Another guest post here - and another one from the wilds of Canada. Original material from "Hello Me Ducky" - with editing and rewrites by Behind the Counter.
People. Please. The only "back" in a Wal-Mart is the back of my hand as I slap you across your face when you ask that I "go to the back" and find you something that isn't on the shelf. Comprendez vous?
One more time. Let's go over this. THIS IS NOT A SHOE STORE. WE DO NOT HAVE A MAGICAL DUPLICATING MACHINE IN THE BACK. IF IT DO NOT BE ON THE SHELF, IT DO NOT BE IN THE STORE.
Let's take it from the top. I work in Howler Monkey central, Department 26, otherwise known as Infants. I put things on the shelf. I can help you, but only if you're not to stupid to breathe. Of course, you’re shopping at the House of Wal …
Pop quiz:
There are six pallets of freight out on the floor. All of it needs to go on the shelves by the end of my shelf. Do you:
a) edge around the boxes to do your shopping?
b) dip your head into my aisle, see that I'm busy and move on?
c) start opening boxes and pawing through them looking for a pair of socks for your godforsaken baby that looks like a prune cross-bred with a shar-pei and then laid in the sun for thirty-eight years
d) ask me "Is there any more in the back?"
If I dealt with you last Saturday, you perpetrated BOTH options C & D.
Ma'am, go die in a fire.
If all this stuff is lying in piles around me, what makes you think there is yet MORE in the back?
Please. Do I come to your house and rifle through your drawers looking for a knife to stab you with? Even though the very thought of such murderous violence pleases me mightily!
Do you really know what’s “in the back” of a Wal-Mart? Not much actually.
On the GM (General Merchandise) side, there’s rows and rows of huge shelves about fifteen feet high with four levels each. Each department has so many rows – based on how big the department is.
Theoretically, all the “overstock” – more of the same from the floor – goes into this area. It is supposed to be labeled by the date it was received off the truck and type of merchandise it is. In reality, it is a huge jumbled junk drawer of out-of-season merchandise that a team of trained managers couldn’t wade through with a shovel and a pricing gun. Most stock comes straight off the trucks and onto the sales floor.
On the grocery side, there's a little bit of cold storage for fresh fruit & vegetables and a freezer. The trucks for the grocery side come every day.
Showing posts with label rude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rude. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of Behind the Counter
You asked for it … you know you wanted it ... now you got it.
It’s one of the rare Friday nights that I work – because we all know that I can’t get enough of the House of Wal – and I’ve yet to find a man wealthy enough to keep me in the style to which I could become accustomed.
I’m alone at Customer Service – of course – trying not to think about how much my feet hurt. I’m sorting through a cart of returns and cataloguing the stuff that’s been stolen and already hating the fact that Christmas carols are playing on the speakers.
Suddenly Customer Service is mobbed with people. Old people. Young people. WOACAs. Tall people. Short people. Skinny people. Fat people. I think I even saw some Canadians. Not too much in the way of white trash though.
They are obviously all together, because they have the same T-shirt on, but I can’t quite make out the connection. Orange and white T-shirts don’t ring a bell with me for anything other than Tennessee football – and somehow, I don’t think that’s it for this group that is wandering around in the bowels of Florida.
ME: “Can I help ya’ll?”
THEM: “Yeah. We want to return these posts.”
ME: “Fence posts? We don’t sell fence posts.”
THEM: “No. Your stories.” Oh. You mean the ones I wrote? The ones you didn’t write? The ones you didn’t create? The ones you didn’t put out there?
ME: “What’s wrong with them?”
THEM: “We don’t like them.” Cause nobody like nothing they get for free.
ME: “Oh.”
THEM: “Yeah.”
ME: “What specifically was wrong with them?” Other than the fact that no one likes change?
THEM: “Did you really intend to regurgitate this same story all week long, but in a different style each time?” Yep. That’s pretty much what I said I was going to do. Yeah. One story, five times.
ME: Speechless. Realizing at this point that I have never misjudged something so badly in all my life. My first boyfriend. My second girlfriend. Any decision. Ever. In the entire history of time. This ranks right up there with Little Bighorn or the decision to invade Russia in the winter.
THEM: “Well, when we first started reading, you were kinda funny. We liked you then. The first few posts were fine. But the last ones in our RSS reader really sucked. They sucked hard. They sucked like a Lewinsky-bot. We want to return them. We didn’t hardly read them. They have the html tags on them and everything.”
ME: “But see, you did read them. I can’t give you money back on something you already read.” And you read it for free. Didn’t even click on my ads now did you?
THEM: “The posts didn’t look good – especially that Jane Austen mess. And don’t get us started on Gabriel Garcia Marquez and that priestess wench. We want some cash back. Right now.”
ME: “Well, do you got a receipt.”
THEM: “Naw man. We read it online. Books are so like last century.”
ME: “Well, you can’t have cash back without a receipt.”
THEM: “No. That is not acceptable. These posts were NOT ACCEPTABLE. It crashed my browser and I DEMAND MY CASH BACK!”
ME: “Look. Ya'll got them for free. On the Internet. And you don’t have a receipt.” Why are you complaining? If you hated it, wait a week. It changes, like the weather.
THEM: “I demand to speak with an editor immediately.”
ME: “I write it. I edit it. And you’re going to have to deal with it.”
THEM: “I still want a refund. And some free hosting for my trouble.”
ME: “Like I said. It was free. I can’t refund something you got for free.” This isn’t Wal-Mart. I’m not a spineless jellyfish of a manager. You can and will be getting the big N-O as an answer.
THEM: “Do you realize how long I’ve been reading here?”
ME: “And?” I realize you care. You care enough about me to leave hateful troll comments imploring me to stop even though I was clearer than glass about the fact that this was a five-day experiment.
THEM: “If you won’t refund these crappy posts, I’m going to take you off my RSS feed.”
ME: “Thank you for your feedback. Would you like a comment card?” When you’re done, drop them in that round can with the plastic Hefty bag inside. Please. Yes. Do take me off your RSS. If you're reading me on RSS, you’re not giving me ad impressions. And if you really dislike my writing enough to leave me a venomous comment, I’m not so sure I want you around anyway.
THEM: “This is stupid. If you want to keep your readers, stop it.” Don't drink too much of that there haterade now!
ME: “Thank you for your feedback, would you also like a comment card?”
THEM: “But we’re important. We are your readers. We demand to be heard.”
ME: “That’s right. I’m listening. I’ll never do anything like this again.” I SWEAR BY THE MANY ARMS OF SHIVA THAT I WILL NEVER DO ANOTHER TRIBUTE POST AS LONG AS I AM ALIVE. McDonald’s could take a lesson from me. Stick to what you know.
THEM: “I'll be back next week when things have hopefully gotten back to normal.”
ME: “You do that.”
THEM: “So we’re cool then? Can we get back to normal now?”
ME: “I guess so.”
THEM: “Good. But let that be a warning. Don’t stray from the path again.”
ME: “I can't deny the fact that you hate me, right now, you hate me.”
Regular posting resumes Sunday or Monday. And we have another guest post this week. Thank you for all your comments, emails and diatribes. Even if you hated it. ☺
It’s one of the rare Friday nights that I work – because we all know that I can’t get enough of the House of Wal – and I’ve yet to find a man wealthy enough to keep me in the style to which I could become accustomed.
I’m alone at Customer Service – of course – trying not to think about how much my feet hurt. I’m sorting through a cart of returns and cataloguing the stuff that’s been stolen and already hating the fact that Christmas carols are playing on the speakers.
Suddenly Customer Service is mobbed with people. Old people. Young people. WOACAs. Tall people. Short people. Skinny people. Fat people. I think I even saw some Canadians. Not too much in the way of white trash though.
They are obviously all together, because they have the same T-shirt on, but I can’t quite make out the connection. Orange and white T-shirts don’t ring a bell with me for anything other than Tennessee football – and somehow, I don’t think that’s it for this group that is wandering around in the bowels of Florida.
ME: “Can I help ya’ll?”
THEM: “Yeah. We want to return these posts.”
ME: “Fence posts? We don’t sell fence posts.”
THEM: “No. Your stories.” Oh. You mean the ones I wrote? The ones you didn’t write? The ones you didn’t create? The ones you didn’t put out there?
ME: “What’s wrong with them?”
THEM: “We don’t like them.” Cause nobody like nothing they get for free.
ME: “Oh.”
THEM: “Yeah.”
ME: “What specifically was wrong with them?” Other than the fact that no one likes change?
THEM: “Did you really intend to regurgitate this same story all week long, but in a different style each time?” Yep. That’s pretty much what I said I was going to do. Yeah. One story, five times.
ME: Speechless. Realizing at this point that I have never misjudged something so badly in all my life. My first boyfriend. My second girlfriend. Any decision. Ever. In the entire history of time. This ranks right up there with Little Bighorn or the decision to invade Russia in the winter.
THEM: “Well, when we first started reading, you were kinda funny. We liked you then. The first few posts were fine. But the last ones in our RSS reader really sucked. They sucked hard. They sucked like a Lewinsky-bot. We want to return them. We didn’t hardly read them. They have the html tags on them and everything.”
ME: “But see, you did read them. I can’t give you money back on something you already read.” And you read it for free. Didn’t even click on my ads now did you?
THEM: “The posts didn’t look good – especially that Jane Austen mess. And don’t get us started on Gabriel Garcia Marquez and that priestess wench. We want some cash back. Right now.”
ME: “Well, do you got a receipt.”
THEM: “Naw man. We read it online. Books are so like last century.”
ME: “Well, you can’t have cash back without a receipt.”
THEM: “No. That is not acceptable. These posts were NOT ACCEPTABLE. It crashed my browser and I DEMAND MY CASH BACK!”
ME: “Look. Ya'll got them for free. On the Internet. And you don’t have a receipt.” Why are you complaining? If you hated it, wait a week. It changes, like the weather.
THEM: “I demand to speak with an editor immediately.”
ME: “I write it. I edit it. And you’re going to have to deal with it.”
THEM: “I still want a refund. And some free hosting for my trouble.”
ME: “Like I said. It was free. I can’t refund something you got for free.” This isn’t Wal-Mart. I’m not a spineless jellyfish of a manager. You can and will be getting the big N-O as an answer.
THEM: “Do you realize how long I’ve been reading here?”
ME: “And?” I realize you care. You care enough about me to leave hateful troll comments imploring me to stop even though I was clearer than glass about the fact that this was a five-day experiment.
THEM: “If you won’t refund these crappy posts, I’m going to take you off my RSS feed.”
ME: “Thank you for your feedback. Would you like a comment card?” When you’re done, drop them in that round can with the plastic Hefty bag inside. Please. Yes. Do take me off your RSS. If you're reading me on RSS, you’re not giving me ad impressions. And if you really dislike my writing enough to leave me a venomous comment, I’m not so sure I want you around anyway.
THEM: “This is stupid. If you want to keep your readers, stop it.” Don't drink too much of that there haterade now!
ME: “Thank you for your feedback, would you also like a comment card?”
THEM: “But we’re important. We are your readers. We demand to be heard.”
ME: “That’s right. I’m listening. I’ll never do anything like this again.” I SWEAR BY THE MANY ARMS OF SHIVA THAT I WILL NEVER DO ANOTHER TRIBUTE POST AS LONG AS I AM ALIVE. McDonald’s could take a lesson from me. Stick to what you know.
THEM: “I'll be back next week when things have hopefully gotten back to normal.”
ME: “You do that.”
THEM: “So we’re cool then? Can we get back to normal now?”
ME: “I guess so.”
THEM: “Good. But let that be a warning. Don’t stray from the path again.”
ME: “I can't deny the fact that you hate me, right now, you hate me.”
Regular posting resumes Sunday or Monday. And we have another guest post this week. Thank you for all your comments, emails and diatribes. Even if you hated it. ☺
Friday, November 02, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of Hollywood
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as told by famous movie quotes. Every quote has the word “help” in it. I thought this was fitting, because my standard greeting is “Can I help you?”
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Previously: Stephen King | What's going on this week
Light. Camera. Action.
WORKER: "Pardon me...but I couldn't help noticing you noticing me..." About Last Night - 1986 CAN I HELP YOU?
MAN RETURNING CARDS: “Hi! My name is Brad Majors, and this is my fiancée, Janet Weiss. I wonder if you could help us. You see, our car broke down a few miles up the road... do you have a phone we might use?” Rocky Horror Picture Show, The - 1975 I NEED HELP
WORKER: "The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year, something can all go wrong. But go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help and watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it all mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That's the theory anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here... you're on your own." Blood Simple - 1984 WHAT DO YOU WANT?
CARD MAN: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.” Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope - 1977 I GOT SOME STUFF HERE!
WORKER: "I'd love to help you man, but I ain't seen nothing since I stepped on that landmine in Vietkong back in '72. It was rough, very painful." Trading Places - 1983 DO YOU WANT TO RETURN IT?
CARD MAN: "Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Monty Python and the Holy Grail - 1975 I GOT THE WRONG THING.
WORKER: "They're going for the biggest stash in the city. Where? You're the detective. Detect. Give me some help. Look where the men in blue hang out." McQ - 1974 GO TO REGISTER 15 AND LOOK FOR IT!
CARD MAN: "What more do you want of us??! We came all this way, no thanks to you. We did it on our own, no help from you! We didn't ask you to fight for us, but dammit, don't fight against us!! Leave us alone! How many more sacrifices?! How much more blood?! How many more lives?! Belle wasn't enough! Acres wasn't! And now this girl! Then take me!! [pause] You can make it, keep going!! Rogo!! Get them through!!!" The Poseidon Adventure - 1972 I DON'T WANT TO GO. I WALKED A LONG WAY. DO IT FOR ME!
WORKER: "The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping." Blade Runner - 1982 YOU WALKED IN HERE. CAN’T YOU WALK 15 MORE FEET?
CARD MAN: "I can't help it. It's in my nature." The Crying Game - 1992 AIN'T GONNA DO IT
WORKER: "Come on, God knows we have a game, its not like any of this helps anyway." A League of Their Own - 1992 WELL WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO
CARD MAN: "Do you know what I tell an alcoholic who wants me to help them? First, stop drinking." Skin Deep - 1989 OLD PEOPLE DESERVE RESPECT
WORKER: "It's even better when you help." To Have and Have Not - 1944 OLD PEOPLE SUCK HARDER
CARD MAN: "Don't just stand there! Do something! Help. Police. Murder." Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - 1971 I WANT IT. GO GET IT. NOW. OR I’M GOING TO GET A MANAGER UP IN HERE.
WORKER: "I can't keep you here any longer... God has blessed us so much that I can't afford to feed you anymore. Couldn't you have your balls cut off? It's not as simple as that Nigel... God knows all... He would see through such a cheap trick. What we do to ourselves, we do to Him. You could have them pulled off in an accident. No... no... children... I know you're trying to help but believe me, my mind's made up. I've given this long and careful thought, and it's medical experiments for the lot of you." Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - 1983 I WALKED 26 STEPS TO REGISTER 15 AND PICKED UP A PACK OF PLAYING CARDS.
CARD MAN: "You know, not many girls today would give their panties to help a geek in contemporary society." Sixteen Candles - 1984 SEE, THAT WASN'T SO HARD NOW WAS IT?
WORKER: "We don't need your damn charity. Ponyboy, I wasn't trying to give you charity. I only wanted to help." The Outsiders - 1983 YOU GO TO HELL. YOU GO TO HELL AND DIE
CARD MAN: "I know, I know, you're workin' for Little Bo Peep, she's lost her sheep and you're gonna help her find em'." Who Framed Roger Rabbit - 1988 IS THAT ALL? I BEEN HERE ALL DAY
WORKER: "I did your job. Now help me do mine." Force 10 from Navarone - 19778 SIGN THE REFUND SLIP YOU OLD CUSS
CARD MAN: "Would you believe me if I told you this whole thing is an accident? I do believe you. That's what I want everybody to believe. Trouble is, it doesn't look like an accident and you're not here to tell me about it... I need you to help me here." Thelma & Louise - 1991 THAT’S RIGHT. GET IT. GET IT. GET IT. I WILL OFFER INSINCERE THANKS.
WORKER: "After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die... By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone's life can stand a little of that." Charlotte's Web - 1973 UH HUH. YOU TREAT ME BAD OLD MAN AND IT DON'T MATTER TO YOU!
WORKER: "Help, I hate this job." After Hours - 1985 WAL-MART SUCKS.
Much credit goes to moviequotes.com. Your source for quotes on the go!
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Stephen King
Now, here's the story as told by famous movie quotes. Every quote has the word “help” in it. I thought this was fitting, because my standard greeting is “Can I help you?”
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Previously: Stephen King | What's going on this week
Light. Camera. Action.
WORKER: "Pardon me...but I couldn't help noticing you noticing me..." About Last Night - 1986 CAN I HELP YOU?
MAN RETURNING CARDS: “Hi! My name is Brad Majors, and this is my fiancée, Janet Weiss. I wonder if you could help us. You see, our car broke down a few miles up the road... do you have a phone we might use?” Rocky Horror Picture Show, The - 1975 I NEED HELP
WORKER: "The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year, something can all go wrong. But go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help and watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it all mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That's the theory anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here... you're on your own." Blood Simple - 1984 WHAT DO YOU WANT?
CARD MAN: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.” Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope - 1977 I GOT SOME STUFF HERE!
WORKER: "I'd love to help you man, but I ain't seen nothing since I stepped on that landmine in Vietkong back in '72. It was rough, very painful." Trading Places - 1983 DO YOU WANT TO RETURN IT?
CARD MAN: "Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Monty Python and the Holy Grail - 1975 I GOT THE WRONG THING.
WORKER: "They're going for the biggest stash in the city. Where? You're the detective. Detect. Give me some help. Look where the men in blue hang out." McQ - 1974 GO TO REGISTER 15 AND LOOK FOR IT!
CARD MAN: "What more do you want of us??! We came all this way, no thanks to you. We did it on our own, no help from you! We didn't ask you to fight for us, but dammit, don't fight against us!! Leave us alone! How many more sacrifices?! How much more blood?! How many more lives?! Belle wasn't enough! Acres wasn't! And now this girl! Then take me!! [pause] You can make it, keep going!! Rogo!! Get them through!!!" The Poseidon Adventure - 1972 I DON'T WANT TO GO. I WALKED A LONG WAY. DO IT FOR ME!
WORKER: "The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping." Blade Runner - 1982 YOU WALKED IN HERE. CAN’T YOU WALK 15 MORE FEET?
CARD MAN: "I can't help it. It's in my nature." The Crying Game - 1992 AIN'T GONNA DO IT
WORKER: "Come on, God knows we have a game, its not like any of this helps anyway." A League of Their Own - 1992 WELL WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO
CARD MAN: "Do you know what I tell an alcoholic who wants me to help them? First, stop drinking." Skin Deep - 1989 OLD PEOPLE DESERVE RESPECT
WORKER: "It's even better when you help." To Have and Have Not - 1944 OLD PEOPLE SUCK HARDER
CARD MAN: "Don't just stand there! Do something! Help. Police. Murder." Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - 1971 I WANT IT. GO GET IT. NOW. OR I’M GOING TO GET A MANAGER UP IN HERE.
WORKER: "I can't keep you here any longer... God has blessed us so much that I can't afford to feed you anymore. Couldn't you have your balls cut off? It's not as simple as that Nigel... God knows all... He would see through such a cheap trick. What we do to ourselves, we do to Him. You could have them pulled off in an accident. No... no... children... I know you're trying to help but believe me, my mind's made up. I've given this long and careful thought, and it's medical experiments for the lot of you." Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - 1983 I WALKED 26 STEPS TO REGISTER 15 AND PICKED UP A PACK OF PLAYING CARDS.
CARD MAN: "You know, not many girls today would give their panties to help a geek in contemporary society." Sixteen Candles - 1984 SEE, THAT WASN'T SO HARD NOW WAS IT?
WORKER: "We don't need your damn charity. Ponyboy, I wasn't trying to give you charity. I only wanted to help." The Outsiders - 1983 YOU GO TO HELL. YOU GO TO HELL AND DIE
CARD MAN: "I know, I know, you're workin' for Little Bo Peep, she's lost her sheep and you're gonna help her find em'." Who Framed Roger Rabbit - 1988 IS THAT ALL? I BEEN HERE ALL DAY
WORKER: "I did your job. Now help me do mine." Force 10 from Navarone - 19778 SIGN THE REFUND SLIP YOU OLD CUSS
CARD MAN: "Would you believe me if I told you this whole thing is an accident? I do believe you. That's what I want everybody to believe. Trouble is, it doesn't look like an accident and you're not here to tell me about it... I need you to help me here." Thelma & Louise - 1991 THAT’S RIGHT. GET IT. GET IT. GET IT. I WILL OFFER INSINCERE THANKS.
WORKER: "After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die... By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone's life can stand a little of that." Charlotte's Web - 1973 UH HUH. YOU TREAT ME BAD OLD MAN AND IT DON'T MATTER TO YOU!
WORKER: "Help, I hate this job." After Hours - 1985 WAL-MART SUCKS.
Much credit goes to moviequotes.com. Your source for quotes on the go!
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Stephen King
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of Stephen King
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as if written by Stephen King.
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | What's going on
The last thin rays of the feeble winter sunlight shone off the gleaming glass doors of the suburban mega-store. The black asphalt parking lot seemed to stretch on for miles.
George Wilson shuddered, pulled the edges of his leather bomber jacket closer and tried not to think how the thousands of rows of straight lines of painted parking spaces resembled teeth in the mouth of a giant parking lot monster – and how far he was going to have to walk right down the middle of those rows of teeth to reach the doors.
“Nothing to do but start walking,” he thought.
“MISTER, HEY MISTER, LOOK OUT.” George could hear the screaming somewhere behind him. He broke from his reverie and looked back just in time to lunge to the side and avoid a whole line of shopping carts that had broken free of their machine and taken off, as if with a mind of their own, across the lot toward him. CRASH
Someone with a black Honda Accord was going to be very unhappy very soon.
“Hey, are you OK Mister? Them carts get loose sometimes. We tie a rope around them but sometimes it comes loose.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just need to return something.”
“OK then. I’m real sorry Mister.”
George considered his narrow escape, gritted his teeth and continued walking.
Upon reaching the entrance, George was struck by how monolithic the building was, how it dominated the landscape around it, how it seemed to exert an inexorable pull on the shoppers to enter the maw of the sliding doors and spend, spend, spend.
Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. George watched in fascination as the automatic doors slid open, then closed. Open. Closed. Three of them side by side by side – like the triple heads of hell hound Cerberus – devouring the livelihoods of all those who dared enter.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
Once inside the triple doors, George saw that it was yet a few more yards to the actual entrance, where a blue-smock-clad worker stood guard over the store, murmuring to the oncoming swarm, tagging the people coming in and verifying the paper of the few able to scrape together the cripplingly penurious fees required to exit the mega-store.
It’s like the gullet on a creature from the deepest hells, George thought, you pass through the mouth and slide down right through to the stomach.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. George nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of yet more carts coming into the store. The sound brought to mind the gnashing of teeth, or the grinding of jaws of some inhuman monster of the dark gnawing the bones of the unwary.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
George lurches forward, drawing his jacket tighter about him. The blue-smocked worker begins to speak and George decides to strike first, before any destructive spell can be cast. “I JUST WANT TO RETURN THIS.”
The worker looks taken aback, but nods and shoots a sticker from her gun onto the pack of playing cards in George’s hand and points toward the Customer Service counter further down the store.
Taking a deep breath, George steps onto the shiny white tile surface and into the cacophony of aural, visual and olfactory pollution that is a suburban mega-store.
The assault on his senses was deafening in every way.
The bright florescent lights shone down from above, from points perched somewhere in the cavernous ceiling and only slightly less strong beams splashed back up again from below, reflected off the shining white floor.
The noise threatened to deafen him. A thousand beeps from dozens of cash registers. Shrieks from babies, screams from wronged customers, cries of hapless employees and the endless drone of buggies sliding across the floor combined to dull the senses and cloud the mind.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
George jerked himself forward with effort, lunging toward the Customer Service counter. It was a predictable chaos. A double wedge of buggies sat like stone gargoyles guarding (or confining, George wondered) a single harried clerk.
There was a rogue’s gallery of customers with a white elephant selection of merchandise waiting for a return. Dead rosebushes. A watermelon. A live chicken.
One of the buggies standing guard reared up on its back two wheels and edged closer to the chicken, causing the crone with the chicken to deliver a hard smack with her staff.
George wondered if he had slipped past sanity into a waking dream. Surely he had not seen a live chicken nearly be devoured by a shopping cart – only to be fought off by a witch.
He shook his head and looked again. There was an old woman in a cornflower-blue pants suit holding a cane and white sweater folded over one arm. George could see that she had craft supplies, likely skeins of wool – in her shopping bag.
The line edged forward. George could hear the clerk talking to customers now. “Return or exchange?” “Sign here. PLEASE HELP ME! DELIVER THIS MESSAGE TO SOMEONE OUT ON THE FLOOR.”
George looked up, but a middle-aged woman returning some shoes was only signing her return receipt. It must be the ventilators causing George to hear things. “That’s it,” George thought. “I bet a place like this has huge air ducts. I’m just hearing the pipes rattling.”
The line inched forward. The man at the counter was arguing about returning a pack of pinochle cards. Although old, he appeared to George’s eyes to be perfectly healthy. He wasn’t in a wheelchair and had obviously walked from the parking lot to the store and into Customer Service without the aid of so much as a cane.
The clerk was becoming visibly frustrated. “Sir, I can’t go out and look for you a new pack of cards just because you want me to. There are many other people in line. It isn’t fair to make them wait because you don’t want to walk thirty feet over to Register 15 to get a new pack.”
The old man was resolute. “I’m not moving. I’m old and I’m tired.”
In his eagerness to hear the unfolding drama, George did not notice store employees adding more carts to the dozens already lining the walls of the Customer Service bay. The harried clerk finally snapped in his argument with the crotchety old man, slapped his hands down on the counter and said, “Look. You’re just going to have to wait. I’ve got to call someone to come help me out. I can’t make all these people wait because you’re old and stupid.”
Inwardly, George cheered. He saw the clerk pick up the telephone to dial for assistance and then saw a look of sheer terror mask the features of the clerk’s face. George turned and saw only three more employees adding yet more carts to the area surrounding Customer Service.
Carts now surrounded customers on all sides. Anyone wanting to return something had to pick their way through shopping buggies with all the care taken by soldiers picking their way through a minefield.
George thought this was rather careless and inconsiderate of the employees, but realized this was a low-wage, low-training dumping ground for the least well able to function of society’s wage slaves. He renewed his resolve never to shop here again after returning the items in his hand.
The line edged forward. A young mother with a toddler in an infant stroller and shopping bags hung off the handles rolled up to the counter. “I’d like to return my daughter, please.”
The harried clerk nodded unhappily.
George recoils in shock and shakes his head sure that he’s heard wrong. He looks again sees only that the woman has taken the child out of its stroller because it is crying and sat it on the counter. She is fishing for something in a shopping bag. “That must be her return,” thought George. “I really need to get my ears checked.”
The child began to howl louder. The screams covered up the sounds of the grinding of wheels as the buggies in the area began to push closer, trying to completely encircle the area around Customer Service.
Customers in the main store area were completely oblivious. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. THAT RANG UP WRONG. SCAN. BAG. DISCOUNT. COUPON. SCREAM. YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. YOU SQUASHED MY BREAD. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. I WANT A MANAGER.
George swept his gaze side to side. The entire Customer Service bay was a mass of buggies. It seemed like half the merchandise of the store was here instead of on the shelves.
Were the buggies edging closer? George didn’t want to believe it, but he didn’t remember that rusty cart with the wonky wheel from five minutes ago. It must be the heat. These big box stores never have good heating systems he told himself.
Up ahead, George could hear the clerk asking “Ma’am, do you have a receipt for this baby?” George dug his finger into ears in an effort to clear a non-existent blockage, desperate to believe that he simply didn’t hear the word “outfit” on the edge of that sentence. The child was starting to calm down now, although the mother seemed to be getting more emotional.
“We just can’t afford it,” George heard her tell the clerk. “We work all day and still can’t afford another one. Can I return the stroller and the diapers too?”
“If you have a receipt,” George heard the clerk say begrudgingly.
George thought to himself, “I hope I’m never that poor that I have to return baby clothes.
“Ma’am. This receipt is from last July. The return period on babies is 15 days. You’ve had little Carrie here for eight months. I’m sorry, but we can’t take her back.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON’T TAKE HER BACK. I’VE GOT A RECEIPT. SHE’S IN GOOD CONDITION. YOU WILL TAKE HER BACK. I WANT A MANAGER RIGHT NOW.”
The clerk leaned over the counter. “Ma’am. Seriously. You need to calm down. Bad things will happen.”
“I’M NOT GOING TO CALM DOWN. I WANT MY MONEY BACK FOR THIS SHITTY BABY THAT SHITS ALL THE DAMN TIME AND DOESN’T EVEN TALK YET AND YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME.”
George couldn’t believe he was hearing this. He looked straight ahead, transfixed by the scene that was playing out. Then he heard a cluck-cluck. It was a chicken. The old woman in front of him really DID have a chicken.
She was talking to George. “Dearie. Dearie. I say dearie. You need to pay more attention. We need to back up. There’s about to be a scene here. Can’t you see the buggy-horde getting ready to attack? Dearie? You don’t’ look so well.”
The buggy-horde. It was real. It was very real. What was once a pack of purchase conveyances was now a metal mass of grinding wheels and razor-sharp teeth transformed instantly into a living, breathing killing machine.
“But …” George sputtered. “But what about …”
“Come dearie. We’ll go over to the café and have a coffee. The old man and the mother are history. Once they start to make a scene they’re a goner. There’s nothing you can do. Those are the rules of the returns at the House of the Wahl. Satan is a manager. Hitler works in grocery. Now. Can you hold my chicken? I need to clear a path through the buggy-horde.”
Wordlessly George reached out to grab the chicken’s feet. The old woman brandished her cane with the skill of a hockey pro, sweeping a path through the ravenous metal creatures.
Behind him, George began to hear screams. First a loud wail from the mother, then a high, thin scream from the old man with the pinochle cards. The screams continued for a while, then nothing.
The next thing George heard was the tired, oh-so-tired voice of the clerk “Maintenance to Customer Service with a blow torch and a mop. Maintenance to Customer Service with a blow torch and a mop.”
Welcome to the House of the Wahl. Do you have your receipt?
Now, here's the story as if written by Stephen King.
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | What's going on
The last thin rays of the feeble winter sunlight shone off the gleaming glass doors of the suburban mega-store. The black asphalt parking lot seemed to stretch on for miles.
George Wilson shuddered, pulled the edges of his leather bomber jacket closer and tried not to think how the thousands of rows of straight lines of painted parking spaces resembled teeth in the mouth of a giant parking lot monster – and how far he was going to have to walk right down the middle of those rows of teeth to reach the doors.
“Nothing to do but start walking,” he thought.
“MISTER, HEY MISTER, LOOK OUT.” George could hear the screaming somewhere behind him. He broke from his reverie and looked back just in time to lunge to the side and avoid a whole line of shopping carts that had broken free of their machine and taken off, as if with a mind of their own, across the lot toward him. CRASH
Someone with a black Honda Accord was going to be very unhappy very soon.
“Hey, are you OK Mister? Them carts get loose sometimes. We tie a rope around them but sometimes it comes loose.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just need to return something.”
“OK then. I’m real sorry Mister.”
George considered his narrow escape, gritted his teeth and continued walking.
Upon reaching the entrance, George was struck by how monolithic the building was, how it dominated the landscape around it, how it seemed to exert an inexorable pull on the shoppers to enter the maw of the sliding doors and spend, spend, spend.
Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. Slide, chop, slide. George watched in fascination as the automatic doors slid open, then closed. Open. Closed. Three of them side by side by side – like the triple heads of hell hound Cerberus – devouring the livelihoods of all those who dared enter.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
Once inside the triple doors, George saw that it was yet a few more yards to the actual entrance, where a blue-smock-clad worker stood guard over the store, murmuring to the oncoming swarm, tagging the people coming in and verifying the paper of the few able to scrape together the cripplingly penurious fees required to exit the mega-store.
It’s like the gullet on a creature from the deepest hells, George thought, you pass through the mouth and slide down right through to the stomach.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. George nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of yet more carts coming into the store. The sound brought to mind the gnashing of teeth, or the grinding of jaws of some inhuman monster of the dark gnawing the bones of the unwary.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
George lurches forward, drawing his jacket tighter about him. The blue-smocked worker begins to speak and George decides to strike first, before any destructive spell can be cast. “I JUST WANT TO RETURN THIS.”
The worker looks taken aback, but nods and shoots a sticker from her gun onto the pack of playing cards in George’s hand and points toward the Customer Service counter further down the store.
Taking a deep breath, George steps onto the shiny white tile surface and into the cacophony of aural, visual and olfactory pollution that is a suburban mega-store.
The assault on his senses was deafening in every way.
The bright florescent lights shone down from above, from points perched somewhere in the cavernous ceiling and only slightly less strong beams splashed back up again from below, reflected off the shining white floor.
The noise threatened to deafen him. A thousand beeps from dozens of cash registers. Shrieks from babies, screams from wronged customers, cries of hapless employees and the endless drone of buggies sliding across the floor combined to dull the senses and cloud the mind.
“Nothing to do but keep going,” he thought.
George jerked himself forward with effort, lunging toward the Customer Service counter. It was a predictable chaos. A double wedge of buggies sat like stone gargoyles guarding (or confining, George wondered) a single harried clerk.
There was a rogue’s gallery of customers with a white elephant selection of merchandise waiting for a return. Dead rosebushes. A watermelon. A live chicken.
One of the buggies standing guard reared up on its back two wheels and edged closer to the chicken, causing the crone with the chicken to deliver a hard smack with her staff.
George wondered if he had slipped past sanity into a waking dream. Surely he had not seen a live chicken nearly be devoured by a shopping cart – only to be fought off by a witch.
He shook his head and looked again. There was an old woman in a cornflower-blue pants suit holding a cane and white sweater folded over one arm. George could see that she had craft supplies, likely skeins of wool – in her shopping bag.
The line edged forward. George could hear the clerk talking to customers now. “Return or exchange?” “Sign here. PLEASE HELP ME! DELIVER THIS MESSAGE TO SOMEONE OUT ON THE FLOOR.”
George looked up, but a middle-aged woman returning some shoes was only signing her return receipt. It must be the ventilators causing George to hear things. “That’s it,” George thought. “I bet a place like this has huge air ducts. I’m just hearing the pipes rattling.”
The line inched forward. The man at the counter was arguing about returning a pack of pinochle cards. Although old, he appeared to George’s eyes to be perfectly healthy. He wasn’t in a wheelchair and had obviously walked from the parking lot to the store and into Customer Service without the aid of so much as a cane.
The clerk was becoming visibly frustrated. “Sir, I can’t go out and look for you a new pack of cards just because you want me to. There are many other people in line. It isn’t fair to make them wait because you don’t want to walk thirty feet over to Register 15 to get a new pack.”
The old man was resolute. “I’m not moving. I’m old and I’m tired.”
In his eagerness to hear the unfolding drama, George did not notice store employees adding more carts to the dozens already lining the walls of the Customer Service bay. The harried clerk finally snapped in his argument with the crotchety old man, slapped his hands down on the counter and said, “Look. You’re just going to have to wait. I’ve got to call someone to come help me out. I can’t make all these people wait because you’re old and stupid.”
Inwardly, George cheered. He saw the clerk pick up the telephone to dial for assistance and then saw a look of sheer terror mask the features of the clerk’s face. George turned and saw only three more employees adding yet more carts to the area surrounding Customer Service.
Carts now surrounded customers on all sides. Anyone wanting to return something had to pick their way through shopping buggies with all the care taken by soldiers picking their way through a minefield.
George thought this was rather careless and inconsiderate of the employees, but realized this was a low-wage, low-training dumping ground for the least well able to function of society’s wage slaves. He renewed his resolve never to shop here again after returning the items in his hand.
The line edged forward. A young mother with a toddler in an infant stroller and shopping bags hung off the handles rolled up to the counter. “I’d like to return my daughter, please.”
The harried clerk nodded unhappily.
George recoils in shock and shakes his head sure that he’s heard wrong. He looks again sees only that the woman has taken the child out of its stroller because it is crying and sat it on the counter. She is fishing for something in a shopping bag. “That must be her return,” thought George. “I really need to get my ears checked.”
The child began to howl louder. The screams covered up the sounds of the grinding of wheels as the buggies in the area began to push closer, trying to completely encircle the area around Customer Service.
Customers in the main store area were completely oblivious. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. THAT RANG UP WRONG. SCAN. BAG. DISCOUNT. COUPON. SCREAM. YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. YOU SQUASHED MY BREAD. SCAN. BAG. SCREAM. I WANT A MANAGER.
George swept his gaze side to side. The entire Customer Service bay was a mass of buggies. It seemed like half the merchandise of the store was here instead of on the shelves.
Were the buggies edging closer? George didn’t want to believe it, but he didn’t remember that rusty cart with the wonky wheel from five minutes ago. It must be the heat. These big box stores never have good heating systems he told himself.
Up ahead, George could hear the clerk asking “Ma’am, do you have a receipt for this baby?” George dug his finger into ears in an effort to clear a non-existent blockage, desperate to believe that he simply didn’t hear the word “outfit” on the edge of that sentence. The child was starting to calm down now, although the mother seemed to be getting more emotional.
“We just can’t afford it,” George heard her tell the clerk. “We work all day and still can’t afford another one. Can I return the stroller and the diapers too?”
“If you have a receipt,” George heard the clerk say begrudgingly.
George thought to himself, “I hope I’m never that poor that I have to return baby clothes.
“Ma’am. This receipt is from last July. The return period on babies is 15 days. You’ve had little Carrie here for eight months. I’m sorry, but we can’t take her back.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON’T TAKE HER BACK. I’VE GOT A RECEIPT. SHE’S IN GOOD CONDITION. YOU WILL TAKE HER BACK. I WANT A MANAGER RIGHT NOW.”
The clerk leaned over the counter. “Ma’am. Seriously. You need to calm down. Bad things will happen.”
“I’M NOT GOING TO CALM DOWN. I WANT MY MONEY BACK FOR THIS SHITTY BABY THAT SHITS ALL THE DAMN TIME AND DOESN’T EVEN TALK YET AND YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME.”
George couldn’t believe he was hearing this. He looked straight ahead, transfixed by the scene that was playing out. Then he heard a cluck-cluck. It was a chicken. The old woman in front of him really DID have a chicken.
She was talking to George. “Dearie. Dearie. I say dearie. You need to pay more attention. We need to back up. There’s about to be a scene here. Can’t you see the buggy-horde getting ready to attack? Dearie? You don’t’ look so well.”
The buggy-horde. It was real. It was very real. What was once a pack of purchase conveyances was now a metal mass of grinding wheels and razor-sharp teeth transformed instantly into a living, breathing killing machine.
“But …” George sputtered. “But what about …”
“Come dearie. We’ll go over to the café and have a coffee. The old man and the mother are history. Once they start to make a scene they’re a goner. There’s nothing you can do. Those are the rules of the returns at the House of the Wahl. Satan is a manager. Hitler works in grocery. Now. Can you hold my chicken? I need to clear a path through the buggy-horde.”
Wordlessly George reached out to grab the chicken’s feet. The old woman brandished her cane with the skill of a hockey pro, sweeping a path through the ravenous metal creatures.
Behind him, George began to hear screams. First a loud wail from the mother, then a high, thin scream from the old man with the pinochle cards. The screams continued for a while, then nothing.
The next thing George heard was the tired, oh-so-tired voice of the clerk “Maintenance to Customer Service with a blow torch and a mop. Maintenance to Customer Service with a blow torch and a mop.”
Welcome to the House of the Wahl. Do you have your receipt?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as if imagined by Spanish surrealist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | What's going on
An abuelo of the familia Contraria shambled up to the bargaining station perched high in the trees over the Amazon basin. The light shone off the beads of the abacus used to tally the figures; water droplets glistened on the flowers of the vines tangled in the trees. Customers clutching their leaf-wrapped purchases lined the footbridge leading to the station like a swarm of ants marching toward the downed carcass of a warthog deep in the rainforest.
A gigantic ebon Amazon clad only in a skirt of receipt papers and a necklace of register keys and obviously deep in grip of a mystic herb moved abacus beads seemingly at random, issuing pronouncements at whim, "Refund," "Credit," "Denied."
The line edged forward slowly, ever slower, seeming to spiral forever in the neverwhere between space, time, infinity and the dream-state of a golden flower unfolding its petals to the welcoming sun.
A tribal chieftain clutching a pack of bark etched with mystical markings and burned with insignia the meaning of which was and is remains unknowable to the modern man gave a deep sigh as he placed one foot in front of the other and moved at last forward onto the steps that meant he was next in line for service.
The ebon Amazon rattled her necklace of register keys, shook out her hair, which when unfurled from its bounds, would surely reach to her feet, and glared at the man who dared her wrath, the lines and the fury of the jungle to return sacred prayer cards.
“You, you, you. I have seen you in my dreams. You poison the jungle. You destroy the trees. You pluck the flowers and consume the resources. Why, why, why. Tell me why I should even deign to hear your worthless words?”
“My princess of the trees, I have seen the light. A great supernova of being and believing came to me in the stillness of the dawn and a heady reckoning lasted all the night and into the midday. These prayers are not the ones for me. I need special prayer cards, prepared by a priestess of the old blood.”
“One tree over, two stations down. Seek and you shall find. The visions are a message from the forest. The violet light of the dawn, the azure auroras of the morning, the red haze of the sun’s rays, these are warnings that you must heed. Take note and mend your ways and cast not back into sin. A new day is breaking. A new time is upon us.”
“Wench of the trees. I shall prune your branches like the winter frost. I am a chief in my own right and ruler of half the basin. I SHALL NOT WALK ANY FARTHER.”
The ebon Amazon began to glower. A furious rage was building.
She made an effort to contain the power that was the heart of her dark soul. The entire forest would suffer if she let loose the fury that sat barely leashed within her.
If she were to but give in to the powers coursing through her soul, generations would tell the tale of the Ebon Goddess and the Fury that Went Uncontained.
The Chieftain continued none the wiser. “Respect thine elders, wench. Fetch my goods for me and bring them back to me.”
The fury built. The sky darkened. The masses fled. The footbridge to the trading station began to rattle and planks began to fly.
Still the chieftain continued. “Have you no respect for me? I walked many miles through the treetops here today. I can go no further. I demand the service due to me, for the simple fact is that I am old and believe that this entitles me to something for simply surviving.”
The Amazon’s resistance, built over many years of deflecting the worst of what her customers could throw at her, crumbled. The walls of reality split. And split again.
The sky turned as black as night. Then yellow. Then red. Then finally day became night and day again and the clouds turned a horrid putrid green.
The keys on the Amazon’s necklace, which had been clicking ceaselessly as if a million insects were locked in a battle to produce cacophony of noise worthy of a band of demons, stopped abruptly. The wind, which had been blowing furiously, as if a hundred giants were blowing out a hundred birthday cakes all at once, ceased to move. The treetops had been swaying as if locked in a soulful tango of fiery love; they fell still, as if locked in an embrace. But there was no love here. There was only hatred.
The Chieftain finally stopped his noisome squawking and realized that he was alone at the trading station. And the sky was green. And the Amazon was a sight to behold.
Her hair had come unbundled and was arrayed behind her head as if in a corona of the rays of a rising sun. Her eyes had lost their color and now a glittered with the light of thousand ingots of gold burning in the furnaces of hell and pulsed with the fury that only the scorned, the scorned, the scorned will ever know.
Lightnings crackled along the braids of the Amazon’s hair. Her face was a sable mask that contained within the deepest hurts, the unknown sorrow of a thousand years of shopkeepers. She leaned over her abacus and turned the awesome hurricane of her rage unabated on the chief.
The forest stood still. There was not a sound. Not one tiny fly moved a single wing for mile. The trees themselves held their leaves close, for fear the fury would fall upon them. Flowers held their petals fast. The worms in their burrows held tight. The waters of the rivers stopped, as if suspended in time.
The Chieftain dared speak. “I …”
The single word was his last.
The sky was rent with a tear so wide it seemed a seam was ripped in the very fabric of time. A source-less nimbus of flame appeared at the feet of the unworthy chieftain and began to burn. With the light of a thousand suns and with the anger of a thousand harried shopgirls, it burned.
In no time at all, the chieftain was but a pile of charred ash.
The wind began to blow.
The flowers on the vines strung along for miles unfurled their mighty blossoms. The sun’s rays shined down in beneficent harmony and joyous love upon the Amazon. The creatures of the rainforest returned to their labors, their loves and their lives. The customers of the trading post took their places in line.
A passing breeze blew away the remains of the chieftain.
Puff. He was gone.
The Amazon straightened her skirt, her necklace of clacking key and righted her abacus.
She gave a broad smile to the next customer and called “How can I help you?"
Now, here's the story as if imagined by Spanish surrealist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Previously: Jane Austen | Old Testament | What's going on
An abuelo of the familia Contraria shambled up to the bargaining station perched high in the trees over the Amazon basin. The light shone off the beads of the abacus used to tally the figures; water droplets glistened on the flowers of the vines tangled in the trees. Customers clutching their leaf-wrapped purchases lined the footbridge leading to the station like a swarm of ants marching toward the downed carcass of a warthog deep in the rainforest.
A gigantic ebon Amazon clad only in a skirt of receipt papers and a necklace of register keys and obviously deep in grip of a mystic herb moved abacus beads seemingly at random, issuing pronouncements at whim, "Refund," "Credit," "Denied."
The line edged forward slowly, ever slower, seeming to spiral forever in the neverwhere between space, time, infinity and the dream-state of a golden flower unfolding its petals to the welcoming sun.
A tribal chieftain clutching a pack of bark etched with mystical markings and burned with insignia the meaning of which was and is remains unknowable to the modern man gave a deep sigh as he placed one foot in front of the other and moved at last forward onto the steps that meant he was next in line for service.
The ebon Amazon rattled her necklace of register keys, shook out her hair, which when unfurled from its bounds, would surely reach to her feet, and glared at the man who dared her wrath, the lines and the fury of the jungle to return sacred prayer cards.
“You, you, you. I have seen you in my dreams. You poison the jungle. You destroy the trees. You pluck the flowers and consume the resources. Why, why, why. Tell me why I should even deign to hear your worthless words?”
“My princess of the trees, I have seen the light. A great supernova of being and believing came to me in the stillness of the dawn and a heady reckoning lasted all the night and into the midday. These prayers are not the ones for me. I need special prayer cards, prepared by a priestess of the old blood.”
“One tree over, two stations down. Seek and you shall find. The visions are a message from the forest. The violet light of the dawn, the azure auroras of the morning, the red haze of the sun’s rays, these are warnings that you must heed. Take note and mend your ways and cast not back into sin. A new day is breaking. A new time is upon us.”
“Wench of the trees. I shall prune your branches like the winter frost. I am a chief in my own right and ruler of half the basin. I SHALL NOT WALK ANY FARTHER.”
The ebon Amazon began to glower. A furious rage was building.
She made an effort to contain the power that was the heart of her dark soul. The entire forest would suffer if she let loose the fury that sat barely leashed within her.
If she were to but give in to the powers coursing through her soul, generations would tell the tale of the Ebon Goddess and the Fury that Went Uncontained.
The Chieftain continued none the wiser. “Respect thine elders, wench. Fetch my goods for me and bring them back to me.”
The fury built. The sky darkened. The masses fled. The footbridge to the trading station began to rattle and planks began to fly.
Still the chieftain continued. “Have you no respect for me? I walked many miles through the treetops here today. I can go no further. I demand the service due to me, for the simple fact is that I am old and believe that this entitles me to something for simply surviving.”
The Amazon’s resistance, built over many years of deflecting the worst of what her customers could throw at her, crumbled. The walls of reality split. And split again.
The sky turned as black as night. Then yellow. Then red. Then finally day became night and day again and the clouds turned a horrid putrid green.
The keys on the Amazon’s necklace, which had been clicking ceaselessly as if a million insects were locked in a battle to produce cacophony of noise worthy of a band of demons, stopped abruptly. The wind, which had been blowing furiously, as if a hundred giants were blowing out a hundred birthday cakes all at once, ceased to move. The treetops had been swaying as if locked in a soulful tango of fiery love; they fell still, as if locked in an embrace. But there was no love here. There was only hatred.
The Chieftain finally stopped his noisome squawking and realized that he was alone at the trading station. And the sky was green. And the Amazon was a sight to behold.
Her hair had come unbundled and was arrayed behind her head as if in a corona of the rays of a rising sun. Her eyes had lost their color and now a glittered with the light of thousand ingots of gold burning in the furnaces of hell and pulsed with the fury that only the scorned, the scorned, the scorned will ever know.
Lightnings crackled along the braids of the Amazon’s hair. Her face was a sable mask that contained within the deepest hurts, the unknown sorrow of a thousand years of shopkeepers. She leaned over her abacus and turned the awesome hurricane of her rage unabated on the chief.
The forest stood still. There was not a sound. Not one tiny fly moved a single wing for mile. The trees themselves held their leaves close, for fear the fury would fall upon them. Flowers held their petals fast. The worms in their burrows held tight. The waters of the rivers stopped, as if suspended in time.
The Chieftain dared speak. “I …”
The single word was his last.
The sky was rent with a tear so wide it seemed a seam was ripped in the very fabric of time. A source-less nimbus of flame appeared at the feet of the unworthy chieftain and began to burn. With the light of a thousand suns and with the anger of a thousand harried shopgirls, it burned.
In no time at all, the chieftain was but a pile of charred ash.
The wind began to blow.
The flowers on the vines strung along for miles unfurled their mighty blossoms. The sun’s rays shined down in beneficent harmony and joyous love upon the Amazon. The creatures of the rainforest returned to their labors, their loves and their lives. The customers of the trading post took their places in line.
A passing breeze blew away the remains of the chieftain.
Puff. He was gone.
The Amazon straightened her skirt, her necklace of clacking key and righted her abacus.
She gave a broad smile to the next customer and called “How can I help you?"
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of the Old Testament
So nobody liked Jane Austen. Seventy-four percent of poll respondents (92 of the 124 voters) hated it. Would it have been any better if I said "In the style of a Harlequin Romance?" Moving on.
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as written in the style of the Old Testament. (what's going on this week)
IN THE BEGINNING ...... Sam Walton saw that Wal-Mart was good. He created the florescent lighting. He created the hard tile floors. He created the Chinese laborers to create the poisonous merchandise. He created the Tire, the Lube and the Express. Finally, he created Man, for without man (and woman), the cash registers could not ring and bring bountiful tithes into the great and glorious temples that were the House of the Wal.
And unto Sam Walton was born Wal-Mart #1.
And Wal-Mart #1 lived for many years and begat Wal-Mart #2.
Wal-Mart was fruitful and multiplied.
Wal-Mart #2903 begat Sam's Club #1, which fed Egypt, Syria and Nubia throughout the lean years of the plague.
Wal-Mart was faithful to the teaching of their lord Sam. Once, during the battle of Piggly-Wiggly, Sam Walton prayed "My lord, I beg of you, lower thine prices so that we may continue to discount yet another day." The Lord of Low Prices complied and the Wal-Mart warriors slaughtered a host of cashiers from the retailer-states of Piggly-Wiggly, Freds and Kmart.
Wal-Mart was fruitful and multiplied.
Wal-Mart #3906 begat the Wal-Mart Supercenter, which in turn begat poisoned meat, shoddy Chinese goods and poor customer service to the masses.
The setting? Jerusalem, specifically a trading post in a marketplace in Old City.
MAN RETURNING CARDS: “And it be told thee, and thou hast heard [of it], and enquired diligently, and, behold, [it be] true, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought in the Wal-Mart.” Deuteronomy 17:14 I NEED HELP
WORKER: "Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?" 1 Corinthians 12:30 WHAT DO YOU WANT?
CARD MAN: "I have therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord." Numbers 31:50 I GOT SOME STUFF HERE!
WORKER: "Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession." Leviticus 25:27 DO YOU WANT TO RETURN IT?
CARD MAN: "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but [there is] no judgment." Job 19:7 I GOT THE WRONG THING.
WORKER: "Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, [if it be] truth, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought among you;" Deuteronomy 13:14 GO TO REGISTER 15 AND LOOK FOR IT!
CARD MAN: "I beseech thee, O Clerk, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done [that which is] good in thy sight." 2 Kings, 20:3 I DON'T WANT TO GO. I WALKED A LONG WAY. DO IT FOR ME!
WORKER: "And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits." Leviticus 26:20 YOU WALKED IN HERE. CAN’T YOU WALK 15 MORE FEET?
CARD MAN: "That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience." Letters to Titus 2:2 OLD PEOPLE DESERVE RESPECT
WORKER: "Great men are not [always] wise: neither do the aged understand judgment." Job 32:9 OLD PEOPLE SUCK HARDER
CARD MAN: "And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:" Numbers 15:39 I WANT IT. GO GET IT. NOW. OR I’M GOING TO GET A MANAGER UP IN HERE.
WORKER: "So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water." Exodus 15:22 I WALKED 26 STEPS TO REGISTER 15 AND PICKED UP A PACK OF PLAYING CARDS.
CARD MAN: "Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name." 2 Samuel 22:50 THAT’S RIGHT. GET IT. GET IT. GET IT. I WILL OFFER INSINCERE THANKS.
WORKER: "But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention." 1 Thessalonians 2:2 UH HUH. YOU TREAT ME BAD OLD MAN AND IT DON'T MATTER TO YOU!
CARD MAN: "And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more." Genesis 8:12 IS THAT ALL? I BEEN HERE ALL DAY
WORKER: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." Exodus 34:27 SIGN THE REFUND SLIP YOU OLD CUSS
CARD MAN: "But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus." Acts 18:21 I’M GOING TO LEAVE NOW.
WORKER: "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he [is] a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death." Numbers 35:15 I FEEL SOME SMITING COMING ON!
Much credit goes to biblelookup.com. Your source for verses on the go!
Yesterday's post, the much-maligned Jane Austen.
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as written in the style of the Old Testament. (what's going on this week)
IN THE BEGINNING ...... Sam Walton saw that Wal-Mart was good. He created the florescent lighting. He created the hard tile floors. He created the Chinese laborers to create the poisonous merchandise. He created the Tire, the Lube and the Express. Finally, he created Man, for without man (and woman), the cash registers could not ring and bring bountiful tithes into the great and glorious temples that were the House of the Wal.
And unto Sam Walton was born Wal-Mart #1.
And Wal-Mart #1 lived for many years and begat Wal-Mart #2.
Wal-Mart was fruitful and multiplied.
Wal-Mart #2903 begat Sam's Club #1, which fed Egypt, Syria and Nubia throughout the lean years of the plague.
Wal-Mart was faithful to the teaching of their lord Sam. Once, during the battle of Piggly-Wiggly, Sam Walton prayed "My lord, I beg of you, lower thine prices so that we may continue to discount yet another day." The Lord of Low Prices complied and the Wal-Mart warriors slaughtered a host of cashiers from the retailer-states of Piggly-Wiggly, Freds and Kmart.
Wal-Mart was fruitful and multiplied.
Wal-Mart #3906 begat the Wal-Mart Supercenter, which in turn begat poisoned meat, shoddy Chinese goods and poor customer service to the masses.
The setting? Jerusalem, specifically a trading post in a marketplace in Old City.
MAN RETURNING CARDS: “And it be told thee, and thou hast heard [of it], and enquired diligently, and, behold, [it be] true, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought in the Wal-Mart.” Deuteronomy 17:14 I NEED HELP
WORKER: "Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?" 1 Corinthians 12:30 WHAT DO YOU WANT?
CARD MAN: "I have therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord." Numbers 31:50 I GOT SOME STUFF HERE!
WORKER: "Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession." Leviticus 25:27 DO YOU WANT TO RETURN IT?
CARD MAN: "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but [there is] no judgment." Job 19:7 I GOT THE WRONG THING.
WORKER: "Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, [if it be] truth, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought among you;" Deuteronomy 13:14 GO TO REGISTER 15 AND LOOK FOR IT!
CARD MAN: "I beseech thee, O Clerk, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done [that which is] good in thy sight." 2 Kings, 20:3 I DON'T WANT TO GO. I WALKED A LONG WAY. DO IT FOR ME!
WORKER: "And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits." Leviticus 26:20 YOU WALKED IN HERE. CAN’T YOU WALK 15 MORE FEET?
CARD MAN: "That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience." Letters to Titus 2:2 OLD PEOPLE DESERVE RESPECT
WORKER: "Great men are not [always] wise: neither do the aged understand judgment." Job 32:9 OLD PEOPLE SUCK HARDER
CARD MAN: "And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:" Numbers 15:39 I WANT IT. GO GET IT. NOW. OR I’M GOING TO GET A MANAGER UP IN HERE.
WORKER: "So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water." Exodus 15:22 I WALKED 26 STEPS TO REGISTER 15 AND PICKED UP A PACK OF PLAYING CARDS.
CARD MAN: "Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name." 2 Samuel 22:50 THAT’S RIGHT. GET IT. GET IT. GET IT. I WILL OFFER INSINCERE THANKS.
WORKER: "But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention." 1 Thessalonians 2:2 UH HUH. YOU TREAT ME BAD OLD MAN AND IT DON'T MATTER TO YOU!
CARD MAN: "And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more." Genesis 8:12 IS THAT ALL? I BEEN HERE ALL DAY
WORKER: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." Exodus 34:27 SIGN THE REFUND SLIP YOU OLD CUSS
CARD MAN: "But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus." Acts 18:21 I’M GOING TO LEAVE NOW.
WORKER: "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he [is] a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death." Numbers 35:15 I FEEL SOME SMITING COMING ON!
Much credit goes to biblelookup.com. Your source for verses on the go!
Yesterday's post, the much-maligned Jane Austen.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Dirty Old Man: In the style of Jane Austen
Here's the story: This old man came up to Customer Service. He had a pack of pinochle cards. He wanted regular playing cards. I told him the regular cards were out on Register 15 - about 20 feet away and within sight of Customer Service. His answer? "That's too far to walk." So I had to go get the cards and bring them back to Customer Service for this contrary old fart.
Now, here's the story as written in the style of Jane Austen.
Springtime in England used to smell of clover, of sunshine, of apples and roses and meadows and poesies. Springtime in England is the season of love - young love, puppy love, of men and boys and wenches and lasses and lovebirds and long country lanes - the love that makes women curl their toes and moan and men plead for a merciful Father who art in Heaven.
Springtime in dear old Blighty is not the province of busty shopgirls and gleaming mega-marts with floors of polished ecru stone.
Couponita with her dark brown hair struggled to remain attached to this mortal world. To care, to feel, to do, to be, to exist - it was all swiftly becoming an exercise of the utmost futility for her. The unceasing noise impeded on her love-shattered psyche only slightly as she moved as an automaton to a place at her register.
The lusty, skin-tingling memories of a month's worth of passionate midnight encounters and stolen kissable moments spent locked in an embrace with her married lover came crashing unbidden into her head. She lovingly fingers the colorful wooden beads strung along each section of her carefully tended coarse black hair and remembered ...
"My sweetest love, my darling cocoa princess, the burning fire in my loins blazes hot for you. ... Every day, every second we are apart is a ruination upon my heart. ... I cannot but look at you that I feel the furnace of my heart begin to fire. .... Tonight we must part .... my wife, she returns from gay Paree." Then only blackness, falling, despair ...
A sour old Yankee bumping his gnarled and polished wooden cane along the slick white tiles jerked the moody lass back to attention. The recycled air of the store hung low with the sour breath of the unwashed masses; the air was rent with the grasshopper hum of machinery and the shrill din of registers clanging ...
The saddened shopgirl curtsied deeply at the gentleman's approach. Despite her not-so-trifling troubles in the intrigues of romance, she cared deeply for her three-shillings-a-week job. The trifling few pennies made way plain to pay for incidentals such as those would be found necessary by a dashing young lass seeking lasting love, to wit rubbers of sheepskin and limitless supplies of raspberry lip gloss.
"Can I beg of your assistance lass? Purchased unknowingly did I these cards of gaming without the august knowledge that they were of the type commonly used to play that most dastardly French game - pinochle."
"Surely a fine gentleman such as yourself, who patronizes our shop daily, must have retained his bill of lading for the goods in question. We must have the properly authorized and notarized bills of lading to offer you a speedy refund and send the aforementioned product back to our suppliers back in the Rue Dauphine."
"My good lass, how sweetly simple you make the entire complicated process sound. But whilst my feelings of woe and unhappiness with the product are matched only by my general outlook on the sad betidings of life on this mortal coil, my only desire is to gain through means fair or foul a mere replacement for the mundane objects which my merry friends and I while way the afternoon at games of chance and merriment."
"My good sir, my fine old English gentleman, the objects of your heart's fondest desiring, the playing cards that you seek, they make their home not on Victoria Grove but merely a few short steps away at the register named in honor of the God-King of all France Louis Quince - Register 15."
A bellow of rage that resembles the sounds of a mad bull being boiled alive splits the air of the shop. Timid mothers seeking on the makings of Sunday dinner rush madly to cover the delicate ears of their toddling youngsters, least the foul-mouthed vitriol poison their delicate minds and blast the tiny bones of their ears into dust.
"This is a poor excuse for service that you dare trade to offer me. Loyal customers that such am I should never be asked to retrieve my own goods from your filthy, dirty and disgusting stocks like a common Irish peasant. I am old and infirm."
"My service with the British army during the conquest of the heathen savages of the boiling hot Raj is legendary. Meant to serve the lowly commoners are, for they are placed on that station in the wheel of life by the gods of the heavens above, who are surely not unfeeling to their lot in life."
"You, serving girl that you are, are meant to be the dog to this master, and I will not fetch and carry for you."
"Good sir, behind you stands yet more fine folk needing assistance for their own problems of dire and dread state. Can you in good conscience not force recognizance of the simple truth that those gentry have rights equal and unassailable as your own to service? Can this poor lass of a child in mine own good conscience leave mine appointed post for so little as a reason as to save such a fine gentleman as yourself a mere few steps?
“Wench, recognize thy betters,” roared the Yankee, stilling the massed crowds and drawing stares of utmost pity for the poor, pitiable, tired and bedraggled English lass left to deal with such a surly and unruly, bitter and unrepentant, disreputable and sour old wretch of an excuse for a human being.
The girl sighed deeply inward, to her toes, nay, to the very depths of her despairing soul, drawing strength from the thoughts of the stolen kisses, the memory of the burning touch of her lover’s flame-tinged fingers making circles along the knobs in her spine and caressing the mounds on her breasts. She took a step, then another and another and yet another from behind her register. “If I may but serve you my liege,” she shot sarcastically and in an evil glare. “I will return in good order and in a short time with the right and proper merchandise as such is required by such a fine old gentleman such as yourself.”
She lurches over to the display as if existing in the state of a perpetual walking, waking dream, unable to see, to hear, to feel or to bear the pain of living life. Snatching the proper merchandise to make this horrid creature leave her sight, her sound, her very life, she runs as if for her life back to her appointed post as if the very hounds of hell were nipping her heels and causing the rips in her stockings and sniffing the soles of her feet.
“Are these the goods in question to complete the requirements of your much discussed and previously maligned gaming experience, my taunting, teasing, nefarious, black-hearted soul of a gentleman?”
Ledgers. Inkpots. Scribbles. Paper. String. Packages.
Later that night …..
“Couponita?”
“Oh my love, I knew you would come. I knew you would not desert my lonely heart’s ship upon the storm-tossed seas of fate, to be tossed like tiny craft left adrift in a hurricane of emotion. Take me my Lord, take me ….
Now, here's the story as written in the style of Jane Austen.
Springtime in England used to smell of clover, of sunshine, of apples and roses and meadows and poesies. Springtime in England is the season of love - young love, puppy love, of men and boys and wenches and lasses and lovebirds and long country lanes - the love that makes women curl their toes and moan and men plead for a merciful Father who art in Heaven.
Springtime in dear old Blighty is not the province of busty shopgirls and gleaming mega-marts with floors of polished ecru stone.
Couponita with her dark brown hair struggled to remain attached to this mortal world. To care, to feel, to do, to be, to exist - it was all swiftly becoming an exercise of the utmost futility for her. The unceasing noise impeded on her love-shattered psyche only slightly as she moved as an automaton to a place at her register.
The lusty, skin-tingling memories of a month's worth of passionate midnight encounters and stolen kissable moments spent locked in an embrace with her married lover came crashing unbidden into her head. She lovingly fingers the colorful wooden beads strung along each section of her carefully tended coarse black hair and remembered ...
"My sweetest love, my darling cocoa princess, the burning fire in my loins blazes hot for you. ... Every day, every second we are apart is a ruination upon my heart. ... I cannot but look at you that I feel the furnace of my heart begin to fire. .... Tonight we must part .... my wife, she returns from gay Paree." Then only blackness, falling, despair ...
A sour old Yankee bumping his gnarled and polished wooden cane along the slick white tiles jerked the moody lass back to attention. The recycled air of the store hung low with the sour breath of the unwashed masses; the air was rent with the grasshopper hum of machinery and the shrill din of registers clanging ...
The saddened shopgirl curtsied deeply at the gentleman's approach. Despite her not-so-trifling troubles in the intrigues of romance, she cared deeply for her three-shillings-a-week job. The trifling few pennies made way plain to pay for incidentals such as those would be found necessary by a dashing young lass seeking lasting love, to wit rubbers of sheepskin and limitless supplies of raspberry lip gloss.
"Can I beg of your assistance lass? Purchased unknowingly did I these cards of gaming without the august knowledge that they were of the type commonly used to play that most dastardly French game - pinochle."
"Surely a fine gentleman such as yourself, who patronizes our shop daily, must have retained his bill of lading for the goods in question. We must have the properly authorized and notarized bills of lading to offer you a speedy refund and send the aforementioned product back to our suppliers back in the Rue Dauphine."
"My good lass, how sweetly simple you make the entire complicated process sound. But whilst my feelings of woe and unhappiness with the product are matched only by my general outlook on the sad betidings of life on this mortal coil, my only desire is to gain through means fair or foul a mere replacement for the mundane objects which my merry friends and I while way the afternoon at games of chance and merriment."
"My good sir, my fine old English gentleman, the objects of your heart's fondest desiring, the playing cards that you seek, they make their home not on Victoria Grove but merely a few short steps away at the register named in honor of the God-King of all France Louis Quince - Register 15."
A bellow of rage that resembles the sounds of a mad bull being boiled alive splits the air of the shop. Timid mothers seeking on the makings of Sunday dinner rush madly to cover the delicate ears of their toddling youngsters, least the foul-mouthed vitriol poison their delicate minds and blast the tiny bones of their ears into dust.
"This is a poor excuse for service that you dare trade to offer me. Loyal customers that such am I should never be asked to retrieve my own goods from your filthy, dirty and disgusting stocks like a common Irish peasant. I am old and infirm."
"My service with the British army during the conquest of the heathen savages of the boiling hot Raj is legendary. Meant to serve the lowly commoners are, for they are placed on that station in the wheel of life by the gods of the heavens above, who are surely not unfeeling to their lot in life."
"You, serving girl that you are, are meant to be the dog to this master, and I will not fetch and carry for you."
"Good sir, behind you stands yet more fine folk needing assistance for their own problems of dire and dread state. Can you in good conscience not force recognizance of the simple truth that those gentry have rights equal and unassailable as your own to service? Can this poor lass of a child in mine own good conscience leave mine appointed post for so little as a reason as to save such a fine gentleman as yourself a mere few steps?
“Wench, recognize thy betters,” roared the Yankee, stilling the massed crowds and drawing stares of utmost pity for the poor, pitiable, tired and bedraggled English lass left to deal with such a surly and unruly, bitter and unrepentant, disreputable and sour old wretch of an excuse for a human being.
The girl sighed deeply inward, to her toes, nay, to the very depths of her despairing soul, drawing strength from the thoughts of the stolen kisses, the memory of the burning touch of her lover’s flame-tinged fingers making circles along the knobs in her spine and caressing the mounds on her breasts. She took a step, then another and another and yet another from behind her register. “If I may but serve you my liege,” she shot sarcastically and in an evil glare. “I will return in good order and in a short time with the right and proper merchandise as such is required by such a fine old gentleman such as yourself.”
She lurches over to the display as if existing in the state of a perpetual walking, waking dream, unable to see, to hear, to feel or to bear the pain of living life. Snatching the proper merchandise to make this horrid creature leave her sight, her sound, her very life, she runs as if for her life back to her appointed post as if the very hounds of hell were nipping her heels and causing the rips in her stockings and sniffing the soles of her feet.
“Are these the goods in question to complete the requirements of your much discussed and previously maligned gaming experience, my taunting, teasing, nefarious, black-hearted soul of a gentleman?”
Ledgers. Inkpots. Scribbles. Paper. String. Packages.
Later that night …..
“Couponita?”
“Oh my love, I knew you would come. I knew you would not desert my lonely heart’s ship upon the storm-tossed seas of fate, to be tossed like tiny craft left adrift in a hurricane of emotion. Take me my Lord, take me ….
Sunday, September 30, 2007
It's a glorious morning at the House of Wal
So Saturday I actually got a 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. shift because one of the morning girls was on vacation. I thought this was going to be a good thing. Oh was I wrong. So wrong. So badly wrong.
Things are just getting going at 7 a.m. at the Wal-Mart. Seven a.m. is the passing of the baton from the overnight supervisor to the morning supervisor. They count the change drawer, verify that all the keys have been signed in and out, etc. If the morning person is running late, well, things are just behind.
Sometimes the overnight person has to leave early. Sometimes the morning person is late. So essentially, on some mornings, there is no one "in charge" of the cashiers if they need help until either the morning person gets there whenever - or unless management strolls by in answer to a frantic page.
Cue the fun. The hilarious Wal-Mart retarded customer fun.
Customer Service doesn't open up until 7 a.m. when the morning shift comes in. There's money in the register, there's just no one there to staff it. Plus, no MoneyGram or money orders can be done until 7 a.m. Returns between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. are done at the regular registers - but have to be approved by management or the overnight supervisor. WHY? Because the PS MERCH RETURN key only works on the Customer Service registers. Everywhere else requires that you either stick the override key in the register or get approval via the handheld computer.
I can hear the pages as I straggle in at 6:45 a.m. with a triple venti mint mocha. "CSM to Register 15 for a return, CSM to Register 15 for a return." I hear it as I come in the door. And again as I go through the doors to the employee lounge in the back. And again as I put my phone and keys in my locker. And again as I put my lunch away. And the whole time I'm trying to finish my coffee in peace.
Obviously the overnight person has already left. But they're paging away. And management isn't coming. As per usual.
I finish my coffee and clock in five minutes early. I'm a glutton for punishment.
I make my way through the softlines (clothing) and I can see a man stomping off from Register 15 and heading toward Customer Service. Lovely. First one out of the gate is going to be a screamer. Little did I know.
The overnight accounting office girl is leaving, and he starts yelling at her "Are you a manager? I want a manager right now. I want a return right now. I've been waiting 15 minutes and I want a manager right now. Is this how you treat your customers? Is it?" Can you say tirade?
I'm near Register 14 when this goes down, and I see the overnight manager FINALLY coming from one direction. The accounting office girl doesn't see him or me, but looks at her watch and says "Just wait about three minutes sir. Customer Service opens up at 7 a.m."
In the pantheon of "wrong things to say," this one was right up there with "Let's conquer Russia in the winter" or "No baby, I don't watch porn."
The crazy man actually ramps the crazy UP a notch now and really goes off. I'm standing there just in awe, not even offering to help, because I'm just so entranced. "DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 7 A.M. TO RETURN THIS? IS THAT HOW IT IS? I WANT YOUR NAME. IS THAT YOU YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS? BY TELLING THEM TO WAIT?"
By now, the overnight manger is there and trying to pour oil on much-troubled waters. "Can I help you sir."
Crazy Man goes "SHE'S TELLING ME I CAN'T RETURN THIS BECAUSE IT'S NOT 7 A.M. I HAD TO WAIT FIFTEEN MINUTES OVER THERE. WHERE WERE YOU? ARE YOU A MANAGER? IS THIS HOW YOU MANAGE? YOU'RE A PRETTY BAD MANAGER AS FAR AS I CAN TELL!"
I'm in awe. I'm not even awake and this man is just hitting gears I didn't even know existed at 7 a.m.
The overnight manger is like "Sir, I can take care of you. I can open up Customer Service at any time for a return. Or I can take care of you at any other register."
Crazy Man is still crazy. And still yelling at the top of his lungs. "SO IS SHE LYING OR ARE YOU LYING? YOU'RE GOING TO OPEN IT? SO WHY DID SHE SAY IT WAS CLOSED? WHY IS SHE EVEN HELPING PEOPLE IF SHE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING. I'M GOING TO CALL AND GET HER FIRED. I'M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED."
Ooooooookaaaaaaaay. Crazy man is still crazy.
The overnight manager sees me and asks me to do the man's return. I'm like "Oh. Yeah. I'm supposed to be working. Not spectating."
I sign on and start the return. But Crazy Man is still crazy.
"I WANT YOUR NAME. I WANT THE STORE MANAGER'S NAME. I WANT THE STORE NUMBER. I WANT THE STORE PHONE NUMBER. I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH HIM. DOES HE KNOW YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS LIKE THIS? DOES HE KNOW YOU JUST DECIDE TO OPEN AND CLOSE THINGS? DOES HE KNOW YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THIS?"
The overnight manager goes to the printer at the service desk, writes down his name, the store manager's name and the store number. He wishes the man a good morning and walks off.
I finish the return, NOT AT ALL HAPPY to be left at Customer Service with Crazy Man.
He walks out just past the entrance to Customer Service and pulls out a cell phone and starts dialing. I hear the phone start ringing and go over. I see the line light up for MAIN 1, which means a call coming through from an outside line. The phone is still on night service, so the operator is not in yet. The man snarls and hangs up. The phone light goes off. He hammers the keys again and the phone lights up again. No amount of money in the world would have convinced me to pick up that phone.
He finally snarled again and walked off. If and when he finally did get through, I would not have wanted to be on the other end of that call. I'd love to know who or what took a whiz in his cornflakes though.
Oh. What was he returning? Two OPEN children's sports mouthguards. Total refund? $4.24.
Things are just getting going at 7 a.m. at the Wal-Mart. Seven a.m. is the passing of the baton from the overnight supervisor to the morning supervisor. They count the change drawer, verify that all the keys have been signed in and out, etc. If the morning person is running late, well, things are just behind.
Sometimes the overnight person has to leave early. Sometimes the morning person is late. So essentially, on some mornings, there is no one "in charge" of the cashiers if they need help until either the morning person gets there whenever - or unless management strolls by in answer to a frantic page.
Cue the fun. The hilarious Wal-Mart retarded customer fun.
Customer Service doesn't open up until 7 a.m. when the morning shift comes in. There's money in the register, there's just no one there to staff it. Plus, no MoneyGram or money orders can be done until 7 a.m. Returns between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. are done at the regular registers - but have to be approved by management or the overnight supervisor. WHY? Because the PS MERCH RETURN key only works on the Customer Service registers. Everywhere else requires that you either stick the override key in the register or get approval via the handheld computer.
I can hear the pages as I straggle in at 6:45 a.m. with a triple venti mint mocha. "CSM to Register 15 for a return, CSM to Register 15 for a return." I hear it as I come in the door. And again as I go through the doors to the employee lounge in the back. And again as I put my phone and keys in my locker. And again as I put my lunch away. And the whole time I'm trying to finish my coffee in peace.
Obviously the overnight person has already left. But they're paging away. And management isn't coming. As per usual.
I finish my coffee and clock in five minutes early. I'm a glutton for punishment.
I make my way through the softlines (clothing) and I can see a man stomping off from Register 15 and heading toward Customer Service. Lovely. First one out of the gate is going to be a screamer. Little did I know.
The overnight accounting office girl is leaving, and he starts yelling at her "Are you a manager? I want a manager right now. I want a return right now. I've been waiting 15 minutes and I want a manager right now. Is this how you treat your customers? Is it?" Can you say tirade?
I'm near Register 14 when this goes down, and I see the overnight manager FINALLY coming from one direction. The accounting office girl doesn't see him or me, but looks at her watch and says "Just wait about three minutes sir. Customer Service opens up at 7 a.m."
In the pantheon of "wrong things to say," this one was right up there with "Let's conquer Russia in the winter" or "No baby, I don't watch porn."
The crazy man actually ramps the crazy UP a notch now and really goes off. I'm standing there just in awe, not even offering to help, because I'm just so entranced. "DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 7 A.M. TO RETURN THIS? IS THAT HOW IT IS? I WANT YOUR NAME. IS THAT YOU YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS? BY TELLING THEM TO WAIT?"
By now, the overnight manger is there and trying to pour oil on much-troubled waters. "Can I help you sir."
Crazy Man goes "SHE'S TELLING ME I CAN'T RETURN THIS BECAUSE IT'S NOT 7 A.M. I HAD TO WAIT FIFTEEN MINUTES OVER THERE. WHERE WERE YOU? ARE YOU A MANAGER? IS THIS HOW YOU MANAGE? YOU'RE A PRETTY BAD MANAGER AS FAR AS I CAN TELL!"
I'm in awe. I'm not even awake and this man is just hitting gears I didn't even know existed at 7 a.m.
The overnight manger is like "Sir, I can take care of you. I can open up Customer Service at any time for a return. Or I can take care of you at any other register."
Crazy Man is still crazy. And still yelling at the top of his lungs. "SO IS SHE LYING OR ARE YOU LYING? YOU'RE GOING TO OPEN IT? SO WHY DID SHE SAY IT WAS CLOSED? WHY IS SHE EVEN HELPING PEOPLE IF SHE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING. I'M GOING TO CALL AND GET HER FIRED. I'M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED."
Ooooooookaaaaaaaay. Crazy man is still crazy.
The overnight manager sees me and asks me to do the man's return. I'm like "Oh. Yeah. I'm supposed to be working. Not spectating."
I sign on and start the return. But Crazy Man is still crazy.
"I WANT YOUR NAME. I WANT THE STORE MANAGER'S NAME. I WANT THE STORE NUMBER. I WANT THE STORE PHONE NUMBER. I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH HIM. DOES HE KNOW YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS LIKE THIS? DOES HE KNOW YOU JUST DECIDE TO OPEN AND CLOSE THINGS? DOES HE KNOW YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THIS?"
The overnight manager goes to the printer at the service desk, writes down his name, the store manager's name and the store number. He wishes the man a good morning and walks off.
I finish the return, NOT AT ALL HAPPY to be left at Customer Service with Crazy Man.
He walks out just past the entrance to Customer Service and pulls out a cell phone and starts dialing. I hear the phone start ringing and go over. I see the line light up for MAIN 1, which means a call coming through from an outside line. The phone is still on night service, so the operator is not in yet. The man snarls and hangs up. The phone light goes off. He hammers the keys again and the phone lights up again. No amount of money in the world would have convinced me to pick up that phone.
He finally snarled again and walked off. If and when he finally did get through, I would not have wanted to be on the other end of that call. I'd love to know who or what took a whiz in his cornflakes though.
Oh. What was he returning? Two OPEN children's sports mouthguards. Total refund? $4.24.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Bang, bang, bang (went the angry man!)
When there isn't a line at Customer Service (HAH!), one of our duties is to sort through the buggies and buggies (and buggies and buggies and buggies) of returns and re-shops (things people leave around the store) and prepare them for transport back out to the respective departments.
Our Customer Service area has a counter with four registers, then a low wall (more of a ledge) with a shelf behind it that bins sit on top of and under. We can reach over the shelf to fill the bins for the returns we get in the "popular" departments (Shoes, clothes, Electronics, Toys, Domestics Infants), but we have to walk behind the wall - and thus out of sight of the customers - to dump stuff into Hardware, Sporting Goods, Garden, Auto, and things we don't take back as much of.
When a particular bin gets full, we dump it into an empty shopping cart and call for pickup. Theoretically, associates from the departments should be dropping off their re-shops (items customers leave in their area) and picking up their own returns every hour - but this is the House of Wal. They dump a buggy on us at the end of their shift and flee without taking anything.
Anyway. To make a long story longer .... I have a blessedly quiet half-second Saturday night (probably because of the torrential rainstorm that is overhead) and I'm loading up carts. I'm behind the wall loading up the Hardware buggy - FOUR toilet seats (who returns a toilet seat? or carries one around the store and decides they don't want it?). I try to listen for customers and peek every thirty seconds or so. It's not like I'm just walking away and going shopping.
I'm doing my best Mario and Luigi impression on these toilets, plus an assortment of other Hardware items and trying not to crush the light bulbs in the process. Then I hear a banging, like a hammer being literally taken to wood and a voice yelling "SOMEBODY BETTER GET OUT HERE!" Keep in mind I've been out of sight maybe 30 seconds tops - and I've been on camera the entire time.
I'm thinking "These people cannot be serious." I look around the corner and it is a pissed-off looking old man, who has picked up a defective alarm clock I've not had time to put away and is BANGING IT ON THE COUNTER in a bid to get my attention.
I decide to play this one for all it's worth. I've had it with the House of Wal and the entitlement issues suffered by the fools who shop there.
"Yes sir. Can we heeeeelp you sir? What do you need sir?" I snarked it out just like that. Like I'm some snobby British shopkeep. Or from "Are You Being Served?" And I give him a look like "Are you crazy?"
His reply? "You better hope you can." I don't better hope nothing. I can and will tear that broken alarm clock from your hands, brain you upside the head with it and then fix it and use it to be on time for your funeral. Where I will proceed to dance a jig, throw flowers and finally hold a seance to call up your spirit and shout "Neener-neener."
"Well what did you need sir?" Delivered in my best Customer Service faux politeness while looking down my nose and over my glasses (but I secretly hope for a team of ninja warrior trolls to come along and slice you, dice you and cook you with carrots, potatoes, onions and a dash of celery, garlic and a touch of thyme for stew) voice.
His reply? "We want some help in Housewares. We've been waiting for 15 minutes." Again with the royal We. All this entitlement I'm going to have to start talking in the third person just to keep up. Or maybe in the fourth person.
Me? "Sir. There may not be anyone in Housewares." Or maybe you just have bad B.O.
His reply? "Well, I want someone."
Let's break this down. I'm not saying the request for service is unreasonable. IT ISN'T. There should be someone there to help you. You are a customer and you are allegedly going to give us money for products (unlike a good number of our erstwhile "patrons). However, this is the Wal-Mart. You get what you pay for. Are you really paying for service? No. End of discussion.
Now, what you want and what you need are two entirely different things. You might want cheap plastic crap. What you need is to be chopped into small pieces, put into a big Rubbermaid tote and dumped into the Everglades to feed the alligators.
This man is so pissed of he managed to walk right by two managers. You know, the kind you can identify because they're have that "manager" look. And oh-yeah, they have walkie-talkies and big key rings and are carrying around clipboards and are standing around doing nothing.
Me? "Sir, do you see those two people right there? The African-American woman and Hispanic gentleman with radios? Those are the two managers on duty. You walked right by them. Either one of them would be very happy to help you."
His reply? "I want them to come talk to me." OK. Because walking eight feet is just going to break an ankle? I'll play that game though.
Me? Starts yelling. "JULIO! MANDY! JULIO! MANDY!" Waves arms, makes motion to come to Customer Service.
All the man wanted was a vacuum cleaner down off the top shelf. *sigh*
I am sure it will get returned in a week anyway. "It doesn't suck." No, but you sure as hell do.
Our Customer Service area has a counter with four registers, then a low wall (more of a ledge) with a shelf behind it that bins sit on top of and under. We can reach over the shelf to fill the bins for the returns we get in the "popular" departments (Shoes, clothes, Electronics, Toys, Domestics Infants), but we have to walk behind the wall - and thus out of sight of the customers - to dump stuff into Hardware, Sporting Goods, Garden, Auto, and things we don't take back as much of.
When a particular bin gets full, we dump it into an empty shopping cart and call for pickup. Theoretically, associates from the departments should be dropping off their re-shops (items customers leave in their area) and picking up their own returns every hour - but this is the House of Wal. They dump a buggy on us at the end of their shift and flee without taking anything.
Anyway. To make a long story longer .... I have a blessedly quiet half-second Saturday night (probably because of the torrential rainstorm that is overhead) and I'm loading up carts. I'm behind the wall loading up the Hardware buggy - FOUR toilet seats (who returns a toilet seat? or carries one around the store and decides they don't want it?). I try to listen for customers and peek every thirty seconds or so. It's not like I'm just walking away and going shopping.
I'm doing my best Mario and Luigi impression on these toilets, plus an assortment of other Hardware items and trying not to crush the light bulbs in the process. Then I hear a banging, like a hammer being literally taken to wood and a voice yelling "SOMEBODY BETTER GET OUT HERE!" Keep in mind I've been out of sight maybe 30 seconds tops - and I've been on camera the entire time.
I'm thinking "These people cannot be serious." I look around the corner and it is a pissed-off looking old man, who has picked up a defective alarm clock I've not had time to put away and is BANGING IT ON THE COUNTER in a bid to get my attention.
I decide to play this one for all it's worth. I've had it with the House of Wal and the entitlement issues suffered by the fools who shop there.
"Yes sir. Can we heeeeelp you sir? What do you need sir?" I snarked it out just like that. Like I'm some snobby British shopkeep. Or from "Are You Being Served?" And I give him a look like "Are you crazy?"
His reply? "You better hope you can." I don't better hope nothing. I can and will tear that broken alarm clock from your hands, brain you upside the head with it and then fix it and use it to be on time for your funeral. Where I will proceed to dance a jig, throw flowers and finally hold a seance to call up your spirit and shout "Neener-neener."
"Well what did you need sir?" Delivered in my best Customer Service faux politeness while looking down my nose and over my glasses (but I secretly hope for a team of ninja warrior trolls to come along and slice you, dice you and cook you with carrots, potatoes, onions and a dash of celery, garlic and a touch of thyme for stew) voice.
His reply? "We want some help in Housewares. We've been waiting for 15 minutes." Again with the royal We. All this entitlement I'm going to have to start talking in the third person just to keep up. Or maybe in the fourth person.
Me? "Sir. There may not be anyone in Housewares." Or maybe you just have bad B.O.
His reply? "Well, I want someone."
Let's break this down. I'm not saying the request for service is unreasonable. IT ISN'T. There should be someone there to help you. You are a customer and you are allegedly going to give us money for products (unlike a good number of our erstwhile "patrons). However, this is the Wal-Mart. You get what you pay for. Are you really paying for service? No. End of discussion.
Now, what you want and what you need are two entirely different things. You might want cheap plastic crap. What you need is to be chopped into small pieces, put into a big Rubbermaid tote and dumped into the Everglades to feed the alligators.
This man is so pissed of he managed to walk right by two managers. You know, the kind you can identify because they're have that "manager" look. And oh-yeah, they have walkie-talkies and big key rings and are carrying around clipboards and are standing around doing nothing.
Me? "Sir, do you see those two people right there? The African-American woman and Hispanic gentleman with radios? Those are the two managers on duty. You walked right by them. Either one of them would be very happy to help you."
His reply? "I want them to come talk to me." OK. Because walking eight feet is just going to break an ankle? I'll play that game though.
Me? Starts yelling. "JULIO! MANDY! JULIO! MANDY!" Waves arms, makes motion to come to Customer Service.
All the man wanted was a vacuum cleaner down off the top shelf. *sigh*
I am sure it will get returned in a week anyway. "It doesn't suck." No, but you sure as hell do.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Cat hair today, refunds tomorrow
For the love of little puppies, in what universe is it considered proper to return eight T-shirts covered with cat hair?
Yur not doing it rite!!!!!!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
No, I call it the stupid tax
For the love of Baal and little babies, will you please let me finish what I am doing before you start whining about how you "want the tax back too."
Sir, first of all, you are what I refer to as one of our "airbed rental customers." So you're already a strike down in my book. Then, your personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. Please, take the $3 in tax you're arguing with me about and buy a damn bar of soap.
OK? So I'm returning this airbed you "rented" although you claim "it has a slow leak." I start mashing the buttons and the price flashes up on the part of the register visible to customers - with a minus sign in front of it. Because, you know, money is going out, not coming in.
Cue the hysterics.
HIM: "Well I better get the tax back too." No. You don't get it back. We call it the rental tax. And we only charge it on airbeds.
ME: "You do get the tax back sir."
HIM: "Well I don't see it." Patience is a virtue.
ME: "It will be on the receipt sir. The tax is calculated at the end."
HIM: "I still don't see it." You're not going to see it unless you're a Nanite or you can read binary through my register.
ME: "Sir. Please wait just one minute."
HIM: "How do I know I get the tax back."
ME: "Sir. One minute. Please. And I can give you your money and show you the receipt that is going detail exactly what you are getting back."
HIM: "Are you sure you're not cheating me?" Because Kali, my life would be infinitesimally richer with that three dollars.
ME: "Sir. I'm going to finish and then explain it all to you." Mashes buttons real fast, like I do when there are howlers and the only way to get them to leave is to do the return double-quick.
ME: "OK Sir. I want you to see here. You got $49.76 back for the airbed. RIGHT HERE you got $2.99 for the tax."
HIM: Silence. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. Pockets the money and leaves. Trails a cloud of unhappiness and funk behind him.
It is not like we charge a restocking fee or anything. Simple logic ought to dictate that if you paid tax on an item - you get the tax back - that is law. Not even Wal-Mart policy could override that one. But then again, I'm dealing with Wal-Mart customers here.
We really ought to charge a rental fee. We took back six airbeds this Sunday. No way all of them were defective - even given the usual standards of our merchandise. No freaking way.
Sir, first of all, you are what I refer to as one of our "airbed rental customers." So you're already a strike down in my book. Then, your personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. Please, take the $3 in tax you're arguing with me about and buy a damn bar of soap.
OK? So I'm returning this airbed you "rented" although you claim "it has a slow leak." I start mashing the buttons and the price flashes up on the part of the register visible to customers - with a minus sign in front of it. Because, you know, money is going out, not coming in.
Cue the hysterics.
HIM: "Well I better get the tax back too." No. You don't get it back. We call it the rental tax. And we only charge it on airbeds.
ME: "You do get the tax back sir."
HIM: "Well I don't see it." Patience is a virtue.
ME: "It will be on the receipt sir. The tax is calculated at the end."
HIM: "I still don't see it." You're not going to see it unless you're a Nanite or you can read binary through my register.
ME: "Sir. Please wait just one minute."
HIM: "How do I know I get the tax back."
ME: "Sir. One minute. Please. And I can give you your money and show you the receipt that is going detail exactly what you are getting back."
HIM: "Are you sure you're not cheating me?" Because Kali, my life would be infinitesimally richer with that three dollars.
ME: "Sir. I'm going to finish and then explain it all to you." Mashes buttons real fast, like I do when there are howlers and the only way to get them to leave is to do the return double-quick.
ME: "OK Sir. I want you to see here. You got $49.76 back for the airbed. RIGHT HERE you got $2.99 for the tax."
HIM: Silence. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. Pockets the money and leaves. Trails a cloud of unhappiness and funk behind him.
It is not like we charge a restocking fee or anything. Simple logic ought to dictate that if you paid tax on an item - you get the tax back - that is law. Not even Wal-Mart policy could override that one. But then again, I'm dealing with Wal-Mart customers here.
We really ought to charge a rental fee. We took back six airbeds this Sunday. No way all of them were defective - even given the usual standards of our merchandise. No freaking way.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Learn it, love it, live with it or leave
I still have yet to understand the attitude of customers who equate shopping at Wal-Mart with the retail process that takes place at a department store, a high-end boutique or a neighborhood Mom-and-Pop type store. Wal-Mart is all about the self-service. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
Wal-Mart really does not care about your fragile psyche and the need for someone to "help" you shop. The prices are low. So is the level of service. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
So I say to you, Mr. White Trash in the (typical) dirty wife-beater and even filthier blue jeans, coming up to Customer Service, elbowing aside an ever-so-patient woman trying to return a crapload of school supplies, acting like I ought to leap over the counter and help you, and then yelling at me "You better f****** get some help in Hardware because no one in this f****** store speaks English" -- that is really not going to remedy the situation.
Wal-Mart's prices are low because the staffing - the single area largest cost area where money is spent and resources can be cut - is at an absolute minimum. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
That very same can of paint you want mixed at 10 p.m. on a Sunday is going to cost you more at the local place - which is well-known around town for the level of service they provide. They'll smile at you, greet you in perfect English and give you tips on how to paint your house. You're paying for SERVICE as well as the merchandise.
At Wal-Mart, you're paying for a damn can of paint. Nothing more. Everything less. Service, knowledge, assistance in the English language. You made the choice to shop here. Your choices have consequences. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
If you want cheap prices, come to the Wal-Mart. If you want good service, go anywhere else.
I personally have nothing against hiring people who do not speak English. Someone has to do the work. However, I would not advocate putting them in positions that require customer interaction.
That said, I would estimate at least 70% of the associates at our store have only a minimal grasp of English. When I say minimal, I mean that they drag customers over to the native English speakers whenever they have questions.
The service is not a function of the language though - if I were managing a company, I wouldn't hire more than 1 in 20 of my co-workers - no matter what business I was running - not even to take out the trash.
Wal-Mart really does not care about your fragile psyche and the need for someone to "help" you shop. The prices are low. So is the level of service. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
So I say to you, Mr. White Trash in the (typical) dirty wife-beater and even filthier blue jeans, coming up to Customer Service, elbowing aside an ever-so-patient woman trying to return a crapload of school supplies, acting like I ought to leap over the counter and help you, and then yelling at me "You better f****** get some help in Hardware because no one in this f****** store speaks English" -- that is really not going to remedy the situation.
Wal-Mart's prices are low because the staffing - the single area largest cost area where money is spent and resources can be cut - is at an absolute minimum. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
That very same can of paint you want mixed at 10 p.m. on a Sunday is going to cost you more at the local place - which is well-known around town for the level of service they provide. They'll smile at you, greet you in perfect English and give you tips on how to paint your house. You're paying for SERVICE as well as the merchandise.
At Wal-Mart, you're paying for a damn can of paint. Nothing more. Everything less. Service, knowledge, assistance in the English language. You made the choice to shop here. Your choices have consequences. Learn it, love it, live with it or leave.
If you want cheap prices, come to the Wal-Mart. If you want good service, go anywhere else.
I personally have nothing against hiring people who do not speak English. Someone has to do the work. However, I would not advocate putting them in positions that require customer interaction.
That said, I would estimate at least 70% of the associates at our store have only a minimal grasp of English. When I say minimal, I mean that they drag customers over to the native English speakers whenever they have questions.
The service is not a function of the language though - if I were managing a company, I wouldn't hire more than 1 in 20 of my co-workers - no matter what business I was running - not even to take out the trash.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Read it and return it
Old people suck.
Mean people suck.
Rude people suck.
People with entitlement issues suck.
Cheap people suck.
Scammers suck.
Lying, manipulative, dog-faced, eau de trailer cows who get their gigantic granny panties knotted into a pretzel-twist because I don't want to return their two-week old copy of "Soap Opera Digest" just suck like a Lewinsky-bot on full automatic.
ME: "Ma'am, I can't return that magazine." She's got a copy of some soap opera guide.
THUNDER THIGHS: "Why not?"
ME: "We don't accept book or magazine returns after 2 days." Long story, but basically someone returned $70 worth of magazines - some six months old - we don't sell at our store and someone was dumb enough to take them back.
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well, I have a receipt for it."
ME: "Yes ma'am. You bought this issue two weeks ago. We can't take it back."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well that's just crap. You get me a manager here right now."
ME: "Certainly." Sees a supervisor walking by.
ME: "Supervisor, do we take back magazines?"
SUPERVISOR: "No. Because people read them and then return them."
THUNDER THIGHS: "But I have a receipt." Not. The. Point.
ME: "But you bought it two weeks ago. It is not returnable."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well I bought one and forgot I had one and bought another one." We both think she's just lying out her copious bottom. So my supervisor decides to call her bluff.
SUPERVISOR: "Find the other receipt and we'll return it."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Wait a minute." Starts digging through purse. Opens wallet. Digs through purse again. Digs through wallet. Must have at least 50 Wal-Mart receipts. "I found it."
ME: Thinking ..... "what just happened?" ... did she ... she did. ... Damn. I think we just got served. Nothing to do but take it standing up and cough up the huge cash reward she worked so hard to earn.
ME: "OK. Here's your $2.86. Sign here please."
$2.86. What price is your dignity selling for?
Mean people suck.
Rude people suck.
People with entitlement issues suck.
Cheap people suck.
Scammers suck.
Lying, manipulative, dog-faced, eau de trailer cows who get their gigantic granny panties knotted into a pretzel-twist because I don't want to return their two-week old copy of "Soap Opera Digest" just suck like a Lewinsky-bot on full automatic.
ME: "Ma'am, I can't return that magazine." She's got a copy of some soap opera guide.
THUNDER THIGHS: "Why not?"
ME: "We don't accept book or magazine returns after 2 days." Long story, but basically someone returned $70 worth of magazines - some six months old - we don't sell at our store and someone was dumb enough to take them back.
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well, I have a receipt for it."
ME: "Yes ma'am. You bought this issue two weeks ago. We can't take it back."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well that's just crap. You get me a manager here right now."
ME: "Certainly." Sees a supervisor walking by.
ME: "Supervisor, do we take back magazines?"
SUPERVISOR: "No. Because people read them and then return them."
THUNDER THIGHS: "But I have a receipt." Not. The. Point.
ME: "But you bought it two weeks ago. It is not returnable."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Well I bought one and forgot I had one and bought another one." We both think she's just lying out her copious bottom. So my supervisor decides to call her bluff.
SUPERVISOR: "Find the other receipt and we'll return it."
THUNDER THIGHS: "Wait a minute." Starts digging through purse. Opens wallet. Digs through purse again. Digs through wallet. Must have at least 50 Wal-Mart receipts. "I found it."
ME: Thinking ..... "what just happened?" ... did she ... she did. ... Damn. I think we just got served. Nothing to do but take it standing up and cough up the huge cash reward she worked so hard to earn.
ME: "OK. Here's your $2.86. Sign here please."
$2.86. What price is your dignity selling for?
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Come outside and see my ID
There are times when people are who have obviously never heard the word "NO" in their lives simply lose their minds when they encounter that expression in Wal-Mart.
In their version of their entitled existence, deigning to shop at the Wal-Mart means we should be grateful for the shekels they throw at us as they parade in and out the doors wearing the trappings of upper-middle-class suburbia - namely khakis, Liz Claiborne for her, Ralph Lauren for him, knockoff designer handbags & sunglasses and a major attitude. Seriously, go to Target.
Wal-Mart wants to attract more "upscale" shoppers, but fails to realize that people with money are accustomed to paying for service - and expect it in a retail environment. Service is one thing you can't find at a Wal-Mart.
Guess what? If you don't have an ID, you're still not writing a check here.
I actually heard a woman scream this phrase at a manager: "I don't know why I need ID. I own a business. You can come outside and see my name on the side of my car."
She hollered, yelled, screamed and kicked up a fuss for 45 minutes. She called her husband, her daughter and probably 1-800-WALMART before pulling out a credit card and paying for a vacuum cleaner and some household items.
Maybe I should put "Bill Gates" on the side of my car and start writing checks for a couple million. It's the same logic ....
In their version of their entitled existence, deigning to shop at the Wal-Mart means we should be grateful for the shekels they throw at us as they parade in and out the doors wearing the trappings of upper-middle-class suburbia - namely khakis, Liz Claiborne for her, Ralph Lauren for him, knockoff designer handbags & sunglasses and a major attitude. Seriously, go to Target.
Wal-Mart wants to attract more "upscale" shoppers, but fails to realize that people with money are accustomed to paying for service - and expect it in a retail environment. Service is one thing you can't find at a Wal-Mart.
Guess what? If you don't have an ID, you're still not writing a check here.
I actually heard a woman scream this phrase at a manager: "I don't know why I need ID. I own a business. You can come outside and see my name on the side of my car."
She hollered, yelled, screamed and kicked up a fuss for 45 minutes. She called her husband, her daughter and probably 1-800-WALMART before pulling out a credit card and paying for a vacuum cleaner and some household items.
Maybe I should put "Bill Gates" on the side of my car and start writing checks for a couple million. It's the same logic ....
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The deli is CLOSED
So part of Customer Service is dealing with hacked off customers. One of those rolled up Saturday night just after 9 p.m. Idiot white people. You're shopping at the Wal-Mart. What the hell do you expect? They don't care about you - they just want you to drop some cash and leave. It's like drugs - but with cheap Chinese crap.
Deli Man: in an angry tone "Can you tell me what time the Deli closes?"
Me: "I believe the deli closes at 9 p.m. every day sir."
Deli Man: working up a head of steam "Well WHAT TIME is it now?"
Me: checks screen "Uh, it is 9:02 p.m. sir."
Deli Man: really hacked off "Well why, when I went over there five minutes ago, the lights were off and they were cleaning?"
Me: "I'm sorry sir." I wasn't going to argue, because there was no winning with this guy.
The answer, although I didn't dare tell him: They schedule the last Deli person to leave at 9 p.m., so all the cleaning and washing up has to be done and that person has to clock out at 9. Not 9:15, not 9:05 - NINE. So they have to shut down before nine to get the cleaning done. Stupid, but true.
Deli Man: "They ought to close at nine and then clean. " Yeah, and then people like you would demand service even though the lights were dark.
Me: "I'm sorry sir."
Deli Man: "I wanted to buy something and they said everything was put away." Well, were they lying? If they are telling you the truth is it really an issue?
Me: "I'm sorry sir. Would you like to talk to someone?"
Deli Man: "This is just the worst excuse for a deli I've ever been to. There is always a problem when I come in. Always a wait and they never speak English." And yet YOU STILL COME BACK!
Me: "Would you like me to call someone?"
Deli Man: "Yeah. You do that. I'm going to tell them how I feel."
*Management to the Service Desk for customer assistance* Minutes tick by. Customers come and go. I try to avoid the man. His eyes follow me like a money-grubber looking for a nickel.
Deli Man: "This person you paged, where is she?"
Me: "I don't know sir. She is the only person on duty right now until the overnight management team gets in."
Deli Man: "I've got to go. I've got cold stuff."
Yeah. In spite of being "so upset," he still bought a buggy full of stuff. A hundred dollars easy. Vote with your wallet, not your words. Your yapper never hurt nobody.
Deli Man: "You're gonna tell her, right?"
Me: "Yes sir."
Deli Man: "Because I'm real pissed off. I got bad service." Technically, you didn't get any service.
Me: "I'm sorry about that sir."
Deli Man: "That manager should be here. That's another thing. They never listen to their customers. You tell her that too."
Me: "Of course sir."
Deli Man: "Yeah. Tell her your deli needs to get better or I might stop coming and spending money here."
Wal-Mart isn't going to change until you do. If you're really that upset, go somewhere else. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this man would just not shut up and leave.
And yelling at me really isn't going to do much of anything except earn you a potential starring role on Behind the Counter.
Deli Man: in an angry tone "Can you tell me what time the Deli closes?"
Me: "I believe the deli closes at 9 p.m. every day sir."
Deli Man: working up a head of steam "Well WHAT TIME is it now?"
Me: checks screen "Uh, it is 9:02 p.m. sir."
Deli Man: really hacked off "Well why, when I went over there five minutes ago, the lights were off and they were cleaning?"
Me: "I'm sorry sir." I wasn't going to argue, because there was no winning with this guy.
The answer, although I didn't dare tell him: They schedule the last Deli person to leave at 9 p.m., so all the cleaning and washing up has to be done and that person has to clock out at 9. Not 9:15, not 9:05 - NINE. So they have to shut down before nine to get the cleaning done. Stupid, but true.
Deli Man: "They ought to close at nine and then clean. " Yeah, and then people like you would demand service even though the lights were dark.
Me: "I'm sorry sir."
Deli Man: "I wanted to buy something and they said everything was put away." Well, were they lying? If they are telling you the truth is it really an issue?
Me: "I'm sorry sir. Would you like to talk to someone?"
Deli Man: "This is just the worst excuse for a deli I've ever been to. There is always a problem when I come in. Always a wait and they never speak English." And yet YOU STILL COME BACK!
Me: "Would you like me to call someone?"
Deli Man: "Yeah. You do that. I'm going to tell them how I feel."
*Management to the Service Desk for customer assistance* Minutes tick by. Customers come and go. I try to avoid the man. His eyes follow me like a money-grubber looking for a nickel.
Deli Man: "This person you paged, where is she?"
Me: "I don't know sir. She is the only person on duty right now until the overnight management team gets in."
Deli Man: "I've got to go. I've got cold stuff."
Yeah. In spite of being "so upset," he still bought a buggy full of stuff. A hundred dollars easy. Vote with your wallet, not your words. Your yapper never hurt nobody.
Deli Man: "You're gonna tell her, right?"
Me: "Yes sir."
Deli Man: "Because I'm real pissed off. I got bad service." Technically, you didn't get any service.
Me: "I'm sorry about that sir."
Deli Man: "That manager should be here. That's another thing. They never listen to their customers. You tell her that too."
Me: "Of course sir."
Deli Man: "Yeah. Tell her your deli needs to get better or I might stop coming and spending money here."
Wal-Mart isn't going to change until you do. If you're really that upset, go somewhere else. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this man would just not shut up and leave.
And yelling at me really isn't going to do much of anything except earn you a potential starring role on Behind the Counter.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Your issues are not my problems
Let me take a second to say that if I am doing you the courtesy of a) looking you in the eye, b) attempting to smile, c) ignoring how much my feet hurt and how hungry I am, not to mention the fact that I didn't get a break and have been working the desk for three hours by myself and d) give you a pleasant greeting such as "How are you doing?" - you need to at least make an effort and minimally GRUNT IN MY GENERAL DIRECTION.
Slapping a backpack and an envelope on the counter and saying "I need to cash my check. Gimme a pen," is NOT AN EFFORT.
Then, when I politely inform you that we are unable to cash handwritten payroll checks, getting histrionic is even less of a correct response.
No, I really don't care that this is your "advance." You should have rolled out of bed before noon and hit the Wachovia or the Bank of America. Your issues, not mine.
No sir, you do not "always cash that check here." No sir, repeating that louder. Or louder is not going to make it any less false. Again, your issues, not mine.
No, I really don't care that you "got to pay your rent." I want an iPhone, but I wrote out my rent check and the check to my car insurance and the checks to my student loan people and to Florida Power & Light, T-Mobile and to Comcast. Guess what, I'm not gonna get an iPhone any time this decade.
Don't whine, pout, snarl and ask me "Well what am I supposed to do?" That whole entitlement thing is really unattractive - especially on bratty twentysomethings. PS: You're really not cute enough for me to care about.
I can't tell you to grow a pair and grow up, even though I want to. I've got to direct you to the Publix six miles down the road or to the Circle K about 9 blocks down. Not that they're going to cash it either, but it gets you out of my face.
If paying your rent was so important - you would have hauled your sorry smells-like-weed posterior out of bed and to a bank. Not made a stop at your dealer for a dime bag. Yeah, dude, everybody can smell it. I got a good hit off the fumes. Thanks for that. But I'm still not going to cash that check.
Don't come back now, ya' hear. And lay off the post-pot munchies. You're getting a freshman fifteen and college was a few years back.
Slapping a backpack and an envelope on the counter and saying "I need to cash my check. Gimme a pen," is NOT AN EFFORT.
Then, when I politely inform you that we are unable to cash handwritten payroll checks, getting histrionic is even less of a correct response.
No, I really don't care that this is your "advance." You should have rolled out of bed before noon and hit the Wachovia or the Bank of America. Your issues, not mine.
No sir, you do not "always cash that check here." No sir, repeating that louder. Or louder is not going to make it any less false. Again, your issues, not mine.
No, I really don't care that you "got to pay your rent." I want an iPhone, but I wrote out my rent check and the check to my car insurance and the checks to my student loan people and to Florida Power & Light, T-Mobile and to Comcast. Guess what, I'm not gonna get an iPhone any time this decade.
Don't whine, pout, snarl and ask me "Well what am I supposed to do?" That whole entitlement thing is really unattractive - especially on bratty twentysomethings. PS: You're really not cute enough for me to care about.
I can't tell you to grow a pair and grow up, even though I want to. I've got to direct you to the Publix six miles down the road or to the Circle K about 9 blocks down. Not that they're going to cash it either, but it gets you out of my face.
If paying your rent was so important - you would have hauled your sorry smells-like-weed posterior out of bed and to a bank. Not made a stop at your dealer for a dime bag. Yeah, dude, everybody can smell it. I got a good hit off the fumes. Thanks for that. But I'm still not going to cash that check.
Don't come back now, ya' hear. And lay off the post-pot munchies. You're getting a freshman fifteen and college was a few years back.
Monday, June 25, 2007
KY ain't just the state above Tennessee
Now, I've returned all sorts of things. Used pregnancy tests. Dead rosebushes. Condoms. Shrimp. Empty soda cans. Beef fat. You name it, I've probably return it. I'm just not all that hot on returning personal products.
Especially from middle-aged white ladies with an attitude. Women of a certain age! Anyway. Nobody needs three bottles of KY "massage oil." Nobody. No ma'am. It is not for "massage." Not in those quantities. IT SAYS RIGHT ON THE PACKAGE: "K-Y Touch Massage 2-in-1 Body Massage + Personal Lubricant." You makee with the whoopee. M'kay?
Anyway. All this started when she wanted to return three bottles of KY. Two were fine but one had the plastic stopper thing broken. So right off the bat, I've got personal lubricant in a lovely, charming unscented but still stank smell all over the counter and all over my hands. Thanks for that. Really.
This charming woman doesn't have a receipt. She's taken the KY out of the boxes. It actually doesn't look like the Wal-Mart brand - because everything Wal-Mart sells has a barcode the size of Texas RIGHT ON THE BOTTLE. I tell her this and she gets snippy. "Well I bought it here." Well, where's your receipt then?
O00000kay. Fine. My supervisor walks by and tells me that "those came in a three pack - she doesn't have three of the same flavor. Don't let her return them unless we sell them exactly like that."
I tell her she's got to produce the exact same thing off the shelf for me to return it. So she goes off to hunt for some more KY lube.
Meanwhile, my line backs up like a port-a-potty at a fat camp. She walks back up with three more bottles of lube and asks a man with a pair of shorts if she can cut in line.
HE TELLS HER NO!
"No. I've been waiting. You just gonna have to wait. I'm next."
He slaps his shorts on the counter and gives her a dirty look.
She stands there and looks at me. "Are you going to help me?"
"Ma'am, you didn't have a receipt and you removed the product from the box. Now, you're asking me to let you cut in front of all these people. That's between you and them."
And the next person in line WOULD NOT LET HER CUT EITHER. It was great. Dirty looks all around!
KY woman started yelling at my co-worker and at the other customers about how she has to leave and go do something and how she doesn't have time to wait. And how she hates Wal-Mart.
So instead of waiting - she just takes the new KY she had picked out and walks away from the counter. I don't know if she left or what. She for sure never came back. And no KY showed up at Customer Service until I left at 11 p.m. She probably went right out the door with it.
Especially from middle-aged white ladies with an attitude. Women of a certain age! Anyway. Nobody needs three bottles of KY "massage oil." Nobody. No ma'am. It is not for "massage." Not in those quantities. IT SAYS RIGHT ON THE PACKAGE: "K-Y Touch Massage 2-in-1 Body Massage + Personal Lubricant." You makee with the whoopee. M'kay?
Anyway. All this started when she wanted to return three bottles of KY. Two were fine but one had the plastic stopper thing broken. So right off the bat, I've got personal lubricant in a lovely, charming unscented but still stank smell all over the counter and all over my hands. Thanks for that. Really.
This charming woman doesn't have a receipt. She's taken the KY out of the boxes. It actually doesn't look like the Wal-Mart brand - because everything Wal-Mart sells has a barcode the size of Texas RIGHT ON THE BOTTLE. I tell her this and she gets snippy. "Well I bought it here." Well, where's your receipt then?
O00000kay. Fine. My supervisor walks by and tells me that "those came in a three pack - she doesn't have three of the same flavor. Don't let her return them unless we sell them exactly like that."
I tell her she's got to produce the exact same thing off the shelf for me to return it. So she goes off to hunt for some more KY lube.
Meanwhile, my line backs up like a port-a-potty at a fat camp. She walks back up with three more bottles of lube and asks a man with a pair of shorts if she can cut in line.
HE TELLS HER NO!
"No. I've been waiting. You just gonna have to wait. I'm next."
He slaps his shorts on the counter and gives her a dirty look.
She stands there and looks at me. "Are you going to help me?"
"Ma'am, you didn't have a receipt and you removed the product from the box. Now, you're asking me to let you cut in front of all these people. That's between you and them."
And the next person in line WOULD NOT LET HER CUT EITHER. It was great. Dirty looks all around!
KY woman started yelling at my co-worker and at the other customers about how she has to leave and go do something and how she doesn't have time to wait. And how she hates Wal-Mart.
So instead of waiting - she just takes the new KY she had picked out and walks away from the counter. I don't know if she left or what. She for sure never came back. And no KY showed up at Customer Service until I left at 11 p.m. She probably went right out the door with it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The caper caper
Raise your hand if you know exactly what capers are? Well, according to one extremely rude woman who came up in the Wal-Mart looking for a) capers and b) good service, I do now know what capers are. I did get some help from Wikipedia.
So, I'm stuck at the Service Desk by myself while the other three girls all got yanked off and put on registers because the Saturday afternoon herds of free range white trash rolled in from the far pasture for a good feed on the free samples and pick up a fresh supply of beer, Cheez Whiz and Pringles.
I'm trying to cash a paycheck for this guy while he's yakking away on his cell phone (PS: Your girlfriend is ugly and you're not cute enough for me to care about you!) I'm telling him "Enter your social." "Are you sure you did it right?" "Have you ever cashed a check at a Wal-Mart before?" when this woman just pushes the cart right up between the guy and the girlfriend and my register.
Literally. It was like one of those really evil freeway drivers who just nudges and nudges and keeps nudging in until you HAVE to let them in, because THEY ARE NOT STOPPING and OH MY GOD THEY WILL MAKE YOU HIT THEM! That's what this woman was like.
Totally ignoring the fact that I was a) right in the middle of a transaction with another customer, b) in fact in the middle of a SENTENCE, c) not even looking at her and d) her yellow suburban housewife pants and shirt set reminded me of a lemon meringue pie, she just waved her hand at the two people cashing the check and blurted out "Excuse me, but I have a question."
I go "One moment ma'am." She fires back "Well, no one here wants to help me."
I look at her. I look at the people cashing the check and they just sort of nod "OK, deal with the crazy woman," and so I ask her "What can I do for you?"
HER: "Do you know what capers are?"
ME: "Ummm, no? Aren't they fish?" Really, I don't know. I can cook, but I'm not a gourmet.
HER: "Well, I can't describe it, but I know Publix has them. You cook with them."
ME: "Um, well, where are they at Publix? Are they vegetables? Garnishes? Fish? What?"
HER: "No. They are garnish."
ME: "Umm. Look next to cocktail onions and spices Go ask a customer service manager. They have radios. They can get a grocery manager on the line."
HER: "Why is this so hard to find here? I know right where they are at Publix."
I swear to god. If she said Publix one more time I was going to ask "Why the hell aren't you at Publix?" If you want good service, go to Publix. You're gonna pay for it though. If you want low prices, come to the Wal-Mart. But it is self-serve. I still don't understand the cognitive disconnect. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
But we're not over yet. The supervisors get on the radio to a grocery manager, who finds the capers for her.
She goes over to grocery and finds some, then proceeds to come back up in an attempt to "educate" me.
HER: "These are capers. You garnish seafood with them."
ME: "That's good to know. I learned something today."
HER: "They're on Aisle Four. Now you'll know. And I won't have to walk around next time."
Lady, you don't know a fraction of what I DO know. Like the fact that right now I wish you were six feet under.
So I hope you don't have to walk around Wal-Mart next time. In fact, I hope you don't come back. I hope you're busy choking on a caper.
So, I'm stuck at the Service Desk by myself while the other three girls all got yanked off and put on registers because the Saturday afternoon herds of free range white trash rolled in from the far pasture for a good feed on the free samples and pick up a fresh supply of beer, Cheez Whiz and Pringles.
I'm trying to cash a paycheck for this guy while he's yakking away on his cell phone (PS: Your girlfriend is ugly and you're not cute enough for me to care about you!) I'm telling him "Enter your social." "Are you sure you did it right?" "Have you ever cashed a check at a Wal-Mart before?" when this woman just pushes the cart right up between the guy and the girlfriend and my register.
Literally. It was like one of those really evil freeway drivers who just nudges and nudges and keeps nudging in until you HAVE to let them in, because THEY ARE NOT STOPPING and OH MY GOD THEY WILL MAKE YOU HIT THEM! That's what this woman was like.
Totally ignoring the fact that I was a) right in the middle of a transaction with another customer, b) in fact in the middle of a SENTENCE, c) not even looking at her and d) her yellow suburban housewife pants and shirt set reminded me of a lemon meringue pie, she just waved her hand at the two people cashing the check and blurted out "Excuse me, but I have a question."
I go "One moment ma'am." She fires back "Well, no one here wants to help me."
I look at her. I look at the people cashing the check and they just sort of nod "OK, deal with the crazy woman," and so I ask her "What can I do for you?"
HER: "Do you know what capers are?"
ME: "Ummm, no? Aren't they fish?" Really, I don't know. I can cook, but I'm not a gourmet.
HER: "Well, I can't describe it, but I know Publix has them. You cook with them."
ME: "Um, well, where are they at Publix? Are they vegetables? Garnishes? Fish? What?"
HER: "No. They are garnish."
ME: "Umm. Look next to cocktail onions and spices Go ask a customer service manager. They have radios. They can get a grocery manager on the line."
HER: "Why is this so hard to find here? I know right where they are at Publix."
I swear to god. If she said Publix one more time I was going to ask "Why the hell aren't you at Publix?" If you want good service, go to Publix. You're gonna pay for it though. If you want low prices, come to the Wal-Mart. But it is self-serve. I still don't understand the cognitive disconnect. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
But we're not over yet. The supervisors get on the radio to a grocery manager, who finds the capers for her.
She goes over to grocery and finds some, then proceeds to come back up in an attempt to "educate" me.
HER: "These are capers. You garnish seafood with them."
ME: "That's good to know. I learned something today."
HER: "They're on Aisle Four. Now you'll know. And I won't have to walk around next time."
Lady, you don't know a fraction of what I DO know. Like the fact that right now I wish you were six feet under.
So I hope you don't have to walk around Wal-Mart next time. In fact, I hope you don't come back. I hope you're busy choking on a caper.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
More MoneyCard drama
So I sold my first Wal-Mart MoneyCard today.
Personally, I'm starting to feel a bit ethically conflicted about the MoneyCard thing - and about my time at Wal-Mart as a whole.
For starters, there is the whole "Do you want to put your paycheck on a Wal-Mart MoneyCard" question that the register FORCES us to ask EVERY SINGLE TIME someone cashes a paycheck. I literally CANNOT give them the money until they press "YES" or "NO" - and the customer is never looking at the debit reader.
So I have to be polite and ask the question for them - thus being forced to sell something that I personally don't agree with. I also usually have to explain the product - thus FURTHER selling it. "What's a MoneyCard?" "What's it do?" Etcetera.
And for the past two weeks, the replies to "Do you want a Wal-Mart MoneyCard?" have ranged from "What?" to "Hell NO!"
Today, a woman came in with the express purpose of getting one. I've been reading my little Wal-Mart "mini-guide to MoneyCards," so I was armed and ready. I knew the answers to all her questions about temporary cards, getting cash at ATMs, how much she could load, etc.
She asked how much it was. I told her it was $8.94 unless she was going to cash a paycheck. She goes "You guys are expensive." Get out. Go to a bank then.
So she decides to get a money card for the completely random amount of $137. Any significance is beyond me.
I give her the temporary card and the receipt and explain that she needs the activation code off the receipt. I explain that the permanent card will arrive in about 2 weeks. I tell her she can use our phone or the pay phone if she wants to activate the card now.
Now she's offended. "Why would I need your phone? I got a phone?"
"I just offered ma'am. Sometimes you need a land line with a touch-tone phone for activation."
"My phone IS touch-tone." And she does a hair flip and stomps off.
Bitch. Nobody said it wasn't. I hope you burn.
PS: Your ugly knockoff bebe black velour track suit should have been two sizes larger to accommodate your gut. You got junk in the trunk too, which is fine, but you need to shave the patch right above your crack.
Personally, I'm starting to feel a bit ethically conflicted about the MoneyCard thing - and about my time at Wal-Mart as a whole.
For starters, there is the whole "Do you want to put your paycheck on a Wal-Mart MoneyCard" question that the register FORCES us to ask EVERY SINGLE TIME someone cashes a paycheck. I literally CANNOT give them the money until they press "YES" or "NO" - and the customer is never looking at the debit reader.
So I have to be polite and ask the question for them - thus being forced to sell something that I personally don't agree with. I also usually have to explain the product - thus FURTHER selling it. "What's a MoneyCard?" "What's it do?" Etcetera.
And for the past two weeks, the replies to "Do you want a Wal-Mart MoneyCard?" have ranged from "What?" to "Hell NO!"
Today, a woman came in with the express purpose of getting one. I've been reading my little Wal-Mart "mini-guide to MoneyCards," so I was armed and ready. I knew the answers to all her questions about temporary cards, getting cash at ATMs, how much she could load, etc.
She asked how much it was. I told her it was $8.94 unless she was going to cash a paycheck. She goes "You guys are expensive." Get out. Go to a bank then.
So she decides to get a money card for the completely random amount of $137. Any significance is beyond me.
I give her the temporary card and the receipt and explain that she needs the activation code off the receipt. I explain that the permanent card will arrive in about 2 weeks. I tell her she can use our phone or the pay phone if she wants to activate the card now.
Now she's offended. "Why would I need your phone? I got a phone?"
"I just offered ma'am. Sometimes you need a land line with a touch-tone phone for activation."
"My phone IS touch-tone." And she does a hair flip and stomps off.
Bitch. Nobody said it wasn't. I hope you burn.
PS: Your ugly knockoff bebe black velour track suit should have been two sizes larger to accommodate your gut. You got junk in the trunk too, which is fine, but you need to shave the patch right above your crack.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Can you press credit? Can you shut up?
Hi. My name is Parvati. I'm your friendly Wal-Mart Customer Service associate. My Customer Service Manager just paged that customers with less than ten items can check out at the Service Desk because it is Sunday and our checkout lines are longer than a fat girl's lower intestine.
TEN ITEMS.
"We've got about fifteen things. They're they're all big items. Can you check us out?" Um, OK. There's not a line right now. And you got to help me bag.
Yeah. Big items like throw pillows on top of a cart FULL of little items. And tons of food. So much stuff the wife had to GO GET ANOTHER CART to start transferring the bagged stuff to it.
And while I'm sitting there gamely scanning all this with my gun - and they're trying to stuff all this in bags and going "Thank you for doing this," I'm thinking "You pieces of crap. You just lied to me and now I look like a fool in front of the huge line of customers who are all waiting for returns while I sit here and scan your crap." The final count? 47 ITEMS!
And while I'm trying to help the wife bag the last few things, the husband slides his credit card through the debit reader thing.
Now, after you slide the card, there is a message that pops up that says "Please tell cashier to hit 'CREDIT' key."
So this entitlement-junkie, who I'm currently helping bag his damn groceries, goes "Can you go ahead and hit CREDIT, we need to get home?"
I swear ... it took everything I had not to just haul off and slug him.
Don't get me started on the asparagus woman. No ma'am. I don't have a scale. No ma'am. I don't care that the asparagus costs "about a dollar-fifty a pound." I don't know how much you got. Fine. Leave it then. I really don't care. It tastes like grass and looks like a weed.
TEN ITEMS.
"We've got about fifteen things. They're they're all big items. Can you check us out?" Um, OK. There's not a line right now. And you got to help me bag.
Yeah. Big items like throw pillows on top of a cart FULL of little items. And tons of food. So much stuff the wife had to GO GET ANOTHER CART to start transferring the bagged stuff to it.
And while I'm sitting there gamely scanning all this with my gun - and they're trying to stuff all this in bags and going "Thank you for doing this," I'm thinking "You pieces of crap. You just lied to me and now I look like a fool in front of the huge line of customers who are all waiting for returns while I sit here and scan your crap." The final count? 47 ITEMS!
And while I'm trying to help the wife bag the last few things, the husband slides his credit card through the debit reader thing.
Now, after you slide the card, there is a message that pops up that says "Please tell cashier to hit 'CREDIT' key."
So this entitlement-junkie, who I'm currently helping bag his damn groceries, goes "Can you go ahead and hit CREDIT, we need to get home?"
I swear ... it took everything I had not to just haul off and slug him.
Don't get me started on the asparagus woman. No ma'am. I don't have a scale. No ma'am. I don't care that the asparagus costs "about a dollar-fifty a pound." I don't know how much you got. Fine. Leave it then. I really don't care. It tastes like grass and looks like a weed.
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