Working with "the public".

[SlimSkeeter]

This (http://notalwaysright.com/) is why I'm entirely glad I will never work in retail again.

[Negativecool]

I worked in retail more than a few times. I've got many, but here's a couple.

I worked at a hardware store. One day (well, more like every day) I didn't feel like dealing with customers and only wanted to get the fucking stocking done. While I was stocking mailboxes a man asked me which one I recommended.
My exact apathetic words were, "Sometimes less is more, but ya know what, the bigger the better!"
The customer let out a loud affirmed "Aaaggh!", nodded his head with a big smile, grabbed one of the mailboxes, and thanked me for helping him. (???!!)

I once worked at an electronics store. One day I was near the HDTV's restraining myself from beating an old man to death as I heard his asinine complaints, one of which went something like this:
Old fuckass: "what's with the long screens on these new TV's?"
Me: "HDTV's have a 16:9 aspect ratio. SDTV's are 4:3 and boxier. HD's are wider...kinda more like a movie screen."
Old fuckass: "Well that's dumb."
Me: "....?..."
Old fuckass: "They should be taller so you can see more of people in 'em. So they can stand up more on the screen instead of being cut off. They shouldn't be wider like that."
Me: "!!!!!!"

Stupid people are idiots.

[NiBBler]

This is all too familiar. I deal with customers every day. I hate 'em.

[SlimSkeeter]

Glad to see I'm not alone...I recall posting something about a trucker that came into my store at one time. Perhaps it was a private convo, who knows, now. Anyhow, he had a nice little mapquest map with instructions on how to get to his destination (I'm sure you are familiar with how much fun those can be at times) and had gotten turned around or something. He asked me how to get to a town that was literally like 20 minutes away on the same road he had been driving on. So not that lost at all, however when I pointed this out to him he ARGUED with me and said I (who had been living here my whole damn life up until that point) was wrong because it said so on the map (then why ask me, dickhead?). I looked at the map, and hummed and made some intelligent sounding noises and sent him on a huge assed loop that at some point or another would finally get him back to where he wanted to go and he left happily. Now that I think on it, I'm pretty sure he got confused because this state has 2 federal highways that have similar numbers and both connect with the same town (US 131 and US 31 converge in a little town called Petoskey).

[KommieKat]

I once worked as a waiter in Greensboro, N.C.
I saw a couple at their table, with her playing with his balls, using her shoe less foot.

At that same place, an electric storm took out the lights, and all the waiter including me had a food fight in complete darkness. Needless to say, some customers had more food than they actually ordered.

[SlimSkeeter]

And now a fun tale from my current workplace:

Every couple of days the management where I work posts a schedule for each line that is going to be running. A lot of the time there is whats called a changeover, as in they shut down, change what part is gonna run, and start back up. These fall into 3 classes: The first being "X changeover" where "X" is a specific time, an "ASAP changeover" where they will get to it when they are done with something else, and finally "First full skid" where they do the changeover after (duh!) the first full skid on that shift. The problem is that, although management has a certain idea of how things are supposed to go, the maintainence department has the final say for some reason. Last night I looked at the schedule and noticed a 7am changeover on my line. Sweet, means I get to shut 'er down. Which I do, only to turn around and see the guy taking over for me start it back up again. Seems that between 6:30 and 6:45 (which is when I started shutting the line down) they decided to do something else first, but they neglected to inform me. This irks me to no end. Perhaps its just a little thing, but its happened several times in different ways. Twice since I got this little promotion I have shut a line down only to have them start it back up within minutes, I also have asked to make sure and am told that they "will get back to me" only to have the next guy take over and immediately shut the line down, which makes me seem either like a douche or a lazy bastard. Then there are the times I figured "fuck it" and aimed to let the next guy shut the line down anyway, only to have maintainence tell me at 6:55 that they need the line down now. I'm done trying to guess, I just haven't really decided which way to go: Follow what the schedule says and just quit asking questions, or just let first shift deal with it no matter what. I'm thinking the former, as it might actually get more attention. It also might actually result in me getting into a shouting match with someone and its been ever so long since I had one of those.