Unfiltered Story #152479

(I’ve recently been pulled off the floor and put in customer service, which also handles the bookkeeping for the store. I had all of two days of training before the head of customer service went on a two-week vacation. It’s a demanding job, often a stressful one, and I got a fraction of the training nearly everyone else received. This was maybe my fifth day.

Customers can pay their bills, do money orders, and play or cash out lottery. I’ve never bought a lottery ticket in my life, so I had to learn it all from scratch. Most customers are polite, but some are jerks and rattle off a complicated list of tickets as fast as they can, and get testy when you ask them to repeat what they want. I had been doing lottery all morning when the machine suddenly disconnected from the server.)

Me: Uh, [store manager]? The lottery machine isn’t working?

Store Manager: Damn it, it always does this. *restarts the machine* It could take anywhere from ten minutes to a half an hour to actually reboot, I hate this thing.

(About five minutes later an older customer storms up, and I can tell from his face he’s going to be difficult. He’s one of several of our male clientele who are incredibly condescending to younger female employees.)

Customer: I want *rattles off complicated order before throwing a scratched-off bundle of games on my counter* and take it out of those winners.

Me: *goes over to see what the lottery machine is doing, and it still reads ‘synchronizing.’ I wince, as my nerves are already raw and he was not going to be happy with my answer* The machine is rebooting, I’m not sure when It’s going to be back up.

Customer: *stares before repeating his order slowly, like I’m stupid* and take it out of those winners.

Me: We had to restart the machine, I don’t know when it will be up and running, I’m sorry.

Customer: *to the store manager and the assistant manager working on the back computer behind me* DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO USE THE LOTTERY MACHINE?

Store Manager: *comes over* It’s disconnected from the server, we’re trying to get it back online.

Customer: *Repeats his order a third time* and I want it taken out of those winners!

Store Manager: The machine is DOWN. We can’t physically make it connect to the server!

Customer: Why didn’t you just say so? You should have just told me that so I could walk away! *takes his tickets and leaves*

Store Manager: *to me* Isn’t that what you told him?

Me: Yeah, but what do I know, I’m just a dumb clerk.

Third Manager: *Opens the door to customer service* DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO USE THE LOTTERY MACHINE? Yeah, we all do ya dumb f***, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s not cooperating.