You Can't Please Everybody.

Last night was very interesting. Every night before we start work we have a short meeting where we learn how sales are doing and the managers bring up anything they feel needs to be discussed. As soon as the meeting was over and I went to the sales floor the phone was ringing. There was another person working electronics, but she was helping a customer, so I answered the phone. The caller started out by asking,  "Doesn't anybody answer the phone there." According to the lady she had been trying for a week to contact the store. I really don't believe she was telling the truth. All I told her was that I didn't understand why nobody had answered, but then asked her what could I do for her. She was wanting to order something from our website and was having trouble doing so. The way the website works is you can purchase anything listed and have it shipped to the store for free. The item has to be paid for before it is shipped, but what this lady wanted was to have the item shipped to the store and then she would come in and pay for it. I told her that we couldn't do that. She did not want to register an account on the website, and did not want to use her credit card there either. I told her that if she came in a got a gift card that that would be an acceptable form of payment, which didn't make her very happy either. Then she told me she didn't understand why we just simply didn't have every item on the website in the store. I tried to explain that there were simply too many items for that to happen and that some of the items purchased were in limited quantities so there were not enough items to send one to every store in the company. She grumbled a little bit more, but then did thank me for my help and hung up.

That was quite a way to start the night. I have always said, there are some customers that no matter what you do, you could shine their shoes and wax their car, they would still find something to complain about. A lot of people don't seem to understand that even though our store is part of a corporation, not every store carries the exact same merchandise. For one thing, the stores are all different sizes. The one I work in is smaller than several others in this area. For another, they try and merchandise accordingly to what will sell in the area the store is located in. One example of that is being here in Georgia, we would be very hard-pressed to sell any snow blowers, where as in Illinois they wouldn't have a problem. I do everything in my power to make people happy, but the last time I tried walking on water I nearly drowned. Fortunately, people like that are in the minority.

The prank phone calls seem to have totally ended. Maybe they're just taking a break, but if I get any more I will let you know about it.