Ballooning Demands

(Saturdays are our busiest days for filling balloon orders for parties of all sorts, so we usually have clusters of balloons placed in large bags, lying to the side of our counter for customers to pick up.)

Customer: “How much are your balloons?”

Me: *trying to fill a balloon order* “They’re $1.29 apiece, unless you choose over 20. If you decide to order 20 or more, they’re 99 cents apiece.”

Customer: “And how much would 30 be?”

Me: “Well they’d be 99 cents, so that’d pretty much be around thirty bucks.”

Customer: “And if I got a balloon bouquet? How many would be in that?”

Me: “Depends on how many you want.”

Customer: “But how many are in a bouquet?”

Me: *pauses* “How many do you want?”

Customer: *getting irate* “How many are in your bouquet?”

Me: “There’s no set amount. You choose however many balloons you want, and then we make the bouquet from that.”

Customer: “So if I just wanted one balloon?”

Me: “Well, you would have to choose more than one to make a balloon bouquet, but if you want to make a bouquet of one, you can.”

Customer: “Okay, I’ll take 90.”

Me: “Okay.” *pulls out order form* “When would you like to pick it up?”

Customer: “Excuse me?”

Me: “I’m sorry. What day are you placing the order for?”

Customer: “Right now.”

Me: “Ma’am, we can’t do it right now. If you can’t tell, Saturday is a busy day and we have seven more orders to fill within the hour. At best, we can have it filled in four hours, maybe three. There’s no way we can fill it right now.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “Because all these other customers have pre-ordered and pre-paid for their balloon bouquets to pick up within the next two hours, that’s why! We can’t just stop on theirs to fill your order.”

Customer: “Well, give me some of theirs!”

Me: “No, we can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to just take their balloons to give to you. We’d still have to fill that order. It would set us back heavily.”

Customer: “But I need them soon!”

Me: “Okay. When do you absolutely need them and what are you needing?”

Customer: “I need 90 balloons in [different color balloons] for my son’s birthday. It’s going to be in an hour.”

Me: “Wow. Okay. You really should have come this morning, or even yesterday, to put your order in. I will talk with my manager to see what we can do.”

(I talk with manager, who says we can try to do it within the hour, but the woman will have to cut her order in half. I relay this info to her.)

Customer: “WHAT? No way! I want 90 balloons!”

Me: “We just can’t fill that order right now. There’s no way we can get your balloons filled along with all these other orders at the same time!”

Customer: *glares at me* “I want to talk to your manager.”

(I call my manager over and go back to filling balloons. My manager apparently talks her down to 50 balloons and promises to try and have it filled within an hour. Ten minutes later, we catch the woman trying to steal 3 other bouquets that have been pre-paid for. When we stopped her, she stomped on one of the bags holding a larger balloon bouquet and popped 11 balloons. She didn’t get any balloons from us and now is barred from our store.)