Giving directions

[aurelemsrealm]

Given that I work in a convenience store, it's a common occurrence for someone to come in asking for directions. Okay, no biggie if I know the place they are seeking. If I can quickly answer the question between customers, I will do so.

If I can't, then it's tough luck for them because their lack of planning does not constitute my emergency. I will quickly grow tired of being pestered by some clueless nitwit who got lost, It just astonishes me how blindly some of these people must travel.

There are the ones who apparently have yet to discover maps. We have maps, so there is hope for them so long as they know an address, but only if they are willing to look for the roads they want to find. I'm busy working at my job, so I don't have time to look it up for them. I will quickly direct them not to get in my way because I've already helped all I can unless they want to buy gas, cigarettes, soda, snacks, etc. Sorry to hear about their misfortune, but their lack of planning is not my emergency. No amount of badgering me is going to make me have a divine revelation about where to find the part of BFE they seek.

There are the ones who have maps, but no clue how to use it. I'll lend them our phone book if they want to call someone to ask for directions that I don't know. I don't have time to look it up for them, though. I'm busy doing my job. No, I won't talk to the person on the other end of the phone either. Again, I'm busy working. Their lack of planning is not my emergency. Sorry, but life's not always fair. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Then, there are the ones who don't even know a street address, and they're the ones who are usually looking for one of the many obscure doctors' offices nearby, or a well-known business with multiple locations around town. Either way, it's not relevant to me for whatever reason. If they can't bother to come up with a street address, I can't bother to be the human Mapquest.

Like I said, I'm sympathetic enough tell them what information I know off the top of my head. I'm just not sympathetic enough to do the research for them. I do my own research when planning a trip, so I know it's not that hard to connect the dots. All I know is that it's no wonder there are so many lost souls out there.

[Lingering Grin]

I get people asking for directions ALL the time.

It doesn't help matters that our place can NOT be found on Map Quest. Our address is actually for an unlabled road, that runs next to the building.

When people call up, I tell them the cross-street, we're literally right on the corner. Yet I still get questions...

"Where do I go from there?"
We have a giant sign on the corner
"Is it a left or a right?"
How should I know?
"What's that next to?"
The MALL... we're kind hard to miss.

My favorite was the lady that called up and asked how to get there if she's on I-95 coming from MIAMI.

That's about 40 miles south, and 3 cities away from us. I have no idea about anything even close to her, I don't go to Miami, I don't even drive on I-95... ever... and she's getting pissy at me because I can't give her directions. I mean she's actually SNAPPING at me, and getting upset... wtf lady...

[thehippie777]

Ever give someone ideal directions but they were too much in a hurry to listen or write it down? When they finally get to your place (for example), they have to infom you how horrible your directions were? yeah...that's...uh fun

[Annab]

Somehow I feel at home here at the forum after just reading/browsing a few hours..- wonder why ?

My personal favorit is the person i direct from a very small map, and they yell : "But thats where I came from !!!"

...-

[friendofjimmyk]

When I was driving tow truck I had a lot of people pull up on me while I was loading a car to ask for directions. They probably figured, "Hey, tow truck person, she'll know!" I usually did know most places in town.

The weirdest one I ever got took place on the side of a highway. I pulled up to a disabled vehicle and I noticed a pickup truck pull off in front of me. I thought they were with the vehicle I was picking up. I get out of the truck and this guy approaches me...now, mind you this is on a four lane highway, right at an area where two lanes branch off and go one way and two another. I was parked in the middle between this juncture. This guy comes running up to me and asks me how to get to a town that is over 100 miles away from where we were standing.

Traffic is flying by at 65 mph +, the person who owned the vehicle had pulled up shortly after this other guy. I have the noise of the traffic, the noise of wind, and the noise of my truck. I try to tell the guy that I am not sure how to get to this place. He kept bugging me until I finally tell him that I'll call dispatch and ask how to get there. This only served to confuse my dispatch. Because of all the noise, I had to take a few minutes to tell them it was not ME who wanted to tow this car 100 miles - somebody who was NOT our member stopped me to get directions. I think that the fact that I was, oh, ON THE SIDE OF AN EXPRESSWAY only served to add to everyone's confusion.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Tourist Tra....erm, I mean Kiosk is just outside the door and around the corner. Tons of free maps.

I get paid to figure out descriptions of books, not tell you where to find rosary beads or where Sexy Suzies Sex Empornium is (which funny enough both managed to be mentioned in the same conversation....)

[chainedbarista]

we get that occasionally at my job; if i know the place/location, it's good, but if i don't, too freaking bad. i don't live here or spend much time in the area, so there really isn't a need for me to know where sex shop x/flower shop x/bar x is; when i need to know where it is, i google/read a map.

if they're too lazy/stupid to research it themselves, it's not my problem.

[IHateStupidCustomers]

I HATE it when people get pissed if you can't give them directions because you have no clue how to get there.

"Sorry sir, I don't know where that is."
"WHAT!!?? What do you mean you don't know?"

What do you mean YOU don't know. You're the one trying to get there, idiot

[jerkface11]

I once had someone in the drive-thru get angry with me because my directions to a state park 75 miles away weren't detailed enough.

[Andara Bledin]

Ah... lost people... joy.

I'm the one that usually gives directions to help people find my work. I've only gotten one person lost, and that was becasue I confused a left with a right turn at a place where you could only turn one way.

Anyway, my favorite story started on late afternoon. The bossman gets a woman from a nearby town (about 20 miles away) who need a part immediately, so she calls in to have us hold it so she can come get it. He gives her directions. They're not the best directions, but anyone with any sense would be able to find the place.

So, half an hour later, we get a call from some woman who is in a car, speaks English only marginally, and seems to want to find our company. It takes the bossman no less than 10 minutes to even get them to tell him where they are.

When he finally learns where they are, it turns out that they're actually on the road that you turn off of onto the street the business is on, only they're going the wrong way, and they will not stop or turn the car around no matter how many times the bossman tries to tell them that they are "going the wrong way." After about ten more minutes of this, he gives up.

The customer then calls up all mad because her parents (the not really English speaking couple) called to try to find the office and told her that he was rude and refused to help them. He spoke to her for about 15 minutes and the most that came of it was that the customer hadn't written the instructions down in the first place, she had sent her parents off with only verbal instructions and no maps of any kind to a place they were not familiar with, and they had nothing to refer to after they left, and she was a rude jerk, at that. Even though we're the only company in the state that has what she needs for her livelihood, and it was long past time when anybody could ship it without her paying at least $100 for shipping alone.

The parents called back a bit later. They'd finally turned around, but they'd missed the turn, gone way past our location, and still refused to either stop or turn around while he was on the phone with them.

I left before they finally got there. What should have been about a half hour trip from where they started to our building took them nearly two hours. We are literally two blocks from the freeway.

^-.-^

[Aethian]

Oh see now I've got you ALL beat...I drive the mail truck. The nice white symbol of mail knowledge. Not location knowledge but of mail knowledge. I've had people ask me for a street name and when I want to know weither they mean north or south I ge huffed at for not knowing which one they ment.

Or the wonderful guy looking for his buddies house. Thouse his buddy had said Mango Ave and it turned out to be Mandigo and the buddy lived at the next drive from where he stopped to ask me.

Or how about that little ol lady who demanded to use MY cell phone to yell at my supervisor for not knowing where a church is located in a town that is a twenty or so minuet drive away. I deliver the mail so I should know, right? No...but they like to think that.

What about this one, giving me a big package and asking for my to address and stamp it for them after only putting on it the reciepients first names... Well one I have no scale in my truck, I don't sell stamps out of my truck (rurals sometimes do, but cities aren't allowed to), and I have no idea who Bob and Mary are to even begin to address it.

And I always enjoy this, "Do you know the zip code for Canada?" Well for one they don't have zip codes like us and I'm more then positive that they have more then one mail code.


So meh. I'm tired and if this sounds cranky I appologize. I had a idiot today. I'll write the story later.

[crazylegs]

I don't ever mind giving directions out, its the main reason I cary a map, but don't *ever* get huffy that the address you've written down is wrong and therefore doesn't exist. Thats not my fault.

[powerboy]

I am glad that I have a GPS.

I usually give out the directions, if I know the place.

[csever01]

WHAT? What do you mean you don't know?

"You WORK here, you SHOULD know."
(Yes, I work here. It doesn't mean I live here. I live 35 minutes away, actually, so I have no clue what's on this end of town.)

"How do you not know where the community center is?"
(Umm...YOU'RE the one asking for directions, so I'm not the only one who doesn't know.)

"And what's the name of the road?"
"I don't know, sir, I just know it's the second stoplight."
"Hmmph...a lot of help YOU are."
(I wasn't aware it was part of my job to learn all the local street names.)

[csever01]

Oh see now I've got you ALL beat...I drive the mail truck. The nice white symbol of mail knowledge. Not location knowledge but of mail knowledge. I've had people ask me for a street name and when I want to know weither they mean north or south I ge huffed at for not knowing which one they ment.

Sorry to add another one, but I know what you mean. Here in Minneapolis, our north/south split occurs smack in the middle of downtown, and most of the streets are numbered, so if you give someone an address like 124 2nd, there are actually four possibilities...124 2nd Ave N, 124 2nd Ave S, 124 2nd St N, and 124 2nd St S!

And then people get mad when you tell them that. I'm sorry - I didn't design the grid!