Saturday, April 15, 2006

Work was all about the annoying customers on Friday. There was one customer in particular who returned a dvd, and told me that another Hollywood employee had left them a message letting them know they had a movie checked out (the account was noted that they had been called after the standard 30 days - before that point we just assume they know they have the movie, because we assume that our customers aren't stupid). She said she came in after the message and spoke to someone and told them she didn't think that she had the movie, but the person she spoke to told her that it wasn't a big deal, but that they had just done a full store inventory, and that if she could just check at home, that would be great. She did check at home, and she found the movie, but she then said (this is the part that hurts my brain), that since she didn't realize she still had the movie, she felt that I should delete her 40-something-dollar late fee...because, she obviously wasn't responsible for returning a movie that she rented if she forgot that she had it!?! I told her I could cut the fee in half, and also reminded her that she did not even have to pay her fees in order to rent, but she didn't like that at all. She said that if I couldn't delete the whole fee she would just buy the movie. I explained that if she wanted the movie, and bought it for herself that would be fine, but that the fees would still be on her account. People have fees on their accounts for every day that the movie they've rented hasn't been in the store, and hasn't been paid for, and isn't available to other people, who want to pay for it. People generally buy movies, only when they've lost them, and want to replace the movie for the store, rather than deal with a collection agency. That doesn't mean that their fees go away. But our store policy is that if someone has fees on their account, that's ok, and that if they want to rent they don't have to pay, which I don't understand why people are so upset that they have late fees, if they feel like they don't deserve them, because they don't have to pay them if they feel that way. It's one of those things that bothers me. Well, this woman wanted to talk to a manager, because even though she was a good customer (as she told me repeatedly, even though she's ALWAYS been really snippy), I didn't feel like I could delete a huge fee like that for such a stupid reason. I would have considered it if she had been in a hospital, or sick, or grief stricken or something, but her reasoning was just really shitty. She asked me to tell the manager to call her when he returned to the store (he was at the bank), but I told her that it wasn't store policy to call customers in this instance, and that if she could just call back before 5pm he would most likely be in the store. This whole time I was really polite. I didn't raise my voice, or return her snippy remarks, or (and this was realy hard not to do) laugh, and I was a little scared that she was going to attack me. In retrospect, it might have been best to just delete the damned thing, but I've never been asked to delete a fee that was so huge, and for no good reason, so I was thrown. And shaving off half of the fee would have saved her more than $20.00 that she so obviously, legitimately owes the store, so I think that was a huge favor, that she didn't even consider. Anyway... that was the major bad customer I had, but there were some nice ones too; there are just days where the annoying ones number higher than there's any reason for them too. And for the record, since we have such a great group of people working at the store right now, it's the customers who make or break my job these days, and for the most part I have some really great customers, for which I'm really very grateful. I think I should tell the really great ones how much I appreciate them ;-0)

We were busy at times, but it was mostly dead after 5pm. I would have left early, but I got dropped off at work. I took an hour lunch, but still worked a bit over. I left a cd for DJ with the Buffy Musical soundtrack on it, plus other Buffy tracks, and a Queen mashup he asked for. I'm going to go into the store later to return some movies, talk to DJ about the days I need off this week (for my ultrasound & followup), and hopefully talk to him about Buffy as well! ;-0)

After work, I worked on a special project for awhile, ate, and later slept. I woke up around midnight, and talked to Mark about hooking up the old recorder on the downstairs computer so I could get some recording done soon. I tried watching Eden, but it's basically softcore straight porn, with a crappy soapy story. I'm going to give Footballers Wive$ a shot; I've heard that there are some hot gay storylines in the current, 3rd season; we have the first 2 at work.

I read a thing about Buffy & lesbianism last night online, and it mentioned that the Tara/Willow relationship was & remains the longest running lesbian/bisexual romance in broadcast television history (not cable), and that the love scene in the final season was the first lesbian love scene on television. Wow. Buffy rocks! They mentioned the major 3 lesbians on the show, but they didn't mention the girls from the bar in season 6's "Smashed", and the lesbians on campus in the 4th Season, not to mention gay characters like Larry, and... was there only Larry? lol It seemed like Andrew was gay, but then... I would say he either had major issues, or was bi. There were gay characters and references sprinkled throughout Angel as well. Anyways... the point is, it got me wanting to watch some Buffy, so I watched 4 Season 7 episodes, including the final 3. I think the show ends very well, but I wish they had stuck with the original script.

Anyway... I should get up and ready, and go to Hollywood.

   posted by Bald Jason at 03:12 PM
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