Fourth Time Is The Charm

(The studio I work at has an order turnaround time of about a week. Customers can pay to have their orders shipped to their home, or they can pick it up at our studio for free. Our hours are a little strange: we are closed on Tuesdays, we close for an hour midday for lunch, and we close two hours before the store that we are located inside. A woman rushes in to pick up her portraits.)

Customer: “You’re here!”

Me: *confused* “Yes, I’m here… Are you here for a pickup?”

Customer: “Yes! Finally! This is my fourth try!”

(I’ve had people complain about our hours before, so I brace myself to deal with her anger.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

Customer: “Oh, no, no, no. It’s not your fault at all. I mean, could you guys have made it any more obvious for me?”

Me: “What?”

Customer: “Well, when I called on Friday to see if my order was in, the nice girl on the phone reminded me that you closed for the night at 7 pm. I forgot that really quickly because I showed up at 7:45 to a dark studio!”

(She’s laughing as she tells me the story and I start to laugh with her.)

Me: “Well, yeah, we do try to remind people that we close before the store.”

Customer: “Exactly! Then, I tried again on Monday and I came right after you guys left for lunch!”

Me: “Yeah, I know the lunch break is weird…”

Customer: “You need to eat! And look! It’s printed right here on my receipt!”

(She puts her receipt on the counter. It’s got her pickup slip attached to it with our hours printed on it. By now she is laughing hysterically at herself.)

Customer: “She even highlighted it for crying out loud!”

Me: “That is quite a saga!”

Customer: “It gets better! I came in on Tuesday!”

Me: *face-palm*

Customer: “In addition to that also being printed and highlighted on my receipt, there is literally a sign RIGHT THERE that says you’re closed on Tuesdays! You would think I’d have been here enough times by this point to know that.”

Me: “Wow…”

Customer: *still laughing as I give her her order* “I mean you guys tried to hard to make sure I came when you were open and it still took me four tries.”

Me: “I’m sorry you had to go through all that!”

Customer: “Trust me… you are not the idiot here.”

(I love it when people are self aware.)