“Whoa… iPods have FaceTime! …. Some iPods can’t even play music loudly!”
– some loser customer at davepoobond’s job
Tag Archives: customer
The Sour Lemon Lady
A lady came and asked if there was a graduation tassel on hold for her and it was supposed to be at customer service for her. I said I didn’t have anything like that for her (asking her name and what kind it was supposed to be). She said that she talked to the manager directly about it and she had gotten a call from “some girl with a fancy name” last week and told them to hold it, even though she had gotten it months before. So I spent about 5 to 10 minutes trying to track down the manager (he wasn’t there), then asked if any of the gear representatives knew about any tassel on hold for this lady by the manager. No one knew.
I eventually asked the gear department supervisor if she knew where the manager would put something like that and she said she didn’t know, so she called him, left him a message, and we waited for him to call. In the mean time I went back and told the lady we don’t know anything about this item and I resumed to ask the lady for her number so we can call her back when we found out more info about it.
The manager calls during this time and says he didn’t know anything about it, so we ask the lady again who called her and asked her how she paid for it. She eventually says she did a phone order, which would still imply that a gear department rep would have helped her. The supervisor asked me if Web would have it, but I told her they would only have it if THEY did the web order, not if the lady had talked to the gear manager about it since they are COMPLETELY different departments with different procedures and managers. So the lady looked through her call log to see who called her, and it was the web department.
Once we found that out, I said I would call them, and then the lady accused me all of a sudden — “SEE YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED THEM, SHE WAS TELLING YOU THAT WEB HAD DONE IT OVER AND OVER BUT YOU SAID NO NO NO NO”
All I could say was “Ummm…” I eventually called Web and they brought down her stupid tassel and she left.
LIKE ITS MY FUCKING FAULT SHE DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW WHO SHE TALKED TO AND SHE SAID THAT PETER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT BUT HE DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING.
FUCK THAT LADY FUCK HER
Quote #22451
Customer: “They should put you in charge of ordering!”
Employee: “Well, normally I am…”
– at a Trader Joe’s
The Not So Returned Rental Book
On April 11, I had a customer today call me after talking to another co-worker of mine who was just finishing up with her shift. He was calling regarding his rental textbook that he has but also “returned.”
Earlier when he was talking to my co-worker, he had said that he had the book still and wanted to return it but did not want to pay for the replacement fee. She wrote his information down and said he would be coming in later this week to pay for the book.
So then, he called during the beginning of my shift and explained how he had actually returned said book, which is the Intro to Statistics, a non-serialized rental, which is a book without a specific number attached to it.
I explained to him that our system had shown that the book was not returned and that it would need to be paid for at the replacement price. He went on to talk about how that is penalizing him for incompetence on our part because he is saying that he was not given a receipt and when he returned it to “the guy” who had said that he did not need a receipt. I told him we were telling all of our cashiers to give receipts for any rentals returned. I asked him if he knew who the cashier was and he said he didn’t know. He kept repeating the same stuff over and over again, and I kept saying the same things, too. I told him that the only way I can personally help is if he had a receipt, and otherwise I would have to have him talk to my manager about it.
He was not satisfied with that, and kept saying how it was a bureaucratic answer and basically didn’t see why he had to be penalized and kept saying the same thing over and over. He kept saying he wasn’t given a receipt, when I told him that was the only way we’d be able to release the hold on his account, and kept repeating that asking if “it was sticking” to what I had been considering talking to him about it, to which I said, yes, but it was to not going to alleviate anything. I asked if he had returned any other rentals along with the Intro to Statistics and said that he had returned some health book. I told him that there would be no way that only one book from a transaction would show as returned if they were both returned, but then he spouted out more about bureaucracy again.
So, anyway, I tell him again if he would like to speak to my manager, he is able to and I gave him my manager’s extension as well as transferred him over to his voice mail once he was done talking to me. He finally accepted the proposition and I did so.
He then proceeded to call about 5 or so minutes later, after I was telling my supervisor about the call. I answered it, knowing that it was the same guy, but pretending like I didn’t know what just happened. The guy asked specifically to see if my manager was in and I asked what it was regarding and if I could take a message since he was not going to be in until the next day. He didn’t tell me his name that time, and he simply said he was a disgruntled student and was given “bad customer service” and “terrible answers” by two employees who work here and that he wanted to complain about “them” (which would most likely be my co-worker and myself) regarding his book situation, and to also solve the situation regarding his rental.
So, he came in on that Thursday and instead of dealing with anymore of his bull shit, my manager let him off the hook for the book. I really wanted that guy to pay for being an asshole. Turns out he was gay and said to apologize to me for being “a bitch.”
Okay, then. Fuck you, you bitch.
Quote #22185
::davepoobond is listening to his iPod particularly loudly at his job::
Customer: Shhhh!
::Customer puts his index finger to his lips::
::davepoobond looks at him weird::
Customer: I can’t hear!
davepoobond (thinking): What are you trying to hear? You’re not listening to anyone or talking to anyone.
::davepoobond just looks at him weird as the customer leaves::
– at davepoobond’s job, 6/15/07
Quote #22182
::Maria Sweden, davepoobond, and David Arr are working together at Customer Service::
Maria Sweden: There was a girl that was totally macking on davepoobond at the Brief.
davepoobond: Yuck! She wasn’t a girl at all. She was a beast! She was fatter than me!
Maria Sweden: You’re not exactly skinny yourself, davepoobond.
davepoobond: Exactly! Plus, she looked like David Arr!
::davepoobond points to David Arr::
David Arr: Whaaaat?
::David Arr laughs embarrassingly and really loudly::
David Arr: I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or insult!
::davepoobond laughs at David Arr’s response::
– at davepoobond’ job, 6/7/07
Quote #22181
“You’re gonna rip my books and then I’m gonna rip your ass!”
– a customer at davepoobond’s job.
Quote #22154: Internet Access Thing — Not Available in Arizona
::A customer from another state calls the phone.::
Guy From Arizona: Hello?
davepoobond: Hi, how can I help you?
Guy From Arizona: Do you guys sell any of those 2004 World Series Shirts anymore?
davepoobond: No, we’ve been sold out of those for a couple years.
Guy From Arizona: Ah, shit, dammit, fuck!
davepoobond: Ummm….
Guy From Arizona: Do you guys have a catalog?
davepoobond: No, I’m sorry, we have a web site where —
Guy From Arizona: Ah shit. I don’t have Internet Access Thing.
davepoobond: Oh… sorry.
Guy From Arizona: Can you drive me down some shirts?
davepoobond: Um… sure, for a thousand dollars haha.
Guy From Arizona: Really?
– at davepoobond’s job, 6/5/07
Quote #22152
Man With Moustache: When are you guys going to get more of these bobble heads?
Blanker: I don’t know, we get lots of requests for it…
davepoobond: We’ll never get them again, they never order them because that would be too smart.
Blanker: Also, no one even bought them when we had them in stock the first time.
Man With Moustache: Ohhh! I would buy one…
Blanker: Haha, we’ll give you a call when they come in.
Man With Moustache: Oh, thanks.
davepoobond: Yeah, we’ll give you a call when they come in. You don’t even have to leave your phone number.
– at davepoobond’s job, 6/3/07
Quote #22151: Where’s the Bathroom?
::Female customer asks where the bathroom is.::
davepoobond: Past the escalator and to the right.
::davepoobond points in the direction she should go.::
::The customer goes past the escalator in the wrong direction, announcing her actions as she does so::
Customer: PAST THE ESCALATOR… AND TO THE RIGHT????
::Customer looks in the completely opposite direction she should be going.::
davepoobond: Umm… no, that way.
Customer: That’s the left!
::Customer goes out of sight. davepoobond and David Arr just laugh.::
::davepoobond then imitates exactly what the customer did and they just crack up at how stupid what just happened was.::
– at davepoobond’s job, 6/2/07
Quote #22149
::davepoobond is at the register and is doing something with a void slip (a piece of paperwork saying why a transaction was canceled). It was fairly important.::
Female Customer: Can I pay for this here?
::A male customer walks up next to her::
davepoobond: Ummmm… sureeeeeee, but I’m doing something right now.
::davepoobond sidesteps to the other end of Customer Service as Maria Sweden steps over to the register. She proceeds to smack davepoobond on the shoulder for not ringing up the girl::
Male Customer: GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE MAN, GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. Way to do your job.
::davepoobond just shrugs and resumes to try to look busy doing the void slip::
–
Later…
–
Maria Sweden: Did you know that guy?
davepoobond: No…
Maria Sweden: You didn’t?
davepoobond: Never seen that guy before in my life.
Maria Sweden: Seriously? That was pretty cheeky to have done that…
davepoobond: Cheeky?
Maria Sweden: Yeah, cheeky, you don’t know what cheeky means?
::davepoobond rolls his eyes::
– at davepoobond’s job, 5/30/2007
If you don’t get the joke, Maria didn’t know what cheeky meant herself. The definition of “cheeky” is “impudent or irreverent, typically in an endearing or amusing way.”
“‘An Explanation and Some Reflections’ – by Reed Hastings” Breakdown
Netflix has been making some profound missteps in recent months. It definitely shows up in their stock price… it’s not every company’s intentions to drop 50% in three months due to the lame moves you are making. This past week’s lame misstep comes in the form of a separation of businesses, and a really dumb “apology letter.”
Now, not everyone seems to read things the same way that I do. In this edition of Dave’s Breakdown, I will go in and explain Mr. Reed Hasting’s apology letter for all to truly understand, along with some of my own reflections to top it off. To preface this, at the moment I have been a Netflix customer for about five years.
The original article is located here.
–
“I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.
It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.”
What this really means is “I’m sorry you guys didn’t like the price adjustment, but oh guess what, here’s something coming up that is universally more inconveniencing for everyone that we forgot to mention when we separated our services…”
What he’s really sorry for is that their stock price fell by 40% when they raised prices and split services.
“For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”
Rarely dying from something doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Netflix may just be another case study in the “rare” category. Not to mention, how does something that COMPLIMENTS what you are going to be focusing more on in the future TAKE AWAY from it? For example, AOL had dial-up. What the hell else were they going to do once dial-up connections were not state-of-the-art? They had to defend dial-up connections, there was no point in providing their services for Broadband connections on account they don’t even provide the service for it. AOL could have probably done stuff a little smarter, but they’ve transformed into a web conglomerate. What happened to EarthLink, another dial-up provider? They’re still in business, apparently, doing what they’ve been doing. The “real” AOL is essentially Time Warner. Time Warner just shat out what was left of the AOL brand and company that they didn’t want anymore and the “new” AOL is like today’s AT&T — not the same, but not new either.
Borders bookstore was a retail store that sells books, and they offered no electronic versions of books. Ok, except the reason they failed is because the Print industry, the Music industry, and the lack of them creating a service to take advantage of the new evolutions of those industries into account. They also operated as retail stores and leases are expensive when you have thousands of stores. Now, you have the polar opposite of Borders (a failed retail bookstore chain) with Barnes & Nobles (a still-successful bookstore) that is selling electronic books and music IN ADDITION TO having their brick and mortar stores. Hey, wow! Barnes & Nobles didn’t close all their retail stores or spin off all their retail bookstores into some weird half-breed retail company, did they? No. They kept them all under the same guise, and guess what they sell EVERYTHING, not just one thing.
“When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative. This is the key thing I got wrong.
In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, “Actions speak louder than words,” and we should just keep improving our service.”
What this really means is: “Before we started to worry about our stock price losing value and in-turn any investment opportunities we may have needed, I didn’t have to write anything to our customers in hopes to stop our free-falling stock prices before they hit the flushing toilet.”
“But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.”
“I just thought that you guys would accept whatever business decisions I wanted to do because you guys love Netflix, and by association, MEEEE!”
“So here is what we are doing and why:
Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD, plus lots of TV series. We want to advertise the breadth of our incredible DVD offering so that as many people as possible know it still exists, and it is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection on DVD. DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible.”
Yes, yes, we love DVDs!
“I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We feel we need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolve, without having to maintain compatibility with our DVD by mail service.”
Wait… so what you’re saying is…
“So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to ‘Qwikster’.”
AW MY GAWD WHAT THE FUCK IS A QWIK. It’s hard for you to write that you’re renaming a service. Ok, so what, you’re renaming the service. That means you can market it and yaddayaddayadda and I can still do what I’ve been doing for the past three years, right?
“We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name ‘Netflix’ for streaming.
Oh, ok, well that’s acceptable.
“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”
Sweet, sounds good.
“It is just a new name,”
Ok, I get it.
“and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies.”
Wait, what?
“One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. “
Wait, don’t try to change the subject here. What the hell are you talking about, a different web site? You just said it was the same site!
“Other improvements will follow. Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members.”
HEY! YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE. LOOK AT WHAT YOU JUST SAID IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH:
“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”
What the FUCK are you talking about? You just said Qwikster will be the same web site, and then you’re saying they’re SEPARATE web sites. Are you talking about it being on the same web host? No one cares that you’re on the same computer as another web site. I’m sure that my web site is on the same server as some other famously popular web site, but I’m not going around saying I’m the same web site as some random popular web site.
“Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use.”
Easier than… what? What your web site is now? I guess that the most logical way of making this easier is to make both web sites work with each other, right?
“A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”
HOOOOLLYYY SHIT, and there’s the killer. What in the FUCK just happened. It’s like your boyfriend saying he’d use a condom and then taking it off right before he inserted. Or, it’s like your girlfriend taking off her pants and there’s a penis hanging off what you thought was going to be a vagina, but is really just testicles. This is the most asinine shot in the head I have ever read, save The Joy Luck Club. Holy. Shit.
“There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as the current charges.”
I’m still numb from the last paragraph…
“Andy Rendich, who has been working on our DVD service for 12 years, and leading it for the last 4 years, will be the CEO of Qwikster.”
“We’re sending Andy off to die. See ya later, Rendich! Don’t forget to write!”
“Andy and I made a short welcome video. (You’ll probably say we should avoid going into movie making after watching it.)”
This video is a great reason why you shouldn’t make your corporate strategy into a video. It is not interesting. Also, what the fuck is with the sole red envelope there? Just so they can wipe their ass with it after the video is over? What’s with the sunglasses and the laptop? Were you doing some leisurely work (wearing sunglasses and using your laptop in the sun, even!) discovering what hue of red the Netflix envelope truly was and decided “Hey I’ve got a few minutes, let’s get Nathan down here with a camera while I’m typing up my ultra-cool apology letter that will totally fix all of our problems and make our stock go back up to 300 points and re-iterate what I’m saying to the populace of people who don’t care to read. We’re Netflix, after all!”
“We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready. It is merely a renamed version of the Netflix DVD website, but with the addition of video games. You won’t have to do anything special if you subscribe to our DVD by mail service.”
Wait so if it is so easily renamed and its actually just the same fucking thing, why can’t you just have the fucking web site be the same fucking web site!
“For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy.”
That’s because it means money to you.
“The new envelope is still that distinctive red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be the same for many of you.”
I think the least of our worries the color of the envelope and the way it looks. The experience has ALWAYS BEEN with the web site and the ease of using it, you sentimental tree murderer!
“We’ll also return to marketing our DVD by mail service, with its amazing selection, now with the Qwikster brand.”
Herein lies the only legitimate reason for them renaming their DVD by Mail service. Yes, you should have a different brand to promote your DVDs again if that’s what you wanted to do. However, Netflix DVD would have sufficed. Netflix Video Games would have sufficed to. I’ve heard weirder mismatches for companies in the past, not that I can remember any off the top of my head at the moment, but no one would have said “I don’t understand why Netflix has video games. They have ‘flix’ in their name, for crying out loud! I am totally canceling my account with Netflix because they have video games now, and it has nothing to do with streaming or television or movies or anything and it’s totally not optional oh em gee.”
What happens if Netflix wants to go into video game streaming, such as new services like OnLive have been doing? Is Qwikster going to separate out their DVD and disc-based video game services into some tertiary company? Where does it end! They only want to focus on one thing at a time in each business, yet they’re launching video games, which is arguably a different expenditure all together, and they’re doing omigosh, TWO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME! Call the board, let’s get another company split up in here!
Also, the reason why people were clamoring for video games in the first place was because it would have been from THE SAME WEB SITE FROM THE SAME COMPANY, WITH ONE BILL, AND ONE PAYMENT SYSTEM! If people wanted a gaming rental service separate from Netflix, they would have had GameFly already!! Focus groups would help you out to learn that!
“Some members will likely feel that we shouldn’t split the businesses, and that we shouldn’t rename our DVD by mail service. Our viewis with this split of the businesses, we will be better at streaming, and we will be better at DVD by mail.”
Why? You’re not EXPLAINING why you think it would be. What barriers are involved that make this necessary? You haven’t said anything that convinces me of any sort of argument that makes it seem like this is a good move. You say you want to focus on things one at a time, and you want to make another business. How does splitting out the WEB SITE or even your business do anything more for you? Whether it’s called Qwikster or Netflix, you guys are still in the same fucking buildings, aren’t you? Maybe you should reorganize your company and make a streaming division and a DVD/video game division underneath Netflix instead of spending money and creating a new shell company to send your neglected business model off to die.
“It is possible we are moving too fast – it is hard to say. But going forward, Qwikster will continue to run the best DVD by mail service ever, throughout the United States. Netflix will offer the best streaming service for TV shows and movies, hopefully on a global basis. The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.”
Moving too fast? How? You’re not moving at all. You’re taking your company in two different directions and, dare I say, setting up your tried-and-true business model up for sale when Netflix really decide to focus on one thing and one thing only — streaming.
“I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.
Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.
Respectfully yours,
-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix”
You know, I would have thought that a co-founder and CEO of this company would have thought, maybe just maybe, throwing out their original business model which started their company and made their success would be something more… unsettling than he may have originally thought the process to be. Starbucks wouldn’t spin off their coffee business into another retail store if their muffins became the hot new item at their stores. Hell, even if their muffins started pulling trillions of dollars in, they wouldn’t split that out into a new muffin chain. It doesn’t make sense!
Now what I think Netflix will see when this happens is a large drop off of subscribers to their new Qwikster service simply because founding a new web site and brand name is quite obviously an uphill battle, and forcing people to accept it is quite another entirely.
Netflix has a fanbase, Qwikster does not. I certainly say that I have no loyalty to something called Qwikster, but I do to Netflix. I can see why they would need to have a “different” brand because of the video games options coming about and for marketing purposes, but instead of being a completely separate web site, it should be a “portal” or “skin” to the main Netflix web site. Let’s say I go to Netflix, and then there’s a tab for Qwikster DVDs and Qwikster Games. Or if I go to Qwikster, I see an extra tab for Netflix Streaming Video.
As long as there is the same sort of integration for what we currently see, I don’t see why separating web sites benefits anyone — Netflix loses subscribers, I lose DVDs from Netflix, and we have to be mindful of another service with its own payment system, with its own customer service communication (if needed) etc etc.
It’s a hassle, especially when you consider you had it all in the same place before.
In one of the blog comments, Reed Hastings said that they don’t see Qwikster as being “that far away” from Netflix — as its only just “a link away” from each other… but so is MySpace to Facebook, and MSN to Google. There is a REASON people use Facebook or Google instead of all the other hullabaloo of assholery out there.
The Netflix web site is fine as it is.
If the excuse for this is their business is what needs to improve, how is separating web sites going to improve that considerably? If you need a different brand name, then make one. But don’t separate the services for the convenience of saying “that’s a different company, they’re doing their own thing, and we don’t care about it anymore.” You are still responsible, as a parent company, to make sure customers who are with your new company LIKE your new company, and you’re not just sending it off to die.
What it really comes down to is that Netflix is definitely interested in killing off the DVD portion — the only reason they’re even keeping it anymore is because streaming is going to see very high increases in cost, and they’re not sure if DVDs will end up having more business when the hammer comes down after their streaming licenses expire.
Associating the DVDs into the streaming plans only makes that amount charged for streaming go higher than it actually perceptibly is. It is a pre-emptive attack on what is bound to come. There are also rumors about how some companies force them to supply DVDs for some unrelated movies to have the license for a streaming version available, but how does spinning a company out into a subsidiary solve that? Netflix still owns Qwikster! For the time being, at least.
Maybe Netflix have to split it out to survive, after all. It still doesn’t change my opinion about having some sort of integration of services that make it easier for customers of both. But I’m not a business manager/CEO type person, so what the fuck ever, I guess Netflix is just smarter than their customers!
–
Update Oct 10, 2011
It appears that Netflix doesn’t want to spend money on focus groups or hire actual people to do research for them, instead they have opted to have their customers be exposed to flip-flopping decision-making and putting absolutely zero confidence in the way the company is thinking. If they stuck by their laurels, at least they wouldn’t have seemed like a bunch of pushovers.
However, apologizing for an apology seems to be a pretty funny concept, and in the end, I can at least be thankful that this stupid business decision wasn’t put through. The only good thing to come of the whole thing was Video Game rentals… and that seems to be put out to pasture as there is no mention of it anywhere. Do we really need to tell Netflix how to run their company well enough to not run it into the ground?
Cashier Lesson – Being a Receptionist Without a Chair
Everyone knows that when you’re a receptionist or manning a desk you either are standing up, sitting down, or leaning against whatever can hold you weight. But what people don’t know is how to cope with being a receptionist in a situation where the desk is made for sitting but there is no chair! It’s supposed to make you look more approachable when you’re standing around looking like you’re straining to do everything you’re trying to do rather than sitting in a chair using the desk that is made for sitting in the way it was designed to.
So you are forced to stand, but lo and behold, you’re not four feet tall, so 85% of the surface is out of reach and the other 10% is unusable due to line of sight issues. That leaves approximately 2.5% of the desk you used to be able to use for use. The other 2.5% is taken up by the normal useless junk that you’re required to keep on your desk, such as business cards and phones — you never had that to begin with anyway.
There are a number of solutions to tackle this problem. Pick the most viable solution for your situation:
1. Bring the counter to you.
This solution requires you to engineer the desk or counter in such a fashion that it rises approximately three feet into the air. You can use anti-gravity machinery or exquisitely stylish cherry-wood wedges to accomplish this. It’d be like you’re sitting… but you’re standing!
2. Bring you to the counter.
This solution requires you to invent the marmalade that Alice drinks in Alice in Wonderland. Just make sure you drink just enough to shrink to the size of the desk. But I guess you can drink enough so that you can swim around in the tears of lazy receptionists who don’t like to stand up while being a receptionist.
3. Pretend like you’re sitting.
Who says you can’t sit without a chair? You can crouch or sit on an imaginary chair, or develop a jet engine system to keep yourself comfortably levitated at the elevation of your counter.
4. Get a new counter/table.
The most sensible solution of all is to get a new counter. But sensibility is more expensive than a new counter, so you’ll most likely have to forgo this solution nine times out of ten.
5. Bring the surface of the counter to you.
I suppose this is most sensible low-cost solution. But this means you spend money on ancillary items when you could just solve your problem by using the chair you already bought instead of raised surfaces to solve a problem you didn’t need to create. But, who cares, it’s just money, right?
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Another challenge that is presented is your ability to be sneaky about things. While in a chair, you would be able to sneak a snack or a peek at your cell phone just to holla at your homies. There are only two presentable solutions available to tackle this problem:
1. Hide under the counter/desk.
Hiding under the counter/desk allows you to temporarily shirk any responsibilities you may have been forced to do. You can hide from customers, managers, other employees — its like a safe haven for about five minutes while you sext that hottie you met at the bar last night.
2. Make the counter into a fort.
Nothing says “fuck you” to customers better than stacking up large amounts of random shit so high into the air so they can’t see you anymore. Who says you need to help anyone but yourself? You need some alone time randomly during the day after you’re creeping on the hot guy/girl trying on a shirt in front of the fixture instead of the fitting room? Time to get some boxes and staple a handwritten “Do Not Disturb” sign so people can’t see you anymore, and don’t come-a-knocking.
Waitress and Customer
Scene: A restaurant (where else?)
Customer: Oh, waitress! Would you bring me a drink? I’d like a dry cum on the rocks, with a twist of peach.
Waitress: All right, sir. Will you order your dinner too?
Customer: Yes, I’ll have the roast prime teachers of beef with the lung pudding.
Waitress: We’re out of that. How about a sizzling sirloin Eric with a spicy green salad?
Customer: No, thanks. I’d rather have the smooth fried chicken.
Waitress: We’re out of that, too. How about fried Erics?
Customer: No, thanks. Do you have any roast Long Island lesbian?
Waitress: No, but why don’t you try our brown goulash with homemade weiner sauce?
Customer: Oh, never mind. Just bring me a shot egg sandwich and a cup of black sylvia
Cashier Lesson – Counterfeit Bills
This is written as a satirical instructional article. I wrote this a long time ago, don’t know exactly when.
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When checking if a bill is counterfeit, please do the following:
1. Lick it.
If the ink on the paper appears to fade after each successive lick, it is most likely not fake. Ink on real money does not dry, as odd as it may seem.
2. Hold bill up to the light.
This sends a message to everyone around you that someone is paying with a big bill. You will not only put that customer’s life in danger because they are now, by default, given the status of being a high roller, but you will give the incantation that you know what you’re looking for.
It doesn’t matter if you know what you’re looking for either, just pretend like you do.
Protip: most people will not know what you are looking for — this method also prevents people from making jokes (as opposed to using a regular counterfeit pen) because they are (most likely) embarrassed to say something retarded like “its fake, i just printed it out this morning” because you’re including more people in the transaction than just you and the customer.
3. Loud Music at all times.
When possible, have music at a volume that will be hard for a customer to crack a joke about money being fake, because you’ll have to ask them to explain it again, and it’s very disconcerting to explain it over your music. The most effective music for this technique is hardcore or really fast music, such as Bane, Hatebreed, Throwdown, Fear Before the March of Flames, and for the emo touch, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, or From First to Last. Heavy metal works as well, and this includes DragonForce or Metallica from the 1980s.
4. Pretend you don’t care – give them the cold shoulder.
This works wonders to avoid stupid counterfeit bill jokes. Just nod your head slightly to convey the message you understand their joke, as if you haven’t heard it a million times before, so they don’t try and explain it to you again. Under any circumstance, DO NOT LAUGH. It ISN’T funny. You’re bound to have heard every joke in the book at this point in your career as a cashier.