Can you read? Or listen?

Hnnnnnrgghhh!

That's the sound of utter frustration and contempt that I feel all too often when people present forms to me that haven't been filled in properly or aren't supported by the required documentation.

Allow me to elaborate.

Mail redirections are a particular source of wrongness and therefore irritation. Whenever we hand out a redirection form, we make a point of telling the customer to fill it in and bring it back with some ID/documentation and then we point to the list of acceptable ID and tell them what we need.

Invariably this is totally ignored.

Several days later, said customer will return with the form but no supporting ID. I don't want to be a jobsworth here but (pompous/serious hat on here) it is really rather important that mail isn't redirected fraudulently. If any old idiot could arrange for someone else's mail to be sent wherever they wanted no doubt we'd never hear the end of it. But no, we're being awkward that we can't process a redirection just on their say-so that they are who they claim to be. Fraudsters have been known to tell the odd fib here and there you know.

Only today a woman came in to do a redirection. Predictably enough, she didn't have any ID at all. I pointed out the list of stuff and told her we needed something from list A and something from list B on the form. Thirty minutes later she returned. Again, predictably enough, she hadn't read the list correctly and had bought the wrong stuff.

*sigh*

It's at this point that the customer gets annoyed at me personally because it's my fault that

A. We need proper ID to process this redirection
B. She's too stupid to listen to instructions
c. She's too stupid to read things properly.
D. She's fat and ugly and stupid.
E. She's going to have to walk home and then walk back here again and then walk all the way home!!! (she needed the excercise though, see point D.)

I soooooo love it when customers resort to getting stroppy when they're not getting their way. The number of times I've been tempted to turn round and say something along the lines of:

"Now that you put that argument to me so eloquently and reasonably, I'm going to change my mind and say a big "fuck you" to the rules and common sense and process this application. Clearly it is far too difficult to read and/or listen to instructions that are there for a bloody good reason. A big strop is certainly the best way of getting you own way. Congratulations on being terribly grown up and everything.

Oh wait, I've changed my mind again. Kindly shove your attitude up your arse and fuck off."

I never have but whenever I have a difficult customer, you can bet I'm thinking it.

Needless to say, the customer who I was serving stormed off and said that she'd send it off instead. I neglected to point out that she'd need to send off the same stuff with her application. Oh well.

Stupid things that people say.

This is the first in, no doubt, a long series of stupid things which people say to me all the fucking time.


"Can I have some stamps please?"

Of course you can you moron, this is a fucking Post Office. What did you think we sell? Secondly, can you be a little bit more vague? How many stamps? What sort? Please don't make me winkle out each detail one at a time. Also, if you commit the cardinal sin and say "Whatever," you're gonna get a book of 100 1st class stamps. Why? Cos I make a load on the commission.

Pricks.

Please don't cry.

Despite my best efforts not to (no, really) I've managed to make a couple of customers cry recently. I even managed to feel some sympathy for one of these customers. Not much, granted and I did try to surpress it as soon as possible but there was some. It took plenty of scalding showers to wash away the dirty feeling but I finally got rid of it.

Let me explain, the customer I felt a bit of sympathy for was a young and attractive lady (it's amazing how much better I'll treat customers if they have pleasing looking lady bumps). She was trying to tax a car that she'd just bought, having recently written off her last one (lady drivers eh?). Sadly, she didn't have the correct paperwork and I had to refuse the transaction. This set her off crying. But due to the breasts, the fact that she didn't get stroppy with me and the fact that she genuinely seemed to have been having a bit of a shit time of it recently, I did feel a bit sorry for her. Alright, I admit it, it was entirely due to the funbags.

The second crybaby, I had no sympathy for whatsoever. Frankly I was almost glad that I'd upset her and it was through no fault of mine either. Hurrah! Firstly, she was old and ugly so she was never going to engender any goodwill in my "special place". Secondly she came in on a friday afternoon at twenty nine minutes past five. This meant that our quick escape had to be put on hold and needless to say (although I will anyway) this annoyed us a bit.

Her: "I need this parcel delivered tomorrow."

Me:"I'm sorry (LIE!!), but our last collection was at 5 o'clock so the earliest we can get it delivered is monday."

"But I rang the customer care line and they said that the last collection here was 5:30."

"Unfortunately, they've misled you, the post has already gone."

"But they said that the collection was at 5:30"

"As I said, they were mistaken."

"But I need to get this delivered tomorrow. The customer line said you'd be able to do that. I asked them where I could get it deliverd tomorrow and told them that I could go anywhere."

"If you take it to the mail centre in our local metropolis, they're open til eight and they can get it delivered tomorrow for you."

"I can't go there!! I've got children."

*sigh*

"Well, in that case, monday is the best you're going to get."

"But I need this delivered tomorrow. I was up until three this morning finishing this off. And I was told that you could do that here."

*bigger sigh*

"I'm sorry, but we can't (huge lie, about being sorry that is, not being able to do it was actually true)."

"mumble, grizzle, cry etc."

*flounces out*

Jesus H Christ, if that item was soooo important then why leave it til the last minute before sending it? If she'd been 30 seconds later, she would have saved herself all that aggro and getting worked up cos we would have been closed. Also, I get it, the customer care line made a mistake, repeating that fact isn't going to make any difference. What did she expect? "Oh, now you come to mention it, there is another secret collection that only the call centre monkeys know about. But we can only tell people about it if they constantly go on about it to us." I don't really care if you were up until three that morning finishing it off. Perhaps that was why you were so grouchy. Finally, what has having kids got to do with not being able to make a 20 minute car journey for something that is apparently realllllly important. You know what, I've got kids and I went to our local metrpolis just the other day. It was easy.

Silly bint.

I'm back and I'm pissed off.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I'm a lazy bastard.

As I type this, our forgetful priest is in and asking my colleague whether she's going on holiday (his usual question to any of us except my Scottish colleague). My colleague has just (uncharacteristically cos she's usually very tolerant) asked whether there was a polite way of telling him to bugger off and mind his own business.

However, the priest is a mild irritation compared to the customer who I served first thing this morning. A regular customer sent a few items off and then tried to pay for them with his credit card. For some reason, my till told me that I had to retain his card. There was no question about it being a fraudulent or stolen card or anything but if I'm told to retain the card then I'm gonna do it (I was only following orders).

Naturally, you don't in this situation tell the customer that you need to keep his card and then ask him to pass it to you. For some reason, they tend to say no and take the card back. A little bit of subtlety is required. I asked him to pass me the card for a moment. He did and it was at this point that I told him that I had to retain the card. He wasn't best pleased. He asked why but I couldn't tell him cos I didn't know. He got more and more worked up and then demanded a receipt for it. I'd already passed him one and told him so (getting a bit worked up myself at this point). At this point a large number of toys were thrown out of the pram and he got the right arsehole that I'd dared to raise my voice. "There's no need to get ratty!" said the pretty angry customer hypocritically. By now I was pretty fuming cos I hate stroppy customers doing this sort of thing. It's fine for him to get pissed off and shouty but woe betide me if I show any signs of irritation. I've just got to stand there and take it and say thank-you for the privilege. YAY!!!

Sense prevailed cos I decided that and apology would be the best thing to offer even though an apology was what I was due from him. Apology uttered I was expecting things to calm down.

Nope.

"You can speak to me sensibly or not at all."

He said in an even more stroppy manner. Another apology and the old "I've had a stressful morning, I shouldn't take it out on you, sorry etc. etc."

"You and me are gonna have a falling out."

Another apology. He was wrong though. I've already "fallen out" with him. Stroppy cunt.

Then I had to bring up the subject of him paying the outstanding balance that he owed.

Oops.

This didn't go down well either. Eventually, I got the money and got rid of him.

However, it's soured my mood for the rest of the morning. I had to have a nice long rant to Mrs Popurnoinplz to try and get it out of my system. It mostly worked.

It really pisses me off that customers feel that they can lose their rags as much as hey want and we just have to stand here like punching bags and take it. If it weren't so bad for business, I'd be tempted to fight back (in fact I have once and that went rather badly, a future update will explain). Admittedly, some shop staff do deserve to have a rocket up there arses now and again but in the main there's usually no justification for customers having a major ep. In fact, it's usually counter-productive. A polite customer with a complaint will get much better treatment than a shouty one.