I Can Spells Wordz

Today I thought I would share some employee screw-ups that I've seen over the past little while, focusing on header cards. For anyone who doesn't know what a header card is, it's basically the card that is behind a CD or DVD that has the title of the artist or movie on it.

Most of the times when we're cleaning the sections out and we discover these, we all just have a good laugh over them, and if they're really good, we put them on our "wall of shame". You can see a few of them in the provided photo, but here are some that really made me chuckle (some of which are, again, included in the photo!)

-Ass Assassination of Jesse James
-Hairy Potter
-Darkwood Duck
-Transforners
-Sabrina Who? (for Samantha Who?)
-Suffer Dude (Surfer Dude)
-National Geographics
-Barestain Bears (Berenstain Bears)
-Sharkboy and Waterboy (Sharkboy and Lavagirl)
-Toothy Fairy
-Blind Melo
-Schwayze (I don't even know what this header card was for...)
-Beatie Boys
-Kindz in the Hall
-Huge Cornwell

If you've seen any awesome examples of employee shenanigans... send them to us for our little mini special editions like this on header cards!

Where's the Bathroom?

This story is a short one, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

I was helping this little old lady find some CDs that she was looking for. She was super nice and friendly and I really enjoy helping people when they are like that. I was with her for a while and found most of the CDs she was looking for and even recommended her some other CDs that she just bought because she liked me and thought I had good taste.

Anyways, so I bring her over to the cash and start ringing her through. I get the transaction completed and she asks me if there is a bathroom nearby. I tell her how to get to the bathroom and where it is and she smiles really sweetly at me and says: "Oh goodie! I really thought I was gonna have to crap in my pants! Have a niiice day!"

And that was that.

I Did Not Get THESE To Be Called Sir...

I used to work in downtown Toronto, as you may of read in past posts. I have met some really interesting people in that experience and this story is about one of those very interesting people I have encountered.

One day, I was scheduled to work in the basement of the store I work at, which is pretty much all of the movies for the store. The basement draws in a lot of the crazies, which is generally fine as they just like to shop for the most part and leave you be. On this particular day, I guess I just had an extra friendly face on, and I was chit chatting with this dude about this and that. We were talking for a while and I was kind of getting antsy and such, but kept listening.

Another customer comes down the stairs and walks over to us and is apparently a friend of the person I am chatting with. The person that comes over is a tranny with big straight blonde hair, gigantic Pam Anderson tits, big botoxed lips and very little clothing on. The shirt was barely covering nipple. And I will just refer to her/him as she hence forth for now.

So she came over and said hi to her friend and then proceeded to tell me about her experience in the main floor. We had just hired this British guy and he was working with a few other people. Apparently, she was walking around the store upstairs and looking for stuff, when the British guy walked over to her and said "Can I help you find anything, sir?"

Now, normally it's good training if you know better than to gentrify anyone when addressing someone in retail, but apparently, he did not know better.

The tranny was really offended by this and said no and continued shopping. I guess after a little while, the British guy returned and offered assistance again, following it up, once more with "sir". If anyone knows any trannies or has met any, you know that this is a really big no-no. So she came downstairs, as I mentioned and proceeded to tell me this:

Her: "That British guy you have working on the main floor is a HOMOPHOBE!"

Me: "Really? Well he's new and I haven't worked with him much, but he doesn't seem like that?"

Her: "Do you KNOW what he said to me?! He called me SIR!"

She proceeded to tell me about the incident above that I have already mentioned, so once I was filled in on that, she carried on:

Her: "Do you think that I dress like THIS and I got THESE (at this point, she sticks out her chest to a point where she might as well of been flashing me, since her boobs are like all up in maa space...) to be called SIR!? No, I didn't, and it's really rude and disrespectful of someone to treat me like that. I mean, you work DOWNTOWN! You have to expect people like ME pretty often here!"

She was not wrong at all. We had strippers, prostitutes, homeless people, trannies, alcoholics... all sorts show up at the store to shop, but we all knew how to deal with it and we had an awesome security team that kept us safe. You need to definitely be open minded to work at the store and homophobia definitely doesn't fly since like half the staff are gay and such too. So if you're a homophobe, you won't last very long.

She carried on for a bit more and thanked me for listening and being so open-minded and pleasant etc. They chatted with me casually for a little bit and such. Then they had to leave and they said their goodbyes and such and thanked me again. As they were leaving, the tranny just quickly popped in this little treasure for me to remember:

"I know what will make the British boy not so homophobic anymore... I'll just march right up there and give him a blow job and that will change his mind REEEEEAL quick!"

Go Find Yourself a Tic Tac...

Alright, so a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of dealing with this Spanish couple that came into my store. The other guy that I work with had dealt with them before and asked me to help them out. Basically, the couple had bought a copy of Predators and it wasn't working in their FIIIVE DVD players. The guy who had dealt with them before had already exchanged the DVD for them and apparently the DVD still wasn't working. It was supposedly skipping at certain parts of the movie.

We have a DVD player in the store, so the simple solution was to just check the DVDs to see if they were actually defective. The man had claimed that the movie skipped pretty much right from the get-go and just froze at other times.

I just want to take this brief moment to say that the man had had Taco Bell for lunch and had the WORST onion breath I have ever smelt. I wanted to vomit a little. And the wife had big gaudy jewelry on and silver front teeth.

Anyways, so we pop the DVD in our player and start watching it. It works perfectly fine. No skipping. We watch like 15 minutes of it just to make sure it doesn't start to skip. After, the man gets all defensive about the situation and says:

"So just because it doesn't work in MY DVD player makes the movie NOT defective? Are you trying to say that because it doesn't play in my FIVE DVD players, that it's my DVD players that are defective?! I have a 2009 Escalade, are you telling me that my Escalade is DEFECTIVE?!"

I followed up by saying to him that I could do another return, but if it was in fact their DVD player that was defective, the new disc I gave them still wouldn't work. I popped in the first DVD that they had returned and it wasn't defective either, so I tried to explain this to them. I asked him if he had a Blu-ray player, because I thought maybe the Blu-ray would not give them as much trouble. He told me that he did have a Blu-ray player, and he would trade up for the Blu-ray if the disc continued to not work.

Long story short, I told them to try to the DVD in a normal DVD player and not a DVD player in their Escalade... They were not really impressed with that suggestion and the woman said, "So you made us drive ALLLLLLL the way from Blah blah and blah blah all the way in BLAH?!"

The place in question... changed to BLAH, was down the street from me and literally like five minutes away from the mall, so it really wasn't very far for them to come and all I could think about in my head was maybe if they didn't drive an escalade that probably cost an arm and a leg to get gas for, it wouldn't have been such a big issue, and all I REEEEALLY wanted to say to them was, 'You should look into getting a Prius'.

Little Kids Can Be SO Cute

Sent in by Annie:

A 3 year old boy walks into the store with his dad. The tyke buys a popsicle and brings it up to the cash. He places it on the counter.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Annie. What's yours?"

"Dylan Micheal BlahBlahBlah".

I tell him how much he owes me. He gives me a $5 bill. I hand him the popsicle and give him back his change. He says thank you.

"Bye. Have a good night. Enjoy that popsicle"

"You enjoy YOUR popsicle. I will enjoy this...and all of your popsicles".

I smiled and waved goodbye. I thought it was seriously adorable.

It's Not Easy Being Pregnant...

This was sent in by my friend Annie:

The other day I was scheduled until 1 at the maternity store I work at. It was DEAD!

I had one lady come in with her little girl and pick up $60 of stuff -my target was 199, so I thought it was do-able... nope. Anyway. I spent the day vaccuming, doing word searches, straightening, and texting. At 1230 and a small Spanish woman and her husband come in to the store.

They came in to do an exchange because she got some clothing as a present and didn't like them. I type in the receipt for the return. I was working alone and trying to go from memory. It was the first time I did it. Her receipt surpassed the 30 day return period. It was 2 months old. Apparently, someone told her she had a NINE MONTH return, which does not make sense with maternity.

I noticed "L" sold her the stuff, and "L" was trying to be the manager, so I give her a call. "L" said I could do an exchange and she would receive no store credit.
Her husband is helping her shop, and all the while they are yell-speaking at each other in Spanish. She ends up kicking him out of the store.

She tries on a pair of jeans and 2 tops.

"S" walks into the store to begin her shift. The woman comes out. Plops her jeans on the counter and says she wants these. So everything gets rung in and she still has a credit of $15. She grabs a couple bottles of cream. Everything is rung in and she's asking if the jeans were XS. I look at them and say they were smalls. She goes on a giant rant about how she wanted the XS pair, but never said anything while trying on the pants. I said we didn't have an XS in that style. So "S" goes to the jean wall, grabs a pair of XS and brings them to the cash.

We have to re-do the whole return. She has a credit now of like $35.
She is like "Those jeans aren't the same price? You mean I have to get more? I already have creams I don't need, and a cheaper pair of pants. Fine, I will keep this shirt then."

So we ring everything up and she owes us $1.07. We tell her that and she goes to her car. Takes her about 5 minutes to come back. "S" is visibly annoyed, and the customer comments on it. "This is customer service, it's all about helping"

"S" mentions that her receipt is expired and shes lucky to be getting anything. The woman says she will take everything back to Toronto and get it refunded there. Then she decides that she will just buy what was already put into the system.
It's now 1:30, and I stayed longer because 1= the computer was busy and I could not sign out [took us a bajillion tries to get the return to work] 2= "S" is seriously pissed off. Hair flipping, sighing, eyerolling etc.

The woman says she wants to speak to the manager. "S" starts to dial "L"'s number.
"No no no..I am too busy now, I will speak to her later. Just write down the number". (and yet you've spent an HOUR here)
"S" does on the back of the receipt, and also writes FINAL SALE, so she won't come back. "S" then calls "L" and warns her that "Bitchy McGee" (my words) will be calling her and what went down. Meanwhile, her makeup has rubbed off on one of the shirts she tried on...and she didn't want that one.

Let's Take It Outside!

As far as retail stories go, this one has to take the cake as one of my favourites. This story actually JUST happened a few weeks ago and has already taken the mantel as one of those awesome (in a horrific kind of way...) stories.

Anyways, so one afternoon when I was working, I was walking around the store and putting things away and talking to customers. There were a couple employees working up at cash and ringing people through. So as I'm still working away, I start hearing a ruckus at the cash and walk over to see what the problem is.

Picture this for me; there are two sets of people in line, four people total. A grandmother with her granddaughter and this white trailer trash couple consisting of a girl who was most definitely high on something and her boyfriend, who was at least 6'2" and weighed probably 250-300 pounds.

The young couple had been waiting in line, but they were browsing stuff in the queue line product section, so the grandmother and granddaughter had thought that they were still looking and went to go up to the cash to pay. The white trash girl looked up and saw them trying to pay and started freaking out. She started yelling at the grandma to wait her turn in line and that they were there first and they should learn some manners... yadda yadda yadda.

This started a whole thing with the grandma and her granddaughter. The trailer trash girl was swearing, cursing and such. The grandma turned to the girl and just basically said sorry she didn't know. She then asked the girl to stop swearing as there are people who are offended by that language around.

Now I'm just going to take this moment to add in that I work in a middle-upper class mall and we generally don't get a lot of white trash in the area since the stores are mostly pretty pricey.

After they asked the trailer trash girl to stop swearing this started her on a whole rant, "This is a free f**king country, a**holes, I can f**king whatever the f**k I want and you can't f**king do anything about it, so f**k you!"

The grandma proceeded to tell the girl that they shouldn't let her kind into this mall and she should be banned from the mall and not be allowed to come back and if she said anything else to her, she was going to report them to security. So now things are just crazy and the people are all yelling at each other and the staff are just trying to get the people rung through and out of the store. One of the cashiers got everything rung through for the grandma and granddaughter and finished the transaction and they started to leave the store. Everything has generally calmed down and then the grandma says something like, "Baah, white trash..."

Then the boyfriend decides to pipe up (please refer back to mental image of giant white trash hillbilly boyfriend...) and he puffs up his chest and yells after the grandma, "Let's take this outside!"

The grandma turns around appalled by the gall of this idiot and just continues to walk out of the store. At this point in the time, the boyfriend decides to finish off this notion with "That's RIIIGHT, bittttches!" and laughs with his girlfriend and looks to the staff for approval... But by this time we were all horrified and just wanted them to leave.

But seriously. This guy tried to fight an old lady. Seriously. People...

Some Celebrities Are Just Jerks...

This is sort of part two of my famous people story that takes place in Vancouver. I don't really want to name names of famous people who were less than friendly, so if you can figure it out from all the subtle hints I'm leaving, that would be great.

There was a television series that was filmed in Vancouver in the 90’s called the X-files. One of the series stars shopped in our location on Robson Street on a regular basis, usually on Sundays. He was rather infamous for knocking the filming of the series in Vancouver because he felt it rained too much. I helped him many times find a lot of music he was looking for. He was always surly and uncommunicative and wore big sunglasses and his pants hiked up to his nipples, which I think he believed was a disguise and no one would recognize him!!! Sunglasses in the pouring rain were a bit of a giveaway. Whenever he cashed out some star struck female employee would say they knew who he was and loved the show and he would literally just grunt. One Sunday I asked him if he would like to autograph our wall of fame in the back room and his response was more like wall of shame and no thanks. I would also see him around the city, especially walking the seawall with two of the other male stars and they were nice and greeted people, however, him...still surly!!!

On another note about this actor, his new television series , Californication, is one of my all time favourite shows and I can’t get enough of Hank Moody and his Moodyisms.

His Sunglasses Were BIIIIG!

I find that some people in retail just really want someone to talk to, and most days if you're working... that's you. While I was on cash not too long ago, this man came into the store and bought some items. There was no one else in the line, so I guess he took this as a cue to just talk to me about whatever. He rambled on about a bunch of things like taxes, plastic bag surcharges, elections... yadda yadda. Then out of the blue, he just started talking about the last time he had been in the mall I work in and the following conversation went a little like this:

"I used to come to this mall all the time! It's great, isn't it? So the last time I was here, I was sitting in the food court eating my lunch when all of a sudden I look up from my food and see this man in BIIIIIIIIIG sunglasses. I mean, they were big. They practically covered his WHOLE face! Who needs sunglasses THAT big?! He also had a hat on that was all the way down his face to where the sunglasses were! So I was curious about how this guy was gonna eat his food, because seriously, his glasses covered his WHOLE face! So I watched him! And then all of a sudden, he took off his glasses and guess who it was?! GUESS! It was BRUCE WILLIS! He was in the mall filming Die Hard 2! Can you believe that?"

When this guy was telling the story, he kind of made it seem like the last time he was in the mall was like last week and then when he said he saw Bruce Willis filming Die Hard 2, I was kinda like... Oh. Haha...

Cowboys & Aliens

Submitted anonymously...

Retail, for me, is God's personal version of Punk'd - some times, it's boring, sometimes you get in on the act, and other times you cannot believe if this is actually happening to you. The other day, I had a customer come up to me asking me where our John Wayne Cowboy DVD is. No section, not Westerns, just a "John Wayne 'Cowboy' DVD". Well, after multiple (only one) searches (barely a search) I stopped egging her on and told her that he doesn't have a movie strictly called "Cowboy" as all of his westerns are pretty much different variations of "Cowboy". She didn't believe me, of course. Now, maybe, on some Hollywood editing room floor there is a version of "John Wayne's Cowboys" that she knows exists, but I could not find it for the life of me. So she said, "Are you spelling it correctly" in her ear-soothing accent. I responded with "I'm pretty sure". She then got out her invisible pen (her finger) and went on spelling out Cowboys for me on the front cash top. "C, O, W, B..." and she continued without any hesitation, as if, studying english for, what, almost all of my life now, the teachers got together and decided "No, he won't need the word cowboy in his lifetime! We shouldn't bother! More wine Principal Pete!? *evil laughing begins*". I had to back away and cover myself with whatever was in my hand, so she wouldn't notice my laughing. She was a great speller albeit, but it's moments like this one where no one's voice is raised, no one has a temper, just a fake, pen finger and the simple spelling a fake John Wayne movie that makes it all that more bearable.

Care For Some Help, Mr. Grohl?

So, good customer service seems to be one of the hardest things for retail workers to do, but this story takes the cake.

I worked in Vancouver for a major music retailer on Robson Street back in the ‘90’s. I worked in the basement as I was the head buyer but also the manager on duty. Part of my job description was to make sure floor staff were completing tasks as well as serving customers. I regularly checked the floor to make certain these duties were being performed. On one of my trips to the sales floor I noticed the staff were all congregated at the cashes and pointing at a gentleman that was browsing in the Alternative music section. I approached a staff member and asked what was happening and he said the gentleman was Dave Grohl, (yes he of Nirvana fame at the height of the grunge movement). I asked why no one was serving him and they were all too nervous or star struck to do so. It fell to me to ask him if he needed my help.

When I approached him, he acknowledged me and thanked me for asking him if he needed assistance. He went on to say that he had the same problem wherever he went that nobody asked him if he needed help. We spent the next twenty minutes chatting about music and he left with 2 shopping baskets of music, some of which he hadn’t heard that I had recommended to him.

The moral of the story is that even famous people need to shop and be assisted at times.