But I drove all the way from...

[Sept]

Hi, I am new here so hoping I am posting this right

When I used to work retail (at Target, bleh) and even now doing graphic design, I hear the same thing all the time.

"But I drove all the way from ______ ". If something is not quite right and they have to come back at a later time. Now, I can understand how this is annoying for the customer, but here is a thought: Call first if it is a long drive.

The one thing that erks me the most about "But I drove all the way from ______" is that 90% of the time, the person who is complaining lives closer to my place of work than I do. Some have even been in walking distance!

We have one woman who is a regular customer, it is her favorite thing to say. We make jokes about it because she claims it takes an hour to get to my place of work from her home. I have a friend who lives in her neighborhood. I left work one day and get there in 15 mins (only speeding I do is 5 miles over speed limit).

One of the owners told her one day she was going to have to show her how to get here without 100 back roads

[mariamousie1]

How is the distance they drove supposed to make any kind of difference anyway?

"I'm sorry, that product isn't in stock"
"But I drove 250 miles to get here!"
"Really, why didn't you say so? Here, we have one right under the counter!"

By the way, welcome!

[Tigress]

This kind of statement always amuses me. In my state, it's not totally unheard of to have a 30 - 60 minute commute to work. They will drive to the bigger malls in the cities without blinking an eye. And my town has a huge district of thrift stores, so people come down here from miles around to score cheap goodies.

So I try not to sneer when someone says that they don't want to wait for a computer to be worked on because they live in Podunk Town and don't want to drive "all the way back." But when I mention the more expensive in-home services, that's not an option either. I know that they are going to come back in town next weekend anyway in their gas-guzzling truck / SUV to spend more money on useless crap. So, in reality, they are lazy, impatient gits that just want their computers fixed NOW and think that they are too special to follow the "first come, first serve" rule.

[LadyAndreca]

We get that at our Target too. "Whine whine, I drove from a town less than half an hour away that's a straight shot up the highway, how dare you not have what I want, whine whine." Call ahead next time, buddy. I could have told you we were out without having to call the department.

My favorites are the ones that complain we're always out of stock and our service is soooooo horrible, but we're the only one of the local stores they go to.

[Shabo]

I drove out of my way on Monday to try to pick up a cd that I thought was out, but that the store didn't have. I realized it was perfectly plausible that I was wrong about the release date, since I really couldn't remember. All I could think to myself was that I'm an idiot for not checking before I drove out of my way to buy something that I couldn't get yet. The difference between that situation and a sucky customer? I didn't come up with unrealistic demands from the store because they didn't have what I wanted. Technically they had it in the stock room since it came out the next day, but they couldn't sell it to me. Oh yeah, and I was nice to the associate that I asked for help because I knew that I was the idiot and not him.

[journochick]

In the PC store I worked at, people would do this all the time.

For example, our store would take out ads in the newspapers for our weekend sales. I mean, BIG double-page spreads in the TABLOIDS.

Of course, people would come straight down the morning of the sale, as you do when you want a really cheap laptop or computer, and by noon on Saturday, all will be gone.

Then you'd get some idiot come in at closing time on the Sunday, demanding one of the cheap laptops in the paper.

Me: 'Sorry, we're out of stock.'
Customer: 'What?! But I've come all the way down from Gloucester to get this!'

Then they'd be really angry, and we'd have to explain that when a 'HUGE WEEKEND SALE' has been advertised in The Sun all week, all the deals are going to be snapped up at once.

I mean, if you don't realise that, you're an idiot.

They just swan in a day late expecting special treatment because they've driven 40 minutes more than a smart person who thought, 'I know! I'll go down there early to grab one of these £300 laptops!'

The one guy put the paper to my face and said, 'LOOK! If you're out of stock, this is not on.'

Me: 'Look yourself, it says 'WHILE STOCKS LAST' in big letters. And it's in the biggest-selling national paper. All week. Stock WON'T last, it's not our fault if you decide to come down here last minute.'

If you want it that much, GET DOWN HERE EARLY!

Grr.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

A woman said that to us at Kinko's "I drove all the way up here from Five Points!"

Five Points is about 10 blocks from the store. My husband, who used to live in Five Points, used to walk to work at that Kinko's pretty much every single day, provided the weather wasn't too bad.

[Sept]

The ones that can walk to get their stuff are the worst. Where I work we print menus for some local private owned restaurants that are at most 4 blocks away. I remember one time we had to order a special colored paper. Customer was told we had to order paper and would call them when it is ready.

In they came complaining the next day: "but I came all the way down here!"

[Jack7957]

I used to drive 40 miles, each way, every day for work, through all types of weather, for about 7 years. So having to drive any distance to get an item is nothing to me.

Different story, a few years ago I was getting back into camping, and was trying to find a tent that a buddy of mine had picked up at Walmart. Every WM in the Syracuse and surrounding areas had been sold out, since it was mid July when I started working. Then one weekend I was driving to Buffalo so I called every WM along my route to see if they had one in stock, found one about halfway that had two. Asked them to put one aside for me and I'd be there in a few hours to get it. Long story short, they did, and I did.