Post Your Experiences At Work

[Mitsuki]

Yes, this will be ranting grounds about the stupid customers we get at our work place, or the perverted managers and co-workers we have to deal with everyday. By all means, if there's any advices you can offer for our fellow mates, go for it.

Anyway, I was having a chat with Bei Bei earlier about our work experiences at this retail place called Meijer. She currently works there and told me of her run-in with customers, and I can just relate to her stories since I had to deal with a lot of dumb customers when I was a cashier at Meijer almost two years ago now.

I currently don't have a job now since I just quit the daycare center last week, but my experiences there wasn't so bad, apart from all the diaper changings. Nothing much to rant about, really...however, the retail world is a different story. I can say that the most issues that customers have given me is the deal about showing their IDs when paying with a credit card.

So, here is a blog entry that I typed up last year. Didn't feel like rephrasing it.

It's after 3:30 A.M - I'm tired, sleepy, and grouchy. But I really need to get this out of my system since I'm still pissed about earlier. So it's like this...I was on lane last night at work and I dealt with this old man. After I said the total, which was $5.00, he wanted to pay with his credit. I asked for an I.D. since everyone knows you need to show an I.D. when using credit. Well, this bastard gave me an attitude and was practically yelling, "It's under $20.00, I don't need to show an I.D! I've been through this before! Call a manager!"


I tried explaining to him calmly that if it's under $25.00, you don't need to SIGN the damn thing...but you still need an I.D. - no exception. It was even written on that piece of paper in front of him! But he kept interrupting me and kept saying, "Call a manager!" I opened my mouth to talk to him and he keeps yelling, "Call a manager!" I was so effin' pissed! There were other customers in line and they were just smiling at me, letting me know he's an asshole. I was trying to be polite, when all I really wanna tell him is, "Ahh STFU and go to hell!"

So finally, I called someone. Not a manager, but someone close to that since I know the managers there wouldn't do a damn thing except say, "Call 450." So I called Tiffany and she agreed that you need to show an I.D. ...but then she asked, "Is he old?" And I said yes, thinking what in the world does age have to do with anything? So she told me to let him pass and to just tell him to bring an I.D. next time. I was kinda ticked off by that because I really didn't wanna let him go. But Tiffany was kind of in charged in service for the night, so I had no choice. I repeated what she said to him, and he asked for her name and all that, and walked off. What a freakin' idiot, seriously! Well on the sidenote, he stank extremely bad!

So then 15 minutes later, I was cleaning lanes and he went up to me again, asking for some rain checks. I helped him out, and after all that, he asked me if the manager was in and if his name is Pete. I verified that his name is indeed Pete, but that he already left for the night. So he walked away again. I smirked, thinking, "So what? You're gonna try and get me in trouble now? After I helped your stupid ass?" JEEZ! Honestly, what is wrong with most people in this area?!


I guess what really got to me is that I'm not even supposed to be working last night. It was my day-off, but Candi wanted me to cover for her, and so I did. I could've been spending time with my family instead of dealing with people like him. So I was pretty much in a grumpy mood all night/morning.

After that, I just decided that the next time I had to deal with that ID issue again, I'll deal with them myself. And so I did. A few weeks later after that incident, another customer wanted to pay with his credit card. I asked for an ID as sual, and the guy said, "Well I don't have an ID with me." I waited for a few seconds, waiting to see if he would bust out another form of payment. When he stared at me, I looked back and firmly told him, "I'm sorry, but I can't ring these items up for you." And he threw a hissy fit and and raised his voice, even mocking me, saying, "You want an ID? It's right there in my car and I'm not going out in the rain to go get it, so you can get it yourself."

Gosh that was rude, and normally I would've cowar away, but at that point I've dealt with so many crazy customers that I just knew how to handle them and even piss them off just because I felt like it. And so I did. I smiled at him and shared a secret laugh with the other customers waiting in line, and replied, "I'd like to do that, but as you can see I have other customers waiting in line and I can't leave my lane." He stompped off after a few more unnecessary words to me and I do believe he reported me, but who knows?

But yeah, retail world...is extremely stressing and I hate it, but if you really learn how to deal with the dumb customers, it becomes a game then you could learn to have fun with it too.

 

[Aztec Triogal]

I've had the fortune of never working in any customer service field. When I've had to deal with "customers" at work, they were all businessmen making over $100,000 a year. lol There were no grumpy old men or rude idiots...

Industry is an interesting place though. There is a weird culture. In a way, I guess it's like the mob. No one is on your side. You're absolutely alone and everyone is gunning to take you down a peg... and yet, everyone will greet you with a smile. You're everyone's best friend up until they stab you in the back. Of course there are some that don't play that game but they never end up going very far. I've seen a few people on the screwed end, rather than the screwing end.

I guess as far as work goes, that's as much as I can relate. Mine is much less blunt but it's probably just as diabolical and frustrating, if not more. I'd probably rather deal with a screaming customer than the guy who's selling you out to get a promotion... but then again the grass is always greener, innit?

 

[SaShman]

Well at my old work my manager dared me $20 that I couldn't scull two litres of iced coffee in 3 minutes. I thought it would've been easy since I've downed 600ml cartons pretty easily. But he was going on about how I would throw up an' shit.

So I decided to wait until two hours before my shift was up so that way if I did throw up and need to go home, the $20 would at least cover most of the money I would lose from not working.

I managed to get through the first third pretty easily, then I started getting a brain freeze and my stomach started feeling like shit. I managed to finish it with like 20 seconds to spare......3 minutes later I threw up in the end it was alright though since I got to leave early.

I've had plenty of batshit customers too. One that particularly stands out was this lady who came in, spent a few minutes looking around the place then just said "The KGB is bad...Don't sell alcohol to children" and left, kinda funny considering I was working at Pizza Hut at the time.

 

[Loa]

So i was at work, working for this temp service in a factory about 7 miles from my house, and this was about 2 months ago. I had first off been really tired because i had forgot to go to bed at the right time. After waking up i decided to lay in bed for a few minutes, in which this guy i gave a ride to work came and asked if i was going. When i didn't reply, he walked off. Several minutes later i got up, got dressed and waited for him to come back so i could give him a ride to work.

He didn't show up and when it finally came time to leave, i got in the car and drove to work without him. Upon my arrival i was bombarded with questions from my supervisor "I thought you weren't going to be here tonight"

I was confused because i had arrived 5 minutes early. After a while i found out that the guy i had been giving a ride to work, had told everyone that i was not coming in tonight, and that i hated everyone who worked there. Everyone i knew kept asking me if i hated them or had a problem with them. I obviously didn't understand what they were talking about so i went to confront the kid i usually gave a ride to work and he finally spilled it. He told me that i was a horrible friend, and that he didn't like me anymore. Then he proceeded to tell me that i was a lazy worker, and that everyone hated me just as much.

All of this crap of course, made working a third shift factory job that much more stressful. After that night i quit, because i didn't want to put up with anything anymore. Truth be told, the work wasn't worth the pay anyways... Still though, it sucks having to work all night with everyone around you giving you bad looks like you were some kind of horrible person or something when you weren't.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

Omg I rant about my crap days at work everyday!

I unfortunately work in retail and have been doing so for the last 3 years as a full-time permanent. However, now that I've finally figured out what I want to do with my life it shouldn't be much longer I have to stay there.

Anyway some of the annoying things customers do to start off with.

#1 You're clearly wearing a uniform and working on putting out stock and such and the customer walks up to you and asks, " Do you work here?"

WTF? Why the hell would I be wearing the company uniform and obviously working if I didn't work there???

#2 Customers deliberately line up at the other checkouts on the other side of the shop when they know they aren't open. Expecting that we will drop everything and rush to their service when they can clearly see someone is already serving on the other side.

#3 Considering I live in a Bogan area the people are also Bogans. Therefore anytime I put stock onto a trolley they think I am about to mark it down and they're there asking how much they're going to be and crowding around me while reeking of B.O. When really all I'm about to do is move it to the next rack.

#4 Customers argue about refunding the way they purchased. Pretty much if you buy your items on a visa card and then you want a refund two days later, we have to refund it onto the same visa card. Omg the amount of people who kick up a stink about that is ridiculous. EITHER WAY YOU ARE GETTING YOUR MONEY IDIOT!

#5 One of the major things that annoys me is when we have a sale and it says 30% off selected items and then we show the price that it is now selling at.

e.g: $11.99 - $8.39

Customers try to be smartasses and say, "Well I thought the 30% was off the price it's showing." They try to get the 30% off the $8.39.

Then when me, the supervisor comes along and explains that the ticket is simply showing what the 30% comes down to and that the 30% is off the 11.99 and that the percent has already been taken off!!! (11.99- 8.39) they go, "I don't get it." and make dumbass faces thinking that I'll freak out and say "OMG HAVE IT ALL FOR FREE!"

I just stare and say, "Well that's how it is and would you still like them?" While fighting the urge to kick them in the head and tell them to go buy some shoes you barefoot moron!


Managers turn!!!

Ok so majority of managers are idiots who went to some place to study to get to where they are now, (haha you're all idiots for getting into retail! ALL that hard studying for nothing!) and therefore have no idea about how their own store actually operates. I know more than my own manager who gets paid more than me. He's such a retard. He expects the best all the time for a crappy hourly rate and yet he couldn't even figure out half the work I do there.

One of the most annoying things is when you have several managers telling you what to do. One manager says do something a certain way. Then the other comes along and says no you're meant to do it this way. Always the meat in the sandwhich.

I just say, "Well whats-his-face said to do it this way."

Then they say "Well no that's not how to do it."

Then I say, "Well you go talk to the other manager about it because I'm sick and tired of always getting in trouble when you can't figure out between yourselves what's going on."

And these days I can be just as bitchy back to them because if they fired me they would have no one who would do their job for them. =)

 

[Serah]

/rant

I had a miserable night. I got yelled at by two different people, one over the phone threatening to get me fired and another at the store because he had a $1.25 restocking fee to pay. After I got off the phone I actually went to the back room and cried because he had me so worked up. My CSR Carly was all upset because this customer called all irate because they had had a movie for 20 days past the due date, so it auto-sold to their credit card, right? Well this customer was all like "LET ME TALK TO THE FUCKING MANAGER!!!"

Well, I got on the phone and he proceeded to cuss me out, scream at me, tell me what a lowlife I am for working at Blockbuster which is nothing but a fucking pathetic video store, and that our company does nothing but fuck people over, etc....and that he wanted my name. He was gonna call corporate and turn me in and get me fired which he can't, I found out because I later called Nicole (store manager) and asked her about it.

She told me there's no way in hell, because of the simple fact that I did nothing wrong. It's his fault he failed to turn in the movie. It was on the policy when he signed up for the account and it's also on our receipts! I'm just an assistant manager...wtf did he expect me to do?

We have to protect ourselves somehow. I mean if people don't turn in movies, what do they expect? They auto-sale and that's the end of it...
After 20 days, there's nothing we can even do. I stayed super calm though, even though I badly wanted to just blow up and rip the guy apart. I kept saying "Sir, I don't appreciate the way you're sitting here talking to me when all I'm trying to do is explain the policy. I'm not the main one in charge here, so I can't help you, but I can give you a # for somebody to help you" and I offered to give him my district manager, Tracey's, number.
Regardless, I was STILL trying to help him. I didn't deserve to be called a lowlife. Not when I go in there and bust my ass to work hard for my family every single damn scheduled day...That just upset me so fucking much.

Oh but that's not all, it gets better. About an hour and a half later I had a guy come in to rent movies and have a bitch fit at me because he had to pay a $1.25 restocking fee. Well he didn't have enough money to pay for both of the movies he wanted AND the restocking fee and we can't allow people to rent out who have Holds on their accounts which he did. Since he couldn't pay his restocking fee...well yeah. x_x No rentals allowed. Not to mention he didn't have an updated credit card on the account either. After I delt with him he called me a fucking bitch under his breath as he walked out. I swear tonight just really sucked and I'm just so glad to be out of there. I delt with morons all night to two assholes and then back to more morons...I don't wanna go back there tomorrow. ;_; Oh the perks of being a manager...*sighs*

/end rant

 

[Davey Gaga]

Why can't people just remember their Advantage Cards at Boots?

I had an old biddy coming in again yesterday, she's as deaf as anything. She came in saying she'd lost her advantage card, so I gave her the phone number to call to het it replaced. She then shows me a validated receipt because she wants her points added to her advantage card...and she whaps out a temporary card. Those expire in a month ... and expired the next day. She tells me this AFTER I add the points for her, though. So, we have to give her another one ---a THIRD--- and do a lot of technical shit to get the points from one card to another.

THEN she wanted to use her vouchers on No7 make-up but you can't use it on discounted stuff, the silly old biddy couldn't get this through her head. D=

 

[Azuki-san]

I remember when I first met my manager when I started my job a few years back, she's like a big hefty woman, when she first saw me she was like, "OMG you're so cute," and pulled me into a hug, like between her two rather large breasts. I'm usually freaked out by hugs, but thinking back it really makes me laugh.

Also that same day another woman who I work with and our manager got into a sort of play fight argument and my colleague threatened to stab her eyes out, considering I just started the job I was rather WTF and laughing.

Nothing interesting happened today though, just another boring day.

 

[Zeletina]

I say things to customers that should really get me unemployed, but I don't care... When you're rude, it doesn't matter what side of the counter you're on. I can't tolerate someone who's rude. And I'll let them know whether they are.

I work at this place on my campus that serves coffee. It's sort of like a 7-11, where you make your own. Well, this guy decided to knock over a whole pitcher of milk on the counter (it spread in a river across THE WHOLE COUNTER), but just finishes making his coffee and starts to walk along his merry way...

So I said to him, "Excuse me!"

He turns around and snaps, "WHAT?"

So I said, "Are you going to clean up what you just spilled?"

He says, "Isn't that YOUR job?"

I said, "If you spill something at someone else's house do you help clean it up? What am I, your barefoot and pregnant wife!? Clean it up!"

He was quite shocked I shot back at him I think... He grumbled a "SOrry" and kind of half-assed mopped it up with some napkins... But damn.

 

[Ethereal]

Well I don't work now (well, unless Freelance Artist counts) but when I did, MAN did i have a lot to complain about. I was working as a Personal Care Assistant (on my way to being a nurse, altough I've given up that career path) in Aged Care.

A very interesting and rewarding job, for the most part. My patients loved me ..most of the time. But hell, was it a hard job. And gawd could the nurses be BITCHY! They drove me insane x_X

One particular day (which was the day I quit) was the worst. So, we all know there's a nurse shortage, but this day was horrendous.. I worked in a facility that had 120 residents, a lot of which who were in the Dimentia unit (that's a scary place to work, btw) but for that entire facility, on that day, we had 8 carers! To 120 people who need almost constant care.. fuck, it was the worst day of my life!

It's hard enough on an average day, having to get up, shower, get ready and then do laundry, bed making, breakfast and lunch for 15 residents that were in my care.. but on this day, we had to do the ENTIRE facility, in an 8 hour shift. It was unbeleivable.

And what did the div1 Nurse say? Tough luck.

The conditions were shocking.. the epeople I worked with were so bitchy (dunno why they got into an industry that CARES for people) and the pay totally sucked, for the amount of work that was expected.

And then, your favourite resident dies.. and you're left wondering what the point of it all is. You just hope you're making a difference in their lives, and usually we did.. but man.. I don't think I could ever go back to it. I do miss my chats with the patients there though.. some of them were totally cool.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

Well yesterday one of my co-workers comes out the back to tell me that a lady had come in and declared that she had SWINE FLU!

Infectious attention-seeking whore!!!

Why the hell did you come into the shopping centre when you should have been keeping away from the public to avoid infecting anyone else!?

It's like they think, "Oh I have it. I don't have to worry about catching it now seeing as I'm already infected, so I'll go about my daily life and infect everyone else like the selfish bitch I am."

I highly doubt she had it. Apparently she's an attention seeking whore like I already stated above. <_<

Joking about it is a sick thing to do. People like that can just go die!

 

[Shu]

Never ever thought I would post here, to be quite honest. As some of you know I work for a private firm who specializes in making collateral management systems. What the heck is this? Well we make software for banks, in which they in turn use to take loans from customers and interact with loan officers as well as appraisers. It is pretty cutting edge, but sometimes it has it has its.. uhh quirks.

Eh I won't list them. So my current job title is a Quality Assurance Technician 1. As soon as a developer writes his code, he sends it off to be tested by me. I look for malicious code, and then as well make sure functionally the code works on our software. I also make sure everything looks pleasing to the eye. (spelling, alignment, character length.. etc)

Well sometimes our clients have a few problems about their software and they send defect reports or change requests back, so the developer can update the same code or create new code altogether. Lately I've been testing something that is supposed to emulate one of our clients sites, but it is not entirely acurate. (we didn't develop this, so we have no idea how it works) I follow the business flow and make sure the defect is repaired and send it on. This one particular code though seems to be working on our environment. (there are three environments here at fnc, and 2 more elsewhere DEV,QA,UAT) When it hits UAT though after I pass it, it keeps freakin failing on UAT because our "test" website mirrored off of their website isn't acurate enough. Of course I can't tell, and anyone testing on QA wouldn't be able to tell, because we see the correct results.. but on UAT of course it is janky. On top of all things we can't get access to this original website, so QA is left in the dark on how to reproduce some of these errors.

AH! so that's my problem at work this week =). Other than that I love my job, keeps me on my toes.

 

[Seed]

I was bagging at a store a few years ago and I bought a small carton of chocolate milk.
Turns out it was bad, and I didn't know until it was in my mouth. There was nowhere to spit it so I opened a bag that I was about to put someone's things into and spit it in there. Then I tried to explain to the spanish lady at the register that I wanted a free replacement or my 50 cents to buy another one. She didn't speak enough english so I had to buy another one. Those noobs. Btw I lived in Spain at the time and did not speak very much spanish which is why I couldn't get her to understand.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

I am really annoyed that my manager isn't exactly management material.

He is so thick and because this is his first time ever taking on a management role, he does not understand anything about anything.

Today I was so busy and he just comes out and asks me to do something that he thought was a simple task.

I had to explain to him the process and that it would take ages and that I wouldn't get it done today.

He clearly didn't listen or want to listen at that, because soon after he came back in and asked if I had finished the job.

I was like, "No. I don't have time."

Though that didn't matter to him.

I know how to prioritise and that job was the last job on my list. It was not as important as everything else I had to do. This was the kind of job I would do when I had spare time.

So my supervisor ending up showing him how to do it, but because he couldn't wait, he did it the half-assed way about it and it will show up later on reports we have to run that there is an error somewhere.

He doesn't get that though and he doesn't want to know about it. Which is annoying. Why hire someone who has no clue as to what they're doing?

 

[Kim Taehyung]

Ugh, just started my job as a pizza maker (little known place, not like Pizza Hut or anything)...and I don't like it too well. The worst part of the job (so far) was when I didn't cook a taco pizza right and the whole thing fell apart when I put it in the box. Apparently the dough was too thick and it didn't cook all the way. I ended up doing this to the same order twice. Poor guy didn't get his pizza until an hour after I promised it to him. And I work the 4-11 shift, so I'm there ALL DAY!

 

[blakstang98]

Ok, to start off, I'll give my background a little. My title is "Systems Mechanical Engineer". I work for a federal subcontractor focusing on doing work for the US Navy. So I really can't go into great detail about what I do, but to be simple and vague, I write and revise documents and work on design for parts.

Seeing as how it's a rant thread, I'm figuring I'll vent a little. So the vice-president of the company is my immediate boss. He is an interesting fellow, his mind moves in many directions, he has no marbles in his mouth and he's a very big fan of micro-management. In history, he has been known to sort of have a whipping boy, and for whatever reason, I've inherited that great honor. Now to be fair, I was the low-man on the totem pole all the way up to about a month ago, when 2 new engineers were hired. It would seem I'm still the whipping boy, so I never gained. But the thing I can't understand is that when he assigns something to me, he never really gives me all the information I need or he'll tell me he's looking for this when he really wants that. So after 2 years at this job, I'm still having a tough time trying to read his mind because what he directly says is false in general. Now this is something that occurs, but it's infrequent enough where I can deal with it. So now why is it that the son he never had (a fellow that started 3 months before me) is allowed to basically rewrite everything I write, while everything I write is absolute shit? You have no idea how difficult it is dealing with my boss to begin with, now I have to deal with 2? Unbelievable!

 

[Kim Taehyung]

Oh, one thing I didn't mention about my job is that I work in the kitchen of a gas station.

And we had a drive-off last night. Basically, it means that someone filled their tank and left without paying for it. Well, the person on the register didn't get a good look at the car, and he started freaking out. And after the whole issue was mostly resolved, he just didn't act right since. He actually made himself sick over it worring that he may be fired. I had no clue what to do, being in the kitchen where I can't see the gas pumps, so I just....basically stood there. I felt bad for the guy, mainly because he's new and he's nervous about losing his job over this.

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

^^ Don't you have cameras at the servo in case things like this happen?

Anyway I actually have a pretty funny story. XD

A few days ago this girl rings up.

She tries to put on this grown up woman voice and sounds totally retarded.

Anyway I recognised her voice from a few months ago when she rang and I instantly knew it was her when she asked me the same question as she did months ago.

She asked if we had lip gloss.

I said yes.

Then she asked if we had caramel flavoured lip gloss.

I said I can double check if she wanted me too (knowing well that she was being a moron) and that I could put her through to the ladies in cosmetics.

She then said, "Yeah. I want caramel flavoured lip gloss so that I can make my boyfriend go 'mmmmm'."

I nearly laughed and vomited a little at this. It was so disturbing and utterly disgusting to listen to.

I said I would still put her through to the ladies in cosmetics, but instead I put her on hold and left her there until she hung up.

I made her waste her valuable phone credit. XD

She kept the fake grown up voice on the whole way through as well.

She sounded so icky. <_<

 

[Kim Taehyung]

Eww.. that's slightly disturbing, but hilarious.

And no, we don't have a camera at the pumps. Why, I have no clue. As far as I know my co-worker's still got his job.

And I burned a pizza. Turned the cheese into black patent leather-looking substance. It was awful. hopefully, I still have my job, as well. XD

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

^^ XD

I'm sure that they wouldn't fire you over an honest mistake like that! =0

Anyway no joke, but I have another crazy story from work from today!

This woman rings me up and asks if we have Body Fat Calibrators.

I told her that we only have Body Fat Scales.

Then she went on at me how they're two totally different things, and that she's a fitness trainer and that she knows that kind of thing.

I'm like: 0_o

Anyway after all that she starts telling me how good she is and how she's a personal trainer and that personal trainers pretty much do all the same training that doctors do etc. And that she knows how to spell big words for different parts of the body etc.

I was literally on the phone for like 15 minutes and held it away from my ear sometimes and when she asked a question I was like, "Sorry what did you say?" XD

Anyway when I realised that she was just not going to shut up, I said, "I don't mean to be rude, but I have other phone calls that I need to answer."

And then finally she let me go!

I actually recognised that ladies voice too! She was the same lady that used to come into Best and Less when I worked there and she would always show me her abs and how fit she was. <_<

When in all reality, she was 60+ and had wrinkles everywhere and you could slightly see her abs.

She thinks she's a teenager the way she wears her hair and wears her clothes too. EWW!

And she just plain loves herself, and actually thought I cared and was genuinely interested in the crap that she had to tell me today. <_<