To punch the next eejit customer who asks why we dont have this toy in stock!!!

[Ashantai]

OH DEAR GOD!! You've had months to buy the "must have" present for your kids, why the hell do you wait till the last weekend before xmas and then give me a hard time because we dont have it in stock!!

I had some stupid bint who told me i had ruined her sons christmas because we dont have the stupid dancing teletubby anymore!! I dont give a flying f* that Archibalds christmas is ruined because you didnt have the sense to buy it earlier!!!!!!!!

When she told me she was off to Woolies to buy it, i nearly wet myself laughing

reminds me of 2 things

DH the first year we were married, told him in November exactly which nightie I would like, and to get size 12 . He came back on Christmas eve with something totally different because "they only had size 8 or size 22 left" (sounding genuinely surprised!!!). He did the same with a junmper the next yr, right size, wrong colour.(I buy my own presents now, all he has to do is wrap them up with the kids)

when I was a student we had worked a long hard Xmas eve in tesco and had some mad woman in at about 4pm wanting a turkey. But why haven't you got any turkeys, it's CHRISTMAS!! Er, yes, THAT is WHY we haven't.....

some people!

But I would refrain from the punching bit, far better to smile sweetly while thinking "You pratt"

Have just noticed she actually blamed YOU for ruining his Christmas! That is awful, but try to rise above it.
(Oh, and be grateful you don't work in woollies. I went in saw the queues and came out thinking poor sods slaving away with all those miserable greedy grumpy customeres and for what)

YANBU: Used to work in Currys - every Christmas Eve it was the same - men coming in on their way home from local industrial estate, needing to buy their wives a present.

Normally they were in such a panic that they didn't notice they were leaving with a footspa and high spec hairdryer - rather than the iron or deep fat fryer (wtf?!) that they came in asking for.

Reminds me oh overhearing a rant conversation in a supermarket. This old guy was going off his head because they didn't have the thing he wanted to buy.

He says to the employee "Call yourself a supermarket?!"

the employee said "actually no, I call myself John" and walked away grinning, leaving the man standing there completely furious.

I dont get the last minute shopping either - christmas is the same time every year so its not like its suddenly sprung on people.

If a child has a favourite wanted item, surely its common sense to buy it well in advance.

Do feel sorry for those working in stores at the moment, especially with situations like the OP.

Thank you ashantai for starting this thread!
What a relief that I'm not the only one who wants to be rude back at them.
"Why don't you have any more of these, love?"
"Because we've already sold them all you dingbat!"
Sadly, I would probably get pulled up on that- it's the only aspect I dislike about retail- not being able to speak my mind.

Maybe the parents are waiting in case little Archie changes his mind later on about what toy he wants for Christmas?

No call to be rude to the shop assistants though - it's not their fault children parents are indecisive and leave it til the last minute to buy stuff.

" He says to the employee "Call yourself a supermarket?!"

the employee said "actually no, I call myself John" and walked away grinning, leaving the man standing there completely furious. "

Thats a classic

Oh the joys of working in customer service.

But here is a nice story. My dd works in Game. Man came in today and bought 3 ds nintendos and games.

dd asks man why so many. Man replies, it is for the childrens ward in the local hospital. I do it every year.

Restores my faith in human nature.

Aww Cheshirekitty that is so nice, if i ever get rich i am going to do the same!

I always give our old consoles (still working) and games to our local childrens ward since ds is there so often!

there was a women in argos yesterday going barmy because they had no baby annabells left and acting like it was so unreasonable for a top selling toy to not be in stock on the 21st of december and how her daughter was going to be heartbroken.

i was tempted to walk up and say well mine is nestled safely in the cupboard already wrapped cos i bought it weeks ago....and i got it half price, but she might have slapped me

I have worked in retail too and I am afraid there is very little you could tell me about the general public that would surprise me.

I always fantasised about telling some of them to fuck off. But of course I never did.

DD has a holiday job at Woolies, and apparently some of the staff are definitely speaking their minds.

They don't have a lot to lose, after all.

Somebody who is young enough to be interested in teletubbies really won't care,

used to work in shoe shop when a student.Sat before school back chaos as no shoes left for gluteus maximums and his wonky plates of meat
(my fault of course)

so knowing junior has wonky feet parent's waited until 1640 before deciding to have a red faced tizzy

have any of you seen this site?

notalwaysright.com/

some of it is clearly made up but there are some corkers there

Anyone who works in retail at this time of year is a SAINT i tell you!
How you manage to keep yours faces straight and smiling sweetly and not being upset is superhuman.
I used to work in a call center and at least we had the luxury of putting customers on hold and letting out our frustrations on the keyboard! .

I definitely will be a Saint you know! I can't keep up with the carved, wooden donkey orders you know. Bloody selfish that's what I say!

Ooh I managed to say "f*ck off" out loud today, it was well deserved though!

I work in a shop opposite poundland, I nipped over the road without putting my jacket on to get some gift bags and a woman marched up to me and said "where's the ...", I cut her off said "I don't work here sorry" smiled and carried on my shopping.

She called me an ignorant bitch to her friend! I said "I'm sorry? You obviously didn't hear me say 'I don't work here, sorry', why is that ignorant?"

Then she said you didn't even listen to what I had to say, wtf even if I had I wouldn't have known where it was! I was quite polite but she didn't even say excuse me.

She carried on shouting and I said "oh fuck off" as I turned and stood in the queue, little old lady in front off me said I was quite right! lol!

ooh- well done! I keep getting asked for help in Boots which is opposite our store. I am often tempted to do that myself.

I will be one of those who leave most of the shopping until Christmas eve as this is when I get paid and I have no cash until then. I'm dreading it! What do you think the chances of ds and I getting a turkey? Slim to none?

you could get lucky.

Hmm. I am planning on taking ds shopping very early. I'll see what happens. There's always the rediculously overpriced goose in M&S that no one is stupid enough to spend £50 on if I can't find one. Darn!