Oh Baby

Today we had our first crazy for quite some time. I actually should be ashamed of how excited I got this whole thing started today. I was working the self scan registers near the service desk today. When it’s really dead in the store, as it was today, I like to walk back and forth between the registers and the service desk. When I walked over to the desk, Jo-Jo called me over and put the woman she was on the phone with on speakerphone. The woman was talking about an Acer Tablet she had bought and was complaining on and on. I had to walk back to the registers but when I had finished with the customer who called me over; I came back to the desk and picked up the second phone at the desk to listen to the woman’s rant.

She was talking about how the tablet wasn’t very sensitive and she couldn’t get it to work and before I came over, Jo-Jo told her that once she opened the product and used it we can’t return it and she would have to go through Acer. She said that when she bought the tablet that there were six managers helping her (not true) that assured her that she would be able to return it (also not true). The woman asked to speak with the Store Director, Jo-Jo put the woman on hold to transfer her call, and I hung up my phone, which accidentally ended the call with the woman.

I guess before I picked up the call, this woman told Jo-Jo that she was going to come into the store and throw the biggest fit that would guarantee that we would never forget her. This is when I became as giddy as a kid on Christmas. Sad that I now look forward to the crazy people, but when someone makes a threat like that, your mind just goes crazy with the possibilities.

About an hour later, after watching the doors for anyone carrying an Acer tablet, she finally came in. I immediately called Jo-Jo and let her know that she was here. I was surprised at how friendly this woman was, to be honest. She stopped to talk to our greeter like they were old friends and was waving hello to another cashier. After she walked up to the service desk, I went up there to grab some paper. I didn’t need any paper; I just needed an excuse to watch this woman who was going to make us remember her. Jo-Jo called the Store Director to come up and talk to the woman while I went behind the desk to grab the paper. The woman made a polite comment about how windy it was outside. I responded about how my car was almost blown off the highway.

So then she and I started with small talk about the wind, and the carts on the parking lot blowing into cars, and she did something really weird. A woman well into her 40’s starting talking to me in baby talk. I wish I was kidding. She even cocked her head and scrunched up her face while saying “People should put their carts away” in baby talk. That’s when I walked away and the Store Director came up.

He brought her back to Electronics and had one of our employees look at the tablet. I was pretty pissed he didn’t at the service desk so I could see the shit show, but whatever. When I came back from my break a half hour later, she was leaving the store, with no computer. We let her get what she wanted.

Jo-Jo said she got over $500 back for a computer we should never have even considered returning and even said it was physically painful for her to do the return. Jo-Jo also mentioned that while she was processing the return the woman busted out her baby voice again and even rocked from side to side when she said, “I feel really bad about this.” Jo-Jo couldn’t stop herself from asking bluntly, “What do you feel bad about?” The woman only responded again in baby talk, “Oh, I don’t know. Just this whole process.”

Basically raise your voice or in her case, bust out the baby talk and get what you want. Kids across the world have had it right all along.