Do not get angry with me...

[Android Kaeli]

....when I ask you a few questions on what you're looking for.

I work at a place that also sells paints for wood, fabric/shirts, canvas, glass, and terra cotta (clay pots) and markers that are good for the same as paint but also paper, and Sharpies. There is also lettering (various things for paper, wood, clothing, etc) and other such things that a person may have different usage for but are in different places depending on what they are used for (cloth letters for shirts, sticker letters for paper, etc).

Now when someone comes up to me and asks for, say, markers, I ask what they are using these markers for. Usually customers give the reason, and I can send them to the correct place in the store -- this saves not only the customer time from going to the 5-plus locations for different markers but other employees from having to play 20 Questions with said customer.

But when you, as the customer, get pissed because I'm questioning you what type of marker you need, don't act like I'm asking you to sign over your bank account to me. I just want to save you time so you can go about your day without going to X-amount of places in the store. There are too many locations for a marker to be in for you, as the customer, to keep telling me the same thing over and over again, and it gets frustrating when I can't direct you to the correct place. If you continue to just snap at me that you just want a MARKER, I'll tell you every single location where we keep the items you're looking for and go about my business.

Because, you know, I don't know if you need Sharpies, markers for wood, markers for glass, markers for clothing, markers for paper, Crayola markers, markers for models, markers for fake flowers, markers for clay pots, or markers to paint on your face with. So before you start getting snippy with me, and I send you to all the locations that we have markers, I'll save us both the trouble and ask what type of markers (or other various items) you're looking for and send you on your way.

<.<

[LillFilly]

Yes, of course it's appropriate to get upset with an employee when they're trying to be helpful. Of course. Unless they're planning to use the markers for an illegal activity. Marker fights? Writing on bathroom walls?

[slavetotheman]

Well, you have to understand, they already had to endure the humiliation of sinking to a level where they actually had to interact (!) with an employee (shock and horror). And now this employee is rubbing salt in their wounds by having the gall to question them about their private lives with markers? Such insolence! LOL

[StanFlouride]

I get that all the time, most often with glues. Like most hardware stores we have glues, epoxies, adhesives, and cements and they are in separate locations. I always ask, "What are you gluing?"
A few weeks ago an SC said, "None of your business, just tell me where the glues are."
I had just stopped to assist him as I was going out the door to lunch so I just pointed in the 4 directions where they are and said, "There, there, there, and over there." I turned to my manager and said, "I'm at lunch, bye."
When I got back I heard that the SC had thrown a hissy fit but as our interaction had happened right in front of the manager he was invited to take his business elsewhere.

[Shalom]

(re: pissed off would-be glue-sniffer)

Some states allow the sale of up to 10 syringes & needles without prescription, in an attempt to prevent the spread of HIV by junkies sharing their works. I've heard every excuse in the book for why they need them. I could care less, just tell me you're a junkie and you need to shoot up, I'll still sell you the damn things, [1] but they always are buying them for their diabetic grandmother or something.

[1] (As long as you don't then pull out your baggie of smack and try to shoot up right there in the store in front of all my other customers, in which case you'll get the derrière vélocité to the sidewalk. Seen this happen once.)

So one time a guy is looking for one syringe & needle. (They usually get ten at a time.) I try to ask him what length and gauge of the needle, he has no clue. I ask him whether he's using it for subcutaneous, intramuscular or intravenous, and he doesn't know. Finally I ask him, Just what do you plan on doing with that syringe anyway? and he says, I'm trying to clean out the carburetor on my lawn mower.

OK, that's a new one on me. I seriously doubt a junkie wouldn't have known what kind of needle he needed, but on the other hand, how many lawns are there in Manhattan? I don't recall exactly what I sold him, but whatever it was, he wouldn't have been happy trying to inject himself with it, just in case.

(This was in '03. It just occurred to me now, he might have been visiting from Jersey, where you can't buy them OTC. Nowadays the excuse would more likely be that he's refilling his ink carts.)

[Juggler]

(re: pissed off would-be glue-sniffer)

Some states allow the sale of up to 10 syringes & needles without prescription, in an attempt to prevent the spread of HIV by junkies sharing their works. I've heard every excuse in the book for why they need them. I could care less

So what gauge would you recommend for injecting BBQ sauce into a chicken breast.

[MrPibbsRevenge]

Yes, of course it's appropriate to get upset with an employee when they're trying to be helpful. Of course. Unless they're planning to use the markers for an illegal activity. Marker fights? Writing on bathroom walls?

"I need a Sharpie man..because it's sharp."
Just say no to illegal marker gambling..millions of teens everyday get marker related injuries from this sport including hilariously drawn mustaches.

[Dark Psion]

This reminds me of "The Mixer call".

The guy on the phone was yelling into the phone; "DO YOU HAVE A MIXER!!!!!!"
Now being a Hardware store, we have lots of kinds of mixers, from kitchen to paint, from drywall mud to concrete. But when I tried to get him to tell me what kind he wanted, all I got was "A MIXER!!! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT A MIXER IS????"

After we go back and forth like a comedy routine, I hear his wife quietly ask what is wrong and he complains that I am not being helpful she gets on the phone and yells; "DO YOU HAVE A MIXER!!!!!!"

[Imogene]

in which case you'll get the derrière vélocité to the sidewalk.

... The ass of fastness?

[Shalom]

... The ass of fastness?

The bum's rush.

(It's a Terry Pratchett reference, from Men At Arms. You could call that a trilingual pun if you want, he's having his character Sgt Colon confusing the US meaning of bum (tramp) with the UK meaning (arse) and then translating the result into French. He never did translate that phrase in the book, and I initially thought it meant exactly what you printed above. Pterry is often like that, three weeks later you wake up in the middle of the night and exclaim "Damn it, so that's what he meant...!")

[Soulstealer]

... The ass of fastness?

It leaves burn marks in unpleasant places.

[EricKei]

... The ass of fastness?

Well - I don't speak French, but I play a French-speaker on TV...^_^

I would guess that this was meant in the sense of the SC's ass being hurled thru the air at high speed (along with, presumably, the rest of him)...

[chainedbarista]

for injecting bbq, you'd want a larger needle (thick liquid, etc.), presuming that's what it's for. if you plan to do that multiple times, you may want to check into a kitchen specialty store, they might have something that might work (and you can clean and reuse).

[AccountingDrone]

So what gauge would you recommend for injecting BBQ sauce into a chicken breast.

A 6 or 8 gauge veterinary needle, available from Agway or another veterinary supply source. Also good for injecting vodka into watermelons. A microfine is good enough for injecting vodka into grapes or blueberries.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I would guess that this was meant in the sense of the SC's ass being hurled thru the air at high speed (along with, presumably, the rest of him)...

Let's hope the rest of him is following his ass on it's airborne journey out the door.

Just the thought of seeing someone's ass flying through an ope doorway and the rest of the body left at the counter is a pretty hilarious sight. Puns galore . . .

In which scenario, the SC would have really lost his ass.