Long ago, I had just started working in the “Self-Service Lumberyard” at a big box home improvement store. We weren’t allowed to tie anything down to a customer’s vehicle, because too many people wanted a twenty-foot piece of lumber on top of their Geo Metro, and we would be super-liable for whatever damage that caused, flying off the car or rounding a turn or whatever.
One day, as I was working, a guy sent his wife in, in their small car (not a car person, but “compact” would probably be a generous sizing for it) to get a ridiculous amount of building materials.
She handed her pickup ticket to an employee.
Employee: “Okay, so which part of this would you like on your first trip?”
Customer: *Insistent.* “Nope, I’m taking the whole order. My husband said I could do it all in one trip.”
She drove to different spots in the yard to pick up the landscape blocks, fence posts, and whatever else was on her list. A couple of our guys filled up the trunk and the backseat with the things, and that car was SAGGING.
Then, she parked by the warehouse because she didn’t want to drive anymore.
Customer: “When are they going to bring out my concrete?”
Other Employee: “There’s no way! You’re not even going to make it home with what you have now.”
She insisted over and over. She called her husband on the phone, who insisted that we load it. We called the store manager, who came outside and said:
Store Manager: “Sure, we’ll load it, just step over here where we have audio and video recording… now, ma’am, what would you like us to do?”
The store manager also spoke to her husband on the phone:
Store Manager: “And, sir, would you like us to load thirty bags of concrete into this car?”
Both customers were fed up and angry that we were jerking them around, so an employee brought out a pallet of bags of concrete mix (60 lbs each). They stacked them on top of the rest of the load in the backseat, so high that the rear window was blocked. Then they put about ten into the passenger seat and floor, and had to balance the last few wherever they could, like in between the seat and the door.
We watched in awe as the car headed to the guard shack to check out. I hadn’t been personally involved with any of it, but the buzz was going around, so we were all watching.
The gate guard, who was responsible for checking that the items in the car matched what was written on the pickup order, radioed the store manager:
Gate Guard: “…Uh, I can’t see all of this to count it.”
Store Manager: “It’s all there, just mark it 100% picked up.”
He did so, then raised the gate arm.
The car proceeded forward and got maybe two car lengths past the gate, when SNAP! That’s what we were waiting for.
The suspension had broken in half, and all kinds of parts went through the floorboard. Again, not a gearhead, so I don’t know the specifics, but the car was no longer going anywhere. Somehow, it managed to be off to the side enough that other customers could exit, while also not blocking in any employees, who sometimes parked in that area.
She went marching inside to scream at the store manager, who met her halfway and said something to the effect of:
Store Manager: “Guess you’ll need to call hubby for a ride home?”
He wouldn’t accept the items back as a return either because he wasn’t going to have our payroll hours used to unload the car in the parking lot and restock everything, plus a lot of it would probably be unsellable.
Later that day, the husband came in with a friend and the friend’s truck, and they made two trips, taking all the materials home.
Then he came back in the store every single morning for a week, demanding the store buy them a new car (grossly overinflating the value of said vehicle, but that didn’t really matter at this point). The store’s general manager obviously said no, so he tried a different person every morning, trying to get someone to admit fault or say yes. I believe on the final day he showed up, he was trying to get our carryout/cart wrangler to tell him that the store would reimburse him.
I guess they weren’t so dumb, though; she did only make one trip.
