Well, I had a bad experience WORKING in retail...
I used to work for a pizza/arcade place that had a robotic coyote riding on a tricycle that delivered the pizza around an oval track.
Well, one day I'm to deliver a pizza to one table for a couple of kids. Sitting in the comfort of my one way mirror, I look out to see that the kids are not there. So, I navigate my avatar to the table and start to strike up a conversation with the parents. The family was pretty much regulars and I thought the parents enjoyed the place more than their little kids.
I ask the parents if I can page the kids in the arcade. They say that they aren't in there. So, I ask "Where are they." "They're in heaven." It turns out that the mother was in a car accident a few months earlier and they were here to celebrate their child's birthday and bring a cake to the gravesite.
I had no idea what to do. Then they asked me to sing Happy Birthday to them. Normally, I'd use the PA system to announce the birthday and sing to them. So, I skipped the PA and went straight into singing.
Later, the parents came up and thanked/apologized to me for this. It meant a lot to them.
True story...
I once worked in a mirror/window shop. I had a lady walk into the shop and ask us if we could make her a mirror in which she could admire her beauty... I replied (a bit too quickly) that we made mirrors, not miracles.
She took it pretty bad. LOL... And while my boss was doing everything in his power to excuse this outrage, I was laughing myself silly just a few feet away.
Ultradan
Blooooorrrrph
Blooooorrrrph
STAY. DEAD!!!
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I have worked for the past three years at a Boy Scout camp (not this summer, though), and the adult leaders have said some pretty bizarre things.
- It's 90+ F outside, and I'm on parking detail, with my shorts, wool socks, combat boots, and bulky orange vest. Joe Scoutmaster is in his HUGE, air-conditioned SUV. He rolls down his window, uttering one of the following: "Hot, innit?" or "Hot enough for ya?"
- There was the guy who asked where the closest subway station was. Still trying to figure that one out.
- And finally, Joe Scoutmaster sees me in my uniform (above clothing, plus BRIGHT ORANGE t-shirt with the word "STAFF" emblazoned in three-inch-high black lettering on the front and back), and walks over to me. "You work here?" he says.
My buddy Kaleb has an even worse/better job: he's a tour guide. He has to walk around Fort Ticonderoga in period wool clothes, talking to idiots from New Jersey. Some of the better ones:
- "How d'you get all the flags to go in the same direction?" Kaleb's answer: "Magnets."
- The guy that drove past the OBVIOUS parking lot, drove down the main path, and attempted to park in the parade ground. "I thought it was the parking lot." LIAR!
- The ever present "do you work here?"
- And also, "Hot, innit?"
- Finally, "Is this real dirt?"
- Finally, "Is this real dirt?"
"No, synthetic dirt from China proved out to be better and cheaper."
I have couple of friends who have been tourist guides or otherwise in jobs wher eencountering tourists, and they have plenty of similar tales (especially about American tourists who do those "Europe in ten days" tours who most of the time have no idea which city or even country they are in...)
I used to work in a big-surface hardware store (like Home Depot), and this old italian man comes up to me and asks me if I sell "washers" for a garden hose. I say YESSIR and show him where they were situated. But to the customer's chagrin, we sold them in little plastic bags of six.
He turns and asks me if we sold them individually.
I say: "No. But for .89 cents, you'll be good for a few years!"
He then says: "But I only need one..."
Then my look turned to disgust. I just told him again that we only sell them in packs of six, and that I was sorry for that.
So I turn my attention to some other customer for a few minutes, and happen to walk back past the "Washers" rack... One bag was ripped open and one washer was missing.
:(
HOW CHEAP IS THAT?!?!?
Ultradan
Many moons past, in the long-long ago time, I worked at Tower Records in Honolulu. The soundtrack for the movie Beaches was a huge seller. Then suddenly there were massive amounts of returns on the cassette tapes. Women would come in, looking out of sorts, confused, or just plain scared, saying that there was something wrong with the tape and they'd like to exchange it.
Eventually we got one of the women to explain in more detail.
"That isn't Bette Midler on that tape. I don't know what it is, but it's not Bette Midler."
We popped the tape in and checked. She was right. It wasn't Bette Midler.
Seems the guys over at Atlantic Records had a minor printing/packaging error. Although the tape was labeled as the soundtrack, the actual recording was Metallica's Kill 'Em All album.
Whoops.
I worked a couple years at the front gate of the School of the Ozarks (the college that works!)*ding* and usually on a Sunday afternoon there would be at least one or two people drive up-stop-ask me to come over- and ask: "Them cows real?" First few times I just stood and looked at them, but eventually started telling them about Disney's animatronics and how Disney was from the area and wanted our campus' computer department to try out new designs to ship down to Florida or out to Hollywood. People believed me and would get out of the car and go through the fence to see "them robot cows" up close...geez!
The soundtrack for the movie Beaches was a huge seller.
[...]
Although the tape was labeled as the soundtrack, the actual recording was Metallica's Kill 'Em All album.
Whoops.
ROFL! Call about unpleasant surprises. I'm a big Old Metallica fan, but I can understand how someone would not want to hear it. When they're expecting some soppy soundtrack of a film called Beaches, for example.
This reminds me of a story I heard in two versions:
The first was this doucebag of a jerk (yes, he was this bad), he got a new rap CD (or thought he did), had some friends over and put it on. I don't remember the name of the rapper/band, but it turns out that beside that rapper, there was a death metal band with the same name. I heard the guy nearly fell over from fright.
And the other was similar, someone misremembering a group name (again, I don't remember it) and asking a friend of hers if he knew them (the other guy was a walking music database). Of course, she only had part of the group's name, which was the name of a different group, and he gave her "the right stuff". She thought about something mild. He gave her some brutal death metal - like stuff. She was... surprised when she put the CD on :D
One thing I was told by a guy who worked in an electronics store for some time. The store was right beside a building centre.
So one day a women came in, first asked about ovens, then about washing machines (so far so good), and then she asked: "Where can I find wood glue?"
Apparently the guy managed to keep his composure (or so he said, he might have lied and actually lain there laughing his ass off) and tell her that she should go next door for that, this was an electronics store.
Speaking of that building centre: My uncle works there (it's a store called Hela), and the Globus building centre is right across the street (though nowadays, the hela building centres have been bought by Globus and so they're the same now).
Anyway, he often told me about people coming to him, complaining about the prices, since there was supposed to be a special offer and it was still on the shelves with the regular prices. Of course, Hela never had such offers, Globus had. Sometimes, they'd bring the leaflet (clearly in Globus colours) and wave them around.