Customers From Hell

This is just the beginning of the stories of the Customers From Hell. I plan to periodically tell you about these monsters. I see them as an example of what not to be, ever. Despite that my degrees are in other areas, I've been in sales since I was 15 years old. I'm a natural, and found my calling early while other kids were serving fries through a drive-in window. That didn't make me any better than they were, but I can tell you that I enjoyed my job a great deal more!

This first Customer From Hell story took place when I was in my late teens. I was a Perfume Model at a major department store in the 80s. Back then, department stores had huge budgets which were also supplemented by the major cosmetic companies. They would often collaborate and hire people to represent certain lines, and walk throughout the store approaching customers and doing their best to persuade them to buy a particular fragrance.

I was a Perfume Model to supplement my meagre income at that moment (I was a full time college student). Sometimes if a customer wanted immediate assistance, I would walk her over to the counter where the items were and I might even ring up the purchase if the other people were busy. I wasn't supposed to do it often, but did it occasionally.

One day I had a woman who was very responsive, but also quite demanding. She wanted immediate service, the store was crammed with people (it was during the Christmas holidays) and so I walked her over to the cosmetics counter and she told me exactly what she wanted. She also demanded I ring her up right away and said she couldn't wait for anyone else to do it. So, I went behind the counter and rang up her purchase.

When I rang up a customer, I had a certain sequence I went through. I would ring her in, take her charge card (in this case) and imprint it on the sales slip. Then I would turn around, and place the slip in front of her along with the credit card next to it. I did that this time, the customer signed the paper, and turned to leave. Then she said "Oh, you almost forgot to give me my credit card."

I did, I said brightly, and told her that she had just picked it up and put it back in her wallet. "No I didn't," argued the customer, "look over there!" So, beginning to doubt my senses, I looked over at the sales counter, but there was no credit card there.

"Heyyyy, what are ya trying to pull?" asked the customer, suspiciously. I assured her that I wasn't trying to con her, and asked her to just check her wallet. "Where is the manager?" demanded the customer loudly. "I wanna speak to the manager!"

I was now breaking out into a cold sweat, and other customers and salespeople were beginning to look at us. "She stole my credit card!!!" the customer said loudly. "I wanna speak to the manager!!!"

Now I was turning bright red, and was fighting crying. The manager was summoned, and came up to the customer. "What seems to be the problem?" she asked, calmly. "This girl is trying to pull something on me!" whined the customer loudly. "She stole my credit card!!"

When the manager got the stories sorted out (I was trying not to hyperventilate at this point) she asked the customer to please look in her wallet, "Just to be sure..."

The customer snapped "Fine! But it won't be there," and dramatically grabbed her wallet, opened it up, rummaged through it, and.... came up with the card.

"Oh, there it is," she said with no change of voice. She then turned to me and added "Well, I guess you must understand how I felt," and walked out of the store to go wreak havoc on someone else's life. No apology, nothing. I was young and inexperienced at that time, and scared of my own shadow. I would've handled it differently now, of course.

This particular Customer From Hell is the Bullying Customer. That's the kind of customer that's miserable in their own life and so they go shopping so that they can take it out on others. I only wish she'd been the only one I've ever encountered.