So in case you didn't know, I work in a bookstore, I have worked there for a year now, I enjoy it (most of the time) and I get an AWESOME employee discount.

A couple of days ago I purchased a book called "Waiter Rant" which led me to visit the author's blog, which led me to check out some of the other blogs/sites he linked related to what he writes about; Namely: psychopathic customers.

Reading all this got me to thinking that I needed to update my journal and put me in a mood to share my own stories; book stores tend to get quite a few interesting people, and while most of these people are interesting in a good way, some are...... well.... really, "sucky customers" puts it best.

From drunkards who want to convert me to Christianity, to bitter old ladies who treat the store like a library, to to druggie shoplifters, to schizophrenic old men hitting on my coworker, I have seen some... less than desirable people.

Enjoy.

I USED TO OWN THIS STORE!!

So we have this old lady, let's call her R. R comes in all the time, she is part of the family that owns the company that owns the store I work at. She likes to say that she used to own the store, but according to the Assistant Manager she did not, she managed the store... badly. Anyhoo, she treats the store like a library, buying books, reading them, and returning them afterward without shame. She doesn't see anything wrong with doing this. She's all smiles, "sweetie"s and "honey"s, until you call her on her shenanigans, then she gets all bitchy and threatens to tattle to the current store owner. She is quite clearly a bully who likes to throw her weight around. She has been told she's not allowed behind the cash desk, but she still tries to go back there. She's taken to grabbing a newspaper, sitting down, reading it, then putting it back (after being told she can't just take them, apparently) and one time she did this, then asked me to put it back for her as she was just 'too tired to stand' so I did so, with a smile, no less! And as I turn back around to go back to the cash desk, what do I see? R is behind the counter, rifling through the recycling for newspapers that have been tossed out. Too tired to stand? Really?

Another time she stripped the cover off of a book to get it for free, the Assistant-Manager told her she could not do that with that particular book as it is non-strippable. Now we had a damaged, unsellable book. But you know what? She came back the next day, grabbed another copy of the same book, and tried to do it again! I had to explain to her why she couldn't do that (though I knew full well that she had already been told all this) She also trying to get the Assistant-Manager fired, because the A-M won't put up with her crap.


Can you go scan this and see how much it is?

So we have this guy who comes into the store from time to time. He's tall, and... well.. the only way I can think to describe him is 'dark'. He's white, but his hair is black, and he always have five o' clock shadow, and his skin looks like it's been fried by the sun until it's tanned and leathery, and he's usually wearing sunglasses. This guy is not a customer, he is a shoplifter; and he ALWAYS gets away with SOMETHING. Last few times I saw him he had taken to bringing a box into the store and putting books in it, because we can't search his box unless we actually see him put books into it. 2 people have to watch him because he'll ask you to take books up to the front to scan them for the price, or hold them there for him, and if you step away he'll run off with books. We're fairly certain he's a druggie trying to fund his habit, and we know we're not the only store he steals from (after leaving our store with a box, one of my co-workers saw him walking past without the box, but with a coat that he wasn't wearing before- in the middle of summer) I haven't seen him for a while, but last time he was there he made off with at least 9 fantasy pocket paperbacks. How do I know? Well, fantasy was absolutely stuffed before he came in, we couldn't put anymore fantasy stock out because there was no room at all, after he left there were very large and noticeable gaps on the bottom shelf where he had been browsing. Grrr!

Well you never know....

So this one didn't really effect me, it happened to a co-worker of mine. We used to have a regular customer, an old, hunched guy with crazy hair, let's call him M. I would often see M in the store, but he didn't really buy much. One day the co-worker in question was helping him find something and they had a conversation, then he left and she went on with her day. Later M phoned, wanting to ask after the co-worker. He phoned several times about the CW, eventually revealing that he wanted to see if she watned to go for coffee after work. This CW is one year older than me, and M is an old man, creepy! He came in again when the CW wasn't working and I asked him if he was in the computer system, turned out he was and so I found out his name. Once we told the manager what was going on and M's name, she ran down to the community policing office. See.... M is schizophrenic, and he has a tendency to go off his meds.... fairly often. Apparently when he does so, he usually just gets very quite and mutters nonsense to himself, but still, it's somewhat scary. He kept asking about her when he came in and it became clear that he had gone off his meds again (I personally had a nonsensical conversation with him about some sale on fitness/health books happening at another place in town, which he told me about in a tone of voice as if it was a very important secret) Eventually M came in one night when CW was closing, he kept hanging around, waiting for all the customers to leave, even after she repeatedly told him that she was closing up and thus he needed to leave. Thankfully one regular customer- suspecting that something weird was going on- stayed in the store, awesome points for him! The manager came down and told M that CW was too young, to which his response was a somewhat sad "well you never know..." The whole thing only ended when CW herself told M no, after which he mumbled about his brain never stops and he can't sleep and dreams about social interconnections or something. After all this he's not allowed to come into the store without phoning and letting the manager know that he's coming beforehand, and cannot speak with employees unless it is to buy a book, order a book, inquire about a book, or get help finding a book.

I want to exchange this merchandise for money

So this guy came in wanting to return a magazine. No problem, I can do that. I ask him if he still has the receipt, he says he does and pulls out the magazine, still in the bag "not even opened" he says of the magazine. Overall, this is looking to be a normal return. I check the receipt and mag, everything looks to be in order, so I start to give him the spiel of blah blah blah, returns for store credit only, blah blah. this is where he gets upset, he wants his money back. "Then magazine hasn't even been opened!" he protests. I politely explain our return policy to him "The lady who sold it to me never told me that!" he says, well we don't generally make a policy of explaining returns unless there's a reason for it, ie: The customer asks about our return policy. I simply point out the sign on the wall behind me that clearly outlines our return policy, and the notes about it on the bottom of the receipt. He looks a little surprised "oh" he says "the lady must've been blocking it when she was serving me..." Yeah.... despite the fact that she would've been to one side of the sign.... whatever.... so I continue to explain to him about the store credit, but he starts trying to do a little word play and claim that the sign says that he CAN get his money back. Now believe me, this is good.

The signs says:

Exchange of merchandise only
(within 14 days)

As in, you can bring back purchases within 14 days, to exchange them for other merchandise in the store. Simple, right?

This is how he reads the sign:

"It says: Exchange of merchandise only within 14 days! Well I want to exchange this merchandise for my money!"

What planet are you from sir? I mean really! I tell him no, repeat our policy and inform him that if he has a complaint about it then he'll have to take it up with the manager and I tell him when she'll be in.

so many people how try to weasel their way into getting their money back, many people threaten not to do business at the store any more, but that would just mean that the credit sitting on their account will go to waste! Honestly... one lady apparently tried to make a case for "credit on account" meaning "credit on her credit card account" and get the money put back on her card, argh!

She's really famous you know!

Short but sweet: Lady comes into store looking for a particular author. I look up said author, we don't have any books of her's in the store. I inform customer of the unfortunate news and tell her that she can order in books by that author if she wishes, and think that's the end of it. Wrong. The customer starts to get snippy with me, wanting to know why said author isn't on our 'Famous Author's Wall'

"She's a really famous author you know!" she snips
"I'm sure she is Ma'am" I say, despite never having heard of this author before in my life. The lady complains a bit more about it, but I simply tell her that I don't decide who goes on the wall and many of the authors there are the really big names (Stephen King, Anne Rice, Terry Brooks, Nora Roberts, Tolkien, etc. though it' a bit unfair that Nora Roberts is technically on there twice, once as Nora Roberts and a second time as JD Robb, but I digress) and this pretty much ends it, but seriously, complaining that your author of choice isn't displayed on the wall?? I wish Tamora Pierce was up there, but I understand that her name's no where near as big as Stephen King! >.<

Can I help you? Oh, just looking at them before you buy them?

So we have these regular.... visitors to the store. I won't call them customers, because they never buy anything. That is not an exaggeration, they come in on a weekly basis and never buy anything. They are a mother and daughter and they come in just to read our magazines. They sit there, taking up both our chairs to read magazine after magazine, and them leave. None of us know if we're allowed to say anything to them, since the manager just ignores them. Lately I've taken to passive-aggressively annoying them (asking them if they need any help, then stating after they decline 'just looking at the magazines before you buy them?' before hurrying away, and loudly wishing them a nice day when the leave as they look at me funny, or vacuuming the carpets near them if they come in late enough so that I can do my closing chores. Very pitiful victories, I know, but I'll take them) Recently, however, I noticed the mother doing something that REALLY ticked me off. I wasn't sure if I could say anything to her, but boy did I want to.

I am fairly certain she was writing down the recipes out of one of our recipe books. At first I thought she was just writing down the title of a book, but then I noticed the book was open and there was a fair amount of writing, it looked like it could have been a list of ingredients and directions, but I wasn't sure. I really should have asked her if I could help her and pointed it out and asked about it, but I had no idea what to do, I wasn't sure if that's what she was doing, and I don't want to get into trouble, they've been allowed to pull crap like this for so long, I don't know where to draw the line anymore (well, I know where I would draw it if I could, I just don't know where I'm allowed to >.< ) I wrote a note about it, and I go back to work tomorrow, so the manager might talk to me about it. I have a feeling I'll get into trouble for not doing anything, but at the same time I'm too scared to do anything against them for fear of getting into trouble, argh!

Excuse me, you have to buy that smut before you read it!

This happened the same day as the lady writing down recipes. Now, in the back corner of our store there is a shelf full of porn, is is not all that uncommon to find unbagged porn mags back there with the remains of the plastic bags on the floors or stuffed behind another magazine. This is very gross and annoying. The other day I notice there's a guy browsing the porn, I noticed because it was close to closing and he was preventing me from sweeping >:[ anyhoo, unable to sweep, I headed back up to the front, when suddenly I hear tearing plastic, I look on the shiny new security monitor we got and he's ripping open the bag. I ran back there and told him "Excuse me sir, you have to buy it before you open it" "Oh, I am going to buy it" he tells me. I wish I had lectured him, but I didn't, I walked away and straightened book displays near the exit to make sure he didn't just leave. He dawdled a bit, flipping through the magazine (ew! Buy it and go do that someplace else, seriously!) but I stayed by the door. Eventually he went and purchased the magazine, the new girl asked if he was in the computer system and it was put under a name, I wrote about the incident in the day book and wrote down the name it was put under (it was a woman's name, but that's the name that came up under the # he gave) I really wish I had made it clearer that he can't do that. I don't care if you're GOING to buy it, until you do no porn for you!



And we save the worst for last:


WEAR A CROSS OR ELSE!!!

So this is probably the absolute WORST customer I have ever dealt with. It was around Christmas time, when the store was open until 9:00 every weeknight and we'd have 2 people closing (to deal with the 'holiday rush' ) this scruffy looking, CLEARLY drunk man comes in, wanting us to find a book for him. We said we could see if we had it, and if not we could see if it was possible to order it in, but there were no guarantees. (he kept repeatedly saying "money is no object, I have a visa, I don't care how much it costs, money is no object, I just want the book" etc, as if that would make us help him more. Sorry dude, I don't care how much money you have, if we can't get a book in then we can't get a book in) Anyhoo, both me and the other girl working start searching the computer for this book (according to him it was a biography of some star, I can't remember who, and the title was something like "Crazy Horse") but we can't find anything, I think we were able to find books where this star has written with another man named crazy horse, but he kept insisting that was the title. We inform the man of the bad news are start telling him his options (if he could get more information, see if the library has it and get the ISBN #, double check that the title is right, etc.) but he cuts of off and says something along the lines of "No, how about this? You find the book!" surprising us quite a bit. He kept saying "I don't want to be rude" while being VERY rude and borderline threatening us. We try a bit more to try and make him happy, still nothing, but he just won't accept that, restating that he wants us to find the book (money is no object, find the book, I don't care how much it costs, I'll pay with my visa, just find the book!)

Then he noticed the cross hanging at my co-worker's neck. She is a christian. He comments on it and looks at me

"why aren't you wearing one?" he asks.

Now, this is where I did something very stupid. There were a million different answers I could have given him that were perfectly true "I don't wear jewelry" or "I don't own a cross" or I could've lied and said "I forgot mine at home" or "the chain broke". No, I had to be a dumbass...

"Well, I'm not very religious" I answer meekly.

This is, apparently, unacceptable to him "Why not!?" he yells, and goes on a long rant about how he's a christian and therefore I should be too (seriously, that's what he actually said) I tried to calm him down, I told him my mom is christian, trying to smooth things over, and he says "well follow your mother!" I'm stunned into silence, finally only managing to squeak out "no thanks" which only makes him more angry. As he's ranting at me, the other girl makes the phone ring by hitting the volume button and hands it to me, asking me to get it. I take the phone, and start babbling into it as if someone is on the other end, hoping he can't hear the dial tone and punching random things such as "crazy old man" "scary drunk" into the search system of the computer. Meanwhile my co-worker smooths things over, repeats his options and says that we could get more people to try to see if we can get the book tomorrow. This satisfies him and he turns to me and says "See? The christian can help me" I ignore him, still nodding to silence on the phone and punching in nonsense. He leaves, but only after telling me SEVERAL TIMES that next time he comes in I had better be wearing a cross "or else" He left the store, crossed the street, sat down on a bench where we thought he had passed out. I burst into tears a little bit later, much to my shame.

The manager came in later by fluke and we informed her of what had happened. She marched outside and checked the bench, but he wasn't there any more. She wanted to know why we hadn't phoned the police. Dumb of us not to, I know.

Thankfully I had the next day off, but he came in again that night and mistook the other girl who was working for me, she corrected him but I still feel bad for her D: The co-worker who had been working with me was also working that night and asked him if the first book (before "Crazy Horse") was "Harvest" he said that was "exactly it!". But she made up that title on the spot, his book doesn't exist. I'm sure of that, I googled it when I got home and nothing came up at all. We haven't seen him since as far as I know.




So those are some of my Sucky Customer Stories. I have more, but those are some of the best... or rather, worst