I’m closing down the store last night, so I’m in the office cashing out the register from our pharmacy. I have the pharmacist and the pharmacy tech initial some paperwork and then send them on their way. I go back out onto the sales floor to check for any straggling customers to make sure everyone is out of the building before we shut down for the night. A woman stops me and asks if the pharmacy is closed, to which I reply that, yes, it has and they have gone home for the night. She asks me, “Are you sure they’re still not back there?” Yes, ma’am, I just finished cashing them out and they left already. So then she proceeds to turn around and start looking through some stuff on the shelves. We had about two other people in the store waiting to check out, so what I usually do is just go back to the office, add up a few more numbers to get myself ahead of the game, then go back out to the floor to cash out the final drawer—this allows me to continue doing what I need to do but also allows any stragglers to make their way out the door. I go back out and this woman is still there.
“I think I locked my keys in my car. Do you have a flashlight so I can look inside and see if they are in there?” I reply that I do not, to which she snaps back, “Well, I know you can open one up for me from the shelf.” I’m thinking to myself that she can buy one if she wants, but I ask one of our employees if he has a flashlight in his truck. He does, he and the customer go outside to look around the car and parking lot to see if they can find the keys. At this point, I’m behind one of our registers pulling the till when I see the pharmacist (who I thought had left) come walking from the back of the store out the front door. Evidently, he was in the restroom after he left the office and was just now leaving. I tell him to have a good night and let him out of the building.
So after the pharmacist leaves, my employee and the customer come back into the store. No luck finding the missing keys. At this point, she again starts asking me if someone can go back into the pharmacy. I explain again to her that without a registered pharmacist in the store, no one can back into the pharmacy for any reason—not only is it our policy but it is also the law. Then she starts talking about she needs to get back there because that’s where she thinks she left her car keys. Oh my God—if she had just told me from the beginning that she thought her keys were back there, I could have at least looked to see if the pharmacist had indeed left, and since I just watched the guy leave the store, I could have definitely stopped him if she had only made me aware of this problem.
Oh, well, tough shit for her I guess. I ask her if she needs to use the phone, so we get her set up with a phone book and a line out so the can make a few calls. Anyway, I go back to the office and finish up my nightly paperwork. Once I’m done, I come back out to to check on her and ask her if she needs anything else and if someone is coming for her. She replies that she called AAA, so someone is on their way to help her. I told her she could wait in the store for them. Now, we are not supposed to have anyone inside the store after close—not only could they be stealing stuff, but what’s to stop them from letting someone inside to rob us? But, I had no reason to believe this was the case, so I let her stay inside to wait since I didn’t feel right about forcing this woman outside alone in the dark to wait on the curb.
The employees and I walk the store so make sure it is good condition, then proceed to clock out—a span of about 25 minutes. The woman was still inside waiting, so I was planning to offer to take her either home or somewhere that she could wait until AAA could come (all within a reasonable distance, of course). But, as luck would have it, AAA pulls up right as the employees and I are walking out, so everyone walks out the door, I set the alarm, lock up, and go home.
I come into work today to find out that this bitch called our customer service line and made a complaint against me and the other employees. She said we were rude and unhelpful, and that no one offered to take her home as soon as we knew she had no keys. Fine. Whatever, let her complain if she wants. But then the store manager told me that when she contacted the woman (all our complaints to corporate are filed back the store for resolving, then bounced back up the ladder if necessary), she had apologized and asked if there was anything we could do for her. The keyless customer says, “yes, I’d like some of that *whatever merchandise she wanted* free.” The store manager, getting only her side of the story, agreed. When she sent back the issue to district telling them what had been done to compensate the customer, the district manager tells her she also should give her a free $20 gift card for her troubles. I was fucking livid.
I personally wrote an email to district telling them my side of the story and that I saw absolutely no reason why this woman should get free stuff because of her own irresponsibility and lack of communication skills. There were plenty of times that we could have solved this problem quickly if only she told me what her problem was instead of asking me a bunch of fragmented questions and leaving me to put the pieces together. And how could she say we didn’t help her? We had one employee walking a dark parking lot with a flashlight for her, we got her the phone book and a phone to make some calls, let her stay in the store an hour past closing, and I was planning on OFFERING HER A RIDE. Then she has the gall to file a complaint against us, then demand free stuff for her “trouble”?
And to give you an idea of her entitlement mentality, when she was speaking with our store manager, the store manager had to explain again why we could not open up the pharmacy. The bitch then tells her, “Well, he should’ve called another pharmacist to come up to the store with their keys.” Right, I’m going to call one of our pharmacists at home at 10pm to make a 15 minute trip to the store all because this bitch can’t keep track of her shit. Oh, and she also managed to throw the “the customer is always right” line in there somewhere.
If she felt the need to complain, I should’ve kicked her ungrateful ass out of the store at 10pm, per policy. At least then maybe she’d have something to complain about.
“I think I locked my keys in my car. Do you have a flashlight so I can look inside and see if they are in there?” I reply that I do not, to which she snaps back, “Well, I know you can open one up for me from the shelf.” I’m thinking to myself that she can buy one if she wants, but I ask one of our employees if he has a flashlight in his truck. He does, he and the customer go outside to look around the car and parking lot to see if they can find the keys. At this point, I’m behind one of our registers pulling the till when I see the pharmacist (who I thought had left) come walking from the back of the store out the front door. Evidently, he was in the restroom after he left the office and was just now leaving. I tell him to have a good night and let him out of the building.
So after the pharmacist leaves, my employee and the customer come back into the store. No luck finding the missing keys. At this point, she again starts asking me if someone can go back into the pharmacy. I explain again to her that without a registered pharmacist in the store, no one can back into the pharmacy for any reason—not only is it our policy but it is also the law. Then she starts talking about she needs to get back there because that’s where she thinks she left her car keys. Oh my God—if she had just told me from the beginning that she thought her keys were back there, I could have at least looked to see if the pharmacist had indeed left, and since I just watched the guy leave the store, I could have definitely stopped him if she had only made me aware of this problem.
Oh, well, tough shit for her I guess. I ask her if she needs to use the phone, so we get her set up with a phone book and a line out so the can make a few calls. Anyway, I go back to the office and finish up my nightly paperwork. Once I’m done, I come back out to to check on her and ask her if she needs anything else and if someone is coming for her. She replies that she called AAA, so someone is on their way to help her. I told her she could wait in the store for them. Now, we are not supposed to have anyone inside the store after close—not only could they be stealing stuff, but what’s to stop them from letting someone inside to rob us? But, I had no reason to believe this was the case, so I let her stay inside to wait since I didn’t feel right about forcing this woman outside alone in the dark to wait on the curb.
The employees and I walk the store so make sure it is good condition, then proceed to clock out—a span of about 25 minutes. The woman was still inside waiting, so I was planning to offer to take her either home or somewhere that she could wait until AAA could come (all within a reasonable distance, of course). But, as luck would have it, AAA pulls up right as the employees and I are walking out, so everyone walks out the door, I set the alarm, lock up, and go home.
I come into work today to find out that this bitch called our customer service line and made a complaint against me and the other employees. She said we were rude and unhelpful, and that no one offered to take her home as soon as we knew she had no keys. Fine. Whatever, let her complain if she wants. But then the store manager told me that when she contacted the woman (all our complaints to corporate are filed back the store for resolving, then bounced back up the ladder if necessary), she had apologized and asked if there was anything we could do for her. The keyless customer says, “yes, I’d like some of that *whatever merchandise she wanted* free.” The store manager, getting only her side of the story, agreed. When she sent back the issue to district telling them what had been done to compensate the customer, the district manager tells her she also should give her a free $20 gift card for her troubles. I was fucking livid.
I personally wrote an email to district telling them my side of the story and that I saw absolutely no reason why this woman should get free stuff because of her own irresponsibility and lack of communication skills. There were plenty of times that we could have solved this problem quickly if only she told me what her problem was instead of asking me a bunch of fragmented questions and leaving me to put the pieces together. And how could she say we didn’t help her? We had one employee walking a dark parking lot with a flashlight for her, we got her the phone book and a phone to make some calls, let her stay in the store an hour past closing, and I was planning on OFFERING HER A RIDE. Then she has the gall to file a complaint against us, then demand free stuff for her “trouble”?
And to give you an idea of her entitlement mentality, when she was speaking with our store manager, the store manager had to explain again why we could not open up the pharmacy. The bitch then tells her, “Well, he should’ve called another pharmacist to come up to the store with their keys.” Right, I’m going to call one of our pharmacists at home at 10pm to make a 15 minute trip to the store all because this bitch can’t keep track of her shit. Oh, and she also managed to throw the “the customer is always right” line in there somewhere.
If she felt the need to complain, I should’ve kicked her ungrateful ass out of the store at 10pm, per policy. At least then maybe she’d have something to complain about.
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