Wednesday, September 21, 2011

No, Thank You

If there's one thing that irritates more than anything is invasive sales tactics. I've worked in sales before and they[The Companies]always push employees to make sales in any way possible, be it deception, forcefully telling the customer they need it, and many other twitch inducing methods. There is something that bothers me more than regular invasive sales methods - something with a hidden agenda - something commonly including lies. Donations. Don't get me wrong! Donating is great when it's not pushed onto you, such as a website you really enjoy or a comic page that you enjoy reading(Sorry, I don't have a donation button if you're wondering). No, what I'm talking about are people that forcefully tell you to make a donation for their cause. Allow me to show what happened to me once before.
Perhaps some of you can relate to this. If you live in a semi-ghetto area you can definitely relate to this. Certain people like to use scams to make money, and they tend to use a lot of the same tactics as sales people to acquire it. The first sign I knew this woman was going to be a general pain in the hind end was when she walked in and immediately started throwing bags of what was, obviously, garbage from the dollar store, then instantly demanded to know which one I wanted. Did she think I was a simpleton? I could see what she was up to in her expressions(I drew all her actual expressions as well - they were that intense). The second thing I realized is that she didn't mention any organization she was raising funds for. If you're wanting to gather donations for a cause perhaps you should mention who they're for first, no? I regretfully didn't inquire as to who it was for or for some credentials just to see how she would respond.

Needless to say I wasn't about to fork over any donation for her. Especially not with the amount I was being paid to work at this dump. What gets me is Frank gave her some money, but I think that's because he was busy and not exactly fully focused. I later mentioned my assumptions about her and he admitted that he wasn't thinking clearly at the time. Oh well, at least she wasn't as bad as the man trying to sell me AAA maintenance service while I was clearly trying to work. That will be a different story for a better time.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Manners

I don't believe most people are taught manners anymore, at least not from my experience. Although it could be where I live, since whenever I take trips elsewhere people are more courteous while going about their daily lives. From what I have observed though, most people learned how to behave from either their parents or whoever they happen to be raised by the most. I dealt with a good example of this observation.
So the first thing that goes through my mind when looking at the sandwich is whether or not it wasn't evenly distributed BEFORE or AFTER she took that big ol' bite out of it. Frank mentioned that particular customers would, indeed, buy a sandwich, eat two thirds of it(or more in some cases) only to bring it back stating that there was something wrong with it and they wanted a refund or another sandwich. These were days where Frank obviously could not handle the level of idiocy that breached his mental wall and all form of care he had for the integrity of this shop would vanish. Luckily this rarely happened to that extent and most people were decent enough.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Waka Flocka - OOPS

One of the things Frank liked to call aggravating customers was "Waka Flockas." I'm not entirely sure why he called them that other than the rapper's name is funny sounding. There's probably many underlying reasons, but I never bothered to ask. So, the first night I actually heard this term from Frank was...
His response right after saying "Waka Flocka" was actually saying the name of the store, but the customer knew what she had heard and was kinda angry. It was somewhat funny that she was going to order something afterward yet changed her mind after a few moments. Frank and I were laughing so much afterward because he was not expecting it to be a customer. He told me that he had said "Pep Boys" before just to be funny, but the last time he did that it happened to be the store's owner so he refrained doing that.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Candy Machines

Every time I see those candy dispensing machines at places, generally small restaurants or large stores like Wal-Mart, all I can imagine is how long that candy has been sitting there. Most of the time it's not even candy that appeals to me so I don't take a lot of notice. At the store there were around three of these machines in the eating area. There were Mike and Ike, Reeses Pieces, and Skittles if I remember correctly. One night a coworker had a craving for some candy and. . .
Ironically right next door there was a grocery store that carried such things. She realized that after I pointed it out and we started laughing like we had mental issues from sniffing too much glue(or propane in this place). The most amazing part is that even though we suspected the candy would be stale, it actually wasn't! Either the person who owned those machines replaced the candy very recently or it's really dry inside of those dispensers.