Your career as it relates to the general public

[AsLan7]

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Well after some discussion here about our career as it relates to the general public, I thought it might be fun to start a thread on the topic.

In a nutshell, our family will sit around the dinner table after eating and discuss who has the worst “general public” story while being “on duty” at your job. It has three simple parts.

1. The story while on duty.
2. What you wanted to say.
3. What you actually said.

For instance,
1. a couple of months ago my 25 year old niece was on duty as the pharmacist at a local grocery store. She said a large female African American lady wanted to pick up her prescription.
No problem.
Niece rang it up and it had a $10 copay.
Lady proceeds to pull out a sweaty $10 bill from her bra. (it was 89 degrees outside)
My niece said I cannot accept that.
Lady proceeded to berate her with every name in the book and called her a rascist pig.

2. My niece wanted to grab a pair of her medicine tweezers and pick up the sweat laden $10 bill and throw it back at her.

3. Instead she politely called over the pharmacy manager who called store Security to escort the lady out. Good bye.



Feel free to read my “ mistaken gender identity while on duty” story in the link above.


You get the idea.
Post your career intersecting with the general public story in the 1, 2, 3 format if you so desire. We will be sure to share them at our dinner table.

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[okielaker]

Back in the 70s, I worked for the phone company as an installer, Norman OK.
Each year, for about 3 weeks starting in late August, we installed lines
for 10,0000+ customers for the beginning of school (OU). Long hours,
late nights. (Back then, every phone had to be hard-wired into the
network... modular phones had not yet been created).

It was around 1 am, I was working my last order of the previous day. Had
to climb the pole behind the house to string a new line. Was up the pole,
when the back door to the house behind the house I was working at opened,
and 4 people and 1 dog came out. I should mention that the pole was
actually in the yard of the house the people came out of.

So, one of the 4 walked about halfway out into the yard, and yelled at me,
asking what I thought I was doing.

I wanted to say, "I'm a telephone pole thief, as soon as I cut all these
lines, I'm going to make off with this pole".

I said, "I work for the phone comany, and I'm installing a telephone line for
the people who live in this house", as I pointed to the house behind theirs.

As the 4 went back in their house, I could hear one of the women saying
something about not believing me.

Was on the line with the central office, getting the new line activated,
some 10 minutes later someone came out of the house again, walked over to
the base of the pole, and shined a flashlight up at me. I thought,
"That's nice, he's holding a light for me to see by".

The guy on the ground cleared his throat, I looked down, but could only
see the light shining up at me. So, I continued to work on the line. The
guy cleared his throat again, and asked me to come down. I replied that
I was working, and would come down if a few minutes when I had finished.

The guy said "I'm a police officer, we have a complaint about your
activity. Could you come down, please"?

I told him I'd be finished in 5 minutes, and would prefer to finish and
not climb the pole again, to which he agreed.

When I got to the ground, he started to chew me out for "sneaking
around" in people's back yards, and said I needed to get permission,
first... I asked if he was seriously asking me to knock on doors at 1 am
and tell folks I was going to climb a pole in their back yard.

He thought that over for a moment, and then said I shouldn't be working
this late. I asked him if he was telling me to stop working and leave.
I then asked if he would PLEASE tell me to stop working and leave (phone
company couldn't get too upset with me for obeying a lawful order, but
would chew me out for not working the order because it was late and I
was tired).

He thought that over, and decided he wouldn't cross swords with Ma Bell,
and said I should finish. I did, and had a good story to tell the next
morning (7 am) at the storeroom.

[AsLan7]

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I wanted to say, "I'm a telephone pole thief, as soon as I cut all these
lines, I'm going to make off with this pole".

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That’s funny right there OL.


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[AsLan7]

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1. In relation to my Pharmacist niece above, she also had a 70ish older gentleman come in at 8:55 PM (store closes at 9 PM) and ask for some Viagra.
Apparently when you fill a prescription it has to go thru six different steps in the computer before it can be filled. Since the computers were just shutdown, my niece asked if it could be filled tomorrow. The man, irritated, said no....”I need my Viagra tonight!”.
My niece fired up the computer, got two Viagra pills for the man, who then proceeded to pull out a coupon for the pills. The bill came to $70 with the coupon and the man said “I’m not paying that”!

2. My niece wanted to say “I guess you’re not getting it up tonight.”

3. Instead she said “I’m sorry sir but that’s the cost with the coupon”. The man eventually paid (now 9:25pm) and is now a regular every two weeks —buying two pills at a time.

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[liquid]

I can't think of one but I'm subscribed to this thread.

[Tuscany]

I have plenty of stories. I’ll share some as this thread goes on.
Obviously owning your own business let’s one control how the public is handled.
Our policy is simple...let the dissatisfied customer leave completely satisfied. I don’t want to know how, just make sure it happens...so they bring us more money tomorrow and the next day and the next...Without return customers, a small business is dead in the water.

We draw the line at personal... if someone is dissatisfied, we’ll do what it takes. If it turns personal with insults towards our business or staff, the customer now belongs to the exclusive “No more Tuscany for you” club, which comes with a NON revoking, lifetime membership..
They are escorted to the door and told to never ever return again.
There are only a handful that belong, but each is well deserving.

[Ytmsn]

Tuscany I have one in that same vien. And it's scary how much we think alike. If someone is upset with my service or product I'll bend over backwards to make them happy , which makes a repeat customer, and one that will usually brag on you.

In my world I have gotten folks mad for whatever reason, and will go out of my way to appease them. I'll apologize, fix it, take the blame, even if it's not my fault but will calm them down, or do whatever. Because today's buyers will be tomorrow's sellers.

But there's always that one... So here's one for the dinner table A7!


I booked an auction in a small town in SE Oklahoma, selling out the contents of a feed store along with the real estate. An attorney buddy of mine, who does benefit auctions on the side, asked if I was going to charge a buyer's premium. I told him I was, and he proceeded to tell me how they would run me out of town on a rail after being tarred and feathered, because "we don't do that in this country". My fellow Okies understand what southeast Oklahoma is like. It's like a whole country of its own! I told him that's my policy, I do it anywhere anywhere at any time, and I would make it well known in all of my marketing that a buyer's premium would apply. And anyone that doesn't agree with it can simply not attend the auction.

Out front was a large billboard for the business. I had banners made for both sides that were like 12 x 18, and in each upper corner it said 10% buyer's premium applies in letter about a foot tall. In my terms and conditions it also stated buyer's premium applies. During the lead up to the sale when we would do inspections or open houses we would also make sure everyone understood there was a 10% buyer's premium, and we had signs posted around stating the same the fact.

On the day of the sale I had a sign on the front door when you walk into place and two signs on each side of registration on the wall behind the girls.

I'm standing there talking to one of my buyers when this jake-leg walks in to register. He goes to pull out his driver's license when one of the girls, as instructed, told him there's a 10% buyer premium. He stopped midway through pulling his wallet out, started called her names and went to cussing at the top of his voice saying he wasn't aware of a BP and had he known he sure wouldn't be there, about who he was, and he would not pay a buyer's premium and he thought she was blankety blank blank blank blank and any Auctioneer that would charge a BP was blank of the blank blank blank and I walked up behind him.

I spun his ass around and got this face and told him that any dog that talks like that to a lady has an ass whooping coming. I pointed at the buyer premium signs that he was watching the entire time he was standing in line. I pointed to the sign out front and the sign on the front door and asked how he can miss any of that, he knew full well there was a BP, and that he came in looking for a fight, and he just found one. . Then I pointed at the door, took him by the arm and started dragging him out, the whole time berating him for talking to ladies like that, being all bluff and tuff, but as soon as confronted turning into a sissyfiednoodle.

I got him outside and told him in no uncertain terms that anyone that would ever talk to my girls like that deserves to have his ass whipped, or at the very least arrested. But today, I want you to get in that truck and leave this place and dont ever come back, or to any of my auctions in the future for that matter.

He never had the chance to register, so I didnt have a clue what his name was, but I told him I would enter his name into the statewide blacklist database for any auction company in the future to reference, and how his name would pop up every time he registered anywhere for a public auction. Apparently he believed it, because he started apologizing profusely, and said he would go ahead and register and pay the premium. I told him he was not allowed on the premises and I certainly didn't want him around there running his mouth, and he needed to leave immediately before I change my mind. And he did.

We never had another issue the rest if the day...

[sailor55330]

That's a good one YT---too bad in today's culture, the hands on approach would have probably gotten you sued---still think it was correct.

Here's kind of a funny one and I've used this one a few times. First, I apologize as it is somewhat political, so let me start by saying, everyone has the right to their own political beliefs and I honestly don't care what your political beliefs are as long as you have put a little thought into them (IE--if you are regurgitating media dribble that really doesn't apply to you, I don't have a lot of use for that type of rhetoric as I'm not sure our media today does a great job of report factual news on any subject. I much prefer someone listen, research, and form their own opinions instead of adopting someone else's. Outside of that, I don't give 2 hoots about your political affiliations ).

So, the home office of my company is in a very liberal geography and I continually hear the bashings of our current government and how terrible things are for them and that it's the worst time ever in this country's history. Keep in mind these are people that are well educated and compensated and professional about most things. They continued to bash the current administration extra hard during one breakfast session for about 20 mins, citing media story after media story--I just listened. They asked my opinion and I said, personally, I think there are a lot of policies that are being proposed/implemented that are good for the country, but sometimes the delivery is lacking. I was told how wrong I was and that I didn't understand, blah, blah, blah.....How could I be so blind and ignorant to the truth. My response to them was, "I'll make you a deal...if you can tell me how YOU personally are worse off because of our current administration, I'll be happy to sit here and take all the bashing you can dish out". I got several generic responses that cited basic headlines and generalities as shared by the news, but when I pressed them for their personal experiences of how they are personally worse now than 3 years ago, not one single person could give an example of my request.

Breakfast was really pleasant for the rest of the week.....It works everytime. (and I'm sorry for the political content--please vote how you feel best for you!)

[AsLan7]

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...Jake-leg....
You go YT!

[Big Block Power]

So as you know dealerships sell products at the time of the sale. Exterior, interior protection. Well we sold this person this package so he brought it in to us to remove some spots.
Ok this is where it goes bad.
This 2017 Ram truck is trashed from the carpet to the seats to the headliner.
We literally spent 6 hrs cleaning and detailing this guy's truck.
He came to pick it up and said we missed some. So we explained to him and we also showed the salesperson that sold it to him start it looked like before we started cleaning it. As the guest goes. You told me to bring it in when ever it needs to get detailed. We are like no it's not a detailing service. It's when you get a stain you call this number and they will send a representative to you and they will remove your stain. We said we spent 6 hours cleaning your truck and these stains we couldnt get out. So he goes so your not going to doing anything about them. I'm calling the bbb and telling everyone about this and I'm never buying another vehicle from you.
We said we will contact the company and tell them about the stains and they will address them. So of course like every other jeg leg out there he goes on social media saying how bad of a job we did and blah blah and so on. So the GM of our store happened to be off that day and said we have to make it right. I wish he would have seen this truck. Of course a few of us managers try to get a hold of him and he won't answer his phone.
Literally the headliner was gross. So yes that was in the middle of last week. It was a great week. We did fire a guest though the week before. That story is coming.

[Kate]

Well after some discussion here about our career as it relates to the general public

Dear CC Advisor:

I desperately need your advice.

You see, I regularly interact with the general public on [an unnamed] Forum. Most of its Members are knowledgeable (if a bit tech and punctuation challenged), perceptive (even though touched with OCD), good spirited (even in their relentless teasing), and generous with their expertise (even when dealing for the nth time with questions about winterizing).

However, there are some Members who have -- how should I put this delicately? -- Escaped from an Asylum. They hear voices: "Psst, Kate's that woman in the picture." They're given to paranoia: "She's spying on us. Where's the tinfoil?" They suffer from persecution complex (especially one affectionately known as "BB"). They spin wild conspiracy theories: "Kate's the Easter Bunny." "No. Kate's the reincarnation of Cleopatra." "No. No. No. Kate's a 'higher up.' Somewhere."

Please advise me on how to deal with these . . . "special" people. I've tried everything. Even threatened them with demotion. Nothing works.

Sign me,

Distraught in Lunaticville

[jhnmdahl]

Well, at least now we know where Kate lives

I'm a patent attorney, and mostly worked for bigger companies for the nearly two decades I was with bigger firms. Small companies and solo inventors would sometimes be surprised at the cost, which can run well into five figures to bring a patent from concept to issue. One particular potential client wrote a particularly unfriendly email accusing us of all sorts of things (before we had done any work but simply sent him a client agreement letter with the discussed rates), and suggested we just send him the forms. The senior partner objected to my idea to just send him 100 sheets of blank paper and call it a day.

[Tuscany]

The public can offer up some real gems. It’s how we deal with those rare gems..
The older I get, the more calm and nice I am. That wasn’t the case from a younger George...

Last year, We had this guy call on the phone that he had a fly on his salad. Ok, flies fly.. Then then proceeds to call my deli manager a bitch.. ok.. here we go. Tell him to come in and let me take care of this..

He comes in dropping f bombs looking for the manager (me) complaining about his salad. Meanwhile, his hands are just black from grease and you can tell he hasn’t taken a shower in some time.. he’s just looking for a freebie.
I meet him and ask him what I can do for him. He keeps up with the loudness and foul language..
I ask him if he wants another salad or a refund.
He says no, just give him a gift card for next time..
I said please let me make this ...perfectly... clear, your language and disrespect isn’t accepted in our privately owned business, and there will never be a next time. Please take your business somewhere else. We thank you for your prior business.
He goes on berating me and telling me how much money I’m going to lose from him.
I just told him that I guess I better cancel my Lear Jet order...

[AsLan7]

I just told him that I guess I better cancel my Lear Jet order...

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[Big Block Power]

I just told him that I guess I better cancel my Lear Jet order...

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That's because your have partnership in a CC jet