Can things get any more interesting at work?

This one I just had to put up on here.

This lady walks in and I greet her with the usual: good afternoon, how are you, how can I help you? She says she has a return to make. She makes a comment that she has never been to our store location before. I ask her, which location does she usually go to? Her response shocked me. She said, "The store from hell" (I hope using that word in that term is appropriate, so please don't throw rocks at me!). That's what she said. Verbatim. It took a little nudging to get her to tell me what store she was talking about. She said the item she was returning was not what she wanted, the wrong size, and so forth. She goes on and on about how horrible the other store is. By the way, she did say which store it was.

I wasn't too surprised because I do get complaints from other customers about that store. WHICH by the way it is all a matter of opinion. Some people prefer our store to theirs and vice versa. Some think our store is better and others think that store is better. In fact, I had one customer say that to me and I have never seen her since. This other customer was making a purchase and she handed me her statement to use her number. I was trained to not take numbers to use as their account, but to ask for their I.D. to do a look-up. Well, I did. The customer got all offended that I asked to use her I.D. for a look-up instead of taking her account number off her statement. I told her that it was for her security and protection. She said, that was why she preferred to shop at the other store because they treated her better.

Anyway, I got off topic there. The customer who came in today was so upset about the service she received in the other store that she was shaking as she made her complaint. She said she has several letters of apologies and was expecting another letter from the CEO of the company. I do a quick efficient return for her while talking to her and with her to get her to calm down. She was visibly shaking as she was talking. Hehe I even complimented her on her purse. She said she's had a bad couple of days. She browsed around our store a little bit, since she had never been to our location. She goes to petites, where our new girl is working. The new associate asks the customer if she could help her with anything. The customer said no, she was looking around since she had never been to our store location. WELL the new associate asked her which location she usually shopped at. Oh no. Here she goes again. Poor thing (the associate this time).

Well, she tells the new associate a different story than what she told me. She told the new associate about her bad experience in the other store with a new associate there. The new associate in the other store didn't know what she was doing and didn't know how to help her. I guess the customer said she complained and wanted to get the new associate at the other store fired. WELL this certainly doesn't help our new girl, who I think is on the floor for the first time in our store. She was panicking inside, freaking out, hoping that the customer won't do the same to her. Poor thing.

Man. I could write a book about working in retail!