Thursday, July 28, 2011

Oops, I Did It Again.

Remember how I told you I might have been a wee bit of a dick when Anon GF and I bought our SodaStream doohickey?  Well today, I went in to refill the CO2 cartridge.  And I turned into a dick again.

And I swear it's all their fault!

I walk into the store and I see a woman monkeying around with stuff on the shelves and since she's the only one in there, I naturally assume she's running things.  So I say, "Hi, I'd like to refill this gas canister." And she looks at me and says, "She's outside."

This seems a tad unresponsive, but I choose to believe that she just has an odd way of telling me that the person who can help me will be back in a moment.  So I stand there patiently waiting.

And shelf-monkeying girl looks at me with a mildly annoyed expression on her face and repeats, "She's. Out. Side!"

I'm now feeling a bit like someone who has been given the response "Blue", to the question, "Do you have the time?"  So I say, "Yes, I heard you.  Did you mean I should go outside and get her?"

No response whatsoever.

So I continue, "'Cause if you meant I'm supposed to go out and get her, how should I know who she is?  There are ten people immediately outside your window."

Luckily, this bit of productivity was cut short when the owner came inside.  So I repeated my request to have the canister refilled.  Since I've decided to have two canisters so that there's always a full spare in the house, I decided to keep the box it came in.  She says, "You don't need the box, you know."  And I say, "But I like having the box if that's not a problem."

She snorted.  She actually fucking snorted at me!

I un-box the empty and hand it to her in exchange for a full one.

She asks if I'm in her frequent purchasers club (or whatever they call it).  I give her Anon GF's name, which is the name in her system.

She asks what my relationship is to Anon GF.  I tell her.  She says, "Well, I'll need your name to put you in our system."  I say, "No, you won't.  I want to give you money in exchange for a product and you already have enough of a record of who we are."

She snorts.  Again.

I hand her a Hundred Dollar bill to pay for my 20-dollars and change purchase.  She asks if I have anything smaller.  I offer her the seven singles remaining in my wallet. She gives me a look which I interpret to mean, "We run a crappy little store that sells ecologically sound products that mostly, nobody wants or can figure out what to do with.  Why on Earth do you think we'd have change for a hundred in the till?"

I put the Hundred back in my wallet and hand her my debit card.  She slides it through her doohickey and hands me the thingamajig and asks me to key in my PIN.

As I'm turning to leave, she says, "Thank you Mr. Gendzier (pronounced as if it's French - GanZeeAaay). I'll just put you in the system here with Anon GF for future reference."

I believe that is what's known as Carte Blanche for being a dick every time I ever walk into the place again. Even if I'm walking in for the sole purpose of being a dick.

Oooh, Goody.  A new hobby!

7 comments:

Tom said...

Imagine pronouncing your name like that! What, does she think you're from Canadia or something?

vince said...

Customer service - it ain't what it used to be.

Steve Buchheit said...

Well, I get all pronunciations of my last name, they tend to wash off my back like a whatever does to whatever.

But to grab the personal data from your credit transaction to add to their customer profile? Ooo, that would have so gotten the whack from me. I think I would have asked them if they knew where else I could get the tank refilled.

Reminds me of going into Radio Shack to get one of those "nobody hardly ever buys these batteries."

TimBo said...

Tom, you'll all be proud (but humble) Canadians soon, so you might as well learn the Quebecois (no, France French won't do) pronunciation for pretty much everything. You'll soon get used to it though. When you start seeing all you laws, signs, cereal boxes & C02 cartridges in both official languages you'll learn to love it. I'm sure I will any day now.

Nathan said...

Like most Americans, I always had a mental image of French (and thus, French speakers) as something inherently classy. I was cured of this by the road worker/flagman outside of Beaupre, Quebec who leaned into my window, grunted something in French and then burped. When he turned to walk away, he displayed a most impressive case of plumber's butt.

Jim Wright said...

That's French Canadian, totally different thing. Even the Canadians don't like them, and the Canadians like everybody.

Carol Elaine said...

Save us from people who think they can be assholes because they're "green." I'm all about being environmentally responsible, but those women need to know that their shit does, indeed, still stink.

(Brings to mind a certain South Park episode.)

I'm with Steve: I would've snatched my card away, told them I was off to another store to get the tank refilled and then given them lessons on customer service.

(Treat me badly as a customer and you are sure to see my royal bitch side.)