In this business you hear all sorts of horror stories. They aren’t just relegated to the parts stores, or even to the automotive support sector either. You hear about angry customers at Wal-Mart, authentic pains in the ass at Rite-Aid, or the new winner of “Toddler Tantrum of the Week” in a Fry’s grocery store. When human interaction is forced due to circumstances, there’s an exponentially increased chance of the situation turning hostile due to frustration one one party’s perception of what is going on. Normally, it’s on the customer’s end of the scene, and usually the retail associate can defuse the situation by explaining, or at the very least apologizing and offering up a suitable option for everyone involved.

But when you have someone who is hell-bent on getting their way regardless of what has to happen, that’s when you strap on the helmet and prepare for war. I got to hear the details of this one earlier today, and I can’t say that I wouldn’t be in jail if I had been working: a few days ago the store sold her an alternator for her car. Lead up to today: she returns, claims alternator is defective, wants free alternator, but the alternator is still in the car, parked out front. Most parts stores have a similar policy for parts under warranty: either you pay for the part and get the refund when you bring back the core, or you bring in the defective part and do a one-for-one swap for a new part. Simple, right? Apparently she wasn’t having it. With attitude from the start, she laid into a female counter worker hard, calling her every possible name in the book while making it clear that because she had paid someone to install the alternator into her Intrigue, and because she had “wasted all her gas” to drive to get the alternator, back to her house, to wherever the alternator was replaced, back to her house, and back to our store, that we “owed her”. When the clerk (who was miraculously staying level-headed) informed her that none of that was our concern and that we would take care of the replacement if she followed Plan A or Plan B above, Intrigue Lady exploded, yelling that “some shit is about to go down!” and walked out of the store and got on the phone. Meanwhile, the female clerk was trying to decompress, one clerk called Store Manager and  another clerk called the police.

A couple of minutes pass by and Intrigue Lady comes back into the store and has gone straight to nuclear. She starts grabbing items off of the shelf (doesn’t matter what) and starts throwing them at the counter clerks. Anything from air fresheners to bottles of car-cleaning stuff are being launched by Typhoon Intrigue. The police arrive and calm her down, and she immediately goes into “They started it!” mode. About this same time Store Manager arrives and is highly pissed off…not that some random lady just trashed his store and assaulted his employees, but because Intrigue Lady had called Regional, who had called Store Manager. What happens next blows my mind: Intrigue Lady gets a free alternator, plus the extra touch of Store Manager installing it for her in the parking lot.

The store clerks got blasted for letting a situation get out of control, even though all of them had a corroborating story and the police had explained that Intrigue Lady had been a bit…um, expressive in her displeasure. Last I checked nobody has been fired and nobody got any sort of discipline measure. And I have no earthy idea if Intrigue Lady faced any penalty of any sort for her adult-sized temper tantrum. And all of that is enough of a reason for me to have a drink and be grateful that I don’t work there anymore. Cheers.