The Customer is always an Ass, Part 2

yet another pizza story... i had been delivering pizza on and off for two months until recently when i finally got so fed up with it that i refused to work anymore. so anyway it was last winter in the height of football season, so of course we were swamped all the time, especially on sunday nights. during the week we're open until 10 and fri/sat until 11, but on sundays we close until 9. the hours are clearly printed on the front of our menus and the windows on the front of the store, however people enjoy calling in huge orders at 8:30 and later and my boss, being the cheap dick that he was, always took the orders, made us drivers deliver way past 9 and never paid us for that extra time.

so i take an order for a pizza and a 2ltr coke to this house which is about a 10 minute drive from the store. since it's already close to 9pm in the winter, the sun had set four hours ago and it was pitch black down this tiny road. i drive up and down the tiny street looking for this mailbox with the house number on it until i finally find it tucked away behind three more mailboxes. i go up to the house which i believe is the one i'm supposed to be delivering to, and i knock on the door. i see through the glass door that a large, middle-aged man is setting up lights on his christmas tree and doesn't really want to be bothered, but with the fat human scum in this area, everyone's eyes usually light up when they realize the strange guy standing at their door is holding a pizza they ordered a half hour beforehand. the man stands up, stares at me, and flings open the front door. he screams "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?!" to which i reply, "i'm just the pizza guy, you guys ordered this from sicilias (the place i worked at, obviously). his eyebrows shift into the about-to- become-enraged position and i brace myself to get reamed out. he starts screaming at me about how he didn't order any pizza and this is the third time this week that someone from my work came to deliver him a pizza that he didn't order.

so i be the more responsible pizza guy out of the clan of morons i worked with and checked the slip and receipt and read off the address and phone number to him. he replied "THAT'S NOT MY GODDAMN HOUSE YOU STUPID ASSHOLE". so i decided since i'd already been working all day that i didn't feel like dealing with any more shit from customers so i apologized and went on my way as he yelled a few more things at me while i was walking back to my car.

so then i put my car in reverse and go to the house before his, which for some reason has their mailbox over at their neighbors house. i pull up and notice that it's a trailer and a little piece of me dies inside. nothing against people living in trailers, but in the towns i delivered in, trailers were nothing but bad news; the people inside them either never tipped, gave attitude, or told me how slow i was getting there and how i need to hurry up. so i knock on the door and there's no answer. a few minutes pass by while i knock every twenty seconds or so and then i get fed up and peek my head in the door because i still have more deliveries back at the store and it was already closing time. i open the door to find what seemed like the beginning of a creepy horror movie: a woman who had to be at least 90 hooked up to oxygen tanks with cats all over the apartment and a tv whose cable was out so it just displayed static fuzz. i just thought "oh goddammit." so i go up to the lady who seems to be barely alive and say i was the pizza man and gave her the total. she had me go find her pocketbook and as she rooted around in there through the coupons and loose change, she asked me to take a look at the tv and see if i could do anything to get the cable on. i don't know shit about cable and tvs, other than the cord needs to be plugged in. so i check and the cord is plugged in, yet no cable. i just say i don't know what's wrong with it as she keeps digging through her pocketbook. she then proceeds to hand me the phone and tells me to call the cable company and see if they can troubleshoot.

by now i was in the type of mood where you begin to welcome death because you're in such a shitty situation that you want to be as far away as possible. but it's a 90 year old lady barely alive, i would feel bad just saying "no i can't help you, goodbye" and leave her there to die. so she gives me a business card from the last cable guy to go to her dingy, creepy trailer and i call the number. i must have dialed it wrong or something because nobody picked up. by then she had the money to cover the bill (but no tip of course) so she handed it to me and i handed her back her phone and said i was sorry but no one picked up and i had to go. so i left. i felt like a dick at first, but hey, i'm a pizza guy. not the cable repairman.

i guess that might make me sound like a heartless bastard, but i had just dealt with some asshole in the next house and then this creepy old lady, then i had to go back to work and keep working for another hour without getting paid. fuck that whole situation.

I have a few interesting stories. Most of them revolve around the homeless and my manager kicking their ass. However, this one is the one that springs to mind first.

I work at a Starbucks, and I had, for a year, the coolest goddamn manager in the world. He was 5'2", recovered coke addict, married with two kids, in his thirties, and a type A personality. He was a fucking dynamo of personal energy. First one into work, last one to leave. He was one of the few people who could keep up with my tendancy to be vulgar. Anyways, we were working the bar together, with a recent hire. She was a cute little 17 year-old high schooler. Now, we were in a high volume period, and we were cranking out drinks as fast as we could. A customer, who was male and about 6'4", makes a snide comment about my manager, 'tapping that sweet teen ass' or something along that lines. She heard this, and apparently took offense to it. My manager, in full view of the line, stops steaming the milk, takes off his apron, walks around the counter, grabs the guy by the collar and drags him over to apologize to our co-worker.

Jesus, I do NOT miss retail. Oh God, the horrible memories...

I worked at a record shop a few years ago. I was a college senior, fast approaching graduation, taking a full courseload and working full time as well. I was the definition of stress. If I remember right, was a weekday night, because the store was dead. When I say dead, I mean the store was completely empty. It was just me and my good friend, who also happens to be the manager. So I'm doing some homework while she's internetting when the phone rings. I answer it with my usual cheerful "Thanks for calling CD World". The guy jumped into the usual tirade demanding a refund for his CD. I think it was something like:

Jerkass: I wanna return a CD
Me: Is it defective?
Jerkass: No, it's not the one I wanted. I bought it, deserve a refund...blah blah blah...
Me: Sorry, but with cd burners, mp3 trading, etc...can't return for a refund. Store policy. If you look on your receipt...
Jerkass: Fuck you asshole, you know how much I spend there? I know the owner! I know the manager!...

The manager looks over at me with a puzzled look on her face.

Jerkass: (continues stream of curses and threats)
Me: Hey look asshole, you know how much shit I put with from assholes like you? I'm just trying to help and you let loose with a tirade of baseless cursing and personal attacks against me, a man you've never met. What the fuck is your problem? I am not one to take this kind of abuse from anyone, especially not a childish little shitbag like you.
Jerkass: OK, I guess I got a little heated, sorry. Nothing you can do?
Me: Sorry, me too, that was uncalled for. No, if you want a refund or exchange, you'll have to talk to the manager.

I seriously could not believe I said that. I definitely didn't mean to, and was instantly ashamed of my inability to keep my cool. I looked over at the manager who was laughing her ass off. I explained what happened, and she seems rather understanding (we were friends outside of work, and she knew I only had a couple of months left therenanyway). So, who should strut through the door some twenty minutes later? He walks in, slams the door, throws his CD on the counter, and starts yelling for services. Me and the manager both walk to the counter.

Jerkass: (walks to counter, throws cd down).
Me: Can I help you?
Jerkass: Yeah, I talked to some guy on the phone a few minutes ago, and he cussed me out. You know who he is?
Me: (looks around at completely empty store) Yeah, that was me. Wanna talk to the manager?
Jerkass: Yeah
Manager: Yeah, I'm sorry, but I can't return that for you. Our return policy is clearly posted on the counter underneath the CD there, up behind us on the big blue cardboard signs, and is also handily printed on your receipt. There's nothing I can really do. We also don't appreciate customers who insist on verbally abusing our employees. Fermat will be disciplined for his actions, but honestly, I feel they were fully justified. Please leave.

I never loved that woman more than I did at that moment. She never told the real boss either, so it was our secret for my last two months.

I used to work at Papa Murphy's Pizza. The most common assholes were the people who didn't understand that when they were at the back of a line of about 15 people with only two employees in the store that night, it was going to take a little longer then normal to make their damned pizza. Other than that, two cases stand above them all.

"I Deserve a Free Pizza because I am the customer!!" It was fairly busy. A few customers in the store but not a huge rush. I was working the register when this woman came up and ordered two large pizzas saying the second one was free because she had a full punch card. Nothing wrong with that, they do exist and can be redeemed for a free large 1 topping pizza. I take a look at her card and notice something weird. The first two lines on the back had been stamped with the date of the purchase and the number of the store she bought them at. The other eight, however had been punched with a hole puncher. Something I've never seen a Papa Murphys do. I called the Assistant Manager over, as I was confused as to what to do. She asked to woman where she got those punches. The woman launched into a story about how a delivery person punched her card that way and that she had gotten the card six years previous. Papa Murphys does not deliver and has never delivered. She also says she brought the card to a different Papa Murphys and they told her to come to our location to redeem it as the card was from there. We told her that this was impossible because the store number on the first stamp was different from our store number. She lost it at this point.

Woman: "THAT'S WHAT IT WAS SIX YEARS AGO!!"
Assistant Manager: "The date on that stamp says 2002." (It was 2004 at the time.)
Woman: "Well you know what? You will honor this card, because I am THE CUSTOMER and "'THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!'"

At this point I was fighting back laughter, as I had never heard someone say that in real life before. It just sounded so...corny. In the end, she demanded to see the the head manager, the district manager, anyone she could think of. We gave her their numbers, and she left in a huff. Never heard anything about her after that.

The Perils of Pizza

This is more of a 'the customer is an ass, and so was the employee'. I was at a friends place one friday after work and we all ordered pizzas for dinner. About 10 of us and 7 pizzas between us. I'd ordered one for myself, a large BBQ Meat Lovers pizza from Pizza Hut. After about 50 minutes (they'd warned us the order would be between 45 mins to an hour, so this was cool) the pizzas arrived. Everyone's was fine except for mine, which had transformed from a large BBQ Meat to a small Hawaiian. I gave the call center a call back and explained what had happened and offered to drive over to the storefront to pick up a replacement. The girl who took the call said it was ok so I headed over to the shop.

I took the small pizza with me and asked to speak to the manager when I got there to follow.

"Why do you want to talk to the manager??" the kid behind the counter asked.
"I ordered a home delivery pizza and the order was messed up. I spoke to the call centre and they said they'd
organise the correct pizza for me to pick up here"
"So why do you want the manager?"
"I just thought since it was a complaint he'd be the best person to deal with it"
"He's busy"

The kid took the old pizza off me, and the manager came out about 2 minutes later

"There's nothing wrong with this pizza" he said
"Well, no, it's a perfectly fine small hawaiian pizza, but I ordered a large bbq meat lovers"
"no you didn't"

That threw me. The manager hadn't checked any order. Didn't know who I was, yet somehow magically knew that even though I SAID I wanted a different pizza (and paid for it, mind you) I ACTUALLY wanted something totally different.

"I think you'll find I did in fact order a different pizza, and I would really like the pizza I ordered"

I had the receipt with me that didn't even show a small hawaiian on it and showed him. The manager just sighed and said "it'll be about 15 minutes"

He then turned around and mumbled to the kid at the counter "What a fuckwit"

"What did you just call me?"

He turned back around and said "Nothing". The kid behind the counter was just laughing at this point.

"You just called me a fuckwit, and I don't appreciate that."

"No I didn't" and with that he just walked out to the back of the store.

Anyways, I eventually got the pizza, called their customer hotline, made a complaint and got a stack of free pizza vouchers.

That I didn't use at that dick's store. Yay.

That does it for this two-part Comedy Goldmine — thanks again to everyone at the forums who chimed in. After doing this, I think I'm going to be so nice to all the waitresses and CSRs with whom I come into contact they'll think I'm coming on to them hardcore. It's too bad we all know it's the asshole guys who get the girl in the end, but hey, maybe I can score some free sodas here and there.

– Tekky "Jumpman16" Andrew-Jaja