Losing My Mind

Sometimes I think customers are TRYING to make me lose my mind.

I was going through some job applications at the front counter, trying to find a few decent ones, when a lady came up to show me her receipt. According to her, she bought 1 of an item but was charged for 3 of them (5 days ago, I might add). Hmmm……really…….I looked at the day and time of the transaction and who the cashier was. That cashier is usually very good, but we did have someone from another store filling in that day who may have used her register a little. I asked the lady if she remembered who rang her up, and she didn't know. Didn't know a name, didn't know even a general description. Tall? Short? Hair color? HELLO! Do you have eyes? Do you pay attention? Or are we just robots to you?

Hmm…….I excused myself to do a return and override a price, asked the cashier if she remembered the lady (no, it was 5 days ago, she's had 1000+ customers since then), then called my boss. I explained the situation and that the cashier didn't remember the lady and how I found it doubtful that someone could ring in 3 of the item when only 1 was being bought. PLUS, if I was a customer and my total came to $40 over what it should have been, I think I would have noticed. My boss had me check our catalog to see the maximum we carry of that item (6) and the shelf to see the on-hand count (2), so she could have bought 3. But am I going to argue with her? Can't do that. Have to return the 2 (in the computer, obviously the actual product isn't there) and hope that she's not conning us.

So I return to the front, apologize for the delay, ask her to call problems to our attention sooner next time, and ask for her ID and credit card to refund the $40. As I was finishing I asked if she needed a copy of her original receipt (since I have to keep the original). Yes, because she wants to make sure that things are applied to her discount card correctly. I looked at the receipt and noticed that her discount card wasn't scanned. I told her this, and she complained about the employee's incompetence some more, because she gave the employee her card to scan. I again asked her if she could remember WHO the cashier was so that I could make sure this doesn't happen again, and again, she insisted that she didn't remember. She continued in a whiny voice, "So I'm not going to get credit (on the discount card program) for the 3 items?" I thought, "A-ha! I've caught you in a lie!" "Ma'am, you said you only bought 1 of that item." "No, I bought 3." WHAT?!

At that point she went to the shelf to check something and I was beginning to find the whole situation quite funny. I called the person from the other store who had been filling in, hoping she could shed some light on the situation, but she didn't remember the lady either.

The lady returned to the counter with 3 item names and prices written down. "These are the items I bought," she said. The situation began to make sense. She was charged for 3 of the same item when she really bought 3 similar products that are obviously different items—drastically different color packaging, different manufacturer. However, all of my employees know that different yet similar items have to be rang in separately for our inventory/ordering systems to work properly. Oh, I bet I know what happened. The items were rather bulky, so she might have lifted one up and said, "I have two more in the buggy" but not mentioned the fact that they were different. The customer said that it was busy when she was in, so the cashier might not have looked down to see the different items. Anyway, I looked up the item numbers and charged her for the 2 items that she got and ended up owing her about a buck. What a hassle, though! After she left I went to the break room to take some aspirin for my stress-induced headache, drink some caffeine, and eat dinner.