Dumb and dumberer in the furniture department

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Background: I've mentioned this before, but it's important to the story. My store has special labels the department specialists use when they are scanning outs in their departments every Monday. If the item is out on the shelf and not located in backstock, they print this special label, which reads "We apologize. This item is temporarily out of stock" on the bottom. The label gets removed when the product comes back in and is stocked. In furniture, the label goes inside the pull tag holder so it's visible when there are no more tags left for the item.

DUMB:
I learned that some customers will just rip these labels off the pull tag holders and bring them to the cashier like a normal tag, expecting to receive the item.

DUMBERER:
Sometimes the cashier will actually scan the label like it's a regular pull tag! This leads to undescribable fun when the person taking the call enters the number into their scanner, sees that it's not in backstock, asks the cashier what the pull tag says, and the cashier says "Oh, it says out of stock. Does that mean something?"

Sure it does! It means:

• The item is not located in the backroom
• We currently do not have any of that item to sell
• The customer is unbelievably stupid for bringing the label to the register
• Believe it or not, you are even stupider for ringing it up
• Because the customer has already paid for an item they will not get, because we don't have it, they will need to inflict themselves on the service desk employees so they can get their money back.

I swear to Gord, if I ever get cashier-trained and some cretin brings one of these labels to my register, that person will win the I.P Freleigh Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Blockheadedness, and will earn a commemorative certificate consisting of me writing "I am unbelievably stupid!" on the label and stapling it to the recipient's forehead.

[friendofjimmyk]

Ouch, that hurt my head!

[Becks]

I don't know what's scarier...semi-illiterate customers, or semi-illiterate cashiers...

[HawaiianShirts]

Where I work, customers are supposed to find an employee in the specific department (like computers, home theater, etc) and have them get the product they want. Unless it's an appliance that is being pulled from the warehouse, NO cashier should EVER make a sale unless the product being sold is physically at the register or the customer has paperwork indicating that another employee has special-ordered it for them.

In computers, we often will put tags out alongside the normal price tags that essentially say, "Hey, we just got a new model, so we're selling this floor display at a discounted price." Back in April, some couple grabbed the price tag off of one such display but left the "floor display" tag behind. They went up to the cashiers, paid for it, then came back and found me so they could "claim their purchase." First of all, that cashier should have known better--I'd been there a full year, and he had been hired ONE MONTH after me. Second, the couple thought they were getting a full package (computer + monitor + printer) when the tag was for the computer only. Third, they saw the "floor display" tag and ignored it--they told me so.

So I had to explain to them, repeatedly, that things work differently here than in some other stores they may have shopped. It was partly the cashier's mistake, but it was also partly theirs. They could buy the computer if they wanted it, but it was the floor model and not part of a package. Of course, they got mad at ME. They said it was MY fault. They claimed if we weren't so BUSY, they'd never have made that mistake (which was a bold-faced lie as my co-worker and I were not with any other customers when they came in, and both of us asked them if they had questions or needed help and were told they didn't). So they got their money back and declared they would never shop with us again.

They came back two days later, deliberately avoided me, got one of my co-workers, and purchased the computer that replaced the older model they originally wanted.

[friendofjimmyk]

So they got their money back and declared they would never shop with us again.

They came back two days later, deliberately avoided me, got one of my co-workers, and purchased the computer that replaced the older model they originally wanted.

See, proof that the statement is an empty threat!