reports. My wife spends my cash, so those in retail will never see me.

And doug is a hard ass IRL ... thats why im buddies with him IG.

[racestark]

Doug, you're my hero. I know a jackass just like that at my regular dive and it drives my bartender NUTS! Now, if it's because he orders one drink at a time or if it's because this guy brings 12 or so yuppies with him, I don't know, but I know that yuppies are what piss off the rest of us regulars.
And Moulinous and Marklar, I'm SOOO sorry you had to work at Exploit-Mart. If we don't have something a customer wants, that's the only place we won't direct them to find it. I'll send them to *gulp* Barnes & Noble before I do that.

[DM Grizwald]

BAHAHAHAHa!
Mark, my buddy dave worked at the south end waltmart in the auto to and he has that exact same story! Some old guy comes in, half bald with grey/white hair and tries telling him what to do. HAHAHA thats AWSOME!

[Foomanchu]

WOW you guys have some crazy stories! lol...I worked in the produce department in a grocery store...had customers that were asses but nothing severe lol just the drunk of mouthwash scumbags that came in everyday and the damn nearly daily tefts lol police at that place so often! ... yeah ... my job was more like ... the movie Clerks. LOL talked to Chril on the phone for like 45mins in the back, then hung up so I could go on break. Played hockey in the back, or baseball...or the time we made a HUGE elastic band and stretched it the nearly the whole lenght of the back room...pranked co-workers...man...we got away with SO much crap! and then they camera's went in....that stopped us for maybe a month tops. Yup...crap job, but there was lots of free time

[Entame]

Ah good ol' backroom hockey. Only thing better than that was the new conspiracy theories you thought up daily.

Note to everyone, stay away from all you can eat buffets and bottom-less soft drinks, according to some *looks at jorban* they're evil.

[DM Grizwald]

This is a Walt Mart story from my buddy.

Okay... I pushed the carts there for 2 years. And one day i was sitting outside on the bench having a cigarette. I had just finished getting written up for not working and always smoking. So i'm sitting there puffing away. I hear some bottles breaking. I figure someone just ran over some bottles in the lot again. Then I hear some guy screaming stuff. It was getting closer. So I got up and walked out to the lot a little bit. Saw some guy with no shirt and no shoes on yelling stuff at some lady and her little kids. Saying the little kids couldn't handle his power and wanted to suck his wanker. He starts pushing the lady. She then rushed her kids into her truck and started driving away. He got in front of the truck and smashed his own head on the hood while screaming stuff. So i'm thinking what in the name of god is this guy on. He starts going after my buddy's mom who was comming outta the store. So i get on my cell phone and call the mall security office to get some guys out there. The guy hears me ratting him out and comes after me. I'm laughing at him when he says I can't handle his power. He takes a couple swings at me and i just facewash him a little bit to get him outta my face. The guard comes running up around then. He was screaming at this crack head to get up against the wall right now. The guy spears the guard to the ground and starts feeding the guard some shots. I then jump on top of the crack head and start rubbing his face into the concrete and letting the back of his head have it. All three of us get up. The coke head really wants a piece of the guard. They start squaring off. I was standing about 5 feet to the side of the crackhead. The guard fakes going in high so the guy raises his arms. When the arms go up. I f**king Bruce Lee cross kick him in the ribs as hard as i can. I could hear and feel his ribs crack. The guy then decides that he can't handle our power and runs off like a pussy. I start chasing after him. He darts across the street and runs out right in front of the Staff Sergeant of the polices squad car. The Sgt gets out, Mortal Kombat style uppercuts the guy and throws him in the back of the car. I then had to go into the wall mart security office to fill out a statement. And the lady cop said that on preliminary examination of the guy,I busted 3 of his ribs with that kick. The guy was charged with two counts of assault. And that was the last I'd heard of it.

[StabbingNirvana]

if you were taken to civil court, you coulda been sued for an assload of cash

[DM Grizwald]

Note to everyone, stay away from all you can eat buffets and bottom-less soft drinks, according to some *looks at jorban* they're evil.

ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFETS ARE MY REASON FOR LIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!

[racestark]

Here's one that just happened today.
Fifteen minutes after I open the store this morning, we start to get a rush at the register because a bunch of people are last minute shopping and had a bunch of stuff on hold. No big deal, it's what we're expecting right now, anyway.
I call the next lady in line so I can ring her up (when you say it, it doesn't sound dirty, but reading it does). While she's walking up to my register, this other lady just dips in from the line exit and gets in front of the lady I called down. I calmly told her, "Ma'am, the line starts at the other end."
She snaps, "Well, I was here before her." I looked at her funny, I guess, because she snapped again, "What? You calling me a liar?"
I'm thinking, "DUH!" but say, "No, I'm just telling you that line starts at that end and she was next in line"
With the same holiday cheer, she says, "I was in the store before any of these other people. I should be first. First come, first serve, ain't that right?"
I tried to reason with her and she said, "Well, I ain't moving until you help me."
"Alright," I smiled and just slid over to the next empty register and rung up the lady I originally called up. The cheery holiday shopper storms off and finds my boss and goes on a tirade about my rudeness. He takes her to the front of the line and rings her up (by this time, she had wasted 10 minutes more than if she had just gone to the end of the line because my boss was busy helping other customers at the information desk).
My boss later tells me, "The next time that happens, just do what you got to do to get them out of the store without making a scene."
That's one of the first things they taught me when I started management. It just fells great to finally push one of their buttons back! Especially when you make them look like the @$$ in front of everyone else!
God, I need some gin...

[DM Grizwald]

you take your martini's shaken or stirred? (ps i cant spell so correct me if im wrong)

[henny]

a belated bah humbug ineed. i as just molested by a woman 3 times my weight in walmart (and I weigh 200) and then right before i pull out of the parking space to leave a splash and an astrovan head on into each other behind me and block me in for over an hour. and ups smashed the 400 dollar cell phone i got for my dad for christmas... and it was late too. after this and the helium tank... can anyone tell me about a worse xmas so i can feel a bit better about myself. (and yes my girlfriend got me a gift... 2 boxes of mike and ike candies) im purposefully not meandering into frc today because i have feeling i would be stupid and fight elementals in the ice cave all day to relieve some aggression.
by the way happy holidays!