Causing Bay-hem

(Unfortunately, customers often receive gift cards from another popular chain of movie theaters as gifts, as they are sold in retail stores as preloaded gift cards. So we often get this sort of thing.)

Customer: “Two for [Movie], please!”

(The customer places a gift card for our competitor on the register.)

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we are [Theater], not [Competitor], so I cannot accept this card.”

Customer: “You’re kidding, right? My grandma got this for me! It says right on it ‘cinemas.’ See?”

(Shoves gift card in my face.)

Customer: “CIN-E-MAAAAS. Right there. And it’s all going to the movie company anyway, so you should take it.”

Me: “I can’t accept gift cards for another theater. I’m sorry.”

Customer: “Why not?”

Me: “Because your grandma paid money to our competitor for this gift card, and you’d be getting tickets from us for free.”

Customer: “But the movie company will pay you back.”

Me: “That’s not how this works, sir.”

Customer: “Give me the number for the movie company.”

Me: “I don’t have that, sir.”

Customer: “Yes, you do! They pay you to work here. Give me the number of the movie company!”

Me: “[Theater] pays me to work here. I can give you their corporate number if you wish.”

Customer: “Yes! GOD!”

(I give him the number to corporate and proceed to hear him yelling into the phone that he wanted to speak to ‘Steven Spielberg or Michael Bay or one of those guys.’ The worst part? Just to shut him up, they authorized a free replacement gift card for him, which I was forced to honor at that time, and the whole time the man was mumbling about how he was right and ‘at least the directors understood him.’)