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Old 07-29-2013, 10:35 AM   #806
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
I came in to list items today and was immediately reminded why I left. The first hour has been nuts.

A lady came in and looked at rings and asked our new guy the same kinds of questions over and over. I overheard a little of this and could see our guy doing the best he could but sensed a little weirdness. Eventually she decided through some retarded ghetto logic that the prices were too high, and that we were in the business of ripping people off, or something like that, and she left muttering away about crackhead whitey.

This led to a cascade of assholery of the highest order. When one customer is crazy and angry, they immediately transmit it to all other customers in the store.

Regular customer Michael was one of the most pleasant people I dealt with when I was at the counter. He's wheelchair bound, because he gained an enormous amount of weight when prescribed antidepressants after becoming suicidal. Well, Michael must have been set off, because although he was at the end of his transactions, he started to become aggressive and angry.

First he decided that he was getting a bad deal from the shop, and protested the amount he had to pay to get his stuff back. Alan patiently explained that he was getting the same deal he had gotten every week for years and years.

Then he decided that the change he'd gotten was wrong, and Alan and Ron, who'd dealt with him, explained that his price was $131.50 and he'd given $140 and gotten $8.50 in change.

Then he decided that he had not been given one of his rings. Now he had chosen a beef that would not end in a simple explanation, and he bellowed his complaint over and over until Alan said he would review the tapes of the counter during his transaction.

Normally that will stop somebody in their tracks, because they don't realize everything's on camera. But this time Michael kept on bellowing for another five minutes, and decided to call the cops. He sat bellowing at the cops, bellowed for another five minutes after calling the cops, called the cops again and bellowed at them, and finally went silent for the ten minutes it took for the cops to get here.

(Which was really fast. I was thinking a half hour.)

Michael and the cop went outside, and he bellowed at the cop for five minutes. The cop came in and got Alan's calm, reasoned side of the story, along with all the pawn tickets and a description of how a customer really can't be given the wrong thing. It's all managed in a very orderly process.

Then he went outside and we heard about another ten minutes of bellowing outside ("That's NON-sense! That's NON-sense!"), until finally it went quiet. We didn't even know he'd left, until Alan took a look at the exterior cameras and saw no sign of him.
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