(I work at a gun store and indoor range, family-owned, and was reminded today why it’s the best retail job in the world. Receptionist #1, a Southern-born woman who takes no nonsense from anyone, comes into the back office while several of us happen to be there for various things, including two supervisors. She’s holding a new handgun case and a firearm sales packet, which contains all of a customer’s personal contact information, and she is not happy.)

Receptionist #1: “This little…” *holds up the packet* “This man just yelled at [Receptionist #2] on the phone about something I already left him a message about a week ago, and I have been trying to call him back for the last ten minutes to tell him that you do NOT aggress at our people. Listen.”

(She takes out her store phone, dials the customer’s number, and there’s instantly a busy tone over the speaker.)

Receptionist #1: “He JUST hung up with [Receptionist #2], and now his line is busy for ten minutes straight? Nuh-uh. No. I don’t buy it. I’m just going to keep calling until I get through to him. I don’t care.”

Supervisor #1: *previously distracted* “Wait, he yelled at [Receptionist #2]?”

(Receptionist #2 is a sweet girl and new, including to the firearm industry in general, and she’s still learning the job. She’s understandably not very assertive with customers yet. It may be worth noting that few people are stupid/brave enough to behave rudely in person in a gun store. It’s almost always over the phone.)

Receptionist #1: “Apparently he was screaming. It’s like, what do you not understand about a NATION-WIDE ammo shortage? So I am just going to keep these-” *indicates the gun case and sales packet* “-in the back, so I can keep trying to call him, because that is not okay. You do NOT aggress at US, SIR.”

(The sales packet shows that it was an online order and that the man hasn’t come in yet to do his firearm background check. As I’m one of the people who works on conducting background checks and releasing firearms to their owners – major ordeals in California – she’s basically telling us at sales and the supervisors that he will have to go through her before he can even start the process of acquiring his new firearm, which cost him hundreds of dollars upfront, plus over $100 more in state fees and our current, non-refundable handling fees. We are to refuse him further service until we’ve taken him to task for mistreating our workers.)

Supervisor #1: “Okay.”

Me: “Man, why don’t I ever get these calls? I’ve been WAITING for it! I’m SO ready to deal with these people!”

Supervisor #2: “Put them in their place?”

Me: *excited* “YES!”

(Everyone laughs.)

Receptionist #1: “Come work at reception. You’ll get them all the time.”

Me: “Too bad for them. This isn’t Walmart. We don’t put up with that here.”

Receptionist #1: “Exactly!”

(A short while later, I’m back at the sales counter with two of our managers, doing more background checks, when Receptionist #2 comes by to ask about some paperwork.)

Me: *before she leaves* “Hey, [Receptionist #2], if you ever get a mean call and [Receptionist #1] isn’t there, you can bring it to me, okay? I’ll handle it.”

Receptionist #2: *surprised* “Oh, okay.”

Manager #1: *looks up* “Mean call?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Manager #1: “Oh, or just hang up on them.”

Me: “Or that!”

Receptionist #2: *looks back at him like she’s not sure if he’s joking*

Manager #1: “I’d be okay with it.”

(Manager #2, still filling out forms, just smiles and nods without looking up. Outside Californian government stupidity, I love my job. I’m sure it won’t be long before Receptionist #2 sheds her corporate culture conditioning and learns to embrace the power of “No.”)

I am tutoring math to a 6th grade student.

Student: *quietly snarking to himself as he’s working through a problem* “Math is so annoying. When am I gonna use this anyway? Never. That’s when.”

I can tell by his tone he is just letting off a bit of steam and he’s not being completely serious, so I stay quiet and let him vent. However, I am totally not prepared for what he says next:

Student: “Well, maybe I will use it one day. Maybe twenty years from now I’ll be working an amazing job that I wouldn’t have gotten if I didn’t know math. And then maybe I’ll feel really lucky that I put it all this work. And I’ll feel really lucky that I got you as a tutor, and I’ll want to thank you for teaching me all this stuff. Actually I already feel pretty lucky for that, so I should probably thank you right now. Thank you [my name].”

Me: *feeling my heart completely melt into my toes* “Awww, I should be thanking you. Thank you for how hard you work and how much you try, and for being such a good student. I really, really appreciate it.”

I was smiling for the rest of the day. I love my job, but some days I really, *really* love it.

(My family and I are in the theater waiting for the movie, when a man comes in with five elementary school-aged kids. The kids sit in front of us with an empty row between us, and the man tries to decide where to sit.)
Me: “You need to sit behind them, right in the middle, so you can Gibbs-smack them if they act up.”
Boy: (Turning around with a big grin) “You’re an Instigator!”
Me:”Darn right I am!”
(I don’t know if it was the big word, the fact that he was telling off an adult or both, but he was rightfully proud of himself.)

At one of my previous jobs, I quickly became the only person who ever changed the toner in our large, ancient, HUGE high-volume photocopiers. This was largely because I read instructions and actually looked at the little pictures conveniently located inside the machine doors, and therefore could change a toner cartridge or waste toner bottle in five minutes and still have clean hands, instead of taking half an hour and spilling toner everywhere.

Then I went on holiday for two weeks. I made sure everything was as prepared as possible for my absence; all the machines were running well, I had shown several people how to change the toner and refill paper, etc, and the maintenance phone number was posted on every machine and every wall of the photocopier room. I was still not very surprised when I came back to find the biggest machine not working.

I asked around. Apparently it had “mysteriously stopped working” a few days after I had left. Oh. Well, what did the maintenance guy say? You did call maintenance, right? …No. Nobody had called maintenance.

Repair technicians generally like to have a better idea of what’s wrong than “it don’t go” before showing up, so I had a look. Well, the toner was empty, but that didn’t explain the other error code… fuser error? I pulled out the large cylindrical fuser (which is nowhere near anything you have to mess with to change the toner, for the record) and discovered that it was shattered, with several chunks missing. There was also an opened box with the still-sealed new toner cartridge in it, shoved back into the stack of spares. Someone had tried to change the toner without looking at the instructions, pulled on a random handle, yanked the fuser unit all the way out, DROPPED it, shoved it back in, closed the machine up, and gone off to pretend that they had no idea why it suddenly wasn’t working. And not called maintenance, possibly thinking that the technician would be able to magically tell who had stuffed things up so badly.

Maintenance came. They weren’t any more amused than I had been. As it turns out, fuser units for obsolete high-volume photocopiers are very expensive and have to be special ordered, which takes weeks. Everyone who complained about the biggest photocopier being down for so long got the full story, with editorial comments about how ridiculous it was to just start pulling on things at random when clear instructions are right there on both the toner box and the photocopier, and the Anonymous Fuser F**kwit became a frequently sworn-at identity in the office.

That incident was part of office legend for years, and told to every new hire as This Is Why You Read Instructions Or Ask For Help. I hope the Anonymous Fuser F**kwit cringed inside every time someone brought it up.

(While I was pregnant, I found a great deal on a crib and glider chair on a nationwide store’s website. I believe one or the other was being discontinued, and they had bundled both items for the sale. So I snapped it up while I had the chance.

I got all the email confirmations and shipping details just fine, but when the truck arrived, they only unloaded the crib, and had no knowledge of the chair that was supposed to be shipped as well.

So I went to the website to find a customer support email. And the website sent me in circles: Contact Us led to a FAQ/Help page, where the answers relating to missing shipment pieces did not “answer my questions,” so I clicked on “Contact Us” at the bottom of that, only to be redirected (again) to the FAQ page. I ended up having to Google search “(store name) contact email” or something like that. The email chain went basically like this:)

Me: I ordered (brand/style) crib and (brand/style) glider as a bundle from your site on (date). The order was shipped to me on (other date), but I did not receive the glider. The delivery driver doesn’t know anything about it; is it being shipped separately or just missing? My order number is (order number).

Support: I understand that your product came with missing parts. I have found options for you. You can either return the entire item for a refund, or call our merchandising center directly at (phone number) to request they supply the missing part.

(Well… not a missing piece. An entire item. But okay. I called the merchandising center, and they gave me a number for the manufacturer. I called that number, but apparently the number they gave was actually for an unaffiliated sales company located only in another state, so obviously they didn’t know anything about it. So back to email.)

Me: I attempted to reach out to the manufacturer, but was unable to find a correct number for them. Would you be able to reach the manufacturer for me?

Support: I’d be happy to assist. Since you already called the merchandising center and didn’t resolve your problem, I’m going to escalate this to our Customer Resolution Team.

CRT: Your issue was escalated to me, and I will be glad to assist you in any way I can. What was your issue?

Me: (basically a more in-depth repeat of the first email)

CRT: Okay, we’re going to refund your first order and issue a replacement order. Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.

(Email confirmations came through, but worryingly, the shipping information was identical to the first, crib-only, shipment, other than the date of delivery.

A few days later, the delivery truck arrived on my street again. With bated breath and fingers crossed, I waited and watched as they unloaded… a box with a different shape! Success!)