I run across all sorts of people in my line of work. That's probably because I work in the mall. There are a couple instances in which my desire to give superior customer service has faltered to my desire to bludgeon people instead. Unfortunately, I have never acted on the compulsion, but I am becoming increasingly more volatile. We'll see how the day goes.
I work at a little cinnamon roll shop at the mall. Most customers are pretty predictable. We get the geriatric crowd that is ever-present at the mall. They always want the bites, which are our miniature cinnamon rolls about 1" in diameter. They are sold in a pack of four, but usually the old ladies want one or two. That's sort of annoying, but it happens all the time.
On one particular day when I was already agitated because of the shoddy closing job a fellow employee had done the night before, I got one such old lady. She wanted a single bite. Fantastic. I rang her up, she paid the whopping $.69 and she pointed out which bite she wanted. I grabbed it for her and put it on a plate and handed it to her. She looked at it and told me it was too small. Wow. Really, lady? So I assured her that they were all the same size, which is entirely true. We make most things from scratch here, but not the bites. Too much of a pain. They get shipped raw and frozen to us, in all their consistent factory-made glory. However she insisted that her bite, the very one she first demanded that she must have, was much too small. I am not sure what exactly she was expecting, seeing as they are called bites. She handed the plate with the original bite on it to me. I chucked it in the garbage. She was appalled. "I didn't even touch it!" I tried explaining to her that in no way is it okay for me to serve out a food item and then put it back in the case for another customer to buy. That didn't make a lot of sense to her since, after all, she hadn't even touched it. I finally got her bite that was sized to her liking and bid farewell and good riddance to her. I know, she wasn't that bad, but for some reason that has left me seething and rolling my eyes. However, it gets worse.
One evening I was closing up. There is a movie theater in the mall, so people are still around after closing time. I had some things in the case that I was just going to have to throw out since we can't keep them for the next day. I was clearing those out when a man came up to me and offered to buy everything in the case if I would give him a good deal. That's fine with me! So I sold it all to him, and as I was collecting his food he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I bet you were gonna take all of this home to your mom, huh? You're gonna have to call her and tell her you can't." Every time I tried to reply he would interrupt me with "Call your mom!" I know how one could easily mistake me for being a lot younger than I am. That's fine. But the fact that I am a junior in college, happily married, and unable to reply to his remarks due to his rude interruptions made me really mad. His tone was not as much playful banter as taunting. If I had had a gun I would've shot someone, but I don't know if it would've been him or me.
All well. New crazies every day. Most of the time crazies make me laugh. Sometimes they make me homicidal.
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