confessions Archives - Page 3 of 8 - I Hate Working In Retail

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A record store clerk logged all the crazy things customers said

How your pretentious local record store asshole got that way

The smug, judging record clerk is a sad cliche, but the stereotype exists for a reason. Not all of them start out that way. Sometimes it’s a process of grinding down that takes place over several years. I’ve been working in and around record stores since 1991. Anyone working retail knows dealing with morons and nutjobs comes with the territory, but music retail people will tell you they deal with a completely different breed. There’s something special about a record store that attracts a fringe class one might never encounter any other place, save the emergency room or the DMV. Ask anyone who has worked in music retail, especially the old-timers, and they’ll tell you. We all have a story to tell.

In 2002 I stashed a notebook behind the counter of the shop where I work, something I wish I had had the foresight to think of years earlier. Anytime we got a dopey phone call, boneheaded comment, or generally batshit customer experience we’d log it into the book with the date and time of occurrence. We’ve got a few volumes filled at this point. Earlier today I flipped through some back pages and noted favorite entries. I have omitted the date stamps for the sake of brevity, but these entries span from February 2002 to November 2014. There’s so much more where this came from, but ideally this begins a dialogue with other battle-scarred shop grunts. We want to hear your stories. If you have favorite quotes or tales, especially ones that top these, post them to the comments and share with others who’ve lived the struggle.

Enjoy these hand-selected quotes from the music retail front

Customer: “Why are there only 12 songs on this CD?”
Clerk: “Uh, that’s just how many songs are on it.”
Customer: “So, there’s six songs per side?”

*

Customer: “I’m looking for an old song called ‘The Monster Mash’. I think it’s by Kris Kristofferson.”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Are you the manager?”
Clerk: “Yes.”
Customer: “OK. There’s a Beatles album… it’s really rare… it’s worth a whole lot of money… Do you know which one it is?”
Clerk: “No.”
Customer: “OK. How much would it be worth?”

*

Customer: “Do you have a Christmas album by Aryan Neville?”

*

Customer: “Do you have any Van Morrison? I didn’t see any under ‘V’.”
Clerk: (politely) “Well, it would actually be under ‘M’.”
Customer: “NEVERMIND!” (customer storms out)

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Is this the record place?”
Clerk: “Yes.”
Customer: “Could you tell me how to get a record deal? I do rap.”

*

Customer: “I’m looking for a Country singer. The last name is ‘Redding’. I think the first name is ‘Otis’”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Do you have any… uh… Gospel… uh… I mean… uh… tape… on… video… uh… I mean… (screams) DO YOU HAVE ANY HALLE BERRY MOVIES?

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Do you have constellation music?”
Clerk: “Constellation music?”
Customer: “You know… A variety.”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “There’s this lady that just put out a song. I don’t know what it is.”
(statement ends here with customer expecting an answer)

*

(phone call)
Customer: “I have some… I don’t know what they are… uh… (moment of silence) Do y’all buy 26 inch records?”

*

Customer: “Do you guys have any Kenny G posters?”
Clerk: “No, I’m sorry we don’t.”
Customer: “Well, if I get two then I’ll give you guys one.”

*

Customer: “I know that the Beatles Red, White, and Blue albums are the best, but are there any other good copulations by the Beatles?”

Customer: “Do y’all have ‘Old Mount Zion’?”
Clerk: “Um, who is it by?”
Customer: “The New Years song everybody sings!”
Clerk: “Auld Lang Syne?”
Customer: “I dunno, maybe.”

*

Customer: “Are all your CD’s made?”
Clerk: “…?”

*

Customer: “I’m looking for ‘Theme From a Summer Place’.”
Clerk: “Do you know by who? About 100 different artists have done that song.”
Customer: “There’s no ARTIST! It’s an INSTRUMENTAL!”

*

A guy comes in and wants to order a TV-only-offer CD. He brings in the 1-800 number from the commercial and asks if we can call it in for him.

*

Two sorority girls come into the shop.
Sorority girl #1: “Do you guys have any Beatles DVD’s?… no… wait… I guess they didn’t have video cameras back then.”

*

A young white woman’s inquiry about Reggae:
“Y’all got that Reggae guy? …He’s black.”

*

Customer: “Y’all got any Ronald McDonald?—You know that guy who used to be with the ‘Doobie Boys’”

*

Customer: “Y’all got that Freddie Jackson anthropology?”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Hello. I bought this DVD from you guys and the price sticker has a date on it: 12/05… does that mean that I rented it and I need to bring it back? Or did I buy it?”

*

Customer has an inquiry about the Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions:
Customer: “What does BBC session mean?”
Clerk: “Well, it would have been a session recorded for British BBC radio.”
Customer: “So is it in English?”

*

A white woman hands my co-worker, John, three CD’s and he tells her the total without using the register.
She pays and says “That was impressive!”
John: “What was?”
Woman: “I’ve never met a black guy that could add numbers without using a calculator”

*

A man kept us busy for 30 minutes, trying first to find in the store, and then google “African Bandstand”. He couldn’t believe us when we told him it didn’t exist because it was, according to him, “the most popular song of all time.”
After 15 minutes more we figured out on a hunch that he wanted “Afrika Baambaata.”

*

A man returns to the store 10 minutes after his purchase and wants to return an Elvis DVD because it wouldn’t play in his car’s CD PLAYER.

*

Customer: “Do you have the Beatles Salt and Pepper Hearts Club?”

*

A man buys Yusef Lateef’s Eastern Sounds CD. The next day he brings it back complaining: “There’s too many eastern sounds on it.”

Customer: “Hey man, where’s all y’alls CD’s at? The ones with the music on it.”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Do you guys buy oil wells?”
Clerk: “…”

*

A grown man comes into the store pulling a little toy red wagon…
“Do you guys have that movie Alive about a rugby team that crashes and they have to become CARNIVORES?”

*

Guy mumbles to himself: “Same size as Janet Jackson, right?”
Clerk: “Huh?”
Mumbling guy: “All CD’s are the same size, right?”

*

Customer: “Do you guys sell punk? Like MXPX and CREED?”

*

Customer: “Do you guys have ‘If I Gotta Love Edith’ by Iron Butterfly?”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Do you know who buys records?”
Clerk: “We do.”
Customer: “Where are you?”
-explanation ensues, guy is clearly not following…
Customer: “Well, I only got one record to sell”
Clerk: “Oh?”
Customer: “I paid $80 for this Cinderella picture disc in 1986. I’d like to get at least what I paid for it.”

*

Customer: “Do you just buy the vinyl or the music?”

*

OK, this one’s pretty cool.

There’s an elderly couple that shops at the store regularly. The old man is blind and his wife is this sweet old lady that guides him around and reads off the song titles to him on the Big Band CD’s. One day we decided to order a pizza for lunch and there’s three of us at the counter eating our slices. The old woman comes up to my co worker, Rob, and says “that sure does look good.” Rob has the slice right up to his mouth to take a bite out of it when the old lady grabs Rob’s hand and pulls it over to her own mouth, taking a huge chomp out of it—completely out of the blue.

Rob is dumbfounded, just staring and not knowing what to do or say to this old woman that just took a bite of his pizza.

The lady then looks at Rob and says “when you get to be my age you can do anything you want.”

Customer:“Can you tell me where your ‘Renegade’ music is?”
Clerk:“Renegade?”
Customer:“Yeah, like Shabba Ranks”

*

Customer: “You ever listen to the Yardbirds? …Oh man yeah, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Sammy Hagar!”

*

We once had a young lady turn in an employment application. She included a resume, which most people applying here never do – but whatever, that’s cool. The resume was three pages, but had an extra page stuck in the middle by mistake. It was a print-out of an email she received from a friend telling her what remedy to use to get rid of her yeast infection.

*

Customer: “This that concert that got Sting and Yo Yo Mama?”

*

Customer looking for Michael Jackson’s Live in Bucharest: “Ya’ll got that Michael JordanDangerous, Live in Buddharest?”

*

Clerk: “No I’m sorry I can’t buy any of these (caked in mildew and ratshit) records.”
Customer: “Well, how about you just give me $20 and throw them all away?”
Clerk: “…”

*

Customer: “Do you guys buy records? I have a Lou Rawls album that my wife looked up online. It sells for $800. You can sell it for me and take a cut.”

*

Customer: “Do you have CDs for turntables?”

*

World’s most awesome 80+ year old white lady comes in and picks up a Ying Yang Twinz CD and then asks if we have the Three Six Mafia CD with “Whoop That Trick” because “that’s the one they won the academy award for.” She buys both.

*

One of our employees is eating a bag of chips when a customer comes up and asks “whatcha eatin’? Rootbeer?”

*

Customer: “Do y’all have any cuban music? Like Kenny Chesney or Jimmy Buffett but without the Kenny Chesney and the Jimmy Buffett.”

*

A customer on the phone probably calling about H.E. Dixon, who later angrily dismisses the suggestion that that might be who he is actually looking for: “I’m praying y’all got this. It’s Eighty Dicks. It’s a gospel.”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Do you buy records? I got records that haven’t even been degenitalized yet.”

*

Teenage girl asks for classic rock gift suggestions for her dad.
Clerk: “How about Alice Cooper?”
Girl: “Oh no, he hates female singers”

*

(phone call)
Customer: “Hello. Is this a restaurant?”
Clerk: “no”
Customer: “OK. Do you take 8 track records?”

*

Customer: “Do you know where The Department of Resurrection is?”
Clerk: “Is that a band?”
Customer: “It’s a government organization”
Clerk: “Oh. No. I don’t know where that is.”
Customer: “The Pentagon… The Vatican and the Pentagon.”

*

A sketchball character comes in trying to sell some obviously stolen 80’s goth records including a Bauhaus record. I try to call him out, pointing to the Bauhaus record:
Me: “So what does this one sound like?”
The guy looks at the cover of In The Flat Field, obviously for the first time ever, and sees the distorted nude photograph:
“OH! Bahadu?! He’s like the white PRINCE… ya see, he’s naked. It’s kind of mellow… it’s funky!”


Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Sourced from altpress.com

 

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22 Secrets McDonald’s Employees Will Never Tell You

1. Big Mac sauce contains all the ingredients of a Big Mac, except beef.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

And there’s supposed to be a slice of pickle in every bite. Soz, gherkin haters.

2. It’s really hard to feel good about yourself in a hairnet.

3. The rest of the uniform’s not much of a confidence booster either.

The rest of the uniform's not much of a confidence booster either.

Pixgood / Via pixgood.com

Those high-waisted trousers .

4. People seem to get off on asking you how many stars you have.

People seem to get off on asking you how many stars you have.

Modip / Via modip.ac.uk

You’d have 25 stars for not punching people who ask you stupid questions if badge stars were even still a thing.

5. But not as much as they’ll enjoy telling you how chicken nuggets are really made.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

Seriously…

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

6. You look forward to being put on the dining area shift because it allows ample opportunity for hiding in the toilets.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

“I’m just checking them”.

7. It takes less than 30 seconds to cook a McDonald’s burger patty from frozen.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

Yep.

8. And there’s no such thing as “flipping” burgers, because they’re cooked from both sides at once.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy

They go in a grill like a giant George Foreman.

9. There’s nothing like the pain of burning your fingers every time you try to fish out a bun that’s stuck to the toaster.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

10. Except for the agony of catching your elbow on the corner of a chip pan when you tip out a fresh batch of fries.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

11. You’ll spend your entire shift snaffling fries on the sly when you think nobody’s looking.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

12. Or sometimes the odd chicken nugget if you’re lucky.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

13. But then still eat the entire food allowance for your shift when your break comes around.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

14. You dread your shift coinciding with pub closing time because that’s when you get the worst weirdos.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

15. You’ll always get some chump ordering “a Big Mac, plain, but with ketchup”.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

So, not a Big Mac, then. A Big Mac doesn’t even have ketchup!

16. This:

17. You find yourself deliberately ignoring customers who shout, “Helloooooo” into the drive-thru speaker if you don’t take their order within half a second.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

18. You dread anyone ordering a Filet-O-Fish because you’ll have to cook it to order every time.

You dread anyone ordering a Filet-O-Fish because you'll have to cook it to order every time.

Serious Eats / Via seriouseats.com

Because who the eff ever orders a Filet-O-Fish?

19. Especially if you wear glasses, because steaming the bun will cloud them right up.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You

20. Trying not to lose patience with people who wait until they’re at the front of a long queue to decide what they want is a serious test.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

21. Not quite as much as being polite to customers who complain about not having fresh fries, and then complain about waiting for fresh fries to cook, though.

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

22. But it’s mostly worth putting up with, because free burgers!

22 Secrets McDonald's Employees Will Never Tell You
Giphy / Via giphy.com

And of course, money and a job.

Sourced from buzzfeed.com

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Retail and Service Workers Share Their Crazy Customer Stories

Sure, we’ve all had our fair share of bad (or even horrible) customer service experiences. There’s even an annual list of the top 10 consumer complaints that ranks which areas of the marketplace we find most frazzling in any given year.

But what about tales from the other side of the counter? We asked our readers who work in the restaurant, retail or service industry to share their worst “crazy customer” stories. We chuckled, guffawed and sat with our mouths wide open as we read through your submissions, then we picked our 12 favorites.

Poke and Sniff
Reader remotecandy says: “I was shopping in the meat department … when I noticed a woman picking up various packages of meat, poking holes in the wraps and sniffing each package before she put the package back where she got it. I was not only appalled, but was disgusted … I notified the meat department manager and he talked to this woman … She lost it, calling the meat manager every name in the book, and proceeded to randomly poke holes in meat packages that she had no intention of buying. Because the store security people couldn’t handle this woman, they called the police, but the woman made it out of the store just in the nick of time.”

Fishy Business
Reader Bballxlovex25 says: “A customer ordered anchovies on a pizza from our pizza place. She called back after receiving her delivery order to complain. She stated that she ordered anchovies on her pizza and received fish. We told her that anchovies were indeed fish and that was what she ordered. She proceeded to yell that she, “Did not want these f***ing fish!” on her pizza. Her son proceeded to tell her that she ordered anchovies and that they were fish. She threatened the manager by saying she was going to beat up the manager’s mother and husband.”

No, It’s Your Fault!
Reader AJH89 says:
“I work at a restaurant and this lady and a little boy, about four or five, came in to eat. The little boy sat down with his mom and peed in his pants. The lady told me it was my fault because I did not tell her that the little boy looked liked he needed to go to the bathroom. She wanted us to give her dinner [for] free. I could not believe it.”

(Chicken) Bills
Reader Gerrydee1 says: “As a young girl right out of school, I worked in the Customer Relations Department of Sears-Roebuck in Philadelphia. This was the mail order division. My job was to handle complaints via letter from customers and route them to the correct place for their problems to be solved. I received a note from a farmer that said his latest sale from the catalog of poultry … included some dead on arrival. My supervisor told me to write him back and asked him to send the bills from the sale indicating how many, and we would gladly replace them … A package arrived with my name on it soon. It smelled funny even before I opened it. When I did, the dope sent me the actual bills (beaks) from the poor little chickens. It smelled to high heaven and freaked me out.”

She’s “Wheely” Crazy

Reader JCDIFFEY says: “[This] lady came into our station for full service lube and oil change and wanted her tires rotated. She returned about two hours later, went to her car and came inside the shop, really mad. She wanted all the wheels with the design on them to all FACE UP. [We] tried to explain, the first time you drive the car [they] will change and [will] not be the same. She refused to pay the bill unless we corrected the problem. We pulled the car on the rack and made all the wheels look the same. She paid bill and departed a happy customer. We let her drive it off the rack.”

What a Gas
Reader TLWidner32824 says: “I had a customer (guest) come into one of my stores at MGM Studios, Orlando with armfuls of merchandise to purchase. She laid her stuff on my counter and whipped out a Mobil gas card to pay for her purchases. I kindly told her that Mobil cards are good for Mobil gas stations to buy gas and products. She could not understand why she could not use her gas card. Even after explaining and re-explaining, she still did not get it. She left, as that was her only ‘form of payment.'”

Too Much “O” in the H2O
Reader PANJO says: “While running my family’s restaurant in NYC, I had a customer call me over one time to her table … She holds a glass of water that the busboy had brought over when she sat down, and asks in very grave tone, ‘Do you see what I see?’ Being in the restaurant business, I figured maybe there was lipstick on the glass [or] something had fallen in it, but … I couldn’t see anything … She said, ‘I can’t believe you can’t see, but there is way too much oxygen in the water!'”

Guess That’s Not What He Wanted to Hear
Reader Chrisandkim04 says: “I had an older gentleman who had purchased his glasses from one of our companies eight years ago. He came in all upset, because his glasses had broken … He proceeded to tell me his story [about] how he bought the glasses several years ago and how he had never had a problem with them until now … His dog got a hold of his glasses and chewed them up beyond recognition … I explained that the frame was no longer being made and in order to get him a new pair he would have to see the doctor … He flipped out. He threw the remaining fragments of his glasses at me and kicked his chair at my other associate.”

Not Worth the Argument
Reader Bgk9876 says: “A customer wanted to return a canteen which she had recently purchased. When I asked her why she wanted to to return it she said it leaked. After inspecting the canteen, [I] noticed [it had] a hole in the center big enough to put your index finger in. When this was pointed out to the customer, she responded by saying, ‘Well, that’s not where it leaks.’ She got a full refund.”

She Did What??
Reader WAYDOWNTOWN2 says: “A woman came into the restaurant drunk, and when asked to leave she hiked her skirt up, squatted down and proceeded to pee in the middle of the dining room. “Oh yeah, she was arrested.”

The Wrong End of Things
Reader Marcanewman1 says: “I spent many years in drug stores and had many ‘confused customers.’ A few — ‘Why didn’t the direction label say take the foil off the suppository first, it really hurt?’ ‘I choked, why didn’t the instructions say take the pill with water?’ ‘Why didn’t the label say Insert in rectum, I swallowed it ?’ [This] customer orally took a suppository with the foil on it!”

Pizza Pain
Reader Bnchudson says:
“I work for a restaurant that has a website for people to place online orders. I had a customer who placed their order online for one size then yelled at us because she had [accidentally] ordered a bigger size and thought we had purposely changed her ticket. When we showed her the original copy she still didn’t believe it. We then even offered to remake it for her at no additional cost, and she flipped out saying she had already paid for the larger size (which she was shown she had not) and deserved a refund of her money as well. Needless to say she left with no refund and the smaller size.”

Sourced from dailyfinance.com