Rant (long)

[blaubent]

I work at a pharmacy as a "back up" photo tech. Four of the five days I work, I am on front register. I answer phones, help customers, stock shelves and do any project my manager so desires to throw at me.

I just have a few pet peeves regarding some regular behavior with my customers:

When I am counting cigs, customers regularly come up to me and do one of three things: Ask me if I am counting cigs (dr. obvious speaking), start talking loudly despite me telling them I will be with them in just a second, or they start "throwing" numbers out to miss up my count.

I am a small person (5 foot 3 inches, under 100 pound). People constantly say (in a tone you use with infants), "I did not see you hiding there! You are so small!" Imagine hearing that a dozen times a day!

When I am not counting cigs, I am working on one of many projects. I go to leave my register and out of no where comes this lady who breathlessly tells me, "Stop! You're not going anywhere just yet! You can work on that later!"
If she knew she would not get arrested, I think she would drag me back to my register by my ears! This particular lady gets offended when I answer the phone when I am helping her. Hello! I have three rings to answer the phone. This particular lady takes longer to help than the three rings allow.

Speaking of phone, I hate customers who rattle off a list of items they need and want us to make sure we have. We are NOT personal shoppers. Do not ask us if we have dried Lipton onion soup. When we tell you we don't, don't ask us if we are sure! We work here! For the most part, we know what we carry and what we don't carry!

The holidays are around the corner. We have this mat that when you walk on it, it screams. Kids have found this quite amuzing. They jump on it, jump off, jump on over and over and over again. You can hear that thing throughout the store. Between that, the motion activated skeletion that says, "I can see you! Hey! Where you going!" and the motion activated witch that says something along the lines, "Trick or treat. Give me something good to eat.... or I'll turn you into a hound!", I have lost any sanity that I once possessed.

Another thing that gets my panties into knots is customers who interupt me when I am with other customers. It's over something stupid to. For instance, "Where's such and such product?" A regular customer is a habitutual interupter. I asked her indirectly to stop, that it is not fair to other customers. Her reply, "Oh, that's okay." She still continues to do it every single time she is in the store. With her being in the store all the time, one would think she would know where products are already!

Add also, customers who seem to think that they should be in everyone's business. True story: something happen to my co-worker's parent. He ran out of the store crying. My customer looked at me and said, "Did he get fired or something?" I replied, "I don't know what happened. It's none of my business. If my coworker wants to tell me what happened, that's his choice." I could not believe a customer had the gulls to ask something like that!

I am in a desperate need of a break from work!

Feel free to add any rants about your customers.

[phoenix_rising]

For the customer who insists on messing up your count, calmy stop counting, grab a pen, write down the number you were on, then give the idiot the evil eye until he leaves.

[Becks]

The holidays are around the corner. We have this mat that when you walk on it, it screams. Kids have found this quite amuzing. They jump on it, jump off, jump on over and over and over again. You can hear that thing throughout the store. Between that, the motion activated skeletion that says, "I can see you! Hey! Where you going!" and the motion activated witch that says something along the lines, "Trick or treat. Give me something good to eat.... or I'll turn you into a hound!", I have lost any sanity that I once possessed.

Can't you turn them off every once in a while? I would, and have.

[friendofjimmyk]

Surely the noise making menaces have batteries that can be removed. If not, a well placed jump or a punch would break them just fine.

[ladyklack]

The holidays are around the corner. We have this mat that when you walk on it, it screams. Kids have found this quite amuzing. They jump on it, jump off, jump on over and over and over again. You can hear that thing throughout the store. Between that, the motion activated skeletion that says, "I can see you! Hey! Where you going!" and the motion activated witch that says something along the lines, "Trick or treat. Give me something good to eat.... or I'll turn you into a hound!", I have lost any sanity that I once possessed.

this reminds me of last christmas. I walked into the CVS in my town and set off a motion activated song and dance santa. The employees behind the counter looked at the santa like they wanted to through it out a window and set it on fire, so i reached over and pulled the plug out of the wall and said to them, "Just tell your boss some customer must have done it." and went about my shopping.

[chainedbarista]

ladyklack-awesome!

could we get you to come by and trash our christmas cds?

god knows we'll have those soon enough, probably RIGHT after halloween. *vomits violently* the 'christmas' listening joy will last until new year's; i can hardly wait...

[Lace Neil Singer]

In the garden centre at Christmas, I was literally forced by risk of sanity loss to remove the batteries from all the dancing Santas on sale. It was either that or murder all the kids who came in after school to set all the damn things off in unison.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You know, if some bonehead needs assistance, and while he is waiting is so unbelievably infantile as to deliberately mess up your count, simply start over. Pause when the moron throws out a number, then go back the the start and say, out loud, "1."

Of course, this only works if the idiot has to wait. Eventually he will figure out that his idiotic behavior is why he is having to wait long. Shouldn't be any skin off your nose to start over. You're still getting paid the same.

Also, when people used to try and interrupt me while I was talking to another customer, I would very pointedly ignore them, much as one might ignore an annoying child while having a conversation.

I really had this "stern headmistress" thing going on while I was working at Kinko's. The regulars figured it out pretty quick. Most of them really liked me, mainly because I was very no-nonsense and they knew I would take care of them and their job.

[Ljt09863]

i know where you work. we have mr. talking skeleton head at my store as well. whats worse, is we have an employee who repeats it PERFECTLY. the weird tone and all. i get so sick of people walking by, hearing that thing go where you going, and try to come up with some clever response.

it sucks cause corporate gets mad if we take them down or turn them off....

[South Texan]

I went into our local Walgreens yesterday to pick up a prescription and set off at least four of those obnoxious motion detector "decorations" before I got to the pharmacy - and I never even entered the Halloween aisle. The first time I saw one of those things many years ago, I thought it was cute. The next time I saw one, I thought it was simply annoying. Now I dread walking into stores that have them. Why someone would want one of those in his/her office or home is beyond me. I really feel sorry for you guys who have to work near displays of them in stores. It must be hell.

From now on I shall follow Ladyklack's example and try to find the off switch whenever I walk by one.

[karma_gypsy]

When I am counting cigs, customers regularly come up to me and do one of three things: Ask me if I am counting cigs (dr. obvious speaking), start talking loudly despite me telling them I will be with them in just a second, or they start "throwing" numbers out to miss up my count.

I hate this one too, I'm in charge of counting the front till at night (we only have two) and luckily for me it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. . . some joker will come up and start doing the random numbers thing to try and throw me off . . . oh wouldn't it be nice to simply reach across the counter . . .

Two annoying things happened to me today . . . there's no shitty day thread, but they are kinda pet peevish.

One is I answered the phone and this lady had a question. I didn't know the answer to it so I asked one of my co-workers who did. He was wrapping up a sale with some customers (wife and husband, I'm assuming). I asked the question and the customer pipes up trying to speak over my co-worker to answer it. Ummm, hello, I don't recognize you . .. you don't work here, don't answer my question even if you do know the answer! (Plus, my co-worker, as nice as he is, is a know-it-all already - I don't wanna deal with two!!)

Second was . .. a guy came in and bought an N64 a few days ago. I had to help, I spent a good hour out of my already busy schedule to help him. He comes back earlier today and says,

"you didn't give me a rumble pack with it." (you know the little dealy the goes on the bottom of the controller that can save games).
I'm thinkin' *huh?!*
"none of my games work . . ."
*So . . .?*

He had the opportunity to test the games in the store, he had the system and the games right in front of him, hooked up and everything. Plus, it's not standard to sell rumble packs with the system. But yet he was accusing me of not knowing this bit of information. Sorry buddy, I don't spend my life in video games . . . He was kinda snippy and rude with me when I was helpin' him the first time around too. . .

[AFpheonix]

Well gee, then he gets to buy a rumble pack now. Or did you even have any on hand anywhere? You'd think he would have to Ebay it to get one at this point.