Excuse me?! I shouldn't be working here?!

[BowserKoopa1]

I was in Commercial Sales yesterday. I had a Mexican guy come up to me and ask me questions about roofing shingles. When I tried to get him some help, he got irritated with me just because I didn't know.
Let me just stop to say that this same person has come through my line before and acted rude with me. He works for someone who is our VERY BIGGEST Commercial Sales account, which is responsible for quite a bit of our business, and I guess he feels this gives him the right to treat us like crap.
Anyway, he comes back to me to check out, and he has a huge pack of shingles. The barcode is way down near the bottom, meaning that I had to hold it up to scan. The problem was, is that these huge packs of shingles are extremely heavy, and I need 1 arm to hold it up, the other arm to scan, and I could not get the barcode in a straight enough position to scan it. I ask him if he would mind holding it up for me.
SC: No, its not my job.
ME: Yes, sir, I understand that, I just need a little bit of help.
SC: I'm not helping.
ME: Its a bit too heavy for me. I just need you to hold it up for 1 second.
He ignores me, and I try several more times to try and scan it, but no good. Finally I tell him that I cannot scan it and need his help, (there were no employees to help me out at the time, they were all busy) so he lets out a long sigh, comes over and holds it up.
ME: You shouldn't be working here.
Alright, that pushed a button inside of me, and I was sick and tired of dealing with this asshole from the previous times.
ME (in a somewhat sarcastic tone): Excuse me, sir. You do not tell me where I'm going to work. Ok?
Jesus Christ! What is it with customers thinking they can just say whatever the hell they wanna say to us?! That'll be the day when I let a customer tell me where I should or should not work. I've been working at this job for 9 months now, I am pretty sure I can handle it, thank you, Mr Jerkoff!
After that I did not say much to him, but I remained polite and friendly. After I was done with him, I quickly informed a manager that he might call to complain, and the manager took down notes.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I always believed Mexican people to be hard working people. Is it really that much trouble to help me out? I can almost guarantee 999 out of 1000 people would help me. Its not my fault I'm not very strong. God made me 5 ft 3, and I couldn't scan it. Lifting it up with both arms and loading it for a customer is another thing.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

That's not a Mexican thing, it's an asshole thing.

At a job I worked at a year or so ago there was this one guy who used to drive me crazy because he'd call about EVERY LITTLE THING and expected us to do all kinds of stuff for him, like drive across town to get items he needed or get him overnight shipping (for FREE no less) on stuff. Whenever he called and had to be put on hold, he would simply call back a minute or two later until he could talk with someone. If he came in, he would expect us to drop what we were doing and help him right away.

He walked out of the store one day while I had three people ahead of him waiting and later called my manager to ream her out "because I ignored him completely". She profusely apologized to him and told him it wouldn't happen again.

No, I wasn't fired, but I was told this customer was our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY no matter what.

Why was this? Because he spent buckets of money with us.

It didn't matter he was an entitled douche with unrealistic demands, all that mattered was that he was our biggest customer, which I soon found out meant that every policy could be broken for him and he could more or less walk all over us.

I didn't stay in that job very long.

[MadMike]

When I tried to get him some help, he got irritated with me just because I didn't know.

I hate that! Would they rather you BS'ed your way thru it and gave him an answer that wasn't going to work? That's exactly what my one idiot coworker used to do all the time, and the one time it caused a customer's project (a patio, IIRC) to completely collapse. I'm sure that customer would have rather he got someone who knew the answer instead of making something up.

[BowserKoopa1]

That's not a Mexican thing, it's an asshole thing.



It didn't matter he was an entitled douche with unrealistic demands, all that mattered was that he was our biggest customer, which I soon found out meant that every policy could be broken for him and he could more or less walk all over us.

Your managers actually expect you to ignore other customers and focus only on him?! Even if there are a whole bunch of people ahead of him?!
Forgive me for saying this, but your managers belong in the "Morons In Management" section. Sure this guy is extremely important and all that, he's Mr Big Shot. But what kind of message are they sending to the other customers? This sorta thing is gonna make them feel not wanted and they may very well go to another store. I don't think your managers know too much about customer service if they're gonna focus only on 1 customer and let 10 others walk out the door unhappy. I always thought it was something like, "Make 1 customer happy, more customers will come to shop.", not the other way around.

[Apathy]

Let me just stop to say that this same person has come through my line before and acted rude with me. He works for someone who is our VERY BIGGEST Commercial Sales account, which is responsible for quite a bit of our business, and I guess he feels this gives him the right to treat us like crap.

Oh yeah, that's really common. If people spend a lot of money in your store, they think they're doing you a huge favor and you need to grovel, because that's what they're entitled to after spending so much. Douches.

[JustaCashier]

CrazedClerk is right. It's not a "Mexican thing", the guy's a dick. They come in all different ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, classes.

I feel your pain having been a hardware store cashier. The awkward products, some of which the customer should have had the department write up a loading ticket for, then drive around and pick-up, rather than bringing it up to the register, and endangering other customers and employees.

The placement of the UPC/SKU on products. Granted, it's difficult on some items, and the vendor/packager may not have cashiering experience, therefore not knowing the best place to put them. But, come on, some of them were so blatantly stupidly placed. Maybe with a little bit different, or a little bit more packaging or labeling, it would make it alot easier to ring up.

But nooooooo! That would cost the vendor $00.000000001 more per package to implement, then they'd be forced to add $5.00 to the cost of the product, and nobody would buy it! /sarcasm.

Then, as you mention, the cashier is suppose to know everything. The SKU/price on all 50 zillion items. The use of all of them. Do they ask the people in the department that actually know? Of course not! Or, if they do, they still ask me! I would tell them they need to talk to the department, and they'd say "oh, I did". Me:

I would then reply: "I'm (insert my CS nic here)"

There's no way in hell, I'm gonna try to fake my way through their electrical question that coulld get them, or worse others, electrocuted. There's no way I'm gonna fake my way through their question that could cause their plumbing to explode and flood their house. There's no way I'm gonna fake my way through their garden question, and have their roses die. Number one, I don't want these things to happen to them, number two, I don't want to embarrass my company, or myself, or open ourselves up to the possibility of litigation.

I'd be more than happy to to share my limited knowledge on certain things, providing I believe it would actually be of some help, but, with the caveat that this is my level of knowledge, and if they're not comfortable with it, or if it's not sufficient enough, go talk to the department.

Mike

[Shironu-Akaineko]

Its not my fault I'm not very strong. God made me 5 ft 3, and I couldn't scan it. Lifting it up with both arms and loading it for a customer is another thing.

I have the opposite problem. I'm 5 ft 2 and people insist on helping me with everything.
Then I got reamed for "forcing" customers to help me.
Look, asswipe, the only thing I truly CAN'T lift are the car batteries. Everything else people RIP out of my hands. I may be short and tiny but I certainly can lift the items the poor poor twice my size customers "have" to help me with.

If they complain, they shouldn't take things out of my hands.

Pretty much what I said to my then-boss, minus the asswipe.

Thinking back, I should've.

[NightWatch]

I'm little too and people try all the time to help me carry things, I usually grip the item tighter so they can't take it from me and give them the death glare until they let go.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Your managers actually expect you to ignore other customers and focus only on him?! Even if there are a whole bunch of people ahead of him?!
Forgive me for saying this, but your managers belong in the "Morons In Management" section. Sure this guy is extremely important and all that, he's Mr Big Shot. But what kind of message are they sending to the other customers? This sorta thing is gonna make them feel not wanted and they may very well go to another store. I don't think your managers know too much about customer service if they're gonna focus only on 1 customer and let 10 others walk out the door unhappy. I always thought it was something like, "Make 1 customer happy, more customers will come to shop.", not the other way around.

The main reason why I quit is because the managers were jackholes when it came to much more than the guy I posted about.

The stupid thing is that if your business model is so flimsy that you're reliant on the business of ONE SINGLE CUSTOMER to make it work, you shouldn't be in business.

Sadly the company still exists, but they've closed down a bunch of stores and are still struggling.

[Racket_Man]

CrazedClerk is right. It's not a "Mexican thing", its the size of the guy's dick. They come in all different ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, classes.

quoted and fixed with the truth. and this guys must have been small

[Mr Hero]

It didn't matter he was an entitled douche with unrealistic demands, all that mattered was that he was our biggest customer, which I soon found out meant that every policy could be broken for him and he could more or less walk all over us.

I didn't stay in that job very long.

I don't necesarily disagree with being extra nice to your regulars, but the mintue they start controlling company policy is when the favors should end.

I was given a 10% discount at Subway the other day. I thought at first they accidently undercharged me. I asked the AM about it and she told me that she did it for me since I'm a regular and am always polite. I feel I deserve it, but I don't think it's owed to me. Furthermore, if I get someone else at cashier, I won't go and demand the discount again just because I got it last time.

[BowserKoopa1]

Just to clarify about the "Mexican thing".... I didn't think he was rude because he was Mexican. I just thought that Mexicans were supposed to be hard working. Of course, this one was fat and probably lazy.
As for these discounts, alot of my managers are spineless cowards who are just afraid of losing business. Every single time someone disputes a price or wants us to honor a coupon, even if its from 1 of our competitors, the managers argue with them and look like they're standing their ground, and then they say "I'll go ahead and do it just this once."
Same thing happens with contractors who come through our store. The rule is, they have to be a contractor and spend at least $500 or more to get a discount. I've had a few of these idiots come in and say they were a contractor, spend less than $10 probably, then bitch and moan about their stupid 10% discount and how they spend thousands at our store
I know times are tough right now, but why should we have to honor everything like this? If people feel the need to complain about prices with the economy being so tight and everything, then maybe they shouldn't be buying it. I guess customers feel that "The customer is always right" and if they whine and complain enough like a dam 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum, they'll get the managers to give them a discount. Losers.

[Boozy]

Ethnicity has nothing to do with the SC's behaviour. There's no need to address the issue of race any further.

Thank you.