LogFAQs > #899706142

It was a volunteer job but I worked at the gift shop of a children's hospital during the beanie baby craze for about a year. Since then, I've been VERY patient with anyone working in retail (they need to be complete idiots at their job for me to complain, basically) after some of the crap I had to put up with from a few customers.

Best example I can think of: Like I said, it was the height of the beanie baby craze (when people thought they could put their kids through college by collecting and selling the things). Our policy was that if we had less than five of any specific doll, we'd do our best to hang onto them for the families with kids in the hospital (usually by asking "What room is the patient in?" We'd offer a free mylar "get well soon" balloon for patients, it was our way of weeding out collectors) - It was the most popular gift for kids in the hospital, after all. It was a big hospital, so a lot of days when I'd handle phone calls at least a third of them were "Do you have X beanie baby?" Or "Do you have X animal beanie babies?"

Unfortunately, collectors got wise to the fact we had a massive shelf in the storage room DEDICATED to the things. So, a lot of times we'd get calls from people who wanted the latest doll or a specific one that was hard to find or being discontinued (something like that). I once had a doll and a balloon set aside behind the register for someone who was coming in later to pay for it (I think it was a rabbit or something, not 100% sure), it was the last one of that specific doll we had...

...So, one of our usual collectors comes in and asks for that specific doll. I check the back, none left. I apologize, saying we'd get another shipment in a couple days and to call to see if we got it in. The collector points to the one behind the register and says "You have one right there!" I explain that it's being held for someone with a kid in the hospital and I can't sell it since it's our last one.

This turned into the guy making a scene - Not screaming at the top of their lungs or anything but basically trying to get me to give up a doll set aside for a sick child so he could have it for his collection, a lot of begging and saying "You could just give the kid a different one, he won't know the difference!" Things like that, by then people were starting to stare at the thirty-something year old guy begging for a toy like a little kid.

I was in my early teens, so I was doing my best to be polite and respectful but...After somewhere between five to ten minutes of this the manager came out of the back (she had been taking a call when this started) and handled it. I ducked into the back at that point and she eventually got him to leave without the doll. The person who we set it aside for came in a little later, paid and took it up to the patient.

That's probably the worst customer I ever dealt with. Anyone else who got rude, well, we did our best to be understanding since a lot of them were parents\relatives of patients and under a lot of stress so I wouldn't feel right including them in a bad customer story...But the collectors like that guy? He was one of the more extreme examples but we had a lot of customers like that.
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