Which type of business gets the most wierdos.

[Captain Kidd]

Ugh no, I'm about to eat thank you very much.

[ArenaBoy]

Has to be anything involving music stores (Places selling albums or instruments). The arena had some quirky customers but music stores hands down have some weirdos. And yes Boozy I can agree, 70s and 80s were definitely not kind to some.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I would have to say cable company call centers.

I've worked phones in several different markets, worked restaurants, worked retail---and none of them dealt with as much freakiness, mental illness, addicts, entitlement whores, scam artists, or just plain stupid people as working for the cable company. All the disabled and mentally ill people who live off the govt dole and do nothing all day but watch TV will call in to you for the weirdest reasons. They have over the phone breakdowns if their is an interruption in their service. People will think nothing of using their children's social security numbers to set up accounts, and then rack the bill up before it gets cut off. They will threaten to go down where you are and shoot everyone. People have this idea that cable service is a right and not a luxury, and woe to anyone who tries to deprive them of their god-given right to watch Jerry Springer reruns.

Never again, man. I had nightmares after that six week stint.

[Kittish]

I'm going to have to go with call centers, of all sorts, especially ones that operate 24 hours a day. Late at night, especially is when the weird people seem to feel this irresistable urge to call someone, anyone, and tell their life stories. At the place where I work, it's mostly older people who apparently don't have anyone else to talk to. Sort of pitiful, in a way, but after listening to them ramble on for 15 or 20 minutes or more about their health problems, you can kind of understand why no one else will talk to them. Then there are the drunks, who decide they just have to place an order RIGHT NOW, but have no idea what they want or even what we sell. Argh. I *wish* we were allowed to tell them 'call back when you're sober.' And the obscene calls... *snerk* I just have to mention one in particular- The Hot Dog Guy. This sap sounds for all the world like he's reading from a script, every single time he starts off the same way, and he gets all upset when we won't follow our part of his little script. Oh, and let us not forget the wannabe scammers, those who think they're so clever and prove themselves totally inept every time they open their mouths. And heaven forbid they get called on their so obvious attempts at lying, they act like you just broke their favorite dolly.

One thing about call centers, even people who might be decent if they were face to face with another person seem to feel it's quite acceptable to be total jerks on the phone, like maybe they think that the person on the other end isn't really real, so that makes it ok to be rude and obnoxious and act in ways they wouldn't dream of in person.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Anywhere where you have to deal with tourists. The nine months I worked at the country park where nine months of seemingly nonstop weirdos. O_o

[blas]

I'd have to say all places.

Gas stations are where you get flat out dangerous people. Theives, robbers, stalkers, freaks in general. There were times when I worked at the gas station I feared for my life.

Wal-Mart is just an invite for trash and weirdos of all kinds. Naturally, everyone else goes there as well, so the freaks and weirdos are there for our amusement.

Call Centers, yeah that's pretty bad too.

[Peppergirl]

I work in a travel call center. It's always interesting to be personally blamed for weather mishaps that cause flight cancellations.

It's also my fault when they get a car they don't like, or the hotel room is too small.

[Diablo]

Craziest shit I ever saw on the river, (I work at a marina on a man made lake that is fed by a couple of rivers) was a family having a brawl on a pontoon boat. We get a lot of rednecks and I still to this day can't get used to pregnant women smoking. Well this brawl started over which kin was gonna pay me for the gas. I ended up getting hit by one of them pregnant chicks trying to separate them. It was one of those families that you couldn't tell who was screwing who and who was just related by blood. Half of them were wearing shits and I swear to god, their 12 year old was wearing a diaper. I don't know what they had fewer of, shirts or teeth. My boss had to fire his .22 in the air to get them to stop fighting. All this over a $12 gas bill. Maybe they need to test the discharge of the nuke plant up river?

[pyxee]

Well I think Gas stations are pretty bad, or maybe it is just the stores I work that get all the wack jobs.
I have had Robbers, thieves of ever possible sort, drunks, druggies, loonies, and just all and all a-holes.
A few examples of the crazy:

I worked at a station near a hospital a guy came in with his throat slit open (yes I mean sliced open, not really deep but it was bleeding all over the place.) He was so high he did not even feel it at all. What did he need that was so important? A can of cheap beer and a pack of smokes, before he headed up to the hospital.

Another time at the same store this guy came in trying to 'help' all the customers, and generally got in everyones way. We finally persuaded the guy to leave, or so we thought, he got in his car and started to pull away. He drove about 15 feet before parking his car right behind two other customers cars effectively blocking them in. Why you ask, because he wanted us to hear him play his trumpet, yep he actually brought in a trumpet and started playing in right in the middle of the store.

At my most recent store we sold blunt wraps, and these little paper roses that are inside a glass tube, these tubes make really nice crack pipes..... so you can imagine what sort of customers that brought us.

At a different store, we had some prostitutes that would always try to take their ahh umm 'clients' and do 'business' in out restroom.

Those are just some of the little things that have happened, but I think that I will reserve those for their own threads at some point.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Half of them were wearing shits and I swear to god, their 12 year old was wearing a diaper.

If the 12-year-old was the only one in a diaper, no wonder the others were wearing shits.

[Ill_Used_Heroine]

We get our share of nuts at the library, believe me! Just this week, the cops had to come and drag a homeless person (who was eating/sleeping - a big no-no) out of the library kicking and screaming. *sigh*

But, we're not a business ... and they're not customers, no matter what the bigwigs say. Libraries don't sell products to people. When we do, then I will consider them customers.

I'm going to vote for the Wal-Mart type of store, cause one of the reasons I try NOT to shop there is all the nuts that are floating around inside.

[sarahj]

A fast-food store near the busiest intersection of the city, open 24/7. Druggies, homeless, drunks, crazies - all the people you don't want to meet in a dark alley (or any other place, really).

[greensinestro]

I thought call centers got the most weirdos, since the people never see us face to face, they feel free to tell the weirdest stuff.

However, one could argue that the people manning the phones are the weirdos.

That was my thought on this thread, being I have worked in call centers for many years now. Customers call in and will tell you things they would not even tell their own doctor. Most of my weird calls on this are people that tell you all about their ailments, their financial problems, their marital affairs, etc.

As for porn shops, I visited a couple when I was younger, just to show my friends that I was not chicken to go into one. It's not a place I would want to work.

[LoneWolf]

Agreed with the gas stations, grocery stores and so on. Something else which is usually seen as an excuse to bitch up a storm about anything/everything: every single shop or job with the word 'service' in it. Customer service, service point etc. The word alone seems to be an SC magnet.
I think the real weirdos might come to places like gas stations, but the widest variety of weirdos are probably found in supermarkets.
I love how people can get all riled up in multimedia stores though, since we all depend on technology:

Camera is broken + honeymoon pics were on it = employee getting bitched at

PC is broken + having your whole life on it = employee getting bitched at

Phone is not working + employee not being allowed to send it because you don't want others to see your homemade pron = employee being expected to transform into God and fix it by pointing at it.

I think every type of store has its own standard SC majority, some have the creeps, other the weirdos, the dangerous types, the entitlement whores, the panicky people, the die hard followers of stupidism and so on

[ThePhoneGoddess]

the die hard followers of stupidism and so on