Retail Memories/Nightmare stories

I just posted these on the PE facebook page, for some reason these two incidents popped into my head.

Thought it might make for an interesting thread. Do YOU have a customer memory or nightmare? I am certainly not limited to two : )



Retail Memory #1- back in the 90's, when we had a retail store:

Teen buys a juvie leopard gecko, beautiful animal. Calls back a month later- "it won't eat, it must be sick."

Hmmm, bred here at PE, I know it is a terrific animal. "Bring it on down, I can take a look at it".

teen- "Be right there!"

I see him roll up on his skateboard 20 minutes later, terrified leopard gecko standing on the front of the board.

teen- "We go for a ride every day!"

me- "I think I know the issue..."


Retail Memory #2- back in the 90's, when we had a retail store:

Customer buys Ball python. Bred here at Pro Exotics, terrific animal, feeds every week.

Customer calls two months later- "This snake won't eat!"

"Ok, let talk about your setup and husbandry..."

Customer describes a pretty solid setup, leaving me with a "Hmmmm". Then they casually mention-

"It does try to bite me a lot, and I don't like that. I usually put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes after it bites, for punishment."

me- "I think I know the issue..."

Well what's he supposed to do, just let the snake bite him?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BrandiR

Well what's he supposed to do, just let the snake bite him?

---

Are you serious?

When I worked at Petco, my manager pulled me over to talk to a customer, and then he ran to hide in the office. This woman was yelling that we wouldn't sell her a bearded dragon because she looked poor, and we just wanted her money. Backstory... she's homeless. She's been homeless since the first time I saw her pushing a target shopping cart around that Petco store nearly 3 years ago... It's not that she looks poor, it's that she literally has no place to put the bearded dragon, even if she had the money to purchase one. She's tried shoplifting on multiple occassions, and I've seen her causing problems in 2 other stores around the city.. Her name is Gigi... and she insists that everyone working at Petco is in the Screen Actor's Guild, and that to buy an animal, you must also be a member because it's "all a sham!". She also was yelling at the top of her lungs that Petco had Cobra eggs in cryogenic chambers in the back room... she's seen em'!


She ended up getting escorted out of the store by another manager, who proceeded to pull all her stuff out of our shopping cart and hand it to her, telling her not to come back.

.....

True story. You asked for crazy retail stories, right? Well Gigi is as insane as they come.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrew21

Are you serious?

---

Ha ha! Absolutely not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BrandiR

Ha ha! Absolutely not.

---

Good! I was pretty worried.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrew21

Good! I was pretty worried.

---

When mine tries to bite, I just flick her on the head. 10 minutes in the freezer = Genius!

(That was a joke too, BTW)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BrandiR

When mine tries to bite, I just flick her on the head. 10 minutes in the freezer = Genius!

(That was a joke too, BTW)

---

When my Ball Pythons poop in the wrong corner of their tubs... I rub their nose in it!

One of my corns got away from me and went into a lazy-boy recliner. It took a long time to get her out and she was dusty. So I gave her a bath, but it was mostly punishment. Haha! I wish I could potty-train them. They always poop in the furthest corner of their tub from me. Makes for a difficult cleaning.

P.S. Sorry for going off-topic. :oops:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FoxReptiles

When my Ball Pythons poop in the wrong corner of their tubs... I rub their nose in it!

---

Sometimes mine hisses at me. I point my finger in her face and sternly say, "NO!"

As funny as this is, we're jacking a great thread here. I want more retail horror stories!!

When I was twenty I worked at a gas station midnights, a drunk dude came in and was stumbling around yelling random things to me and pushing things off the shelves trying to find the chips he wanted to go with his Red Bull, any way he found it all stumbled to the counter and i had to swipe his card two times on the second swipe he went crazy saying I was trying to over charge him and started pounding on the counter and asking the other customers if they see what's going on and how I'm robbing him. Once I asked him to sign the slip he ripped it up an three that and the pen at me. So I pulled out the big ass bat from next to the safe and said he can keep acting like a :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: or just walk out :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlson

When I was twenty I worked at a gas station midnights, a drunk dude came in and was stumbling around yelling random things to me and pushing things off the shelves trying to find the chips he wanted to go with his Red Bull, any way he found it all stumbled to the counter and i had to swipe his card two times on the second swipe he went crazy saying I was trying to over charge him and started pounding on the counter and asking the other customers if they see what's going on and how I'm robbing him. Once I asked him to sign the slip he ripped it up an three that and the pen at me. So I pulled out the big ass bat from next to the safe and said he can keep acting like a :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: or just walk out :)

---

Ah! You reminded me of a good one! I worked at a jewelry store and a drunk Guy came in and wanted "the most expensive diamond earrings you got!" Yay me!
He gave me a phone card for payment :) I politely pointed out his error. So he got back into his wallet and gave me...a Subway card. At this point, I could no longer stifle my snicker. My boss stepped in and suggested he leave and come back some other time. He walked to the front of the store and plopped against the wall where he promptly passed out.
Awesome.

The drunks I've seen while working midnights are what fill my memories of working at that gas station. I watched a drunk lady hit a drunk guy (lady was 45ish guy was 23 maybe 24) with my broom. They were out in front of the store where I had just finished sweeping. I had to go inside to help some customers and from what I was told the guy asked the lady to preform a certain act for him and she got angry like only a drunk lady can and grabbed my broom and hit the kid right in the head haha didn't hurt him much big broom not enough speed behind it but he played it like it was the worst thing ever and she stumbled off down the street to the next bar. Gotta love a town with more bars then any other kind of store

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlson

The drunks I've seen while working midnights are what fill my memories of working at that gas station. I watched a drunk lady hit a drunk guy (lady was 45ish guy was 23 maybe 24) with my broom. They were out in front of the store where I had just finished sweeping. I had to go inside to help some customers and from what I was told the guy asked the lady to preform a certain act for him and she got angry like only a drunk lady can and grabbed my broom and hit the kid right in the head haha didn't hurt him much big broom not enough speed behind it but he played it like it was the worst thing ever and she stumbled off down the street to the next bar. Gotta love a town with more bars then any other kind of store

---

I grew up in a really small bar-type town. I worked at a party store when I was 18. I saw my share of drunken freaks! How embarrassing to see them at Sunday family dinner :)

Drunk customers make for the best stories later. Well, except for skateboarding gecko and freezer snake. I thought both of those were pretty good.

My husband and I own a bar. I'm not even going to start with the drunk customer stories...lol

When I worked at petland though, I got pulled out of the back to help a customer with beardies. Everyone was snickering and huddled around the corner because they couldn't keep a straight face talking to the women. She was wearing a completely see through dress. No undergarments to speak of. She ended up buying a juvenile bearded, and everything that went with it. Full spectrum lighting, climbs, basking rock (actual rock, not heat rock) vitamins, everything. She came back in every week to buy crickets and other bugs for him, always brought him in to see me (happy to say he was fat, happy and nicely colored) and always wore a see through dress...

We had a crazy or two there aswell...one homely look woman we called the "pleco lady" would firmly grasp your arm and take you to every fishtank on the wall asking about the pleco fish (big black sucker fish) she would keep you for hours. Same questions, different tank. Same fish, same questions, next tank...it was a headache, but I think she just wanted someone to talk to. Even if it was a bit repeditive :P

I worked at a Ross in downtown Portland. Worst summer of my life - I quit as soon as I found my job at the library to hold me over until I was hired at the reptile store. Anyway, the homeless population is so high.

We had to close down the restroom because we'd get homeless people and junkies nearly every day shooting up on heroin. After we closed the restroom, the customers (who were usually from other countries/states and had enough money) were too lazy to find a restroom right next to us in Starbucks and used the dressing rooms instead. We have found pants with feces in them; used diapers; urine, feces, and vomit on the floor; used condoms; kids clothing that parents allowed their children to defecate and urinate on, etc. Everything disgusting imaginable, it was there.

And then there is the shoplifting. We had shoplifters every day. We had 15 minute patrols from each worker and 2 hired door watchers, along with a man hired to watch cameras all day and to wear civilian clothes to follow people. One time a man was hanging out at the door for a while. He looked at me in the eye. He looked at the door guard. He paced. He looked at me. He looked at my coworker. He walked up to the door guard as if to say something, then booked it out the door. Our civilian disguised security guy caught him 3 blocks down.

I've seen women walk out with a bra clearly stolen. They hand me their old ratty bras back on the hangers when I'm watching the dressing room, as if I won't notice their sweat stains on a "new product".

One time a woman came up to me with soaking wet shorts. She told me she'd like to return them. I asked if she had a receipt. She said no. I said I couldn't return them without a receipt (never mind that I couldn't return them wet, but we're not allowed to directly call them out for shoplifting, and they were clearly shoplifted. We have to be nice to be safe). She loitered and tried to pretend to find the receipt in her pocket for the next fifteen minutes. She asked me "Can't I just return these?" over and over. Of course my door guard buddy was over now and helping me out. We kept saying no. Then she started muttering after the final refusal, looking at me with her creepy shifty eyes "I'm on parole for life" and she looked at me and I nearly crapped my pants because it wasn't a threat, it was a crazy person's muttering and that is far more dangerous! She loitered around shifting about for another 15 minutes, clearly fearing that she was going to get caught. We couldn't call security because we had no proof she had stolen anything, so we just had to stand there creeped out until she left.

Another time a woman tried to return bras to me that I had watched her shoplift the day before. I remembered her because we knew her and she did not have money. She had already stated she did not have enough money to buy them. Then we find her back in the next day without a receipt. Guess what? Stolen!

And then there are those rude customers who bring a cart full of items clearly on a shopping spree with their new credit card, because they certainly don't look like they had the money for it. Had a lady come up with so much stuff I had to call a backup cashier to help my 15+ people line behind her. The lady kept flirting and making blatantly sexual and disgusting jokes to her partner in front of me. Then I had to tell her that her credit card was declined. She made me swipe it 5 times before she huffed, grabbed her bag, and left. With cartloads of stuff for me to clean up and retag. Yeah. Nice.

Oh, and there are those customers that bring up a cartload of ceramic dishes for my happy arse to wrap up. And those who bring up 9 full sized suitcases (yes, this happened, a family) to me at the only register that I cannot maneuver a suitcase onto to remove the alarm. And those who insist on folding the clothes themselves because they have to be perfect to go into a bag, and yell at me for my folding skills which are not a part of my job. And those who comment on us being so slow, though we clearly are working as fast as we can.

AND THE KIDS.

I hate children. There was a time when I was out on patrol and this family was in the furniture section. The parents were watching and letting a child STEP AND RUN OVER A PAINTING WITH A STROLLER. I asked them to please stop, because the merchandise was already damaged beyond repair. The parents yelled at me for telling them what to do and how to parent. I was doing my job. They were letting a child wreck merchandise without paying for it.

And another time when this poor girl got jerked around by her grandmother in front of me and ended up falling into a huge glass vase. The girl was terrified, the grandmother was screaming at her. I was so appalled because the grandmother blamed the child and refused to pay for the 3 glass vases broken in the ordeal. I told the child it was ok, and had to stand watch over the glass for 20 minutes until someone had time to bring a broom and dustpan to me, so that a customer didn't get hurt. I couldn't help thinking "That poor child". It wasn't the kids fault in this case.

And then there are those lovely times for us little college girls at retail stores. Where if we make a small mistake, or a customer isn't happy, the instant response is "You're just a f-ing idiot. This is why you work in a ***** place like this!" And insult our intelligence because we are not handed everything in life and work a minimum wage job to get us through college. Sorry you didn't read the store policy, mister. Sounds like you're the one with the intelligence problem, since you can't seem to read.

Retail, especially big company retail, was the worst thing. I hated every day. I dreaded going to work because of the rude customers. The only days I liked were senior discount Tuesdays when the sweet little old ladies and grouchy old men would be bussed down from the senior centers to buy a new nightgown or belt. They were the nice ones. I tried to mostly work Tuesdays, haha. Yeah. Retail is a nightmare under any circumstances. You are exposed to people you would rather not be around and forced to serve them. And when you're put in a lower position, no matter what walk of life they come from, they will invariably treat you like a pile of rotten feces.

Now that I think about it, I have so many horror stories from just one summer that I can write an entire book on it. Expand on every experience, the coworkers, the boss. It sickens me.

Many many years ago I worked for a pet store chain not really a good experience but that is another story.

My manager sold a 108gal aquarium and everything to go with it. I was told the fellow whom bought it world be in on my weekend shift to pick it up. He came in and was looking around and we were talking abut fish tanks and such. I asked the obvious question, where are you going to put this tank?

He replies he was going to mount it on angle brackets on the wall over his bed. He then shows me the 6 brackets from the hardware store he was going to use.

I pointed out the empty tank was so heavy I couldn't carry it a lone and the many bags of gravel with it. I mentioned that water was about 10 pounds to a gal. He looked at me and with an ashen face asked if he could return it please. I said he would have to see the manager to get a check cut as that was more money than I had in the till by a fair bit. She knew his plan and sold it to him anyway she tried to fire me over it but I said she would have killed someone pulling a stunt like that and she backed off I quit three weeks later for another stupid event.

Wow sounds like your manager was just concerned about making money. At least you caught it before the guy went home and woke up with a fish tank on his face 😇(haha angel smiley face didn't know bout that one)

I managed an Edible arrangements for awhile and my favorite calls were always the ones that complained their fruit was going bad, after looking up when it was delivered it was typically a week plus...sorry its not magic fruit!

Not really retail, but at the zoo someone called in to give us a heads up that her neighbor was filing a complaint and was going to turn us in because our hippos don't have water to swim in... our customer service person tried to ensure they had the right zoo because we don't have a hippo..after continuing to argue about whether we had a hippo or not, because they would for sure know better, they were talking about the rhinos.. Who had wollowing holes and drinking water that is kinda hidden from public view..
The thing that pisses me off the Most are the people who try to feed the animals junk food and gum and then get mad at me for telling then they can kill our animals because they don't know their diets..
I tried to avoid retail like the plague but you can never fully escape the stupid...

Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk 2

I was lucky enough that when I worked at a fairly large aquarium shop (connected to a petland but we just tried to ignore them, lol) most of the customers were really into their fish, huge discus nerds and saltwater people. I think my best stories are just my miss-pronunciations. There was the guy who kept asking me questions about our "enemas" (anemones)... thankfully another customer was nearby that I could make eye contact with to keep from busting out laughing at the guy. There was also the group of middle-school girls who were staring at the tadpoles and going "Ew wow what are those?" The one poor girl who had actually been paying attention in school told them that they were baby frogs, which the other girls of course replied with "What? No way, they're like little fish or something, they don't even have legs!"

We also had an employee who sold a giant gourami (full grown, she was a big nasty thing. I loved her) twice... and had it returned twice. He kept describing it like it had the same temperament as a regular gourami. The first time she was returned was because she killed an Oscar that was about the same size as her.

Now I work overnights at a convenience/drug store. The drunks are always interesting, for some reason they're always fascinated by our little display of pay-as-you-go phones. Had one guy hovering and asking me questions about them for almost two hours before we finally made him leave. We also had the pharmacy get robbed once, nobody was hurt and we got all the customers out before the robber had even left. The guy turned out to be my room mate's jerk-ex who lied to my mom to get her to help him get my roomie involuntarily committed to a psych ward for a couple weeks. Not really a funny story in itself, but the jerk's in jail (he already had a felony on record and he stole his dad's gun for the robbery), so now it is to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlson

Wow sounds like your manager was just concerned about making money. At least you caught it before the guy went home and woke up with a fish tank on his face (haha angel smiley face didn't know bout that one)

---

I know not all stores are run like this but some are. I can say with absolute certainty that she weigh cost over profit with every decision she made wether it was now much to stock or if treating or euthanizing an animal was cost effective. It was horrible working there and being told to take kittens to the vet to be put down because they had flees. (man hours and flee control was more costly than euthanizing them) I used to race around finding homes for them and then having to beg the RVT to make a bogus bill so I didn't get in trouble for giving away kittens. I try not to buy animals or product from stores than sell living things they need for running a business will come to odds with the welfare of the creatures who are being sold sooner or later. I would like to believe that stores make the moral decision and will applaud any that do but I have become jaded and simply don't trust them to do so. Breeders are different as so much relies on reputation that that must take precedence over profit sometimes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GummiBear

I managed an Edible arrangements for awhile and my favorite calls were always the ones that complained their fruit was going bad, after looking up when it was delivered it was typically a week plus...sorry its not magic fruit!

Not really retail, but at the zoo someone called in to give us a heads up that her neighbor was filing a complaint and was going to turn us in because our hippos don't have water to swim in... our customer service person tried to ensure they had the right zoo because we don't have a hippo..after continuing to argue about whether we had a hippo or not, because they would for sure know better, they were talking about the rhinos.. Who had wollowing holes and drinking water that is kinda hidden from public view..
The thing that pisses me off the Most are the people who try to feed the animals junk food and gum and then get mad at me for telling then they can kill our animals because they don't know their diets..
I tried to avoid retail like the plague but you can never fully escape the stupid...

Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk 2

---

bwhahaha Sorry, the hippo thing...
My 3yr old can tell the difference between a hippo and a rhino...seriously...people oye.

One thing that always happened at the pet store, was we would constantly get people freaking out because we had "Roaches / maggots" (Crickets / mealworms) in our reptiles tanks. Oh my god those poor lizards! They're making them eat roaches and maggots! How cruel! Someone call animal control!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RoseyReps

My husband and I own a bar. I'm not even going to start with the drunk customer stories...lol

---

lol i've worked at a liquor store for the past 4 years. talk about a plethora of drunk customer stories. one that sticks out in my head though, a couple years ago on new years eve (our busiest night of the year) we had a line of customers backed up at the cash register and this girl in her early 20s, obviously inebriated, started throwing up all over the back of the person in front of her. i jumped up and yelled at her to run to the bathroom and pointed to where it was. she ran to the bathroom and came out 10 minutes later and just walked straight out of the store. i went back to the bathroom to check the damage.. the girl blew chunks all in the trash can.. with the toilet not 3 feet away.. WHYYYY???!! lol gotta love cleanin up strangers vomit.

Strangers vomit :( I hate vomit

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlson

Strangers vomit :( I hate vomit

---

Especially liquor vomit! That Guy/Gal gets four stars! Talk about a trooper!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eskye

I worked at a Ross in downtown Portland. Worst summer of my life

---

These stories are hilariously awful.

Compared to the other posts in this thread, our retail experience was relatively tame, but still, it did make me hate doing retail, which is why we stopped after just a couple of years. On the reptile side of things, for 90% of the customers, it is all about disposable animals, which I hated. Soul sucking.

On the crazy side of things, people are nuts!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robyn@SYR

These stories are hilariously awful.

Compared to the other posts in this thread, our retail experience was relatively tame, but still, it did make me hate doing retail, which is why we stopped after just a couple of years. On the reptile side of things, for 90% of the customers, it is all about disposable animals, which I hated. Soul sucking.

On the crazy side of things, people are nuts!

---

I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing. I've started giggling out loud at random times AT LEAST three times, thinking about the punishment thing. Holy crap. I started a thread in my head with that one that will not stop.

I managed an Edible arrangements for awhile and my favorite calls were always the ones that complained their fruit was going bad, after looking up when it was delivered it was typically a week plus...sorry its not magic fruit!

Not really retail, but at the zoo someone called in to give us a heads up that her neighbor was filing a complaint and was going to turn us in because our hippos don't have water to swim in... our customer service person tried to ensure they had the right zoo because we don't have a hippo..after continuing to argue about whether we had a hippo or not, because they would for sure know better, they were talking about the rhinos.. Who had wollowing holes and drinking water that is kinda hidden from public view..
The thing that pisses me off the Most are the people who try to feed the animals junk food and gum and then get mad at me for telling then they can kill our animals because they don't know their diets..
I tried to avoid retail like the plague but you can never fully escape the stupid...

*sorry it posted twice, I can't figure out how to delete it...
Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk 2

Not retail, but my latest "Are you kidding me?" was a woman who brought in her two shorthaired exotic cats(think persians with short hair) for baths.

After I got them done, I put their fancy collars back on them and back into their carriers so they could go home. The collars were regular pleather collars with those sliding letters with fake gems so they're all guady and glittery spelling out each cat's name. I remember specifically that the woman seemed really picky so I took off one's collar and turned it over so the name was right side up(like that matters to the cat??).

So two DAYS after she takes them home, she calls me up and proceeds to tell me I've "forgotten" to put the collars on the cats. This ends up with her making the veiled threat that I've STOLEN the two collars. She tried to claim she paid $100 each and she expects me to refund her grooming cost($100!) and the cost for both collars(another $200). I told her I did put the collars on and if I had not, she would have called me the instant she took the cats out of the carriers at home! No no, the cats ran off when she got home, but of course the cats didn't loose the collars at home(like they've done half a dozen times before), I must have KEPT them!

Yes, you've uncovered my dastardly plot to create a black market or stolen cat collars. Eventually I told her that if she could bring in a RECEIPT showing the price of the collars was $100 each, I'd pay her half the amount. When she said I didn't sound like I was SORRY, I told her outright, "I can't be sorry for something I DID NOT DO! I'm only agreeing to this because you won't stop harrassing me! Either bring in a receipt showing me the cost of THOSE two collars, or don't call back!"

She never has called or come in. I looked up the collars and even i you bought nice collars and nice slider letters, the collars I handled would have been about $20 each... and that's stretching it.

People and their pets lead to all kinds of crazy stuff. The young couple who insisted that I couldn't wash their puppy because it was ALLERGIC TO WATER. *facepalm* "What does your puppy drink?" Got a blank look and they left. Geez.