2009-12-16 12:23:01
So I'm in line at the customer service desk of my local grocery store. Four people ahead of me in line, and one person working the desk. And it seems that this woman has to answer 6 phone calls for every customer in person that she serves in person. After 8 phone calls (and her dealing with a little old lady who wants to return half a banana! WTF?!) the guy in front of me pulls out his cell phone and starts fiddling with it.
Then he makes a call and the customer service desk phone rings (again). She stops what she's doing and picks up the phone:
Her: Metro, Customer service.
Him: From a customer service point of view, doesn't it make sense to serve the people who have actually made the damned effort to come into the f*ing store.
Then he waves at her and hangs up.
She ignores the phone ringing after that.
It makes me want to get a cell phone just so I can do this.
Story:
I was at the airport in line attempting to get tickets for a flight out of town. I had just ended a business trip early with two of my co-workers and felt like making it home ASAP. So the line was like 30 people deep and we know we are in trouble. My buddy pulled out his laptop in an attempt to purchase the tickets online so we can skip to the machine and get them pritned. I grab my cell phone and call the airport for the same thing. I get us 3 tickets outta there. Right after I hung up the attendant told the line that the last tickets on such n such flight have been sold. We walk up to the front to claim our tickets. Needless to say we got some dirty looks. Hey it pays to be one step ahead!
I love it. I did a similar thing at a hotel. She gave me a 245 rate at 2am for one night! I asked her to give me a better deal since most likely she would not sell the room anyway. "No sir. There are no better rates available". I went online and got the room for 125 . Her look was priceless. Thank you, internet.
I grew up in Bermuda, and shortly after college continued my summer job of working as a tour boat captain (a delightful life). One drunken night my cell phone broke and I desperately needed a phone for work. So the next day i went into town and said that I wanted the cheapest phone possible - it should make and receive calls. So she brought me a phone and gave me the bill - $5... I asked why so cheap - they apparently had 40 of these things in the back, they were ancient shitty samsungs flip-phones from 6 years ago, and absolutely no-one wanted them. So after confirming that I could get roughly 40 new phones at $5 a pop, and seeing on her face that she understood where this was going, I told her that I would be back very shortly. The next few months resulted in some hilarious situations... My phone was now, in my eyes, disposable. I would finish a phone call amidst a group of people and then snap my phone in half and throw it over my shoulder. Walk up to a girl, give her my phone and say, "don't worry, I'll
call you..." before walking away. The absolute best was receiving a call out at sea, while giving snorkeling safety instructions to about 50 tourists on the deck of the boat, screaming into the phone, "NEVER EVER CALL ME AT WORK EVER AGAIN!" and then heaving the phone as far as i could into the ocean before calmly returning to my safety discussion.