Unfiltered Story #231764

(I’ve been working for over a year and a half at a large furniture/home goods store. I am a part timer but am one of the more frequently working therefore know my job inside and out but don’t have manager authority. There is a couple looking at a pastry slab.)

Female Customer: This one, do you have any more of them? * gestures to the slab *
Me: This is the only one in stock up here but I’d be happy to ask one of our stock associates to check.
Male Customer: That would be helpful
Me: * about to call on the radio * Hi, do you copy on a stock ch—
Female Customer: That’s the wrong price. I saw it for four dollars cheaper in your catalogue.
Me: *checks online and on our instore browser * No, this is the correct one but we have catalogues over here. *shows them the catalogues where it’s marked for the same price* now if you have our in store credit card you could earn ten-percent back in reward points.
Male Customer: We have that but we don’t have our card with us, you can look up our account?
Me: Certainly. I’ll have it brought up and then you just type some information into the screen and you do need to have your ID.
Female Customer: Why would we go anywhere without our IDs?
Me: *jokingly* Well, it’s much easier when you have them.

(I do a check but it comes out negative. I tell them that they could take the marble slab off of the display or wait for one with different colorings. They decide to wait and they would come and pick it up the next month so I set up the sale.)

Me: Okay, so we have the item and it says that it will be later this month. Now, can I get your last name, first name, and zip code for the order.
Female Customer: Why do you need that, it’s in our account.
Me: The credit card account isn’t a customer profile account, we still need to get this information for every person who buys with us. I understand you’d like to use the account to pay but I do need to get your name and zip code to do a hold on the incoming product.
Male Customer: *says something in a very heavy Indian accent that I don’t get*
Me: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that, could you spell your last name for me?
Male Customer: *spells it but because of his accent I don’t know if it’s an A or an I*
Me: Was that A-A?
Male Customer: *says the letter again but I still can’t get it*
Me: *types in the double A but it doesn’t come up with any results, to put the I in I would have to restart the entire transaction. At that point it didn’t seem like a big deal*
Can you tell me if that looks correct?
Female Customer: No, you spelled our last name wrong.
Me: I’m very sorry about that, it was an I instead of an A wasn’t it
Female Customer: Yes, I as in India.
Me: Let me correct that for you. Now all I need to know is your phone number and your street number and name so that we can make sure you are —-
Male Customer: *gives me the information and it seems to be going smoothly*
Me: Great. We have all the information here, now when the item comes in how would you like to be contacted? Would that be through email, text and email, or would you like us to call you?
Male Customer: Okay it’s —
Female Customer: I don’t want more emails. No, I don’t know why you typed our information in there. I don’t want to be bombarded by store emails. Why are you trying to set us up on another account?
Me: If you don’t want to be emailed about this piece coming in then I could put down that you’d prefer to be phoned. You would only receive one email that the piece is in stock and then a reminder email if you hadn’t picked it up.
Male Customer: I’d prefer the email.
Female Customer: What are you saying? Now we can’t have the email? Of course I want to be emailed about the piece when it comes in since emails are easier to check.
Me: Then what is your email address?
Female Customer: You’re trying to sign us up for another account with you. Are you stupid, I knew that you couldn’t spell but are you unable to read and write and follow instructions as well.
Me: I assure you that I accidentally spelled your name wrong and I have changed that. I am sorry about that. Even if I had spelled your last name correctly, you would still be asked what the best email to contact you would be. This is not signing you up for another account, this is just for us to provide notification that we have your item for you to pick up.
Female Customer: I knew that they just let anybody uneducated work these jobs but this is ridiculous. I don’t want to be signed up for a new account —
Male Customer: Wait, I didn’t know I was getting a new account, no I thought you told me that we could just put in information from our own account.
Me: This is your own account. If you really want to, I can go back and set it all up again but it wouldn’t make a differ—
Female Customer: I don’t want to work with you anymore. Get us somebody else to help us. Pick up your radio and call for somebody else. Do you not know how to use your radio?
Me: You are welcome to go to another register but you will have to track down an employee yourself as I am the only one in this particular area. It would take them even longer to process the transaction as all I need is your email and payment.
Female Customer: I highly doubt that they will have as much trouble as you. I’m surprised that they haven’t fired you yet, you don’t have any skills and need to be retrained.
Male Customer: Why are you not using my account?

(by this time a lot of my coworkers have poked their heads in to see that this woman is really tearing into me and has become uncomfortably aggressive and I’m just standing there with a neutral expression since I’ve dealt with this before.)

Me: I didn’t receive any details from your account and if you would like to go to another register feel free. All I need from you to finish the processing of this order before payment is an email address or I can set it up for them to phone you, either option is available. This is not on your account. This information is not used for anything other than notification of a certain item, you will not be getting additional emails not on this piece.
Female Customer: That’s it. I’ve had it, you’re not going to be making a sale today.
Me: Are you sure that you’d like to void the transaction? (I’m not paid by commission so…)
Female Customer: Yes, I’ll order it online. How hard is it to find some good service. I mean this isn’t rocket science *makes a rude gesture to indicate how stupid she thought I was* that we’re asking you to perform. Even somebody with your limited capabilities should be able to do this.
Me: Ma’am, I graduated from UC Berkeley and am currently working towards another degree but I do apologize for the inconvenience. You’re right, this situation isn’t rocket science and I hope you are able to order the product online. Have a good day.
Male Customer: *uncomfortably* Have a good day.

(after this everyone tried to make sure that I was okay about the rude way I had been treated. I just shrugged it off but knowing the type of people who act this way in our stores, before I headed home I spoke with one of the managers and told him what had happened in case she did want to call to complain about me.)