Erm, wut?
Ok, time for my favorite "wut?" moments from my new job.
I was ringing up some clothes yesterday at work for this lady with a rather heavy accent (I want to say Russian, but I'm really not sure), and she had one of our store's super secret special $10 off coupons. Fine and dandy. Anyways, the way our store does $10 off coupons is a bit odd--at least, I've never seen them done this way. It takes a dollar or so off the price of each item, so on the receipt it will show the original price, then minus a small dollar amount, and then minus another small dollar amount, so it ends up looking like this:
12.50
-1.38
-0.42
And so on and so on down the receipt. (I promise this is relevant). This lady had bought a couple items for a baby girl, and as soon as I finish up her transaction and she has walked out of the store, she walks right back in and wants to return 2 of the clothes for the baby girl, because she'd inadvertently bought the wrong size. Mildly annoying, but no big deal. It happens. So for the returns, I need to figure out exactly how much she paid for each item, basically doing the little subtraction problem on the receipt up there. So I'm whipping out my awesome pen, paper, and basic arithmetic skills, and the lady starts asking if she gets her coupon back. Due to the restrictions on this coupon, I really can't give it back if she's not returning everything she bought on the receipt with the coupon, because then she'd basically be using the $10 off coupon twice. It stinks, but hey, she still got about $8 off her purchase, right? Apparently not. She starts bawling. Like, tears rolling down the cheeks, loud sobs, bawling. She was saying some other stuff that I couldn't really understand because of her accent (and the crying), but the last thing I understood was "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad because my coupon is worth less now!" I was just confused. I mean, yea, it does stink that due to the way our registers ring up the coupons (taking a small amount of money off of each item) that we can't give you your coupon back, but I didn't think it was that big a deal! Seriously, I finished that transaction, and just stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what in the world just happened to cause such hysterical tears! Very odd....
And then, as our inexplicable midday rush suddenly calmed down, I was walking out of our little cash register kiosk thing in the middle of the store to start refolding the disaster area that was our girls' clothing section. Suddenly, this little old lady thrusts her finger up in the air by my face as if to say "I'm here--you need to help me RIGHT NOW", with an accompanying almost-glare for good measure. So I start to ask her if I can help her, and only get to "Can I hel..." before she cuts me off and proceeds to tell me that she is here on a VERY IMPORTANT MISSION to find stockings for little girls, without nylon. Do we carry stockings for little girls that aren't nylon? It's winter, and the little girls will get cold! What idiot puts nylon in stockings for little girls anyways? Who wants nylon stockings for little girls? I just kind of chuckle to myself during her rant, and proceed to show her our stockings, which are mostly cotton, although they do have a bit of nylon in them. I assumed that wouldn't be okay, due to the above NYLON IS BAD rant, but apparently a little bit of nylon is okay, as long as the stockings are warm enough. Ok, sounds good, although I'm still confused about the whole "NYLON IS BAD" thing, considering we put my little sister in nylon stockings all the time....*shrugs* Anyways, as if we're checking things off some sort of a mental list (which, I suppose, we were), she then proceeds to tell me she needs the size that will fit an 18 month old. And then she just looks at me, waiting for me to find it for her. Which I do, since I fail to notice the line that has started to grow at our cash register. She then proceeds to tell me that she refuses to buy the China and what stockings do we have that aren't made in China. Me, being still somewhat perplexed over her refusal to buy an entire country,just kind of blinks for a second, though she continues to mumble to herself about "the China" and "no 56 cents an hour". The (warm) stockings I've just been showing her are indeed all made in China, but I take her over to another rack of stockings (significantly less warm with a higher nylon content...) and find that those are made in Kenya, which she is completely okay with. After having me again find her the correct size, we begin to wander over to the cash register, her mumbling about "the China" and "56 cents" and "how come no one else stocks stuff not made in China" and "nylon". I guess she was against the low minimum wage? Although she was extraordinarily happy about her stockings being only $7, because "I want a cheap pair of stockings, none of those expensive ones!" I resolutely refused to bring up the fact that they might pay the Chinese workers more if we were willing to pay more for the product.....
Wow, I'm longwinded. But still, yesterday was a very "Wut?" day at work... No crazy mean customers though, just crazy ones. I can't wait for back to school to be over... :)
My brother and sister and I have been planning a trip to Cedar Point for a week or so, which has now been delayed. We just found out that a family friend passed away, and the funeral is on the day we planned our trip for. We used to be really close to this family, but then they moved and we moved, and so we kind of lost touch. But you know the kind of people that you're always close to, even if you haven't talked in a while? That's the way this family was with my family. So when we found out that he died, my parents immediately booked plane tickets out for the funeral, and so the Cedar Point trip is off so that me and the brother and the sister can stay home and babysit the kids. Which actually, I'm really happy to do. I mean, we haven't talked to this family in probably 3 years, but the wife asked Dad to speak at the funeral, and seriously, the minute Mom and Dad heard that he died, they had me looking at plane tickets to see when they could get out there. It'll be good for Mom and Dad to go; they used to be really close to the family--the rest of us were really little when our families were close. And hey, Mom and Dad had no objections to us doing our Cedar Point trip three weekends from now, instead of this weekend, so we're even happier to help out. :)
(sorry about the horrendous pronoun--antecedent relationships in that paragraph...to
I was ringing up some clothes yesterday at work for this lady with a rather heavy accent (I want to say Russian, but I'm really not sure), and she had one of our store's super secret special $10 off coupons. Fine and dandy. Anyways, the way our store does $10 off coupons is a bit odd--at least, I've never seen them done this way. It takes a dollar or so off the price of each item, so on the receipt it will show the original price, then minus a small dollar amount, and then minus another small dollar amount, so it ends up looking like this:
12.50
-1.38
-0.42
And so on and so on down the receipt. (I promise this is relevant). This lady had bought a couple items for a baby girl, and as soon as I finish up her transaction and she has walked out of the store, she walks right back in and wants to return 2 of the clothes for the baby girl, because she'd inadvertently bought the wrong size. Mildly annoying, but no big deal. It happens. So for the returns, I need to figure out exactly how much she paid for each item, basically doing the little subtraction problem on the receipt up there. So I'm whipping out my awesome pen, paper, and basic arithmetic skills, and the lady starts asking if she gets her coupon back. Due to the restrictions on this coupon, I really can't give it back if she's not returning everything she bought on the receipt with the coupon, because then she'd basically be using the $10 off coupon twice. It stinks, but hey, she still got about $8 off her purchase, right? Apparently not. She starts bawling. Like, tears rolling down the cheeks, loud sobs, bawling. She was saying some other stuff that I couldn't really understand because of her accent (and the crying), but the last thing I understood was "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad because my coupon is worth less now!" I was just confused. I mean, yea, it does stink that due to the way our registers ring up the coupons (taking a small amount of money off of each item) that we can't give you your coupon back, but I didn't think it was that big a deal! Seriously, I finished that transaction, and just stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what in the world just happened to cause such hysterical tears! Very odd....
And then, as our inexplicable midday rush suddenly calmed down, I was walking out of our little cash register kiosk thing in the middle of the store to start refolding the disaster area that was our girls' clothing section. Suddenly, this little old lady thrusts her finger up in the air by my face as if to say "I'm here--you need to help me RIGHT NOW", with an accompanying almost-glare for good measure. So I start to ask her if I can help her, and only get to "Can I hel..." before she cuts me off and proceeds to tell me that she is here on a VERY IMPORTANT MISSION to find stockings for little girls, without nylon. Do we carry stockings for little girls that aren't nylon? It's winter, and the little girls will get cold! What idiot puts nylon in stockings for little girls anyways? Who wants nylon stockings for little girls? I just kind of chuckle to myself during her rant, and proceed to show her our stockings, which are mostly cotton, although they do have a bit of nylon in them. I assumed that wouldn't be okay, due to the above NYLON IS BAD rant, but apparently a little bit of nylon is okay, as long as the stockings are warm enough. Ok, sounds good, although I'm still confused about the whole "NYLON IS BAD" thing, considering we put my little sister in nylon stockings all the time....*shrugs* Anyways, as if we're checking things off some sort of a mental list (which, I suppose, we were), she then proceeds to tell me she needs the size that will fit an 18 month old. And then she just looks at me, waiting for me to find it for her. Which I do, since I fail to notice the line that has started to grow at our cash register. She then proceeds to tell me that she refuses to buy the China and what stockings do we have that aren't made in China. Me, being still somewhat perplexed over her refusal to buy an entire country,just kind of blinks for a second, though she continues to mumble to herself about "the China" and "no 56 cents an hour". The (warm) stockings I've just been showing her are indeed all made in China, but I take her over to another rack of stockings (significantly less warm with a higher nylon content...) and find that those are made in Kenya, which she is completely okay with. After having me again find her the correct size, we begin to wander over to the cash register, her mumbling about "the China" and "56 cents" and "how come no one else stocks stuff not made in China" and "nylon". I guess she was against the low minimum wage? Although she was extraordinarily happy about her stockings being only $7, because "I want a cheap pair of stockings, none of those expensive ones!" I resolutely refused to bring up the fact that they might pay the Chinese workers more if we were willing to pay more for the product.....
Wow, I'm longwinded. But still, yesterday was a very "Wut?" day at work... No crazy mean customers though, just crazy ones. I can't wait for back to school to be over... :)
My brother and sister and I have been planning a trip to Cedar Point for a week or so, which has now been delayed. We just found out that a family friend passed away, and the funeral is on the day we planned our trip for. We used to be really close to this family, but then they moved and we moved, and so we kind of lost touch. But you know the kind of people that you're always close to, even if you haven't talked in a while? That's the way this family was with my family. So when we found out that he died, my parents immediately booked plane tickets out for the funeral, and so the Cedar Point trip is off so that me and the brother and the sister can stay home and babysit the kids. Which actually, I'm really happy to do. I mean, we haven't talked to this family in probably 3 years, but the wife asked Dad to speak at the funeral, and seriously, the minute Mom and Dad heard that he died, they had me looking at plane tickets to see when they could get out there. It'll be good for Mom and Dad to go; they used to be really close to the family--the rest of us were really little when our families were close. And hey, Mom and Dad had no objections to us doing our Cedar Point trip three weekends from now, instead of this weekend, so we're even happier to help out. :)
(sorry about the horrendous pronoun--antecedent relationships in that paragraph...to