So, yeah, a bit of context about this story. This takes place at about 2002. The Internet (for it was spelled with a capitalized I back in those days) was still pretty unfriendly to users, and the may that most people with money back in those days found out about stuff was by driving/reading the paper. Beyond establishing that I'm an old geezer, I mention this because the sum total of all human knowing was NOT available to be mis-used by anyone back in the dark ages of AOL dominance.
So, I'm 20 years old and a mixture of good looks and an erudite manner combined with there not really being anyone else in town that can talk to other people like human beings sees me behind a complaint desk at a major department chain that likes to infest practically any mall that exists in the USofA.
Now, I'm not exactly the most serious person when it comes to dealing with stupid people, and back in the day I was more than a little bit vicious with them. Times were a bit looser in those days, with little communication between individual stores and corporate beyond the store manager making regular calls for new merch and there was a bit of a tribal vibe about this particular place. If I took care of them, they'd take care of me. That sort of thing. So no one batted an eye when I hooked up an old PC speaker to my 30Mb MP3 player (did I mention that I'm old?) and when a customer walked in with a angry look on their face, I would very gently have Dennis Leary's "I'm an A**hole" playing on a loop, wafting up from under my desk just at the edge of human hearing. If I actually helped the customer without insulting them to their face, my hijinks were ignored.
This happy, semi-abusive-to-the-customers arrangement went on for four years or so, and that particular incident isn't what made me decide to contribute my ramblings. No, THAT follows...
It was a hot July day in 2004 when a couple of men walk into my department, one is balding, middle-aged with a thick mustache. The other is a young teenager with these luxuriant tresses of beautiful black hair. The old man wears a turban and they both have the iron bracelets of Sikhism. Now, I worked in a very conservative area, and this is 3 years after 9-11, and there had been some violence against Sikhs because OF COURSE THERE WAS. However; though wary, neither is looking at me like I mean to cheat them. I choose to not be a dip for once in my life. They have their receipt in hand asking to return a projector television that had been broken after they took it from the store. For those that don't know, flat screens were nightmarish expensive back in those days, there was only plasma anyway which constantly burned itself, and CRTs beyond 24 inches took small forklifts or 3-4 men to move safely out of the store. So, to get around the weight problem, a lot of the bigger models we sold were little more than hollow wooden boxes with a screen stretched over the front of it onto which a small projector would put the image. The damn things broke in transit all the time, even in our own vans and trucks. We knew it, the manufacturers knew it, and the return policy was relatively generous on the this particular brand; so I took their receipt, had their replacement brought out on a dolly, and walked out to see how it had broken.
I was expecting a relatively intact model with a cracked side, or a lumpen mess of cardboard, wood, broken glass and treated cloth. Instead there... wasn't. The box the TV came in was intact, but in its front was a neat rectangle punched into it some 3' tall and ~5' wide. I look at one of my co-workers and he looks at me. We can't wait to open it and see what's what. Well, that wasn't hard to find out, as the cloth-covered front of the TV had torn and frayed at the edges. This caused, of course, the screen to no longer be taut and it warped the image. All in all, an annoying but easily fixable problem. I made a note to call the manufacturer and have them send someone out to fix it, and we'd sell it as a refurbished model (they/we used to do that... did I mention I'm old?).
Anyway, after a quick lunch, the old man and the young man come back in. This time they're looking perturbed, and more than a little suspicious. I smile at them and ask what the problem is. I think I might've forgotten that my smile defaults to "smug" because the young man's eyes start to widen and I just know he's about to chew me out when the older man, looking suddenly very tired, tells me that another TV had broken. This time, I don't take their receipt right away, and I ask what happened to their set. They tell me that the TV arrived broken, the screen was torn at the edges, and that a big ugly dent in the box was visible. Just like last time, they said. This makes me frown, but I check our policy on returns, see that it's STILL VALID, and take their 2nd receipt and the 1st, and give them a new TV. This time, though, I don't just let things happen, because I'm feeling guilty for possibly coming off like the jerk I know I am deep inside.
I walk outside with them, I give them assurances of good service. They tell me that this TV is for the old man's mother, the young man's grandma. That's sweet, I say to them and I notice something about the pair's car that makes me suddenly start shouting, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"
Now, I've been very nice to these people, and I intended to continue to do so but for the life of me I still can't tell who is stupid in this tableau. There's the customers' car, and on top is a mounted cargo rack about 3' down the length of the car, and ~5' across. Then, there is one of the teenage loaders we keep in the warehouse (which we affectionately referred to as the 'summer school' rejects because of their part-time positions, and also most of them couldn't find their way out of a refrigerator box if you gave them a flashlight) putting the TV back onto the dolly, a buddy with him about to place the TV PROJECTOR SIDE DOWN ONTO THIS CARGO RACK FOR THE THIRD TIME! And, before you start to blame anyone keep in mind, I've seen the inside of the box by now. I know for the FACT that the projector side of the packaging has, at most, maybe half and inch of clearance between the cardboard of the box, and the cloth of the projector. So, between the incorrect vehicle, poor handling, and shoddy packaging I have a real trifecta of derp on my hands.
I ask my manager very politely if I could borrow the store light transport truck. He asks me if I know how to drive a stick, and I say truthfully that I don't. "Good," he says, "Because there isn't one." I hated his lame dad jokes, but I remember the man fondly. Thus empowered, I offered to drive the TV to their grandmother's place free of charge for all the trouble that they've been put through (omitting, of course that they were a part of it), and fortunately I can say that this story has a happy ending.
I still sometimes get Christmas cards from the Sikhs!
Submitted January 24, 2016 at 05:08PM by PaxEthenica http://ift.tt/1S36RpC TalesFromRetail
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