You're viewing a single thread.
If my retail experience is any indication, acknowledging customers in this situation is a bad idea. Before you know it, the conversation turns to "I just need one thing!" Or "I promise I'll be really quick!" and you have to become the asshole to tell them no... Even though the store hours are clearly listed on the front door.
Or if you agree even once, the conversation could easily become "but you did it for me/my friend last time!"
I've literally had people sneak into the store using an exit, then act all indignant because I tell them to leave. You give some of these fuckers an inch, they'll take a mile.
My favorite way out of that situation was to tell them that the registers were automatically shut down at closing. Literally no way to ring up a purchase. It worked most of the time
That's why there's the JADE acronym. You never justify, argue, defend, or explain. That makes them think there's a chance if they just counter every single thing you say.
"Can't you just do it on paper?"
"Can't you fuck off?"
Sure, just let me buy this one thing first.
Ok, I'll ring you up tomorrow, just wait right here.
locks doors
"oh that's okay, I have cash, coin, and check"
I usually lead with, “That’s out of my control,” or “that’s above my pay grade.” Most of the time people get it.
My go-to was the ovens have already entered shutdown mode and cannot be restarted. There was no such thing of course.
They did it for me last time is the bane of all service jobs. I managed a pizza place for years that would sometimes get up to over 200 food products per hour. You could see about the first 20 of them at a time on the screens. There was no way to indicate modifications that weren't available in the POS. I personally trained every new employee on phones and till.
I would tell them you're going to talk to a lot of assholes. There will be the person that wants extra cheese on their cheesesticks. You have to tell that person no. You cannot sell anything that can't be entered into the computer.
Every day during the insane dinner rush I'd either get employees coming over to say hey extra cheese on the cheesesticks on order 215. We're on order 175. There is no way those cheesesticks are going to get extra cheese.
No time to correct the employee, no time to call the customer back. Or the other which was worse. The customer would escalate the call to me. "They did it for me last time!"
I'm stuck on the phone with this piece of shit and I can't be firefighting. The fires grow. Sometimes they get so bad we have to stop production to get back on track. This means we get so far behind that I'll have to stay an extra hour or two to right the ship. For no extra pay. The customers get pissed as the wait and delivery times increase. Escalations to management increase. The whole place is engulfed in flame. Next thing I know I've been there for 12 hours for no extra pay.
Wasted my fucking mid 20s to early 30s there. It permanently ruined my mental health. It turned me into an alcoholic.
I could rant endlessly and I have so many stories.
Don't forget "Every other location does it."
Yup! You learn REAL fast, that if you just don't make eye contact they'll eventually go away.
When I worked at McDonald's I used to keep the DriveThru headset on after closing while I was doing paper work to tell people "sorry, we're closed" if they drove up to the speaker board. (Mind you, the building lights and menu board lights are off at this point. Something we call a "clue".)
That stopped after one too many people screamed "FUCK YOU!" into the speaker board (for us following our posted hours and me politely informing them instead of ignoring them.)You quickly adopt a policy of "just ignore them and they'll figure it out."
There's also a lot of stores with a policy that tills can't be counted or processed unless everyone is accounted for and all doors locked, if you have to reset that process it can be an extra hour of work.
There's no way your order is worth me turning everything back on, unless it is way too large to be something quick.
These days I’m usually against the death penalty, and I know it seems a bit harsh to advocate for this… but people entering in an exit door should be absolutely blasted with an Anti Aircraft gun (thanks Kim Jong Un for the idea!). It absolutely rustles my jimmies.
Half of Costco's customers would be blasted!
I'm all for it.
They’re going to start scanning Costco cards on entry now so that will end
My wife worked at a rental office for an apartment building and had the same experience.
For a moment I thought this was a reply to the McDonalds headset comment and I was so confused, lolll