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Unread May 11th, 2008, 02:25 PM
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Redstar3894 Redstar3894 is offline
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Angry Power Outages...

Okay, so I searched around and didn't find a thread for this, kinda suprised, I thought this would have been beaten to death around here, but what the hell...

So, I opened this morning, and everything was all fine and dandy, opened on time, it was raining like mad but whatever, and around 11:15, the power just went out...

I won't give you the play by play because I'm sure a good number of the people on here have had to deal with this and know what I'm talking about...but forgive my forthcoming rant...

I have never hated customers in general more than I did this afternoon...the saving grace that saved me from doing something that would have probably gotten me fired was my CSR showing up on time to take some of the heat off me...

Now, I could forgive a certain percentage of them because my store hardly ever has major issues...(we have DSL...and haven't had a power outage in years)...and it's nothing I haven't seen before, I was just driven up a wall by it all today...so again, forgive me if you've heard this all before, I just need to vent...

We put up not one, not two, but no less than 10 FUCKING SIGNS saying in big letters that you needed your BB card and cash in order to rent...i know customers can't be bothered to read something that's right in front of their face, but it blew my mind with all the people I got asking whether they could use their ID, or something along those lines...the majority of our customers just use their ID's to rent and probably don't even have cards, or just lost them years ago...

We decided to let people exchange their MP rentals if they had their card and we were reasonably sure they had the pass...but considering how many people we have on the pass, I was amazed we got even one person who had their card...so, otherwise, we told them no...unless they wanted to pay in cash...but I had one woman who actually started writing down my name after I said this, saying she was going to complain...that I couldn't exchange on her pass because the power was down...I almost said something along the lines of "what do you expect me to do, reach down and pull a generator out of my ass so we can run everything?"

It just blows my mind sometimes that someone would walk into the store, past all the signs, find their movie in the dim emergency lights and sunlight, make their way up to the front, past the sign staring them in the face at the counter, and thrust their movies, driver's license, and credit card at me...I know I shouldn't have expected any less, but I've been running on a total of 12 hours of sleep across the last three days, so I'm a little ragged...

And the people with the TA mailers was what tipped me over the edge...most of them were okay with not exchanging them...but this one old guy would not let it go...he had to argue with me for at least 10 minutes about why I wouldn't let him do it..."I work in a research library and when the power goes out, we just write everything down..." Well good for you asshole, that's what we do too...I know, holy shit right? but we are a business and require people to pay before they take our movies home, and I don't know if you might have to pay for your exchange because you've reached your limit or something like that...it was only after I repeated that several times that he finally got the hint that things like that happen sometimes and that's why we couldn't do it...That sent me careening over the edge...I had to go in the back room and ended up punching the wall so hard I'm suprised I didn't break my hand...I screamed a little bit too, I just wanted to reach over the counter and strangle that guy...

Anyway, what saved me from inevitably going postal was my ASM showing up early, having been alerted by my SM, to take over for me...and I got to go home and have the rest of the night to get extremely drunk and forget what happened...



I apologize again for the length...but as I said, I was trying to get it all out and just needed to vent...
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 02:33 PM
HardcoreKeith HardcoreKeith is offline
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It actually already happened to me twice this year. Amusingly, the last time, the customer behind the one arguing with me yelled out, "HEY DUMBASS, THERE'S A HUGE SIGN ON THE DOOR THAT SAYS CASH ONLY. OR CAN'T YOU READ?" I high-fived her.

In retrospect, I can't believe either of us stayed open on such days.
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 04:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HardcoreKeith View Post
It actually already happened to me twice this year. Amusingly, the last time, the customer behind the one arguing with me yelled out, "HEY DUMBASS, THERE'S A HUGE SIGN ON THE DOOR THAT SAYS CASH ONLY. OR CAN'T YOU READ?" I high-fived her.

In retrospect, I can't believe either of us stayed open on such days.
Yeah, I wish that would happen...but none of my customers that are actually that nice would have the balls to say something like that...they just shake their heads and say things like, "some people" after the idiot walks out...But believe me, if someone did that in my store, they would get their rentals free of charge...

And I definitely agree with you...In retrospect, when the power went out, I should have kicked everyone out of the store, locked up, and gone into the back room to take a nap...could have just told my SM and DL that I couldn't get ahold of anyone because my cell phone 'died' and the phones didn't work...maybe next time...
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 05:05 PM
HardcoreKeith HardcoreKeith is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redstar3894 View Post
Yeah, I wish that would happen...but none of my customers that are actually that nice would have the balls to say something like that...they just shake their heads and say things like, "some people" after the idiot walks out...But believe me, if someone did that in my store, they would get their rentals free of charge...
Yeah, it's the first time it's ever happened to me in like 4.5 years. My friends tell me they once stood up for a CSR when they were in there and I wasn't around, though. So it's happened at least twice at my store.

Quote:
And I definitely agree with you...In retrospect, when the power went out, I should have kicked everyone out of the store, locked up, and gone into the back room to take a nap...could have just told my SM and DL that I couldn't get ahold of anyone because my cell phone 'died' and the phones didn't work...maybe next time...
For real. I'm not even kidding.
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 05:22 PM
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zooworker zooworker is offline
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Power outages have happened very little here, but when they do I lock the door. Reason, we are a high theft store and the way my store is they area past the counters is dark, we have small windows only in the front. Last thing I need is some asshole tripping over a shelf and suing, or a person walking out with product .

Now if the computers are down we go manual and do the same as you did. And about 70% of the customers can't Rent because of no card or cash.
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 05:30 PM
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If the customer has no cash, we'll let them leave it as a balance until they come in next.
However, they still need their damned card!
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 05:33 PM
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I could see that in my area..

Cust Leaving store: HEY!!! PEOPLE FREE MOVIES!!!!
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Unread May 11th, 2008, 06:22 PM
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Hell, If they've got their card, I'm all for it.
We'll get that $4.86 out of you eventually.
  #9  
Unread May 11th, 2008, 07:56 PM
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Had that happen to me once, fortunatly it was on a slow Thursday. I just told every customer as they walked though the door what they needed to rent and didn't have too many problems, except for one movie pass customer.
  #10  
Unread May 11th, 2008, 08:13 PM
Angry Angry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sobedrummer View Post
If the customer has no cash, we'll let them leave it as a balance until they come in next.
However, they still need their damned card!
Too many issues with doing that IMO. I was nice and did the same thing once for a customer, only to have them come in at a later date and attempt to dispute the charge. Never again.
 

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