JerryM

Great, and I hope you also told them not to deliver any more mail, and that you would go to the Pony Express. Maybe I will try that too. :):)
Good post, and we need a laugh once in a while on these threads.

Regards,
Jerry

Dihappy

I work in customer service and it doesnt matter if your the owner or a lowly employee, a customer sees you as a representative of the store. As an employee you need to be prepared and trained on how to handle upset customers and not take their complaints personally.

__________________
"...trying to get a long gun into play while someone is all over you like a monkey eating a cupcake is not very conducive to good survival techniques." ~Bark'n

boscobeans

Dihappy,

Most "RATIONAL" customers have enough sense to understand that the "lowly employee", as you put it, is not responsible for store policies, just as they are not responsible for prices, merchandise guarantees or for most of the daily operations at that store.

As far as taking it personally, it is hard for a clerk not to, especially if the complaint is directed toward them and not to the manager or owner who is the responsible party.

I have dealt with patients who refuse to give information such as; their age or
address when they want a prescription filled. After harassing the clerk or technician, who does the correct thing by calling me over, I explain that it is the LAW and not the clerk's policy, not my policy and not the store's policy. If they don't like my answer then they are told to TAKE IT UP WITH THE STATE.

Again, take it up with the person or persons who make the policy and not those who are there to serve you and are simply trying to earn a living.

bosco

hpj3

Kinda sounds to me like maybe there's more interest/opinion here than alluded to...

Howard

__________________
NRA Certified Firearms Instructor
NRA Certified Range Safety Officer
SC SLED Certified CWP Instructor

Tubby45

People like these customers fail to realize two things:

Your constitutional rights end on private property.

The property owners can tell you to leave. If not, that's called trespassing. It gets ugly from that point on.

__________________
Freakshow Manufacturing LLC
"You can kill it. We can help."
07 FFL/ 02 SOT

David in FL

Your constitutional rights end on private property.


'Scuse me?!

__________________
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

Tye_Defender

I bought some gas at a gas station once that was charging almost a dollar more for their gas because they were 20-30 miles away from the next nearest gas station. There was a sign on the door telling the customers not to complain to the employees. The reason for the sign, employees were quitting because of the verbal abuse they were getting from customers.

I'm not advocating verbally abusing anyone, even the owner of an anti-gun place. However, to the OP, your daughter's reaction and the loss of the $800 sale probably does have an effect on the owner. From the story, it doesn't sound like they were verbally abusive or said anything that could be considered rude. They did "waste" the salesperson's time, but she can't be the first person who's time was wasted by a customer.

I am guilty of "wasting a salesperson's time" as well, but I save it for far more egregious offenses than a simple sign asking "me and my kind" to not shop there. For example, I was shopping at a big box retailer (not naming it, since this was a one store problem, not the whole chain). Have to buy electronics items at the electronics register (signs everywhere tell you this). I'm buying one item from electronics. There are 3 customers in front of me. Cashier is extremely slow, as in a 5 item order takes her 5 minutes to ring up (I timed her). Lady in front of me has a TV in her cart and it turns out, 12 other items in her cart. As the cashier is scanning the items she notices this and reads this lady the riot act about having more than 12 items (no sign about that though). They settle the matter by splitting up the order to 12 items, pay for it, then 1 item, and pay for it. At this point, I'm pretty irritated since I have been in line for ~30 minutes and spent the last 15 listening to a cashier yell at a customer and waste even more time splitting up the 13 item order. Ordinarily I would just leave the store, but this is a little more egregious than simply a slow cashier. I hand her my one item, she scans it, then I tell her that she has wasted a lot of my time making the lady before me split up the order and I didn't appreciate the way she talked to the customer, I'd like to talk to a manager. Since she has started a sale, she can't cancel the sale without a manager so she's stuck. Took her quite a while before she called a manager and quite a bit longer before I got to talk to one. (I just told the manager that she was abusive to customers and very slow, all the while the cashier is yelling at me non-stop. The cashier made my point for me.) Then I paid for my item and left. I'm sure she wasn't a commissioned sales person, so it didn't cost her anything (to bad) but it did cost the store. No sales in electronics for 30 minutes, several customers just left. Did I make any friends? Nope, every customer behind me was probably mad at me. Make any direct difference? I don't know, I hope so. I kept my cool and let the cashier do all the yelling, hopefully the manager had a talk with her afterwards or kept an eye on her after at least. Even if I didn't right then, she had to realize that her "customers" can strike back if she's not careful.

To get back on topic, I feel for the daughter. I'm not sure this was the most effective way to communicate the concern. But I don't believe it was ineffective either. When selling to the public, cast as wide a net as possible. If you are restricting the size of your net, think about why. Does it make sense? When deciding to work for a company that restricts the pool you can sell to, ask why. Especially if your paycheck is directly tied to those sales.

Tubby45

This has been covered here many times. I wish they would teach this in schools, because a lot of people seem to think the Constitution applies to everyone.

Your rights protected by the Constitution are protected from the government, not from individuals or corporations. The restriction of "shall not be infringed" is a restriction of a government, not a citizen. A private property owner can disallow firearms on their property and your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms do not apply to private property. Similarly you have no Constitutional right to free speech on my property.

__________________
Freakshow Manufacturing LLC
"You can kill it. We can help."
07 FFL/ 02 SOT

David in FL

Wow, I thought you just misspoke! You really believe that individuals lose their constitutional rights simply because they're on private property?

I'm at a loss. Private property owners have the absolute right to throw you or me off their property.......for pretty much any reason whatsoever. That doesn't mean that our constitutional rights are forfeited by the act of entering private property.

Sorry, I'm no constitutional scholar, nor a constitutional attorney, but that argument just doesn't hold water. I hope they're not teaching you that in your criminal justice courses at school!

__________________
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

TN_Mike

Hate to say it but, even though the story is about a forum member's daughter getting her time wasted and missing out on some money, I applaud MR. and Mrs. X for what they did.

This is a tested and proven way of making the point to businesses. It hits them right in the wallet. It is only a little different, but much more effective than handing out the "No Guns = No Money" cards.

Sorry your daughter got her time wasted but I commend Mr. and Mrs. X for the stand they took and the way the did it.

__________________
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. —Barry Goldwater 1968

Tennessee Firearms Association