Fridays01:14 May 07 2011
Times Read: 1,110
Not only is it Mother's Day weekend, but the high school prom is Saturday. Add to that 5 full dress weddings to clean and press and alter, plus our usual full load of clothes, and you get one hell of a stressful Friday.
A lot of people had brain farts and left getting their clothes cleaned till the last minute. A few of them got caught short, and we referred them to a place in Rockford that we knew was still cleaning, till that place phoned us and said please don't send any more people down here, they are overwhelmed with their own orders and they had two employees call in sick!
Had 3 of my least favorite people to deal with all in a one hour span: Miss Thang, Bitchy/Crabby Mom, and Anal Retentive Guy. I call them Miss Thangs...you know the type. More attitude than brains. This one was a former Miss Teen Something or other a couple years ago, now she is graduating and this is her prom weekend. She came to pick up her dress and I greeted her with "Hello, Britnay." (That's her name, I pronounced it as I thought she prounounced it, as Brit-nee.)
She had a complete meltdown. "It's Brit-NAY! Brit-NAY!" she screeched. "You shouldn't wait on people if you can't pronounce their names right! Oh my God!" Well, I apologized, got her dress, and of course she kept right on rolling with this. "Don't you have to take some sort of classes for training? Or ASK people how to say their names before you try to say it yourself? It's just so RUDE! Oh my GAWD!"
An elderly black lady had come in during all this. She watched the whole thing. While Miss Thang was digging in her purse, the lady spoke up, looking at me with a little smile. "You know," she said,"when my daughter was young, she spoke to a clerk like that when I was with her. I took her home and blistered her behind. She was never rude again, believe me." Miss Thang turns around and was ALMOST going to say something. The lady held up her hand, "Don't you start anything with me, Miss Brit-NAY. My church donated a big sum to sponsor you in that Miss Teen pageant you were in. You'd better not ask us for another penny till you learn some grace and modesty."
DAMN did Miss Thang get her ass out of the shop in a big hurry. And the black lady just stood there beaming. "See, honey," she said to me, "you just gotta know how to handle them." I enjoyed that so much I gave her a big hug...and her clothing order was on me. I wished her a Happy Mother's Day and she wished me one. I said I wasn't a mother and she said "Oh honey, my pastor says it doesn't matter if you are a mother or not. You are your mother's precious child."
That almost made up for Mr Anal Retentive. This doorknob will count his items in his car in the parking lot, take them out of the car, lay them on the hood and count them again, then bring them in and count them AGAIN. Like a couple extra pants snuck in there somehow. I had a lady picking up her clothes when he came in, pushed past her and plopped his clothes on the counter, and started to count them. She turns around. "Excuse ME! I am not done here. You need to wait your turn. Don't shove me aside like that."
He ignored her and kept counting. He had done this before, and we had told him if he wanted to count till the cows come home, he was welcome to, but to do it on the side counter and not the one where people come in and pick up their orders. He just spread all his stuff out, pushing the lady aside, and was going thru them when my boss came round the corner. "Derek," he said, "you KNOW you're not supposed to count here. Do it on that counter, over there." Derek was in some funny mood, he spread his stuff all over the counter, blocking the area, and people were trying to come up to my desk and drop their orders off. My boss had to literally grab the guys clothes away from him, and take them to the other counter, and stand there and wait till he counted everything. (He ended up counting six times, and that was just in our call office.) I think he needs his meds adjusted.
Bitchy/Bossy Mom came right at closing time, with three prom dresses. Guess when she wanted them? In an hour. Yeah right. We had signs up for over a month reminding people to get their prom/mother's day clothing cleaned. But she was from out of town, and didn't know. We recommended another cleaner that we knew would be open and cleaning on Saturday, she could get her things done by noon. She chose instead to be bitchy. "Aren't you a cleaner? Here to serve the customer? Well, I am a customer. You should do what I want." Standing there with her hands on hips just tapping her toe. We are locking up and getting ready to leave.
My boss loves these ladies. He can usually shmooze and sweet talk them, but this bitch was having none of it. "I demand you clean my clothes, and I don't want to hear any crap! Whatever you have to do, MAKE IT HAPPEN!"
MY boss just smiled. "Using worn out movie cliches is not going to help in this situation," he said. "Now, you can take your things down to Jim Dandy Cleaners in the morning, and they will be done by noon. We ceased operations over four hours ago, and I'm sorry you didn't know this or didn't phone before you came up here. But unfortunately we can't help you. Sorry to disappoint you. Good evening."
Right on cue, up rolls a police squad car. The officer gets out and asks us if everything is ok, since the woman won't leave. She turns around and starts telling the officer that we have refused to clean her clothes and were rude to her and other bogus bullshit. She notices the officer isn't writing anything down. "Why aren't you doing your job? You should be arresting them! They are in business to serve, and I bring them work and they won't serve me!"
My boss was peeing himself trying not to laugh. I thought I would fart from holding back my giggles. The officer just said "Ma'am, these are nice people and they work very hard. Unfortunately it's time to leave. You got here too late and they aren't going to start everything up just for you, they'd be here for hours. I can direct you to another place if you like, but I am not going to arrest these people. They did nothing wrong." He escorted her out the door and to her car. We locked up quick like a bunny and got out to our cars, and in just that minute something had happened, cos when we looked back at the woman, her clothes were on the ground and she was in the back seat of the squad car.
My boss and I collapsed laughing. What the hell? As I walked to my car he called out "You glad you have the weekend off?" I shouted back "Fuck YES!!"
Phew. Holy crap. I need a martini.
COMMENTS
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Sulks
16:08 May 30 2011
hmmm...people like that are just weird.
Morrigon
16:11 May 30 2011
I'll never understand the "Admins should know better." thing... Obviously we do know better than you, if we understand that the rating system goes from 1 to 10. Now quit being a sissy and take the damn rate you are given.
Oceanne
17:13 May 30 2011
Dont forget the big admin conspiracy.
Pfffft
Isis101
19:18 May 30 2011
Of course this sage advice won't sink in...just sayin'.