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I had the past two days off, due in part to having plans to celebrate my upcoming birthday (also, I don't normally work Saturdays anyway). Good times; I got to see a play on Friday night, and Saturday was spent with some quality time with an old friend of mine.
But because I do normally work on Friday nights, I picked up the slack by taking the Sunday shift. I'd only done this once before, and between that experience and the fact that we'd spent the past week waiting for replacement tickets to come in (while our machines slowly ran out one after another - fun times!) I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.
Fortunately, the tickets had come in Saturday night, and most of the machines had been refilled, so I only had a couple of games to worry about when I opened. As for the rest, well...
This one's my fault ><
While filling one of the games after opening, I managed to get some tickets horribly jammed just behind the slot. Hard enough to deal with, the way that particular mech is designed, but it was complicated by the fact that the arcade was quickly swarmed once open, and I was being called away from fixing it every few minutes to make change or deal with problems with other games. I was able to fix it eventually, but it took a lot longer than it should have and I'm just glad nobody tried to play that particular game in the meantime.
Yeah, that's a great foot to start the day off on. *sigh...*
Navi
Me: "You have nine tickets left, but I'll let you go up to ten.*"
Non-Sucky Lady (NSL): "I don't want anything else, I'll let my son pick something." *calls Problem Child* "We have ten tickets, so you can have a ten-ticket item, or two of the five-ticket candies.**"
PC: *is probably in fourth grade, by my best guess* "Two? Can I have a ten and a five?"
NSL: "No, we don't have enough tickets for that. We only have ten tickets."
PC: "Oh. Can I have one of those?" *points at a fifteen-ticket item*
NSL: "No, we don't have enough tickets."
PC: "Oh." *beat* "How many tickets do I have?"
Hey! Listen!
You. Fail.
Me: *in the middle of helping some kid redeem his tickets for prizes*
SC: *comes up to the counter in the middle of this* "I played the claw game over there, and the claw didn't close around the Spongebob I was trying to get!"
Me: I-
SC: It didn't close at all!
Me: *has never heard of this happening in the time she's worked here* "Well, I can take a look at it after I'm done helping this customer, but I haven't worked with that machine much and I'm not sure what could be wrong with it." *continues helping the kid, and am about to offer her tokens to make up for the ones she paid to the machine once I look at it, but-*
SC: *talking to her kids* "This is why we never come here. The place is full of crappy games, every single one cheats you." *storms off*
Excuse me?! Did you basically just call me a ripoff artist in front of me and one of my customers?!
Could you make the argument that the prizes we offer are cheap compared to what's paid to get them? Well, nine times out of ten, yes, they are, if that's all you're taking into account. You're also paying to play our games, which you obviously felt was worth what you paid into it, or you wouldn't have done so. Also, believe it or not, arcade games - gasp! - cost money to run and maintain, not to mention my paycheck and the lease and all the other bills that need paying in order for us to exist. The one dollar you spent here before you apparently got a stick shoved up where the sun don't shine and came up to my charming self helps pay for that; I can think of at least a few people who might consider that a good thing.
Also, the toys in that machine, if moved to the redemption counter, would be worth between 1000 and 3000 tickets. They're huge and easily among the most valuable items in the arcade, aside from the stuff that's not for sale.
Could you make the argument that that particular machine needs to be worked on? Certainly! I'd love to get in there and see what makes it tick, maybe request to open the claw a bit more to account for the large toys in there (seriously, physicists would weep to see what was expected with this game). One problem: I can't get into that part of the game. None of us peons can; we don't have the keys for it. So whining at and insulting me about it will get nothing done about it and make me want to do less just to spite you.
Also, I gave that machine a try after you left; apparently it works perfectly when you're not trying to cram a Spongebob the size of your younger child into it.
Oh, and there's now another reason you don't come here: because as far as I'm concerned, you're not welcome here anymore.
Bitch.
Score one for the bullshit detector
Me: *at the counter*
Kid: *approaches* "I wanna call my dad, those guys are harassing me." *motions vaguely at one group of people*
Me: (Wouldn't it be more effective to ask me to deal with them?) "O...kay?"
Kid: "I need a phone to call him."
Me: (Good luck finding a payphone.) "I don't have a phone to call him with."
Kid: "Lemme call him, those guys are harassing me and he's the owner."
Me: *bullshit alert!* "Your dad's the owner?"
Kid: "Yeah."
Me: "What's his name?"
Kid: "Dwayne."
Me: *have never heard of an owner named Dwayne. (Yes, an owner; there are more than one)* "Uh-huh. I still don't have a phone you can use."
Kid: "Let me call the manager!"
Me: *well, that was...sudden* "...Why? She can't help you from where she is."
Kid: "Because those guys are harassing me and I know the manager!"
Me: "You know the manager?"
Kid: "Yes!"
Me: "What's her name?"
Kid: "..."
Me: "..."
Kid: "Just let me call the manager!"
Me: "What's her name?"
Kid: "I don't know her name, I'm new in town, but she has a dog and she lives off of <major local street> and-"
Me: *getting tired of entertaining his attempts* "I still don't have a phone you can use. We don't have a phone installed here yet," (You'd probably know that if you were as chummy with the higher-ups as you claim.) "and I can't use my personal phone to make calls at work." (A little bit of bullshit on my part; I can make (and have made) calls when necessary, but only when it's slow and I prefer to do so in the back. Either way, there's no way this guy's getting his hands on my phone.)
Kid: "But those guys are harassing me!"
Me: "Go see if JCPenney has a phone you can use. I don't." (Sorry, JCPenney people.)
Kid: *leaves*
Me: *texts the manager* "What are the owner's names, again?"
Manager: *texts back* "NotDwayne and ReallyNotDwayne, why?"
I found out that none of the owners even has a son. So...yeah. Welcome to the Information Age, doofus.
No
Bit of backstory here; the old arcade used to break twenties for other stores in the mall. I know this because I worked in other stores in that mall back when the old arcade was open, and I'd get sent to fetch smaller bills from them. Players has decided not to do that, and for good reason; we often have enough trouble keeping up with customer demands for small bills (today was one of those days, I nearly doubled the number of twenties in the till, put a huge dent in the number of other bills, and had to go to the back room for more smaller bills halfway into my shift after running out of everything but tens and twenties), so doing the same for all the businesses in the mall as well would probably bleed us dry of change on some days.
Another Store's Employee (ASE): *approaches the Counter of Awesome (I'm calling it that now)* "Hi, can you switch these twenties out for smaller bills? Our store ran out and we can't go to the bank."
Me: "I'm really sorry, but I've been told we can't do that here."
ASE:*sadfaec, starts to leave*
Me: *sympathy* "I'm sorry, I'd like to help you-"
ASE: *turns to look at me*
Me: "-but I was given instructions not to."
ASE: "Do you know anyone who could?"
Me: "...Try JCPenney?" (Sorry, JCPenney.***)
Look, I understand. It's Sunday, the banks are closed, and everybody has apparently learned I was working today and descended on the mall in droves. That said, just because I'd like to help you, that doesn't mean I can. I have very specific instructions to not do what you need. I'd also like to make a rocket from redemption counter Airheads and fly it to Mars, but there are a number of reasons that's not gonna happen, either.
If I could do it, though, I'd probably invite you along. You seem pretty cool.
So this is a thing, huh?
(This happened the last time I worked on Sunday; I'd hoped it was a fluke, but apparently not.)
Simple rule: in this town, pretty much everything opens around noon and closes by six on Sundays. There are a few exceptions; some gas stations are open longer, for example, as are a variety of restaurants. The mall is not, however, and since we have no way for anyone to enter the arcade once the mall is closed, neither is Players. This has been the case since...well, probably forever.
Why, then, after warning everyone at fifteen til, and turning off the lights at ten til, are there still a dozen or so people milling around and starting new games at one minute til six? 'We're closing in about fifteen minutes' does not mean 'so keep doing what you were doing before I said that,' it means 'so be ready to not be here in fourteen and a half minutes.' This never happens on any other day of the week, and if it keeps up I'm going to ask if I can start turning off games at five til, if that's what it takes for you people to take a hint.
As the saying goes, 'you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.'
* - We don't have any one-ticket items, five's the cheapest they go, so we're allowed to round up slightly if it's close to something.
** - The five-ticket candies are basically the same, just two different flavors. So he effectively had one option there.
*** - We pretty much do send everyone who we can't help to JCPenney. They're the closest large store to us, so they're the default. And they probably hate us for it.
But because I do normally work on Friday nights, I picked up the slack by taking the Sunday shift. I'd only done this once before, and between that experience and the fact that we'd spent the past week waiting for replacement tickets to come in (while our machines slowly ran out one after another - fun times!) I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.
Fortunately, the tickets had come in Saturday night, and most of the machines had been refilled, so I only had a couple of games to worry about when I opened. As for the rest, well...
This one's my fault ><
While filling one of the games after opening, I managed to get some tickets horribly jammed just behind the slot. Hard enough to deal with, the way that particular mech is designed, but it was complicated by the fact that the arcade was quickly swarmed once open, and I was being called away from fixing it every few minutes to make change or deal with problems with other games. I was able to fix it eventually, but it took a lot longer than it should have and I'm just glad nobody tried to play that particular game in the meantime.
Yeah, that's a great foot to start the day off on. *sigh...*
Navi
Me: "You have nine tickets left, but I'll let you go up to ten.*"
Non-Sucky Lady (NSL): "I don't want anything else, I'll let my son pick something." *calls Problem Child* "We have ten tickets, so you can have a ten-ticket item, or two of the five-ticket candies.**"
PC: *is probably in fourth grade, by my best guess* "Two? Can I have a ten and a five?"
NSL: "No, we don't have enough tickets for that. We only have ten tickets."
PC: "Oh. Can I have one of those?" *points at a fifteen-ticket item*
NSL: "No, we don't have enough tickets."
PC: "Oh." *beat* "How many tickets do I have?"
Hey! Listen!
You. Fail.
Me: *in the middle of helping some kid redeem his tickets for prizes*
SC: *comes up to the counter in the middle of this* "I played the claw game over there, and the claw didn't close around the Spongebob I was trying to get!"
Me: I-
SC: It didn't close at all!
Me: *has never heard of this happening in the time she's worked here* "Well, I can take a look at it after I'm done helping this customer, but I haven't worked with that machine much and I'm not sure what could be wrong with it." *continues helping the kid, and am about to offer her tokens to make up for the ones she paid to the machine once I look at it, but-*
SC: *talking to her kids* "This is why we never come here. The place is full of crappy games, every single one cheats you." *storms off*
Excuse me?! Did you basically just call me a ripoff artist in front of me and one of my customers?!
Could you make the argument that the prizes we offer are cheap compared to what's paid to get them? Well, nine times out of ten, yes, they are, if that's all you're taking into account. You're also paying to play our games, which you obviously felt was worth what you paid into it, or you wouldn't have done so. Also, believe it or not, arcade games - gasp! - cost money to run and maintain, not to mention my paycheck and the lease and all the other bills that need paying in order for us to exist. The one dollar you spent here before you apparently got a stick shoved up where the sun don't shine and came up to my charming self helps pay for that; I can think of at least a few people who might consider that a good thing.
Also, the toys in that machine, if moved to the redemption counter, would be worth between 1000 and 3000 tickets. They're huge and easily among the most valuable items in the arcade, aside from the stuff that's not for sale.
Could you make the argument that that particular machine needs to be worked on? Certainly! I'd love to get in there and see what makes it tick, maybe request to open the claw a bit more to account for the large toys in there (seriously, physicists would weep to see what was expected with this game). One problem: I can't get into that part of the game. None of us peons can; we don't have the keys for it. So whining at and insulting me about it will get nothing done about it and make me want to do less just to spite you.
Also, I gave that machine a try after you left; apparently it works perfectly when you're not trying to cram a Spongebob the size of your younger child into it.
Oh, and there's now another reason you don't come here: because as far as I'm concerned, you're not welcome here anymore.
Bitch.
Score one for the bullshit detector
Me: *at the counter*
Kid: *approaches* "I wanna call my dad, those guys are harassing me." *motions vaguely at one group of people*
Me: (Wouldn't it be more effective to ask me to deal with them?) "O...kay?"
Kid: "I need a phone to call him."
Me: (Good luck finding a payphone.) "I don't have a phone to call him with."
Kid: "Lemme call him, those guys are harassing me and he's the owner."
Me: *bullshit alert!* "Your dad's the owner?"
Kid: "Yeah."
Me: "What's his name?"
Kid: "Dwayne."
Me: *have never heard of an owner named Dwayne. (Yes, an owner; there are more than one)* "Uh-huh. I still don't have a phone you can use."
Kid: "Let me call the manager!"
Me: *well, that was...sudden* "...Why? She can't help you from where she is."
Kid: "Because those guys are harassing me and I know the manager!"
Me: "You know the manager?"
Kid: "Yes!"
Me: "What's her name?"
Kid: "..."
Me: "..."
Kid: "Just let me call the manager!"
Me: "What's her name?"
Kid: "I don't know her name, I'm new in town, but she has a dog and she lives off of <major local street> and-"
Me: *getting tired of entertaining his attempts* "I still don't have a phone you can use. We don't have a phone installed here yet," (You'd probably know that if you were as chummy with the higher-ups as you claim.) "and I can't use my personal phone to make calls at work." (A little bit of bullshit on my part; I can make (and have made) calls when necessary, but only when it's slow and I prefer to do so in the back. Either way, there's no way this guy's getting his hands on my phone.)
Kid: "But those guys are harassing me!"
Me: "Go see if JCPenney has a phone you can use. I don't." (Sorry, JCPenney people.)
Kid: *leaves*
Me: *texts the manager* "What are the owner's names, again?"
Manager: *texts back* "NotDwayne and ReallyNotDwayne, why?"
I found out that none of the owners even has a son. So...yeah. Welcome to the Information Age, doofus.
No
Bit of backstory here; the old arcade used to break twenties for other stores in the mall. I know this because I worked in other stores in that mall back when the old arcade was open, and I'd get sent to fetch smaller bills from them. Players has decided not to do that, and for good reason; we often have enough trouble keeping up with customer demands for small bills (today was one of those days, I nearly doubled the number of twenties in the till, put a huge dent in the number of other bills, and had to go to the back room for more smaller bills halfway into my shift after running out of everything but tens and twenties), so doing the same for all the businesses in the mall as well would probably bleed us dry of change on some days.
Another Store's Employee (ASE): *approaches the Counter of Awesome (I'm calling it that now)* "Hi, can you switch these twenties out for smaller bills? Our store ran out and we can't go to the bank."
Me: "I'm really sorry, but I've been told we can't do that here."
ASE:*sadfaec, starts to leave*
Me: *sympathy* "I'm sorry, I'd like to help you-"
ASE: *turns to look at me*
Me: "-but I was given instructions not to."
ASE: "Do you know anyone who could?"
Me: "...Try JCPenney?" (Sorry, JCPenney.***)
Look, I understand. It's Sunday, the banks are closed, and everybody has apparently learned I was working today and descended on the mall in droves. That said, just because I'd like to help you, that doesn't mean I can. I have very specific instructions to not do what you need. I'd also like to make a rocket from redemption counter Airheads and fly it to Mars, but there are a number of reasons that's not gonna happen, either.
If I could do it, though, I'd probably invite you along. You seem pretty cool.
So this is a thing, huh?
(This happened the last time I worked on Sunday; I'd hoped it was a fluke, but apparently not.)
Simple rule: in this town, pretty much everything opens around noon and closes by six on Sundays. There are a few exceptions; some gas stations are open longer, for example, as are a variety of restaurants. The mall is not, however, and since we have no way for anyone to enter the arcade once the mall is closed, neither is Players. This has been the case since...well, probably forever.
Why, then, after warning everyone at fifteen til, and turning off the lights at ten til, are there still a dozen or so people milling around and starting new games at one minute til six? 'We're closing in about fifteen minutes' does not mean 'so keep doing what you were doing before I said that,' it means 'so be ready to not be here in fourteen and a half minutes.' This never happens on any other day of the week, and if it keeps up I'm going to ask if I can start turning off games at five til, if that's what it takes for you people to take a hint.
As the saying goes, 'you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.'
* - We don't have any one-ticket items, five's the cheapest they go, so we're allowed to round up slightly if it's close to something.
** - The five-ticket candies are basically the same, just two different flavors. So he effectively had one option there.
*** - We pretty much do send everyone who we can't help to JCPenney. They're the closest large store to us, so they're the default. And they probably hate us for it.
because it's like that at my store too.
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