Some dispatches from co-workers.
Firstly, the deranged:
Customer comes into the shop (evidently having worked up a full head of steam), marches to the till, slaps down a Collins World Atlas, and informs the hapless bookseller at the till that he is going to sue the shop.
She is puzzled by this and asks why.
His response? He bought the atlas (note: ATLAS not map) because he was planning a trip to Spain and wanted to check whether or not a particular road was finished or not. He didn’t ask any of the booksellers present at the time whether an atlas (that will be revised once every 4-5 years, and that will be sent for formatting months before it hits the shelves) would be the best way to find such up-to-the-minute information. Nope. Nor did it occur to him to use t’internets to double-check whatever the atlas said. He went to Spain and the road wasn’t finished, even though the atlas said it was (funnily, I think it probably said somewhere that the road was “due” to have been completed by the time the atlas went on sale, but anyone with a passing familiarity with road projects would know that “due” is not the same as “will be”. In Spain or anywhere else.)
Recognising that he was not liable to be swayed by logic, the bookseller offered him his money back on the Atlas. Nope, not good enough (really, I’m going to write a song called “not good enough” with a refrain we can all hum as a calming mantra when dealing with people like him). He was determined to sue us. Now, the bookseller gently suggested he might consider suing Collins instead since they produced the atlas, but he was having none of it. We sold him the book and we “didn’t warn him” that it may contain inaccurate information with relation to roads in Spain.
Now, I ask you – how were we supposed to know what he was buying it *for* if he didn’t consult with us? How can we “warn people” about content idiosyncratically specific to them? Like the lady who wanted the dictionary with only “hard words” (by her own unique definition of what they are), there is an expectation that when we sell something to someone we should be somehow psychically aware of what they want it for – no matter how bizarre – and be able to warn them if it may not fit the bill.
I guess if he wants to waste money on suing the shop, that gentleman (and I use the term strictly as a matter of politesse) may learn that the judiciary are a bit smarter about realistic retail expectations that he is. Or maybe he would then sue them too? Who knows.
Now to the customer that takes the cake for most demanding ever which, as you can guess if you’ve read any of the guff on here, is no mean feat.
Picture the scene, there is a book launch about to start upstairs in the shop, apart from the trainee manager, there are two staff in the entire shop. The lift (as we all know by now) is out of order. Said managerial type is busily trying to figure out the PA system, set out chairs, wineglasses, and put together the lectern and back-drop, all on his lonesome. He is VERY busy. Upstairs there’s one staff member fielding inquiries and selling books to people who have come for the launch. Downstairs there is one bookseller at the front tills.
In marches woman with pram. She wanders around, discovers the lift is out of order and demands someone help her bring the pram upstairs (it was a demand, not a request, I am assured of this). Bookseller at till explains that she can’t leave the tills unattended, but rings upstairs to get bookseller no. 2 down to carry the pram upstairs. This he does.
When upstairs the woman makes a beeline for the obviously extremely busy manager and proceeds to waste his time with inane questions. He played along, getting increasingly frazzled as the launch was due to start any second. Eventually, he had to excuse himself to attend to that, and Ms. Demanding did not approve of this at all. No, she needed to go back downstairs, and required both him and the other bookseller to help her since she had one book and one magazine to carry, and couldn’t be expected to do that. They boggled, both of them, but like the princes they are, one carried the buggy down and the other carried the book and magazine for her.
Downstairs, the bookseller behind the till watched this with incredulity. She was busily serving customers, and Ms. Demanding joined the queue with a mere 2 people ahead of her. Guess what? Not Good Enough (sing it with me now!). After ten seconds she piped up: “Is there no-one to serve me????”
Uh, think she’d had quite enough service for one evening…
Anyway, bookseller at till explains that there is only her down there (obviously), but is brow-beaten by customer into getting the poor beleaguered manager back downstairs to serve her. This he does, and the woman decided not to buy the book after all while at the till (thus rendering null and void any trip upstairs and all the distraction she has caused) and leaves with her cheap magazine, muttering about how her child has been made fractious by all the delays. Um, I’m presuming here she meant her “inner child” since according to all present, the baby in the pram slept through everything. Lucky kid.
So she leaves, and they all breathe a sigh of relief. Not ten minutes later, bookseller at till notices a flashy car is double parked on the road outside the store, hazards flashing. In marches Ms. Demanding (minus child, presumably left out in the CAR which is DOUBLE-PARKED, with the engine running…so, yeah, the kid is obviously a priority) runs around the store, saying nothing but giving the evils to all the staff before running out again. They think this is odd, but hope it’s the last they’ve seen of her.
At about 20 mins to closing a customer approaches the till with an iphone in their hand. Someone has left it behind. The bookseller at the till roots through the phone-book (we always do this), looking for a number listed as “Home” or some other way to contact the owner. The phone is obviously new as there are only about six numbers listed, and none leap out as family contacts for the owner. She shrugs and pops the phone under the counter, to keep it safe until it can be locked in the safe awaiting it’s owner.
5 minutes to closing the phone rings, manager answers it and is met with a panicked “Did someone hand in a phone???”. He recognises the voice instantly. He says he’s not sure and passes the phone over to the downstairs bookseller (with an eye-roll). She is asked the same question, in the same tone. And responds with one of her own: “What kind of phone?”
Ms. Demanding starts berating her for having had the temerity to ask a question without having answered what she was asked first, but is met with a calm and level: “We get several phones handed in every day. It would help me to answer your question if I knew what type of phone you meant.” Huffily the customer manages “An iphone, not that it’s any of your business” (?!?).
She is told that an iphone was indeed handed in. Next question: “When do you close?”
Simple answer “In 5 minutes.”
Guess what? “Not good enough.” (It did occur to me to make this a drinking game, instead of a song, but anyone reading several posts here would end up with liver damage). “I can’t get to you in time. Someone should wait for me to come down and pick up my phone.”
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” (We do have lives, y’know, and if she’d been a bit less demanding someone may have hung around with the phone. She just wasn’t the type to generate extra-mile goodwill from anyone.)
“Well then, someone should drop it up to me.”
The bookseller was stunned and spoke without thinking: “Are you serious?”
She was. She was also making a heck of an assumption that anyone working at the store (a) has a car or (b) drove to work or (c) good customer service means acting as a courier service out of work hours for customers with a severe entitlement complex.
“I’m afraid that would not be possible.”
“Why not? I need my phone. I only live in (location a 25 minute drive away)”
“Best I can do for you madam, is put your phone in our safe and you can collect it when we open in the morning.”
“That’s not..”
“It’s the best we can do.”
(Grudgingly) “Alright then but I need it put in the safe right now, immediately. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, but I can’t put it there now as I’m on the phone to you and the safe is elsewhere in the building. But I will put it there as soon as humanly possible.”
“And your name is?”
Bookseller duly furnishes her name.
“Right, I’ll see you at 9am tomorrow.”
“Er, I’m not working tomorrow, but-” (she was going to say that any manager or senior bookseller could retrieve the phone from the safe but was cut off)
“What do you mean not working???? You’ll have to come in to give me my phone!!!”
Eventually Ms Demanding grasps that her phone can be retrieved from other staff members and gets off the phone after several minutes complaining about our useless customer service.
It was then 20 minutes after the store should have closed.
And thus Ms. Demanding has set a new gold-standard for “unreasonable expectations of service”. I really really hope no-one else comes along to raise the bar still higher. And if they do, I really hope I’m not dealing with them…
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