Oooh, Red And Rectangular…

(I receive a call from a customer.)

Customer: “Hi, I saw this book on television and I was hoping you’d have it in stock…”

Me: “Why, sure, ma’am. If you can just give me some more details, I will look it up on our computer.”

Customer: “Well, it was on Oprah recently, and it was a red book. And it had an award for it or something.”

(I check through our database of books that were recently shown on TV. Nothing comes up that remotely fits that description.)

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not seeing anything on our computer. Our company gets a list of books that are on television recently, and I can’t seem to find it. May I ask when you saw the particular episode?”

Customer: “Yeah, it was about five… maybe six-ish… years ago. Come on, do your f****** job. I already told you it was red! Find it already!”

Me: “Um, I’m sorry, ma’am, but this only lists books that were shown within the past two to three months. I can do a normal search if you can give me any other details, such as the author or genre–”

(She cuts me off.)

Customer: “F*** you! It’s RED! It’s rectangular! DO YOUR JOB AND FIND IT FOR ME OR I’LL HAVE YOU FIRED! YOU’LL NEVER WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!”

(I just stopped talking and handed the phone to the manager on duty. I could hear the woman still frothing at the mouth, even as I walked quickly away from the phone! From what I hear, of course, we never figured out what it was, but she hung up eventually, screaming all the while she’d have our store torn down for being such incompetent people.)

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