fuck-customers:

I work at a high-end chocolate store. Since last night was a weekday night, we weren’t expecting that many customers, so we usually take advantage of this fact and take the opportunity to do tasks such as bagging chocolate bars and labeling their bags. This particular task was what I was doing as a middle-aged couple walked in the store.

First thing I did was greet them, and ask them if they needed help with anything. The husband was a very nice man who smiled at me and said hello, while the woman looked at me and said (with a somewhat heavy Russian accent) “I think…I think we know what we want thank you.” So I told them that if they needed more help, they could let me know. I continued bagging things. They did make one comment that kind of bothered me: “Your 4th of July sale ended? I wish I knew when it did.” I just smiled at them and said “Yeeeeah, sorry.” and went back to work. Eventually the lady did have a question for me.

“How much are these?” She picked up a box of six truffles.

“$16.00,” I replied with a smile.

“But this is on sale,” she said back to me, her smile slowly fading. “This object is on sale shelf.” It was at this point I knew we were gonna have a bit of a situation. I offered to double-check for her and as I suspected, the product was $16.00. I apologized and told her that it must’ve been a mistake that these objects were on that shelf and that they weren’t on sale. She started frowning and shaking her head at it.

“I don’t like it. It should be $12.00. It isn’t on sale, but sign says sale. I don’t like it,” she said. I told her again it must’ve been a mistake and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. So she decided to ask for the manager on duty, who told her something similar. Only reason that sale sign was up was because of the 4th of July sale we had and we must’ve forgotten to take it down. In addition, said sale did not change the price of each object, it only reduced the price of the second identical object if you bought two. The woman, still in disbelief, asked for the number of the store manager. With this request, the manager on duty gave the lady our store manager’s business card and I quietly laughed to myself, knowing it would be the same response even from her.

So with this, my manager returns to the back and I return to bagging. The lady clearly doesn’t want to be helped anymore so there wasn’t much I felt I could do. I then hear her mumbling things to her husband as she shakes her head at the sale shelf. “Get the fuck over it,” I thought to myself. If it’s not on sale either buy it regardless or leave, we apologized for the mistake. Then I heard her mutter, “I don’t know then, make him work.” To which I immediately stopped bagging and wanted to turn around and say something, but I didn’t. Plus, I am working. I’d rather bag than help your annoying self.

We have a program where you get free chocolate each month and the husband decided to ask for his. Gives me his e-mail, I look up the account, tell him he has the piece. He’s cool. The woman, however, isn’t. She buys a box worth $50something and gives me her e-mail address for her piece.

It’s an e-mail address ending in Columbia.edu.

So you mean to tell me…someone intelligent (and old) enough to be a professor at Columbia university is this petty and classless over chocolate? I remember wondering how the fuck that ended up happening.

So after I ring up her box and have her sign receipts and whatnot, she asks me, “What about our free pieces?”
“I was gonna ask you about that actually,” I told her. “You can pick anything off of-”

“You weren’t going to say anything,” the bitch said. “Just give me that one.” I got her and her husband the piece she wanted and she left.

It took everything in my being not to want to slam her head into the counter and make her walk back to Columbia with a fucking concussion. How fucking dare you act that way over chocolate. Of all things. Your life must be terrible at that place if you’re getting a kick out of this kind of thing. Or perhaps her students hate her and she could tell I was a college student myself, so this is how she compensates- by treating people who aren’t allowed to say anything back like shit. I get it, we made a mistake. Doesn’t mean you have to get all butthurt over something costing $16, especially when you bought something for $50something.

Whatever. Fuck customers, and fuck her. Ruined a relatively quiet night.