I take a great pride in my work at the counter. It’s not glamorous, but it gets the job done. I get to help people with real and tangible problems as well as put my near-savant level of automotive knowledge to good use. I don’t claim to know everything, but if there is one field that I’m most confident out of all the fields I have some kind of proficiency in, it’s automotive. And I understand the frustration from the other side of the counter when things are not going your way. It’s frustrating, annoying and easy to pick on the person who is trying to help you, especially since right now they are more of a hinderance in your eyes.
It’s early afternoon. I’m pulling a long day, covering the early afternoon until close. I’m not feeling well and the computers have been acting up again. Already this is a recipe for disaster. And sure enough…it happens.
About an hour and a half into my shift a customer comes in like usual. We have a special on oil changes (oil and filter) going, and he wants to get two of them for two cars he has. Because of the way the computer works, the only way to get them all at sale price is to ring up two different sales. None of this is an issue. He decides he wants the upgraded, name-brand filter. Again, no problem, just costs $2 more per oil change. I get the part numbers for his two cars and get to work pulling filters and getting the oil ready.
I start ringing up his purchases. First, for his car…the total comes out exactly as I expected it to with tax. The customer suddenly has an issue with the price: “I thought the ad said $__.__ per oil change?”
“It did, sir. But when you requested those filters, that added two bucks to each oil change.”
He wasn’t having it. He went off on a diatribe on how we were a scam operation and how Wal-Mart was a much better buy, implying that if he didn’t get what he wanted right freakin’ now that he was gonna call my manager, have me fired, yada, yada, yada. Another counter guy, sensing the impending conflict, comes over to see what the issue is. The customer calms down with him and explains how HE (pointing at me) isn’t getting him what he wants (which, evidently, is a free upgrade). The other counter clerk calmly assures him that I was indeed right, and he can either pay for the filters or we can start all over with the store-brand filters and he can get the price he wants. The customer decides that he will take the store-brand filters. He looks at me, a little pacified for the moment, and asks, “Can you handle that?”
Right now, I’m doing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in my willpower, to not jump the counter and beat the life out of this condescending asshat. Don’t give me that “The customer is always right!” bullshit either…I’m well within my rights of being pissed. Again, I swallow my anger and assure the customer that we will make it right.
And that, friends, is when the (LOTS of expletives deleted…) computer freezes.
Son of a bitch.
Of all the times this antiquiated piece of electronic %@!& decides to call it a day, it has to do it right freakin’ now. You all, I’m sure, at some point have done what I did next:
1. Click the mouse a couple of times in absolute disbelief.
2. Randomly type on the keyboard, hoping that the computer will recognize it as a plea for help and will magically quit screwing with you.
3. Emit a low growl as your face contorts into pure disbelief.
4. Accept that the computer is indeed frozen.
5. Scream. (Optional)
While I’m mentally jotting down death threats to IBM executives, the customer starts attacking like a shark on a blood lust. The following are exact quotes as me and the other counter guy are trying to get our system to play nice:
1. “How long, exactly, have you two been working here?”
2. “I bet (direct competitor) doesn’t have these kinds of problems, y’know that?”
3. sigh…”I was hoping to get these oil changes done today, but if I have to do it tomorrow, that’s okay, I guess…”
4. (after my wife drops by with my dinner) “Well, it’s nice to see that some things go right around here.”
5. (to another employee) “Would you take this long to check me out? I have places I need to be.”
6. “I wonder if Wal-Mart is hiring greeters…nah, you both are too young, I think.”
How would you have reacted?
I’m not known for being calm, cool and collected, and I’m fine with that. But this guy shoved my temper to new and honestly, frightening heights. I was going to cut Bondo paddles into strips and hammer them under his fingernails with an 9-lb mallet. I was going to JB Weld his mouth SHUT. I wanted to zip-tie his feet to his manhood and throw him onto the train tracks. And just when I’m ready to go grab metal brake lines in the preparation for wrapping them around his neck, the computer’s temp paralysis lifts and in a matter of minutes, the other counter guy checks him out and gets him finished.
Now, after all that, the least I can do in the name of customer service is to grab one of the two boxes and carry them to his truck. I can do that to make amends. But the second I go to pick up the boxes, he stops me, looks at me like a father looks at the son who did something wrong, and says, “I think you’ve done enough today, don’t you think?”
I turned towards my co-workers, and unhesitatingly announced that I was going on break. Like “now”.
I ate my cheeseburger and fries with the savagery of a starved bear.
Sounds about right. I had the same thing happen but was only one step better, the guy left his house keys on my counter and sent his wife to come back and get them (she apologized for her husband “being an asshole”).
Get this all the time in the transmission industry (Brother’s shop) typically the offending customer is bullied and dominated at home and this is their chance to return the favor. In this day and age the concept of “the Customer is always right” no longer applies. That was beaten into submission by the Customer’s over aggressive sense of entitlement and liberal interpretation of the offer and agreement.
let’s see… Customer briongs in used parts – they fail – your fault for not taking an hour to check the part over and confirm it’s in good shape
Customer takes transmission home and screws up the install – your fault – even though you handed them a guide to the installation, wrote disclaimers on everything except their forehead and tokk 20 minutes iof your time to show them how to do it
Customer asks for a budget rebuild so they can sell the car. After 2 years of bracket racing, mud running etc said transmission fails – your fault and the Customer expects warranty
Customer self diagnoses the problem and comes in with the parts and a dozen print outs from internet forums.They are wrong and the car / truck is a disaster – your fault – and the Customer expects you to honor the original quote to install his parts (Which are also wrong by the way) – At that point we pile the parts into a box and call a tow truck to haul the dismantled offending vehicle away to a location of the Customer’s choice
On the other side of this story, if you had informed the customer of the price difference up front you would have avoided this whole scenario. If you’re gonna deal with the public you need to think 10 steps ahead. Wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good of a story though.
Good point. We had informed the customer of the price difference, that’s what had made this so irritating.
If that’s the case, maybe it’s time for a trap door where the customer stands. Hit the button and flush them back to the parking lot.
The trap should lead straight to hell.
Gotta say, I would have started by telling him up front the filters would extra. Just sayin’….
But yes, you definitely had more patience than I would have for that. The majority of my customers are phone-in shops, so at least when I get a really difficult customer, I can just put him on hold or mute and throw things across the room or curse and swear.
How’s your “foreign guy who can barely speak a word of English” quota where you work, Unknown? A large portion of my walk-in sales are to Asian or Middle Eastern folk that are very, very hard to communicate with. Maybe that’s trained some patience into me….
It’s pretty well spread-out, but for the most part, they seem as patient with me as I am with them. It helps that I have at bit of a grasp on Spanish and French, and have dealt with Middle Eastern and Eastern European cultures before. Only issue I have is with the foreign kids from the local college, the ones who think that because they are 22 and studying abroad that they are the top of the world.
er… “would be extra,” rather.
this just in…People Suck, News at 11.
If i would have been the other pg i would have said sorry but all the computers seem to have locked up.If you would lilke to wait we can take care of ya if not contunue your way to walmart . And i would have had to of walked away after all those comments.
But mu luck is that Lunch Lady would have gotten pi$%^^&d and thrown the food at me and i would have also said somethings and breaktime would have sucked also.
You have to let those idiots and their attitudes slide off your back. He would’ve bitched if you were standing outside the store with all of his stuff ready to go with exact change in your hand the second he rolled into the parking lot.
He came in with the attitude. He didn’t get it from you. He had it in his brain that the name brand filters were free, i.e. didn’t read the fine print on the ad. He is an A-hole every day of the week to anyone he feels he can crap on.
If you let him have it with your non-service employee responses, he would have cowered in the corner before trying to have you fired. Again, a-hole who craps on service employees because he can and can get away with it.
Again, ignore jack off’s like this and go about your day. Or, buy a lot of health insurance for the ulcers and high blood pressure problems.
you can please part of the public part-of-the-time but not all-of-the-public-all the time
Once told a customer I would give her 15% off for her troubles. I did the math in my head and then rounded up to the nearest 5 dollar and then told the cashier how much to knock off. the customer lost her mind and demanded I give her the 15% like I said. I told her what I did and how I rounded up and all she could say was “I want my 15% off” and demanded I use a calculator. So I did….. My math worked out more like 22.5% but being as how she was right, I gave her the 15% instead. she payed about $3 more so she could be right.
Thank you, come again!
Haha, I was swapping stories with the local parts guys and store owner and the owner said one time a guy came in, all attitude, wanted 3 feet of heater hose, so he armed out approximately 3ft knowing he was being liberal, and then the customer started complaining about the price and about it actually being 3ft, so he pulled out the tape measure, sure enough it was 39 inches, so he lopped off 3″ and said there you go, same price.
Anger management. Just sayin’
You serviced my bike tho other day and my fish died
I had a guy walk into my bike shop on day looking for a brake lever
off a scooter. So I ask him what it’s off, and he says “i don’t know, there all the same, aren’t they?”
I tell him I need to know what it’s off or I can’t help him.
So , he’s not very happy about his and starts getting upset that I don’t know what it’s off and don’t have the part in stock.
This is when my boss wonders in and asks what’s wrong.
He gets the customers version and promptly tells the customer.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Later he tells me, “sure the customer is always right, nut that guy was a dickhead”
I could not deal with the public on an everyday basis. I watched my wife come home from a certain rental car company everyday for 15 years…no thanks.
I’ve worked in the tractor repair field for 30 or so years, and dealt with those type of customers. Anything not related to the repair, is still your fault. “It was just in your shop two months ago for an engine overhaul, and now my rear tire’s flat. Why didn’t you fix that while it was there?” With some people, you just can’t win.
I love reading these articles now, considering I quit working in auto parts 3 weeks ago!
People are dumb.
Back in my parts slinging days, I’d see this kind of thing happen all the time. I once had a lady flip out and emasculate her husband in front of a crowded store because she demanded that I give her a set of floor mats that were usually priced $49.99 for $19.99 because another customer tossed them on the shelf. They were the only ones like that on the shelf (the rest were the cheapo ones) and the other expensive ones were neatly where they were supposed to be. I tried being nice, showing her that it was likely a customer that put them there, and she wasn’t having it.
Her husband got it; he tried telling her “Honey, look: these ones came from HERE, and are in the wrong spot. It’s simple…” and she said something to the effect that he had no male genitalia at the top of her lungs. Again, this was on a nice sunny weekend day, so EVERYONE in the store got the memo. I was even being nice that day and offered her a 10% courtesy discount, and she instead dragged her man out the door, throwing the mats to the ground, yelling about how we rip people off and that we were some great Satan of the parts industry.
I feel for you, man.
A customer, an actual mecanic. He owns his own place and hires a new guy for winter/summer tires (I live in Canada). Now he HIS a grumpy old man but we could write a whole book with his antics… he called asking for a brake line and we asked what sized he wanted he actually said it didn’t exist! I had the brake line in my hand! He complains when we send him the wrong part so we checked and it was the right part… he called us with the wrong car model!!!
One of our new counter guys who used to work for the competition had actually closed his account, some delivery guys don’t want to go to his place anymore.
But then we have big and small garages where the owners or the mecanics will stop by on off days or when finishing work early, just to say hi and delivery guys will almost fight to know who’s delivering the parts there.
The only way to understand the anger is to work in the parts industry. You could print out and explain to every customer everything and a majority of the walk-ins will still ignore all the advice and everything you said and still get mad.
I’ve had a customer attempt to throw a brake rotor at me because instead of measuring the wheel of the car he had in the parking lot next door he’d rather assume, wear out the wrong one, then come back and complain. Part of the parts counter fun!
when i see that bag headed man at school. me getting in trouble for not paying attention follows.
Rejoice in knowing that THAT particular ass-sombrero mega-DB is going to die an early death because of self-induced stress.
Because you KNOW he secretly stresses out about someone like you actually snapping…. and burying his dismembered body out behind the dumpster… and then using his hollow skull for a beer mug. And be confident that he will meet some other mega-DB… who WILL kick his ass.
Me? His feet would be in 3 bags of QuikCrete out in Cape Cod bay.