Psychopath Customer

This is the story of the worst customer I've ever, EVER had.

The middle-aged woman came in one day, spent an hour in the store, and asked lots of stupid questions that she had no business knowing the answer to. ("Why are you sweeping the floor? What kind of broom is that? Why don't you use a vacuum? How often do you clean the bathrooms? When do you get your next shipment? How long does it take you to put it away? It shouldn't take you that long. What's the ceiling made of? It's not lead, is it? I read that lead is poisonous. I don't let my children use pencils anymore because I don't want the lead to poison them.) ETCETERA!!! Her 14-year-old accompanied her as she looked around the store; her 6-year-old went his own way and generally wrecked the store. They left after buying a small item.

Fine, she's gone, hopefully I'll never see her again.

Wrong.

Later that day they came back. We had a shipment of stuff to put away, cleaning to do, and other customers to help, yet she spent 90 minutes with one employee!! She ended up spending approximately $150, which while large, isn't a huge sale. My employee was nearly crazy by the time the HOUR AND A HALF was up, then the cashier's line backed up as the woman continued her stupid questions there.

"Why are your counters white? I like blue better. What kind of computer is that? Do you have games on it? Why not? I think you should have games for my son to play why I shop. How does your credit card machine work? Why is the paper that it prints out white? Don't you think white is a boring color? You don't? That's strange." And it continued for a while, such that I had to open another register and the normally super-friendly cashier became surly and replied with one word answers.

Again, she's gone. We can get some work done. Let's hope she never comes back.

Shortly after she left, an employee brought me an empty package that was on one of the shelves. So, someone stole something. That's nothing new. We try to watch people as much as possible, being VERY helpful to suspicious-acting people, but we can't stop all theft. "Put the package in the back with the other stolen stuff."

TO BE CONTINUED