I'm sure I'm going to say something that someone is not going to understand the meaning of..Probably a term you learn in retail from someone else that just seems to translate from one store to another.
Register Biscuit is one such term. Other phrases I've heard or used to describe my job have included Cash Hound, Register Jockey, Till Monkey and, of course, Counter Help. Biscuit just seems to click with me in a positive way.
But I'm not going to sit here and list terms all day because I'm really not going to remember them until I say them and then am asked what it means. For the most part though, I'm sure people can puzzle them out as a lot of them are pretty obvious. The one term I am going to talk a little about today is one that that I'll probably use the most: Entitlement Whore.
Every cashier, clerk, sales associate and even manager knows who these types of customers are. They are the people that cause a majority of customer service problems for stores. They demand your full attention the second they walk in regardless of however many people are already in the store or whether or not the clerks are already helping someone else. They cut in line, they knit-pick over every little detail and frequently demand a discount on whatever it is they're looking at for no other reason then because they feel that their time is worth more than anyone else's.
Entitlement Whore - One who feels they are God's gift to retail works and should be fawned over and thanked for gracing you with their presence.
I hate Entitlement Whores. I hate dealing with them, I hate having them in the store, having them hassle other customers and I especially hate dealing with them over the phone.
What is it about being on a phone with someone that makes people think that they can be exceptionally rude and passive-aggressive towards the person on the other end of the line?
Today I started my shift as per usual, with a customer waiting to get inside a full ten minutes before I actually open but whatever, that's normal. So I go about my normal routine, get the lights on and the till running and let the guy in. He finds his game, we do the usual morning chitchat and once he left I checked the phone messages. Phone messages are always checked in the morning in case someone calls after hours to leave a voicemail or in case someone calls in while we're already on the phone helping someone else.
Now, I don't work weekends. After five years of nothing but weekends, I was more than happy to be moved to a nice regular monday to friday schedule. I like being able to finally see my friends and family on weekends for the first time in..well..five years. So yeah, I have no way of knowing when this particular customer called as our vmail doesn't actually give us a time stamp of when the call happened. It's part of why the greeting message says to leave your name, number and the time and date at which you called.
The opening line for this particular call was "I've never heard of a store having an answering machine before." The message just grows snippier and demanding from there with no actual helpful information like a name or tile of what they're looking for other than a rough description of about a half dozen versions of a game. But there's a call back number.
What do I do with that? I write down the number and the vague description that's there then move on to the next message with the resolve to see if I can't figure out what they're looking for. So I deal with the next message which was very simple and straight forward (hey even left their name and number which is always awesome) and I receive a phone call from someone else looking for a backgammon set. This took me all of ten minutes bringing my official time spent open that day to twenty minutes.
I hang up the phone and go back to my mystery caller with their less than helpful description and I see that the message light is blinking again. Well alright then, so I've had a phone call while on a phone call, it happens. That's what the voicemail's for.
"I still haven't been called back. Why is your answering machine even on? It's completely inappropriate for a store to have one. Why is it so hard to call me about about my game to tell me if you have it or not?! My number is..."
Really? Seriously? I'm sorry, what? You're game is important to you. I get that, really I do. But you don't even know what your game is, how am I suppose to find it for you? On top of that, I don't even know who you are! You couldn't be bothered to leave your name. Just a general description of something and a number. That said, what the hell store doesn't have a voicemail or answering service of some kind these days for exactly this kind of situation?
Whatever. Clearly someone feels that the sun should shine a little brighter for themselves. Fine. You get the same service anyone else would get which is the best that I can do with what I have to go on. I check with our stock, then with our distributor and finally I google it to see if anyone out there knows what the hell they're talking about. Surprise, surprise there's nothing matching what I have to go on.
'Well,' I think to myself, 'that's that then. Not much else I can do but call back and let them know.' Now, I don't know if this was irony or if they're just..you know..trying to make some kind of childish point but when I called back I was treated to a terrible rendition of You Are My Sunshine as my call was sent to an answering machine. Yes, an actual answer machine. I didn't realize there were any of them still kicking around. I leave my message of "Sorry that your call wasn't returned sooner, not sure when it was left. We're trying to find what you're looking for but without more info I can't really find it. At this time it doesn't look like we have it though. Again, apologies for the delay" etc., etc. and I leave it at that.
I figured one of two things would happen: They would call back and I could talk with them properly to find their game or I would never hear from them again. I was about half right because they did call back. Talking wasn't so much of an option as the Entitlement Whore on the other end of the phone line felt that their description was more than enough even though as they were talking to me they constantly contradicted their own words and then decided that my own personal speaking abilities needed to be criticized as well. "I'm sorry, I don't understand you. You need to learn to speak properly. 'Mkay' What's that? Use actual English. I don't understand mumbling.'
My patience isn't known to be unending and this particular customer is clearly more interested in taking out the chip on their should with me than in actually finding their game and I really, really don't want to deal with them but I don't need the grief chewing them out would bring me so I opted for the 'kill them with kindness' route and started over-pronouncing my words.
I admit that I'm sure my own tone was starting to reflect my own feelings of frustration with them and their berating but I remind polite and apologized for once again not being able to help them in the way that they seemed to want then explained that once again my distributor didn't have this mystical game in stock...To which they promptly slammed their phone down on me.
Way to go, Champ. That really gets your point across and doesn't make you seem at all juvenile or immature. You're old enough to be my parent and throwing a hissy fit at the store clerk over the telephone. You're children must be so proud.
Needless to say, I wasn't too happy myself from the experience but a quick text or two later and I'm pushing the incident out of my head because there are other people that actually DO want help to deal with.
So about three hours later, they phone back. I don't know if they just needed to act like a two year old for a bit or what have you but communicating went...well I wouldn't say better as apparently they had some kind of need to try and enforce proper diction across the globe and I had to hold my tongue a few times at comments that really had no reason for being said but they were more willing to listen and I could finally get some kind of proper description of what they wanted.
It was a god damn Monopoly game made out of wood.
That only comes out at Christmas...I don't look forward to that phone call.
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