Asshole-ish and Stupid Customers at your job

I work in the photo lab at the walgreens about 5 minutes from my house. Living in small town florida, more than 85% of the individuals that walk through that door are retired old farts. It's kinda depressing, being such a "youngin" myself.

So anyway, we have this self-service Kiosk called the KPM (Kodak Picture Maker). It features a scanner that allows customers to bring in their favorite print, and enlarge it up to an 8x10. One thing that commonly occurs is a series of rednecks attempting to save money by making copies of their Professional Pictures. BIG Problem. See, with current copyright laws, Walgreens as a corporation faces massive lawsuits when a professional photographer's work is replicated. It seems to be a concept that is more and more difficult to convey to potential customers. Anyway, the way the system is set up, anybody can just come up and use it. However, before it actually prints the final product, it asks for a password, which only our photo technicians and management team knows. Of course, after going through the hastle of scanning the picture, editing it, cropping it, all on the slow ass KPM, most customers get a little frustrated when I have to inform them that the photo they have is copyrighted. To me, your memories are worth no more than the $1.99 I charge you for them. Some common responses include:

"C'mon, just this once?"
"That's no law I've ever heard of."
"This picture is like, 30 years old." (Common guideline is we can copy it if it's more than 75 years old. Most copyrights expire after that ammount of time.)
"You're joking right? They never give me this crap at Wal-Mart."
"My (insert favorite relative here) took this picture."

On top of that, there's always at least one person that "doesn't have time for this" or "has to be to an appointment" or whatever and requests that we do the self-service work for them. I generally have no problem doing this, especially since we rarely have anything else to do anyway, aside from descending to the level of Stock Boy.

I had this one lady one time that had approached the counter with a hefty stack of 4x6 prints that she wanted one copy of each of. At the time, the good Kiosk was down, so I was forced to use the KPM. The reason she couldn't stay to learn the system herself and do it, was something to the effect of "my favorite television program is coming on. I'll be back in an hour." I humored her and offered to do the pictures for her.

So precisely as she walks out the door, a group of middle aged women walks through the door. I immediately realized what was about to happen. The night before I had recieved a call from a woman asking if we could make copies of pictures from prints, because her cousin's husband had died. They asked for my help, and I did the best I could within the limits of the machine.

Naturally, for a group of pictures for a funeral, there were a lot. And so they were there for quite a while. An hour later to the minute, the first woman walks back in the door. I come around the counter to inform her that I haven't had a chance to do her pictures yet. The KPM has been in use since the moment she left the store. I suggested that she can come back in another hour or so, or perhaps look around until I can finish the pictures. The women with the funeral pictures were almost finished. Of course, she wouldn't have it. She stood RIGHT behind me peering over my shoulder to see what I was doing the entire time I scanned the pictures. After ever picture, she would ask me if I was finished yet. After about 10 minutes of this bull shit, I turned around and politely explained the situation to her, that some people had come in to print pictures for a funeral using the same machine, and the insensitive bitch didn't even blink. I again politely offered that she look around while she waits. In actuality, it really does help to pass the time. when I had finally finished the order she would not let it go how "she gave me an hour to complete the order, and I hadn't even started when she returned." I made a mental note of her phone number when I punched the order into the computer, and I also put her in for an order of film. I closed it out showing no prints were developed or anything, but the order remains. Every morning at about 9:30 she is awakened by the Walgreens Automated Photo System reminding her that her prints are ready to be picked up.

WHEW! That was a little more long winded than I expected. Sorry guys.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Same photo lab, I had a customer the other day that went a little like this.

"Do you know anything about computers?"
"Yup. What can I help you with?"
"Will these headphones work with MP3s?"
I humored her...
"Sure will."
"Now do you KNOW that, or are you just saying it?"
Again, I humored her...
"Sony makes all their headphones MP3 Compatible."

Another one my friend angelo told me about.

"All these pictures are upside down!"

He took them from her hand, flipped them around, and handed them back without saying a word.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

We have that at walgreens. We have a bunch of vendors that stock their own products and such on our shelves. Vendors can sometimes be as rediculous as customers though.

There is a keypad to get into the front hallway at our store, and in that hallway is the only enterence for the cooler with all the drinks. When our old soda guy would come, he got all frustrated that I had to let him in every time. He for some reason couldn't grasp the concept of me not having a high enough position to just GIVE him the code so he didn't have to wait for me to be finished with a customer to get in. That's a big Loss Prevention No-no.

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Customers do similar things at walgreens where I work. We have a lot of items that are labeled with a "buy more and save" sticker. It's notorious on candy bars. Let's say there is a candy bar for 69 cents. A snickers, perhaps. The buy more and save sticker says "69 cents each or 2/$1.19". Obviously, this means that you get the first one for 69 cents, and if you get a second, you will only be charged 50 cents. A lot of other items end up being something like 1.99 each or 2/$3 and stuff like that, and people just can't seem to grasp the concept that you have to get two, for it to come up two for three dollars. Sometimes it's surprising how much people will fight over a silly 49 cents. Especially in this community where people own million dollar beach front property.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I distinctly remember back a long time ago at my store when some dude was harassing the pharmacy people.

The manager that night was this lady that was pregnant. She doesn't work there anymore. But this dude walked in the door with a reciept, and he went straight back to the pharmacy. Apparently, from what I heard, he left some cigarettes on the counter back there, and paid for them, but didn't get them. Probably bull shit, because nobody tat worked back there all day had noticed such an incident. Well, when they told him there was nothing he could do, since we can't just GIVE him cigarettes, he got pretty frustrated and angry. He started shouting things like F*** Walgreens, F*** you all and he stormed out the store, pulling a significant ammount of office supplies off the shelf in Aisle seven before doing so. The irony of it all is that they called the cops, and told them where the guy lives. All his pharmacy records are on file at the store, including home address and telephone number. I've seen him in the store since the incident, and he seems a lot more mild mannered. According to my buddy who is now a pharmacy tech, the dude is on all kinds of mood surpressors and shit. How many days did he have to skip to flip out like that?

I was speaking idiomatically.