I may be flypaper for freaks, but working in customer service brings hazards of its own. Again, one could argue that this is probably why I ended up working in an industry that provides an endless supply of every bit of disproof of evolution.
And it's not just me. My friend James, who runs a different bookshop, has a load of tales of his own, which he allowed me to share, again proving that human progress is on a rapid decline, especially considering that our main clientele is supposed to be academic.
So here is an exerpt from an email, which I considered editing, but then thought would just let speak for itself.
"We had no psychos - certainly not to your Russian standards* - but then I seem to remember Bournemouth being much better for that sort of thing! Mainly I get people who seem to not be able to read, or understand simple phrases like "we don't have it in stock, but I can order it for you" (this is usually met with "I can have now? I want buy now.").
I should tell you about my favourite customer of the last fortnight. Chinese girl comes to the till with two books and a loyalty card. I scan books, swipe card and tell her she has 8 quid of points if she would like to use them?
'I get points for this books?'
'yes, they go after, so you can use them next time.'
'I want use now.'
'You can't.'
'I buy separately then.'
Ok. Void transaction. She points at one book- 'I use points from that to buy that' (points at other book).
Ok, scan book, swipe card.
'Actually I want use points from other book.'
Right. Void again. Scan other book, swipe card- 'That's 42 quid for that one, do you want to use your 8 quid of points on this one?'
'No I want pay both books together.'
Right. 'You can't pay for both of them at the same time if want to use the points from one for the other.'
'Oh. I pay together then.'
Right. Void AGAIN. Scan both. 'Thats 77 quid, would you like to use your points?' Nodding with big grin. 'Ok, that's 69 quid.'
'I want use points from those books.'
'You can't until your next purchase.'
'Oh. I don''t want use any points then.'
VOID AGAIN. I swear if she had changed her mind again, I would have refused to sell her the books. She didn't, and as such, she escaped with her life.
I shall get back to explaining to all the students a: why their lecturers lie to them and tell them they ordered the books with us, and b: that when we say about a week for delivery, that does not mean an exact 168 hours from ordering!
Another recent favourite was the girl who responded to everything by nodding and smiling even when I was telling her that the book didn't exist, the girl who decided against buying her books because I had pointed out that she was buying a single copy of the book which was in the pack which she was also buying, the man who started screaming at me when I told him that he had to pay for the book when placing an order, the lecturer who has been told every year for five years that the book on his list is no longer available yet insists on continuing to include it on his reading list, the lecturer who hides books by other authors in the hope that students will buy his over-complicated out-of-date book, the lecturer who can't understand why we can't keep in stock a book which hasn't been printed yet (especially as he wrote it), the continual arguments with students about returning books they have obviously used (sometime even annotated) and we won't refund them ("it's against my statuatory rights!"- it's against my human rights to have to deal with people that stupid), students and lecturers alike giving answers to different questions to the ones which you haven't even asked yet.
And the one that really gets to me a lot of the time - Me: "is there anything I can help you with?"
Customer: "hello", then walking away. 'Hello' is not the answer to 'Can I help you?' Unless you say it in a Terry Thomas voice.
Ah, Vitriol!"
I replied to this: 'Hahahahaha. Say, did you ever notice the difference when you stopped working with mental patients and then just went into customer service instead?'
James: 'Yep, my patients always said please.'
I rest my case.
(*this was after my telling him the tale of Christopher Tarantinovskovich)
|