Some high heels on this thing and she's important!

Well, it's official 2007 has started off with me saying-ONCE AGAIN- "dammit, I hate retail!!" You want to know why? No? Well who cares I'm talking-it's my blog.

I don't hate retail for the obvious reasons: the shitty hours, the standing on my feet for 40+ hours a week, the have to find time to take a piss in a the 32 seconds when someone helpless doesn't need something, the going into work when there' s a crazy-ass (one of my favorite descriptive phases) snowstorm-and the roads are buried- and anyone sane is still at home all snuggled in bed WAITING for the snow plows to do their work. It' s not because of any of those things-in fact that's why I like it, always a challenge.

It IS because one stupid douche bag customer who THINKS she's more important than everyone else ruins 'it' (my day and my happy existance) in a split second. I'll elaborate because I know I got ya now...

Sunday, I'm working... like I do every other Sunday...doing my thing, making sure shit is going smoothly. I'm thinking fairly happy thoughts. It was my sister's birthday and I knew I'd call her when I got home from work and wish her a happy birthday and find out if she opened the gift I sent. Also, Scott and I always spend Sunday nights together at home---a nice dinner, some wine, a little conversation (I just thought of Elvis for some reason) ANYWAY---just how it should be. It's just about noon 'o clock (remember it's MY blog) and I'm assisting one of my employees when I hear a woman loudly correcting him. NaturallyI step closer to see what the problem was.

"YOU people never do anything right here, I'M TIRED OF IT! Everytime I come in here YOU people mess my order up. What is wrong with you?!? Don't you know it has..."

She proceeds to verbally assult (is the term I'm using for it) one of my employees for making her order 'wrong". I step in to investigate and find that he's doing everything to standard and she's just wrong in either what she ordered or how she thinks something should be made. Our policy is to make our customers happy so I start to TRY to do that and she starts yelling at me!

"Who are YOU? The manager? Well, LET. ME. TELL. YOU. SOMETHING...I'm not trying to be SNOTTY but you need to train these people-they aren't even competent in their jobs!"

Ok, so by this point she's pissing me off...but my training tells me....be nice, all she wants is someone to vent to. When she gets what she's mad about off her chest I can see how I can make this better for her and everything will be all happy again. Sometimes I am SO wrong.

I wait for her to finish, I try to get a word in by asking her how I can make this situation better for her---she wants nothing from me and just continues to point her finger at me and tell me how horrible this store is. She then begins to walk away and stares into my eyes and says,

"I guarantee you, I will be talking to YOU tomorrow." (Douche bag storms out.)

What the fuck crazy lady?...talk to me now!! So I'm worked up, my employee who was yelled at is upset, a group of customers is standing by with their mouths wide open in disbelief, and my saga continues.

Any time someone is that nasty we have to call it in to or customer service center in Seattle and give them word-for-word account of what hapened, how we tried to help, why we couldn't resolve the issue, and if the customer needs further assistance. I give a detailed account of what happened to the gal on the phone and we conclude. Meanwhile I went back to my daily operations and make sure my employees all know they handled it the best they could and sometimes we just can't make someone happy. End of story, right?

OH, no! So Monday I emailed my boss and told him about the situation. He reiderated how important it was to go back to the employees involved and make sure they know I support them...I did and I thought it was over.

TODAY (Tuesday) at 8am I walk in and it turns out this lady is now at one of our locations across town raising hell-and luckily the one she's harassing there was at my store Sunday afternoon and heard all about Miss Crazy Douche. So he asks what he should do and I told him give her the 1-800 customer service line and tell her you're sorry we were unable to help her. He did and that's the last I hear of it and I leave for my 9am meeting about 25 mintues away. My meeting ended at 1pm and I had a voicemail from one of my shift leads...she's very upset and obviously shaken. Upon returning the call I find out that the woman (lets call her "douchey") called today to talk to me and when my shift lead told her I was unavailable, "douchey" demanded that she give my phone and my boss' phone number to her. Of course (thank you B.B.) she did not give our numbers out which made the woman very angry so she lets the threats fly:

"I will have YOUR job and your MANAGER's job by the end of the week. I recorded this whole conversation and the conversation on Sunday and I don't appreciate being called a FUCKING BITCH!"

Oh yeah...she did...."douchey"actually is now accusing me of calling her a fucking bitch! Now, I know she IS one and most of my employees know she is and I'm quite sure her family, her coworkers, her mailman, her hair dresser, her lip waxer, her shrink, her pastor, her grade school teachers and basically anyone ever in contact with her--I'm sure they all know she's a f-ing bitch but I've been in retail and dealing with the public a long time and I've NEVER called anyone ANYTHING like that!

I'm not real worried about it because-well, she's a liar- and I tried to help her but she wasn't interested.

I called this evening to get an update on the case and they informed me that she has called the customer service line twice today to tell them how horrible I was and how I called her the f-bomb. All I can say is WHATEVER DOUCHEY..bring it on!

And this is why I just may hate retail till next year again. Who knows-it's only January. :)