Entry 24: Paint it Black
I've had passing thoughts about putting a webcam into the store, so that all of you might have the chance to have a glance at what I deal with on a semi-daily basis. The main problem would be that the only internet access I have in the place would be the MSN DSL INTERNET CENTER(R)(tm)(c) with blistering speeds of less than, maybe equal to, 56K. The other problem would be that the manager would never go for it, so I might as well scrap that idea right now.
I've had a surplus of people that come in and get angry when I refuse to return an item, saying that they need to confirm it with the manager the next day. Not the happiest people in the world. I mean, I guess I could understand getting a little peeved about wasting a trip to America's favorite electric krap store, but yelling at a part-time worker for not overstepping his bounds just seems really obnoxious to me. Maybe it's because I'm that part-time worker.
The other day I had a very jerkish black girl, of the "speak to the hand" variety, come in with her crutchedy old father, and try to return an activated Sprint PCS phone. Even though I still probably would have told her to come back and ask the manager, seeing as how it's not all that simple to resell an activated cell phone, there was this one little thing that really pushed me over the edge. Her instruction manual was mutilated and had pen scribbles throughout, looking as though it had been handled with extreme prejudice by either a three-year old, or someone near that mentality. Anyway, I of course told them to see the manager, as I believe I have stated several times already. They of course resisted.
The conversion went something like this, as best as I can remember with the headache I'm suffering through:
"You'll have to see the manager."
"Oh NO you are not telling me dat. You are going to take this thing back, because I talked to him already, and he said I just had to be getting my manual and he'd take it."
"Yeah, he didn't see the manual."
*clicks tongue* "I don't see what the manual has to do with THE PHONE. THE PHONE is fine. THE PHONE is only a few weeks old. Look at this receipt. LOOK AT IT. No returns after 30 days. It has only been a few weeks. You have to take it back."
"Look, I'm just a part time employee. You're going to have to talk to the manager."
(father steps in)"Now you just hold on there. I didn't buy this from a manager, how come I have to return it from a manager?"
*blink*"... because... you're returning damaged merchandise."
(girl)"Damaged nothin'. This is the MANUAL. The MANUAL has nothing to do with the phone. I know you can send off for a new one."
"So you want me to spend money to order a new manual for this phone?"
(father steps in) "Now, I used to run a store... and... and we used to return things if people had a reciept."
*blinks* "Even damaged merchandise huh?" (at this point the girl is slamming her stuff on the counter and preparing to leave)
(father)"Now... now... the phone isn't damaged. She's not a happy customer, and she should be able to return the phone."
"I-can't-re-sell-the-phone-like-that-sir."
(father)"The manual doesn't.. doesn't matter when you're buying a phone. Everything important is there..."
"...So by your logic I could paint the whole damn box black and wipe my nose on the warranty, and then return it for a full refund?"
"I don't see how anything but the phone matters... you should be able to retur..."
"Okay sir." I walked off to help another customer.
Entry 23: Religious commentary a day late
Sorry about the whole not updating on Sunday, but seeing as how only about seven people read this, and they were all on vacation, no big loss.
I don't know if working at RadioShack is a huge sin, it may very well be, but we're handed a lot of religious pamphlets by people who wander into the store from time to time. I guess they have an overabundance of them, or they give them out to everyone they see, or something like that. It doesn't make you feel particularly well when someone looks at you and says, "This guy looks like someone that's going to hell. I think I'll give him some literature." I mean, it's probably accurate to some degree, but there's a fine line determining when you point it out to someone. Do you tell a stranger he has a booger hanging out of his nose, or just wash your hands of the matter? Tough call.
We had a guy come in and hand a pamphlet to one of my coworkers, detailing his life, containing a semi-relevant bible verse every couple of lines. Apparently this guy used to live a sinful life, being lead guitarist for Hank Williams Jr. We all know what a wild and crazy life that must have been, and the pamphlet says that he even drank a few beers. Well, when this guy's best friend Skull was murdered, he became a Christian and started making pamphlets to tell his story. His name and address are on the back, saying that if you convert to contact him so that he can celebrate with you. Other high points include a picture of him and Andy Griffith (sp?), and a cover photo with him and Hank in the flesh.
VIEW BAD SCAN OF COVER PICTURE!
It was actually some of the better reading I've had, as the other handouts have actually been religious comics, designed to get the "hip" young crowd to enjoy religion. What's sad is that many denominations use this technique, and they're almost identical, save the (un)existance of purgatory. They all start off with a generic character, he is shown commiting sins that the "hip" young crowd is believed to commit, and then he's punished. Since the reader shows a character like them being thown into the eternal flames of hell, they suddenly join the religion, due to something I call the "fear factor." I'm supposedly going to hell for everything from leaving the toliet seat up, to finding Nala in The Lion King a little attractive.
Anyway, I made my own comic, since I didn't have one to scan in our piece of KRAP RadioShack scanner. Go there now!
Entry ???: RETRO DAY!
I don't really have any good stuff to ramble about today, so we're going to time warp back about a year ago to a top notch story. Ready? Let's go. *cheap wave effect*
I was standing at the front counter when a man whose face shone of either age, or excessive involuntary twitching, walked in with camoflauge pants and a torn T-shirt. I think it had something to do with wrestling, the shirt I mean. Anyway, the guy hunched over the counter and whispered something about wanting to go somewhere where he could speak "freely." I stared blankly, and he sighed like he had already explained twenty times, "Do you have a back room or something?"
I stared blankly again, "Why?"
He glanced over his shoulder at something that didn't seem to exist, "I can't say here... Do you have a bathroom?" After staring at him for a while he insisted that he had to pee really bad. I started to lead him to the bathroom, simply because I had no earthly idea what else to do with the guy. Once we walked through the doorway leading to the backroom, where the bathroom happens to be located, he darted behind a storage shelf of calculators and flashlights before screaming, "COME ON!" I blinked. "I'm FBI," he flashed a plastic badge rather quickly before putting it back into one of his several pockets, "I need a CB antenna and I need it quick." He pushed me aside to glance nervously out the door.
"Okay... follow me."
Apparently my walking pace wasn't fast enough for him, because as soon as he saw the section we were heading for he clasped my right elbow tightly and told me to hurry up damnit. The whole time he was looking over my head, out the door, again at nothing that I could see.
"Please don't touch me sir."
His eyes got wider, "I...I...I'm sorry. It's just... I'm very tense. There's people... I... where's your antennas?" I pointed. "Good... I'l take... uh...," he glanced around again, shoving me aside to get a better view, "THIS ONE!" I grabbed the random choice he had made and started to walk it up to the counter, but once again he grabbed me, "NO! NO! Can I... use your bathroom again?"
"Don't... touch... me... sir."
"I'm sorry... I just... I don't know... I need to use the bathroom." He headed to the back, and I followed. I found him in the same hideout he had chosen before, rifling through his pockets, eventually arriving at the right one. That "right one" had a bank envelope in it with multiple thousands worth of one hundred dollar bills. I'm estimating on the thousands, but it's a relatively good guess. That's what I assume a thick stack of hundred dollar bills is worth. He showed his badge again for some reason before running out the store, or course after getting his change.
One of my friends said he's had the same guy in Eckerds, more recently, so I assume he still hasn't been killed or anything like that. He told my friend that he is the one guy in the world that he can trust... and he asked him when he got off work. How in the hell can a golf resort attract so many nut jobs?
Entry 21: It has a head.
You know, working without a day off for five days straight isn't something I'm used to. It takes its toll too, as you may imagine. On Tuesday I got up, went to school, then worked for six hours; smiles came easily. On Wednesday I got up, went to school, worked for five hours; still doing fine. By Thursday I was smiling, but my eyes were glazed over, and the corners of my mouth tended to tremor from time to time. The next day I would black out in the middle of helping a customer, and find myself helping another when I came to, five minutes of my life having vanished. On Saturday I told people to get their own damn batteries.
I think Dilbert's getting tired of working as well. In the past few days he's used everything from an optometrist appointment to ingrown toenails in order to escape helping customers. He actually left one day because of that damn toe. Right now the manager is on vacation, so Dilbert has decided it is his job to sit in the back room and act important, pretending to sort orders and the like. I have to applaud him for that one though. He doesn't have to deal with all the psychos, and he convinces the owner that he's hard at work. Once the manager gets back he'll kick Dilbert back out onto the sales floor, but for the time being Dilbert gets to sit back there on a chair and claim he's "handling the repairs."
As some of you may know, Bellsouth is now Cingular Wireless. It's not that big of a change, except that now their commercials don't make sense, sporting fat dancers and such, and they have an orange stick man as their logo. If you haven't seen it, you can now by clicking HERE. You'll see what figure I'm talking about. He's the one spurting off some bull about self expression being possible because of a cell phone. I've got into arguments about whether or not he has a head--he does.
We had herds of people coming in looking for minutes for those damn phones, as the official office in Harris Teeter blew up or something, and we really didn't have any to give them. Even though we've ordered both minute cards and phones several times, the only thing they seem to want to give us is a few packs of $20 and $50 cards. So, these herds of people were forced to either spend more than $10 for a card, or deal with not being able to "express themselves." A lot of them took the third option: Bitch and moan.
One black woman came in and started yelling at my coworker about how our cards aren't what she needs because they say Cingular instead of Bellsouth. He explained her to that those are all we have, and that those are what she needs, but she didn't relax at all. She just kept screaming, and telling him to call Harris Teeter to make sure. She eventually called Harris Teeter using our phone, and ordered my coworker to describe the card to them, so that they could verify. She definately had an attitude, seeing as how all these actions were done with bobbing head movements and a voice that could shatter glasses one's senses. At some point she went into this long rant about how if she wasn't able to talk to her friends this weekend that it was his fault, and that there was no way she was going to buy something unless he found out if it was the right thing or not. Of course my coworker told her that she could either buy it or leave, that it wasn't going to hurt his feelings either way. She clicked her tongue and bought a $20 card, then turned back around and said, "No. Give me my money back now." He put the twenty bucks on the counter and she stormed out, slamming the door. He informed the confused, angry woman that she was to have a nice day. The thing that really amazed me though is how calm she was later that day when she sheepishly slinked back in and said that she needed a card for her phone "please." Apparently she realized that no where has minutes for her phone but us. Maybe her lack of phone usage had taken away her ability to "express herself" like a jackass. I don't know. I'm going to stop writing now because I'm bored. See you Wednesday.
P.S. Bris Cettini's Resume (Link at top of page) has been viewed by employers four times.
Entry 20: *insert something here*
I just got out of the store, finally. With about twenty minutes to go until closing time I made the mistake of telling some guy that was rambling to me about HAM radios that I had no idea what he was saying. Instead of taking the hint that I neither know about, nor care to know about, his life's passion, he decided to give me a lesson in the history of radios. He decided to do so with a nasally, jargon filled, incomprehensible speech. I just kind of stared blankly at him, trying to make it apparent to him that I don't care why he thinks vacuum tubes are better than transistors, but it didn't work. I can see how HAM radios might have been interesting to me at one point, what with their ability to connect you to people around the world, but I've got the internet to do that now, and it doesn't require me to learn morse code.
Earlier today I had a guy come in that is infamous to everyone that works with me for talking forever. Every time he drives up to the store the clerks attempt to find a way to look busy, the only way he gets any "help" is to sneak up behind one of us and catch us off guard. Today he managed to catch me, and he asked about computer speakers. The dialogue went something like this:
"Yes sir, the speakers are right here... this one right here is the cheapest, and it's really not going to deliver any better quality than a pair of headphones laid on a tabl--"
"So this one's your favorite huh?"
"...No sir, these are the cheapest you can get, they're the only ones that don't have battery driven amplificati--"
"So they don't need batteries huh? That's good. You know, I need to get some batteries for this tape recorder I have. That's one of my life goals--solving all those unsolved murder mysteries we have around here. You put this in your pocket and you tape them talking, and you can get them to say anything you want. I've already got one of them solved I think. You didn't know that we have all these murders around here did you? *LISTS OFF CRIMES FOR 10 MINUTES* See? My sister just went to Colorado... Know what they're doing up there?"
"N--"
"They're shooting eachother in the head. *Makes shooting motion with hand* They do drugs all over the place up there. Your generation is in big trouble. You know why?"
"N--"
"Because crack gets stuck in your neck, but they won't tell you that. When you do crack it stays in your neck for the rest of your life, sending signals to your brain. It keeps telling you to get some, but you might not be able to, because you don't have the money, or you don't know where it is. But someday someone will say, "Do you want crack?" and the signals will go to your brain and you'll get some more. You can't rehabilitate people like that. Do you know what me and my friend over in Richmond say is the only solution?"
*blinks*
"You shoot them in the head. I live in an area where all the crack addicts live, and that's good because they don't rob me, because they know I don't put up with it. One day some guy came up to my room and knocked on my window and I stuck my gun up to the window and he said, 'Don't shoot me.' I didn't have bullets but I didn't tell him that. I have a box of bullets--so this is your favorite speaker?"
*Blink* "Uh..."
"Oooh. How much is that strobe light? I could hook it up to the sensor outside my house and scare people..."
At that point I managed to sneak away to the backroom and wait it out until he left. Given that what I wrote here is basically a word for word representation of what he said (minus a few tangental subjects), you can't blame me for sneaking off. He's come into the store many times and talked about stuff like spying on his neighbors, and changing the diapers of some crusty old lady (in detail). It's an understatement to say that he make me uneasy.
Wandy the rat boy's parents bought him a 2001 Mustang. Wandy the rat boy loves that car. He buys it stuff all the time, and what he doesn't spend on "souping it up," he spends on insurance and gas. The other night a deer ran into the side of his vehicle. I think he cried.
Entry dix-neuf: The phone.
A competent employee, that worked at Radio Shack before I arrived, once disguised his voice to that of an old woman, and called the store. Wandy the rat boy answered the phone. It was a while ago, but the ledgendary conversation went something like the following:
"Radio Shack, how may I help you?"
"...yesss...Do you sell batteries?"
"Yes ma'mm..."
"Do you sell batteries for viiiiiibrators?"
"I-I'm not sure mamm. What type of battery is it?"
"It doesn't say... I can't get it out... if I bring in the vibrator could you get it out for me?"
"Um... no ma'mm. If you can get someone else to get the battery out we might be able to find it for you."
"Could you install it for me?"
Anyway, you get the general idea of the conversation, and you would usually think that ol' Wandy would catch on immediately that it was a joke. The sad reality is that it wasn't all that abnormal of a call. You think I tell you about some freaks that actually come in the store, we've got some real winners that just decide to call. And now, since I can't think of any better format in which to bitch about that subject, the top ten list of annoying things to do over the phone to a Radio Shack employee. It probably won't have ten entries, but whatever...
1."Hello... is this Radio Shack?"--Regardless of how clearly you enunciate the greeting, "Radio Shack, how may I help you?" some old fart always shoots back that confused response. What's really annoying is when they say that three or four times in a row, because each time they ask, your affirmative answer gets a little louder, and more hostile. Customers in the store tend to stare when you're screaming at the top of your lungs, "YES, FOR THE LAST @#$% TIME, THIS IS #%&$*@!@&**& RADIOSHACK!"
2.Calling to see when we close--The most common type of phone call, and therefore the most annoying. When you answer five calls in a row, with each one going: "When do you close?"
"Eight."
"Eight o' clock?"
"...yeah."
"I thought you closed at nine."
"No sir," it tends to get on your nerves a little bit.
3."Could you do me a favor?"--What often follows #2 is the question, "Could you stay open long enough for me to get there? It's an emergency." As tired as I am at the end of the day, I still don't have the heart to tell them to screw off, that they can't get their AA battery tomorrow. So, we usually end up telling them that we'll stay open for them, and then we close real fast and try to make it out of the parking lot by the time they show up.
4.Random Info--I have people call up and ask the phone number and name of the computer store next door. I've had people call to ask if the McDonalds across the street is open. Why the hell do they do this? Because of our damn slogan, that's why. We have answers--bullshit. One particularly interesting question was, "How do I get from the ABC store to where you're at?"
5.Lazy--There's a certain amount of help that you are entitled to recieve when calling a retail store. You can ask if we have something in stock. You can call to ask if the manager is working that day. You can not call to ask me to tell you everything I know about cell phones. The same goes for satellite dishes, and don't you dare call and ask me to guide you through hooking up your VCR. People are lazy, so they decide to call in and get twenty minutes worth of a sales pitch over the phone while actual customers need to be helped. They refuse to let me hang up.
6.I guess it's a top 6 list. I'm tired of bitching--When we're busy helping people, and can't answer the phone, people let the damn thing ring until we answer. I swear that people wait on the line for at least thirty rings before we're able to break away from a customer and answer. Thirty unanswered phone rings are enough to make you go crazy. What urgent question did the person on the other end decide to torture me into running to the phone over? It's always one of #1-5.
