She scares the new hires!!! long, sorry

[Zinjadu]

Do you have people as weird as this shopping in your store?

Regular customer, somewhat mentally unbalanced, talks very slowly, hangs over her cart and shuffles along, huge glasses with the lenses smeared, dressed in the same clothes every time we see her. No idea how old she is, but she must be at least 50. And as K says about her, 'One eye looks off into space and the other eye is upon you at all times.' She gets upset with staff over the smallest things, then phones the store later on and says that ____ made her cry.

She refuses to get a club card cuz she thinks it's a credit card, and no matter how you try, you can't explain to her that it's not a credit card. Once L made the mistake of just swiping a store club card so Jane could get the discount. Jane started freaking out and yelling that she 'don't want no credit cards', phoned the store later and complained.

Last winter her coat was all ripped down one side, so A told L to ask Jane if she knew of anyone who needed a winter coat cuz A had an extra one she didn't need anymore (word it so she won't get offended). L did this and Jane said no, then a while later I saw Jane sitting on one of our benches crying. The next day D told me that Jane phoned the store and complained that L had hurt her feelings and made her cry and she 'don't need a coat, hers was fine'.

She's never satisfied with how her groceries are packed. You ask her how she wants them packed and she says any way is fine. After you're done, she'll push her cart to the end of the till and repack everything to her satisfaction. Sometimes, if she's especially upset over the packing, she'll push her cart back and forth by the tills and glare at you. And then she won't come through your till for a few weeks. The food she buys goes in strange cycles. Right now it's only white bread, jam and milk. A few weeks ago she was buying tetra-pack juice instead of milk; and last summer she had a thing for canned tomatoes.


She corners the staff and asks the weirdest questions, and phones the store at least 3 times a week to ask even weirder ones. Some good ones:

(this one to the store manager) My box of kotex pads is dented. Will the pads be okay to use?

I took the tomatoes out of the can and now there's only half a can of juice. Why is it only half full?

I opened a can of tomatoes and they smell funny. Should I eat them?

My loaf of bread is green. Can I bring it back? (When she brought it back, it was totally green and rock-hard. Must've been in the cupboard for a looong time!)

They packed my jam upside down and it touched the lid and now it tastes funny. (This one happened a few times, and she'd bring the jam back in to get a refund, buy more of the same jam, and we'd get another call.)


She brought back a bottle of cranberry cocktail and wanted another one. When C asked a bagger to get one, Jane stated freaking out and said, "don't say that word!" Of course C was confused and wanted to know what word, and Jane whispered, 'cock'.

When she came through my till a couple of weeks ago she told me that it's always dark on her street cuz they never plow the snow. I didn't even ask what she meant by that - I didn't want to know! She also made sure to tell me to 'pack the jam right-side up so it doesn't touch the lid cuz that makes the jam taste funny'.

At least she's not violent, so I guess it could be worse!

[Barefootgirl]

Aw, thats really quite sad. i am sure she is a bit disturbing if you have not met her before, but it sounds as if there are much worse things going on in the poor lady's head. As you say, at least she isn't violent or unpleasant.

[kerrisan]

Wooooooooooooooow. Jane certainly is a special person.

Oh well . . . like you said, at least she's not violent! And you're getting some good laughs out of her!


Customers - can't live with 'em, can't 'em.

[FormerCallingCardRep]

Kind of like my cousin and his wife. I don't know her problem. He fell out of a second floor window when he was two and suffered brain damage.

I ran into them at the store tonight. They had to tell me all about the way people look at them.

[CherryB]

I know she is aggravating to deal with, but my heart goes out to her all the same. Poor lady, she isn't all there.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

There were a number of folks like this used to come into Kinko's. I think they must be fairly common.

Mentally ill people who aren't violent or percieved as dangerous often end up out on the streets to try and take care of themselves as best they can. It's scary and sad.

[powerboy]

There was an older guy, who used to come into the shop to get fishing bait, and what not, when it was a bait shop, before we took over. He came to me, and started asking these damn questions, about what kind of business we are doing. He took a business card of ours, and drove about a few hours later, complaining because it looked like this*name changed to protect the store*

Store Name
address E. street name
City, State zipcode

The problem is because of E, it is suppose to be suite E, but the owner Completely goofed it up, when he ordered them. He figured since, he messed it up, we will use them, but change them out. Well the guy, gave me a long speech, about getting it corrected.

[CRXPanda]

There's a way to lessen the visits

Make each interraction short and sweet.

When they call, either let them talk and ignore what they say, then say have a nice day and hang up.

They'll eventually find another store that gives them the amount of attention they want. Its mental illnesses we cannot fix, I know them well...we have two regulars at my parts store.

One is about 60, he occasionally comes in with clip on earrings, dirty t-shirt, capri pants, and sneakers...looks like Mr. Garrison on south park-after his genderplasty.

He's taken our time away from real customers from "check out my car" with nothing to say as for symptoms, to how to fix his home air conditioner...he's called too...once for me to call back to check his phone line and another just to chat.

A member of his church told me that he forgets to take his meds and gets all wiggie like that...just make the experience short and sweet and he'll find another subject.

It has worked! We're not mean to him, we just help others, and not coddle him.

The other guy is autistic, he just comes in and says hi to everyone, might start asking personal questions to random people (everyone in the small town knows him, and being autistic, he remembers everything about everybody, but doesn't put it together the same as we do), he's gone pretty quickly. "hi, hi hi, hows shelley...i heard she got in an accident, ok bye" never giving the other party time to respond...he usually freaks out those thin-skinned over personal information security...he may not value the info, but that crook that overhears does.

Sorry for the length, basically: lower the dose of attention and they will get their fixes elsewhere.

one day, when alzheimers' (family curse) kicks in on me, I'll expect the attention to run thin too...

[wildcatgrrl]

We had a homeless lady named Mary around one of the orange boxes I worked at. She always had balloons, so a lot of people called her "crazy balloon lady". She used to go back and forth between my area of town and another area of town-the cops would pick her up here, she'd go into the mental hospital for a bit, then go to the other area of town. Lather, rinse, repeat. At my store, she:

1. Bought batteries, used them, then returned them as "defective".
2. Got thrown out by my manager, T, and hated him forever because of it-she used to come in and ask for a manager, and if T was the only one there, she'd laugh like a loon and leave.
3. Built a fire in one of our display sheds and nearly burned it down.
4. POOPED in one of our display sheds. When another manager, J, threw her out over that one, T put locks on the sheds, and there was quite a scene. She asked J if he'd treat his mama that way. J replied that his mama wouldn't do that nasty shite.

The very sad part was, she drew disability and apparently had a home. She just went crazy after her daughter died, and started living on the street. She has since died, a couple of years ago, and I heard that she was rolled for her disability money after she cashed her check, and died from her injuries. Which meant someone was specifically after her and her money, because it's extremely unlikely that there would be such a random attack in my part of town. Not impossible, but very unlikely.