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Author Topic: rant on stupid customers Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 11-11-2016 11:37 PM                        The K-Mart in my town does the rearranging thing a few times a year. Just went in yesterday to get bath soap and they had moved them about 10 rows down from where they were. So annoying.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 11-12-2016 12:19 AM                        The Coop grocery store here hasn't moved anything anywhere in the 20+ years that I've been here. The flour is where the flour is, the milk is where the milk is, and so on. The only thing that changes is an area near the front where they put out full pallets of bulky stuff that's on sale, so one week there will be pallets of toilet paper sitting there and the next week it will be bags of water softener salt or something else. But for everything else, it never moves. The old people in town would probably be conducting a lynching if it did. The hardware store, on the other hand, did a major re-arranging about a year ago -- I still can't find half of the stuff that I'm looking for when I go there and have to ask someone. I think that's a good reason for stores not to do that, actually, since the staff then has to spend the next X period of time telling people like me that the bolts and washers are now against the north wall and the drain cleaner is halfway down the east side in the second aisle. I used to be able to just walk in the door and pick it up and carry it to the counter.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 11-12-2016 06:49 AM                     Those who shop Costco are probably aware that they routinely move things around. They also will discontinue products without notice. Its really annoying.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-15-2016 02:33 AM                        Costco doesn't really "discontinue" things -- they just run out of them. The nature of their business is, they buy at the lowest price they can, in huge quantities. When that "deal" is gone, it may be gone forever, you just never know. That's the tradeoff for the lower prices.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-19-2017 01:07 AM                        Like all of you, I get folks complaining about silly things sometimes; I guess some people just aren't happy unless they are complaining. Here's a first, though. I put real butter on my popcorn here. Not topping oil, not margarine. I'm the local Coop grocery store's biggest butter customer. When anyone orders popcorn, I always say, "Would you like butter on that?" Yes or no; if no then I don't put any on it. And some people ask for butter half-way and then more on top. This guy tonight orders a large popcorn, says he wants butter and five minutes later he's back saying that he didn't want butter on his popcorn and it's soggy and he can't eat it and he wants his money back. *Sigh* Fine's, here's your refund for the price of the popcorn. That's the first time I've ever had anyone complain about the butter. Anyone who doesn't want it just says no when I ask. I suspect this guy has simply never had popcorn with real butter on it before since almost nobody sells it that way any more. Sheesh.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 06-19-2017 01:41 PM                        Frank, been a long time since I thought of this, but... Wasn't the point of O'Dell's butterfat that they pulled a lot of the water out, leaving you with a product you could still call "butter" that wouldn't make the popcorn soggy? I didn't pay much attention to the product after I saw the price.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-19-2017 02:43 PM                     Pulling the water out means you don't have to skim it and worry about it going rancid so fast. It is a more "friendly" butter and it is absolutely "real."  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-19-2017 02:59 PM                        Butter (at least the stuff that I buy, which I don't think is anything special) separates by itself. The water content goes to the bottom of the pot when it's melted; since the pump sucks from the bottom it's easy to pump the water off into a cup before you start serving it to customers. After some experimentation, I've found that different brands of butter have different amounts of water content. Some brands are almost 50% water; the one that I use (Coop Centsible brand, formerly called Country Morning) is about 10% water. But again, it's easy to pump it off before starting to serve the customers. There's a lot less waste with the Centsible brand butter than some of the other brands. I suppose you don't notice the water content when you're just putting butter on your toast, but you sure do when you melt a few pounds in a pot. If there's too much water in the butter the popcorn shrinks the second that you put the butter on it. If it's "just right" the popcorn doesn't shrink at all. I'm convinced that the butter sells the popcorn, particularly since almost nobody else sells popcorn that way. It costs a lot more for the butter than for topping oil but I figure people are paying enough for the popcorn that it's justified.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-19-2017 07:36 PM                        We used to use Odell's real butter, but one time at a convention I got a jug of their SuperKist 2 butter substitute for free. So, we tried it out on the popcorn without telling anybody (including the crew) and multiple people commented how much better the butter was. So, we switched to SuperKist which is about 1/4 the price, and have used it ever since. We get anywhere from 300 to 1000 people in every week, and I've been here for over 40 years, and a couple of weeks ago ONE guy said our popcorn wasn't very good. That's the first and last time we've ever had a popcorn complaint, so I think he must have been expecting caramel corn or something.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-19-2017 09:55 PM                        This hasn't happened in several years now, but I used to get the odd person who apparently thought they had a scheme to get free popcorn. They would buy a popcorn and eat about half of it, then come back twenty minutes later and say that it was cold and they want me to replace it with the fresh batch that I just finished making. My response was always to say "I'm sorry that you don't like our popcorn", and take their container away and give them their money back. At that point I had some say, "But I want a fresh one!" My response was, "The popcorn is all the same so it would be pointless to replace it" and I simply won't sell them another popcorn that night. And the problem with "cold popcorn" magically solved itself since I haven't had anyone make that complaint now in years. I'll give you your money back at any point if you return your popcorn and say you don't like it. But I won't give you another one.  |  IP: Logged Michael Gonzalez Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 790 From: Grand Island , NE USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 07-01-2017 09:53 PM                     I received a call yesterday from a customer who said that he was here with his family to see Cars 3 a couple of days prior. According to him, one of his kids got sick and they had to leave early to take him to the hospital. In their rush they were unable to let anyone on staff know what had happen. Seemed plausible but he was vague about what day he was here. Didn't have any ticket stubs or even know the correct time their movie started. He said that they also paid cash so I could not look up (using the last 4 digits of a Credit Card) to see if there were any transactions. Last thing was that he wanted tickets comped for Despicable Me 3 instead of Cars. Despite all that, I relented "Customer Service" and was going to allow him passes to see DM3 that night but he ended up not showing. Today we get a call from a Woman who claims that she was here with her 5 kids to see DM3 last night but the people sitting around her were so loud and distracting that she and her kids left early. She claims that she and her kids wandered around the building for an half an hour and couldn't find any staff or management and when she finally found someone, they refused to find a manager for her. Both the employee who answered the phone and my assistant manager said that this lady was yelling at them over the phone. The lady wants 6 free passes to come back tonight and watch the movie. My assistant does not promise her anything other then to let me know of the situation when I get in. The Lady calls back tonight to inform us that she cannot make it in tonight and that she will pick up the passes that my assistant "promised" her tomorrow instead. I talk to her this time and try to get some information. She has no ticket stubs. She said her movie started around 6 (the real start time was 7:10), she paid cash and could not describe the employee she talked too other than white guy black hair. I told her I would review the security footage and call her back. Probably no surprise that nothing in the security footage matches what she said. Though there were a lot of people going in and out of the auditorium that DM3 was playing (to use the restroom and visit the concession stand and such), but at no time was there footage of a woman with 5 kids in tow, exiting the auditorium. Let alone wondering around and talking to any of the employees. However there is a lot of footage of my employees all over the building (cleaning floors, getting stock, doing theater checks and the like). And of course footage of myself on the floor for pretty much the entire time the movie she claimed to be in was playing. So I called her back, told her that I reviewed the footage and there was no proof that she was ever here and that I decided to deny her request for free tickets. She of course hung up on me.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 07-01-2017 10:09 PM                        quote: Mike Blakesley We used to use Odell's real butter, but one time at a convention I got a jug of their SuperKist 2 butter substitute for free. So, we tried it out on the popcorn without telling anybody (including the crew) and multiple people commented how much better the butter was. So, we switched to SuperKist which is about 1/4 the price, and have used it ever since. We used SuperKist 2 for years. This year, our supplier announced they wouldn't be selling it anymore, as it's not "transfat free". They substituted the original "SuperKist", which is not, IMHO, anywhere near as good. We're trying a product called "Whirl ZT" now. It seems to be much like SuperKist 2. We've had it for just the past month, so the jury's still out. Good so far, though. Those of you who go back far enough might recall dispensers that were intended for butter and had a rotating bowl that kept the butter stirred. I'm not sure that kept the butter from sogging the popcorn, but you didn't have to worry about separation as much.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 07-04-2017 08:32 AM                        quote: Michael Gonzalez So I called her back, told her that I reviewed the footage and there was no proof that she was ever here and that I decided to deny her request for free tickets. She of course hung up on me. This entire post that you made describes a common practice amongst what we call "gypsies". I am in no way trying to be derogatory, but that's what they are. They continually are trying to scam businesses into free stuff. The exact scenario you described has been attempted to be pulled on me hundreds of times. I never fall for it, but I've had a few assistants fall for it. It is a scam and it one of the "oldest tricks in the book" (if there is such a thing as a Gypsy handbook). At a company meeting one time, I started a discussion on this very subject, attempting not to be derogatory about it. Turns out, ALL of the theatres in the region I worked in dealt with this same situation at some point or another. It's a terrible practice.  |  IP: Logged Leslie Hartmier Expert Film Handler Posts: 100 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Registered: Jul 2012 posted 07-04-2017 03:57 PM                     Oh man, I have two examples of customers not being all that sharp. The first one was me watching this couple walk up, stare at the marquee, look at the poster, read the showtimes/rating sheet we always put in front of the poster, go back to look at the marquee which contained everything on the sheet minus the rating, wander up to the poster, re-read everything again, then open the door and ask me what was playing, and what time. They spent ten minutes reading all of what they were asking, only to come in and ask for the information that they already would have had. The second one involved Brad Sime, who is also on this site, and was one of my assistant managers. A customer came up, asked what the different sizes of popcorn we sold were and the prices. There were examples of the exact bags on top of the front of the popcorn machine right beside Brad. Still, no problem - Brad outlined the various sizes (including the actual size in volume - 45oz, 85oz and 130oz) and costs for each. Customer then asks, "So, what's the difference between the medium and the large?" Without batting an eye, in the most deadpan voice I've ever heard, Brad's response: "Size, mostly." Ahh Brad, I'll never forget the look on that customer's face. Leslie  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 07-18-2017 06:42 PM                        This one is up there on the weird meter. I live in an apartment at the back of my theatre. About mid-afternoon the back doorbell rings. 99% of the time that's someone with a delivery, so I ran to the door and opened it and a woman is standing there asking what's playing. Odd, since it's clearly posted on the front of the building, but whatever. I told her what's playing and what time. Then she asked if she should go to the front door or come to the back door when she comes to see the show. I told her to use the front door. She said thank you and walked away, I closed the door. Just as I was about to walk away I saw her get to the gate in the fence. Instead of opening the gate, which was right in front of her, she threw her shoes over the fence and climbed over the fence, jumped onto my garbage stand, and then got into the alley. Then she was standing on the other side hunched over and gasping so I thought she might have really hurt herself. I went out to see if she was ok and she said, "I'm fine, I'm just pregnant." And off she went. And I see that she broke my garbage stand, too, so I guess I'll have to do some carpentry work tomorrow. I guess she must have climbed over the fence to get in here in the first place, as well. Weird.  |  IP: Logged

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