customer service stories

So, I may have mentioned this before, but I have worked retail since I was 16- with the exception of a 3 month temp job at Fabricut warehouse (where I located, cut, folded, serged, and shipped out fabric samples) and a doomed one month as an order puller at a Hobby Lobby warehouse (where I worked on a line filling boxes with items such as fake flowers and Valentine candy in December).  Under the umbrella of "retail," I include any job that entails interaction with the public: fast food positions, supermarkets, department stores, door-to-door sales, etc.

I worked at a popular fast food restaurant on a military base for over a year.  This was a very interesting job because a great portion of the customers wore their military uniforms and some carried weapons. I was supposed to call each customer by their rank as it appeared on their uniforms, but I could never remember how many stripes meant which ranks.  I called everyone sir or ma'am to be safe.  John Cena came on base on a day that I was working, and so did Chris Brown.  The lines from the store where the stars were situated stretched all the way outside.  People waited for hours . . . and Chris Brown left after appearing for only one hour, upsetting the people in the long line.

I am currently a greeting card merchandiser.  Recently, I was on my knees reaching under a card cabinet, when an old man (older than 60) stopped next to me.  I looked up at him, and he handed me a dime.  I was surprised but polite, and said, "Thank you! I love dimes!"  To which he replied, "I give a dime to every woman who gets on her knees in front of me."  I was flummoxed, not knowing what to say to that.  So after a pause, I started laughing. 
On a related note, people like to hide items behind my greeting cards.  Empty condom boxes, empty battery packs, used lipstick, empty pregnancy test boxes, etc.  Evidence of stealing.  You get the idea.  The manager at one of my stores told me she regularly finds used condoms in the bathroom.

Of all the Walmarts I've worked at, the longest time spent was at the first one.  This was a place where women were given raises for sleeping with the assistant managers and loaded unpaid-for baskets were allowed to walk out the front door without any form of intervention at night.  There were many nights (from 10 pm to 7 am) when I was left alone to man the cash registers, self-checkouts, and customer service desk.  A common scam teenagers pulled on me was to call the customer service phone so that I would be out of sight of the front door, and keep me on the phone long enough for her friends to walk out the door with a bunch of merchandise.  I also witnessed many many many people cheating the self-checkouts, which I was usually in charge of when I worked the day shift.  These particular self-checkouts had long belts and a long space between the scanner and the bagging area.  That did not stop families from forming a chain of children to furtively pass expensive items down the line and into the bags, and teenagers from trying to buy beer- thinking we didn't check IDs at the self-checkouts.  I had a few foreign people try to confuse me by saying it was legal to drink in their country, and they'd show me passports and IDs in other languages.  I'd have to tell them that they were currently in America where we are uncool, and they'd suddenly pretend to not understand me.  Sigh.