Weird gifts from customers

[ominousoat]

When I was just a young'un of 15 I worked at a locally owned grocery store. Sadly it wasn't one of those cool, close-like-family grocery stores, it was amore of a creepy-inbred-dysfunctional-family kinda' store. Anyhow, since we were so small and Wal-Mart was killing our business I would sometimes carry peoples groceries to their house, especially one old lady that always came in who lived about a block away. Anyhow, whenever I carried groceries for this lady she insisted on giving me something, sadly she was always broke (which was a sad disapointment for me, since I knew her son was a lawyer) so she tipped me in cookies, or whatever strange concotion was lying around her house. One day it was popsicles. However, unlike the typical grandmotherly stereotype, this woman made awful cookies, and they were always oatmeal raisin cookies (which I think are God's way of saying he's mad at us) so it was a double-bad taste whammy to my sense. BUT SHE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE ME EAT IT!

I'm skinny. Consequently everyone with motherly instincts insist on trying to get me fat, this works well most of the time, but when it makes an old lady force me to eat her hideous cookies, it's very depressing.

So I would have to stand there, chewing the cookie slowly, her watching my adams apple to make sure it bobbed with each swallow.

Creepy.

David Lynch creepy.

[CurlyLocks]

I guess this could be considered a gift from a customer -

At my last legal secretary job I worked mostly in estate probate and often developed good working relationships with the clients. It was actually quite satisfying to be able to help people who were not only grieving the loss of a loved one but also trying to navigate the waters of probate. Anyway, we had a client who was an elderly widow and just a lovely woman. She and I developed a really good rapport and one day I happened to mention that my husband and I were looking to purchase a good used car for my use. She was somewhat well-to-do and she had been purchasing her Oldsmobiles at a local dealer since the beginning of time. She was just about to purchase a new one and was going to trade in her garage-kept beauty, and she decided she wanted me to have it at a very reasonable price - $5000.00 for a pristine sedan with 30,000 (mostly local) miles on it. So she told the dealer that she would give them this car as her trade-in but wanted them to sell it to us at this price or she wouldn't buy a new one from them. Since she was such a great customer they agreed to it, getting us a sweet deal that we wouldn't have been able to get anywhere else. (As an homage I named the car after her - yes, we always name our cars!)

[Rapscallion]

The ones I can remember...

I changed a wheel for a young lady who had a puncture outside the shop. She'd called the AA for that, so I just popped out, made sure her car had the requisite gear, and then changed the wheel for her on the spot. She turned out to be the daughter of a very good customer of ours, and promptly bought me a four-pack of Stella (lager or something). I'd gone teetotal two weeks previous to this.

Later that year, christmas happened. I usually got a bottle or two of wine from regular customers, but I think they knew I was teetotal by then and gave me six.

A few months after that, I managed to cut a frozen gammon in half for someone, and yet another bottle of wine made it over the counter.

I set up the broadbad connection for a very good customer of ours and he bought me a two-pound bar of chocolate.

The chocolate was nice.

Rapscallion

[MadMike]

I think they knew I was teetotal by then and gave me six.

I'm not even going to say what I thought that said when I first glanced at it, but I did do a double-take.

Somewhat on topic, I never received gifts from actual customers, but I did get some goodies from friends that I did computer work for. I never asked for anything, even money, they were my friends and I was happy to help them out. However, they always gave me something, usually food and/or beer. In fact, I cleaned up two spyware-ridden computers for two different friends, and they both showed up at the bar the following weekend and kept buying me beer. In fact, I don't think I paid for a single drink that whole night.

[SuperB]

Some guy handed my 11 year old son $20 for pointing out where the bathroom was. A woman gave my husband two bottles of Charles Shaw wine as a tip after installing her tire chains. (and several women have offered him sex if he'd install their tire chains for free )
A Pink CD from a guy who claimed he managed several artists.
A scarf from Ireland from someone who came in to talk to my mother-in-law every day of their vacation.
One of the locals sent $20 in the Christmas Card they sent us as a thank you.

That's all that comes to mind...

[chainedbarista]

we've never gotten anything i'd consider weird, but mostly nice/touching things:

people with special fans have gotten floral arrangements

the rest of us get:

candy (homemade and specialty store types)
sweetbreads (banana, strawberry, etc.)
cakes, including a cheesecake one time
cookies

all of them were good and all were appreciated!

[Barefootgirl]

She turned out to be the daughter of a very good customer of ours, and promptly bought me a four-pack of Stella (lager or something). I'd gone teetotal two weeks previous to this.

Later that year, christmas happened. I usually got a bottle or two of wine from regular customers, but I think they knew I was teetotal by then and gave me six.

A few months after that, I managed to cut a frozen gammon in half for someone, and yet another bottle of wine made it over the counter.

if this should ever start happening again, please don't hesitate to call me, and i will happily remove all offending bottles of wine from your house and dispose of them in a controlled piss-up...er, I mean, orderly fashion !

[Rapscallion]

Will any of it touch the sides of your throat?

Just curious.

Rapscallion

[acidtrunks]

well it could be cosidered weird but i rather enjoyed it,one of the many 7-11s i was employed at was next to a strip club,apparently a stripper had taken a shine to me,because she came in bought me a rose,and proceeded to lift her shirt so i could examine her *ahem* generous assests,lovely woman

[Ackee]

flowers

I got a fridge magnet in the shape of flowers that was also an air freshner.

All I did was send an email. I don't even think I was nice in that email.

[Spiffy McMoron]

Will any of it touch the sides of your throat?

Just the back of the throat, I'm thinking.

[reformedwaitress]

I've gotten good ones and bad ones.

Good:

books
candy
lots of good turkey (we had a deli guy that used to come into the bar for lunch. When I was pregnant with Jimmy, I really craved that deli's turkey, so he would bring me some)
a teddy bear
a My Little Pony for my daughter
books for my kids
flowers
a drawing of me with "lady of water and fire" in Gaelic and all these celtic designs around it. It was GORGEOUS
shoes and clothes (she was my size and would give me stuff she didn't want anymore when she cleaned out her closet)


Odd:

an engagement ring (creepy guy, no I didn't keep it)
shoes (ugly ones)
a Karma Sutra (no thanks)
a stuffed panda bear that was bigger than me
random notes and drawings and poetry


I got more good ones than bad (c:

[ominousoat]

an engagement ring (creepy guy, no I didn't keep it)
(c:

That happened to an ex-coworker of mine, it turned out the guy was just trying to get citizenship.

[DesignFox]

I've gotten the occasional tip at various jobs I've done. And there are a few gifts that come to mind...nothing weird, fortunately.

1) A little frog statue (from my camp councilor days)

2) A box of chocolates from a photo-studio customer.

3) Two guys bought me lunch during my lunch break. (also at a photography job)

4) some parents have brought me pizza or cupcakes

[nick1091]

The best gift:

-I mentioned to a customer at the CD store I worked at that I had a big date that night. Even though I couldn't track down the CD she wanted (after calling all my special order sources for about an hour, turns out it was only made on LP & cassette, never on CD) she had a delivery guy stop by with a dozen roses and a note wishing me well on my date. Turns out she was the owner of one of the local florsits.

The weirdest gift:

-As I've mentioned previously, one of my lease company customers was a porn star, who sent me a Christmas card of her doing a lot more than kissing Santa Claus.

Other gifts:

one of those large plastic pretzel barrels, scotch, cigars, a ridiculous knock-off No Limit "tank" chain (those who know the record label know what I'm talking about), wine, and a poker set.