It's official. My sister is an SC!

[Jester]

I like to think I am not an SC, and I try not to be, for the most part. But it saddens me to realize I am related to at least one who is.

Now, I have to admit that I don't always particularly care for this sister. And it is not something held over from childhood. We got along great for a while after we were both adults. But somewhere in the last decade or so, she started, and continued, to treat me like dog poop. In other words, she has been a to me. And those of you who have been paying attention know that I never use the word in any of my posts. (Women seem to hate that word so much.....) She has basically treated me like dirt, including, but not limited to, alienating and offending my fiancee (at the time) when they met, and other fun stuff that I won't bore you with. Let's just say that most of the people who are familiar with the situation, even the ones who would like us to get along better, admit that she has pretty much been in the wrong in her treatment of me.

But tonight she showed her true SC colors. She text messaged me tonight on my cell phone, not to see how I was, but to ask about getting discounted rates at my hotel when she is in the area later this year. Personally, I don't even want her on my ISLAND, let alone where I work, where she is bound to embarrass me with her treatment of the staff.*

But being the nice guy that I am, I explained to her (truthfully) that she would be better off using an online hotel service to find a rate at a normal hotel in town than she would by getting any discount I could get her at my hotel. Since it is a luxury hotel. And her dates were December 31st through January 3rd. Not only is New Year's Eve one of the busiest times in this resort town, but the official start of the tourist "season" (and hence higher rates) is the start of the year. She would not be dissuaded from her SC pursuit of a discount, asking me to at least check. Fine.

So I called my hotel, and asked about the rates for those nights. Did I mention that was a busy time for us? The manager I talked to told me that there were no open rooms on any of those nights, period. (And yes, I was happy about that.)

In typical SC fashion, she also asked me if, if I could not get her discounted rooms, if I could at least comp her a drink or two. (I give drinks out to people at my discretion, not for the asking. Especially people who step on me.) And in equally typical SC fashion, when she found out there were no rooms to be had at any price, she stopped texting me. And there was no thank you of any sort for my effort on her behalf. And no, Virginia, I was not shocked.

Anyone else related to blatant SC's?


*[At a family function a while back, she did much of the organizing. To her credit, she is very effective in her organizational abilities--with the tact and subtlety of Attila the Hun. And about the popularity. It was clear that the staff of the restaurant where this was held detested her. This was made clear to me when I rounded a corner and heard two of them talking about her in less than glowing terms. When they saw me, they started to freak out, as it was clear I heard them, and equally clear that we are related (strong resemblance and all that), but I calmed them, saying, "Yeah, I know she's a bitch." So no, I don't want her staying where I work and basically like my coworkers.]

[skeptic53]

My father-in-law used to bellow "Is the food any good here?" when we walked into a restaurant, and he was not trying to make a wisecrack. He'd demand extra napkins ("I'm sloppy!" he'd holler), have to have the menu read out loud to him since he refused to get cataract surgery. He'd harass the waiter/ress about menu selections and substitutions, make a snarky comment every time the waiter/ress came by, complain about the food ("I ordered wrong. I should have had the XYZ instead of this"), blame the waiter/ress for not recommending the choice that he didn't pick, then he'd leave a $1.00 tip.

He badgered a store manager into matching a competitor's price on a pork roast, and got the SM *to deliver it* to his house.

There's more but you get the idea. Haggling, coupon nuttiness, demanding sale prices after the sale is over, etc etc etc. He perfected the "be so obnoxious you get what you want" schtick.

However, he was a sucker for every right-wing fundraising gimmick there ever was. He's been dead 6 years and we still get junk mail in his name from the lunatic fringe.

[ArenaBoy]

My mom can be an SC sometimes. It's bad in restaurants because she's always worked those jobs, and she sometimes makes comments about the server. This depends on how crowded the place we're eating at is, the worse is this breakfest place we go to because it's always busy.

[dragonflygrrl]

My best friend is a bit of an SC. I have known her literally since we were born, and in all other ways she is a wonderful woman. She is a great mother to her beautiful step-children, a supportive wife, a dutiful daughter, and a fabulous friend. But for some reason, even though I tell her how annoying it is, she persists in dealing with drive-through employees, cashiers, and even once an eye doctor while talking on her cell phone. She is in the habit of making her phone calls while driving home from work, since once she steps in the door she has to transform into Mommy mode, and can't dish about who she saw that we went to school with and how fat they got in front of her kids, who will hopefully turn out nicer than we did. I get that. But it still makes me cringe when in the middle of a personal conversation she will say, "dragonflygrrl, hang on a second. How much? Oh, OK. No, plastic is fine. Hmmm? Oh, you have a nice day too. Thanks. Anyway..." and launch right back into our conversation. I always scold her, and she is always contrite, but it never stops her.

What's amazing about this is that she works in retail herself, and sometimes will be on her phone telling me about the SC's she dealt with that day, while dealing with a cashier. How ironic is that?

[batmoody]

But it still makes me cringe when in the middle of a personal conversation she will say, "dragonflygrrl, hang on a second. How much? Oh, OK. No, plastic is fine. Hmmm? Oh, you have a nice day too. Thanks. Anyway..." and launch right back into our conversation. I always scold her, and she is always contrite, but it never stops her.
:

Maybe she's the one I had in my line once!
She was gabbing on her phone while I was ringing her up, and the person on the other end must have told her it was rude because the gabby lady says "It's rude?" <chuckle> " I don't care." and continues with her convo.
They couldn't care less.

[Noo_Noo]

I'm quite lucky that my mum used to work in retail before I was born. There's no way she'd become an SC now... In fact, she stood up for the poor girl on the till the other day...

Some guy was trying to buy 5 packets of paracetamol from the local Wilkinsons (think hardware store with haircare and drug section) and of course, the law in the UK means that you can only buy 2 packets at most (AFAIK).
Of course, the fact that it was THE LAW meant nothing to this dickhead who proceeded to mouth off to this girl (can't have been older than 16). He then threw the packets in her face.

My mum tapped the guy on his shoulder, got in to his face and said something along the lines of "WOULD YOU TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER IN THAT TONE?"

SC scarpers, and mum gets a round of applause from the others watching.

[MadMike]

My mom was never a sucky customer, and while she never worked retail during my lifetime, I have to wonder if she did before I was born.

When my brother and I were kids, and we came along for grocery shopping, she'd always have us help bag, and she'd have one of us bring the cart back into the store when we were done loading the car. I don't believe they had the cart returns in the parking lot back then. Come to think of it, I don't remember ever seeing one of those until sometime in the 90s.

Of course, back then, I didn't understand, and even made a few "sucky customer" type comments, like "Don't they have people here that they pay to do all that?" But then, I was only about 12, so I grew out of it.

[CritterGirl]

Ugh... I'm related to one.

My grandmother on my mom's side.

Last time I actually visited her, she came to pick me up late at night at the bus station. We proceeded to the Wendy's drive-through, because I was starved. She never quite got across what I wanted to the person on the other end of the speaker, and kept repeating my order in about 3 different ways. So personally, I wasn't pissed or even suprized when we didn't get what we wanted at the window. She started freaking out over it, and didn't even bother to listen to me when I said that not only was I paying for it, I was also so hungry I didn't really care what I got. After cussing out the poor employee and throwing the bag back at her, she sped off in search of "some place with decent service." I was so humiliated (not to mention hungry) that I must have completely blocked out whatever ended up happening afterwards. And being in the passenger seat of pissed elderly woman in a souped-up sports car will do that to you regardless.