Right so, I'm a Trade Desk worker. That means, not only am I dealing with trades people and building products, some of which I'm not overly familiar with yet, but I also handle the orders system. Myself and two other workers are the only ones who deal with company account orders. One coworker, who I'll call Val, isn't really overly helpful, despite the fact she started years before me. The other, who I'll call Dan, is awesome. He pretty much runs the show. Or as he tells me: "I'm the Queen of this trade desk, but you can be the Princess. All hail us." Gay man in his late 40's, huge nerd, extremely dry and sarcastic sense of humour - we get along like a house on fire and our area supervisor stops by the desk whenever she's in just to listen to the banter. 
Anyway, this morning, Val's off for the day and Dan doesn't get in till 11. I start at 7, so I'm running the show. Weekends are usually nice and slow. Not this time! No orders coming in because weekend is close of business for most jobsites, although I have a tonne of weekend warrior DIY types buying project supplies. So I'm spending the day clearing a backlog of paperwork for next week and trying to sort out which quotes need confirmation/cancelling. Basically, I'm still busy as hell. Cue one guy. He's in a company van, with two screaming kids in tow, maybe about 10/12 years old?
He's got a bunch of reticulation fittings, all mix and match, pipes he doesn't know the codes for (or even what sort of pipes - for gods sake just give me the dimensions!), and all the while, kids screaming about their playstation or something. So I'm probably looking a little frazzled at this point, especially since I've got a huge line building up, and this guys buying a whole garden sheds worth of little tiny interconnecting pipe fittings.
Now, In our store, we don't have bags. We use empty stock boxes. This guy asks for a box. I direct him to where we keep them off to the side as I'm scanning things in. I'm not rude or terse, but I am direct. He indicates he doesn't know where they are, so I point to them for him, and he asks several more questions I can barely hear over the yelling He goes and gets one, and as I finish scanning and loading his stuff up, he snaps "What, did you take some happy pills this morning or something?"
Almost no warning that was coming.
I tell him "no sir, but as I have six orders I'm trying to clear out of backlog and 12 other customers at this desk, I am under a certain amount of pressure right now." Ended up coming through rather dryly, in a kind of "I really don't have the time to deal with your impending tantrum" kind of way.
His reply? "Well maybe you should try to smile once in a while? Might actually be this thing called customer service!"
Because I respond really well to people sarcasticatin' at me.
My response was to look him dead in the eye and calmly let him know "I'll take that into consideration for next time sir."
He grumps off to his car with his still yelling children, and as the next customer walks up to the desk, gets to hear the guy loudly announce "Christ you deal with some assholes love!"
Nearly lost it at his asshole's facial expression as he drove out the gate!

Anyway, this morning, Val's off for the day and Dan doesn't get in till 11. I start at 7, so I'm running the show. Weekends are usually nice and slow. Not this time! No orders coming in because weekend is close of business for most jobsites, although I have a tonne of weekend warrior DIY types buying project supplies. So I'm spending the day clearing a backlog of paperwork for next week and trying to sort out which quotes need confirmation/cancelling. Basically, I'm still busy as hell. Cue one guy. He's in a company van, with two screaming kids in tow, maybe about 10/12 years old?
He's got a bunch of reticulation fittings, all mix and match, pipes he doesn't know the codes for (or even what sort of pipes - for gods sake just give me the dimensions!), and all the while, kids screaming about their playstation or something. So I'm probably looking a little frazzled at this point, especially since I've got a huge line building up, and this guys buying a whole garden sheds worth of little tiny interconnecting pipe fittings.
Now, In our store, we don't have bags. We use empty stock boxes. This guy asks for a box. I direct him to where we keep them off to the side as I'm scanning things in. I'm not rude or terse, but I am direct. He indicates he doesn't know where they are, so I point to them for him, and he asks several more questions I can barely hear over the yelling He goes and gets one, and as I finish scanning and loading his stuff up, he snaps "What, did you take some happy pills this morning or something?"

I tell him "no sir, but as I have six orders I'm trying to clear out of backlog and 12 other customers at this desk, I am under a certain amount of pressure right now." Ended up coming through rather dryly, in a kind of "I really don't have the time to deal with your impending tantrum" kind of way.
His reply? "Well maybe you should try to smile once in a while? Might actually be this thing called customer service!"
Because I respond really well to people sarcasticatin' at me.
My response was to look him dead in the eye and calmly let him know "I'll take that into consideration for next time sir."
He grumps off to his car with his still yelling children, and as the next customer walks up to the desk, gets to hear the guy loudly announce "Christ you deal with some assholes love!"
Nearly lost it at his asshole's facial expression as he drove out the gate!

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