Thursday, June 13, 2013

Customer service workers of the world unite! A tale of two Taylor Chapmans!

I am sure by now many of you have seen this on Facebook or other social medias. The video of an insane girl demanding food and apparently blood from Dunkin Donuts. If not here is a link to the insanity. A brief overview of the situation. Crazy girl Taylor Chapman didn't get a receipt for her order one night. She claims the employee on duty was rude to her and told her to come back the next day. Taylor Chapman comes back the next day ready with her phone to record how awful life is for her as she screams and shouts and gets whatever free food she wants because one day she is going to Mars and will blow the....well racial slurs up. No really, that is what she said over the course of 8 minutes.

While everyone is calling this awful and demanding that she be fired and the employee who had to deal with her deserves a raise I was thinking wow it is like watching my life! I was going to post this link and then link my own story of a super awful customer who apparently got her lawyer involved and lost her mind. But when I looked for the link...I couldn't find it! For some reason I thought I had already blogged this crazy customer encounter! I remember writing it all down at work but now I can't find it. Well...I guess I should share my story of woe now! Since it fits the theme of the day. I don't work there anymore...but it is the job that keeps on giving.  

I am going to state for the record that I probably should have plastered on a happy smile throughout this whole thing. As a worker in the retail/customer industry it means that one has sign away all their emotions and soul. They are apparently supposed to be happy no matter what shit is thrown their way. Well I am not a robot. And I think the worker dealing with Taylor Chapman the first time around wasn't a robot either. I am sure that woman did slip from that perfect smile and didn't kiss Taylor Chapman's ass and that is when all hell broke loose. So yeah. I am well aware that for the record I didn't smile enough and that maybe, just maybe I should get a smart phone to locate addresses better.

Momager takes an order. I will change the actual road and neighborhood names as...egging this lady's house would be wonderful but blamed on me. Lets just say the road was Rosewood Court and the neighborhood was Rosebush. That is what the ticket states. I cock my head and go....I don''t think I have heard of Rosewood before. But since Rosebush is a neighborhood that is easy to navigate I just go MEH I will find it. Some neighborhoods you can't do that, tons of twists and turns and roads connecting to other streets. Rosebush has ONE main road and all the streets connect to it. Meaning if you drive up and down it you can see all the streets and not miss a thing. I ask one more time if this is what the customer said. Momager said yes. The map in the back says otherwise but our map is not super up to date. Get in my car the second the pizza is up and go.Go to wonderful world of crazy customers.

Get to Rosebush and drive the length of the main road. I do not see Rosewood Court. I call the customer but they do not answer. I leave a message for them. I call the Momager to call them as sometimes people don't answer their phone if it is an unknown number and Mike's Pizzeria will come up if she calls. I hang up with her and call the husband at work. He has a smart phone and the internet at work. I give him the answer and poof he finds that it is located in the neighborhood RoseFlower. Like really. REALLY FOLKS! Do people not know where they live? Is this real life?! Yes I should have made sure where it was located BEFORE I left the store. But the Momager confirmed this is what they said and if I had called they would have given me the same information. Luckily all of this phone calling has only taken 2 minutes and if I drive...fast I can get to this nearby neighborhood super fast. Our delivery time is 45 minutes. It took 8 minutes for the pizza cook and I left right after it came out of the oven. We aren't even at 30 minutes yet, let alone 45. All is well. 

Obviously not. Or this post wouldn't exist. The Momager called the customer. No answer, left a message. The customer called. Asked where their pizza was as they ordered like a whole hour ago!!! Momager is like....err it hasn't been that long and we have been calling you. The customer then went “OH yeah I gave ya'll the wrong neighborhood. My mom is stupid.” Exact words folks. Momager gets the right neighborhood and calls me back. I was already on my way and hadn't called her back as I was trying to get there as fast as possible. In fact I was nearly in the driveway when she called. Explained what was happening and threw the phone in the seat. Parked my car at the end of the driveway. 

When I pull up there are two adults standing in the driveway. One is holding a baby. When I park and start to take the pizza out of my car the woman who was holding the baby and talking on the cellphone rolls her eyes at me and walks inside. I start walking up the driveway and the woman still there is like “Heard you got lost!!!!” No apology, almost like she is accusing me of giving her cold food. I say nothing. I go to hand her the delivery slip that she needs to sign and she says that the woman who went inside is the one who ordered/paid. She walks to the door and I follow. I stand off the step...and the door is slammed. Okay, they have a kid and they don't want him to run out. I wait for the woman to return...and she doesn't. I am waiting and waiting....finally I knock at the door because it has been too long for this to be normal. 

The door FLIES open and the baby holding woman screams “I WAS COMING!” at me. This is going well. She starts muttering under her breath that she called about the right neighborhood and doesn't know why it took me so long to get there. I say nothing. I am sure my face is not happy at this moment. The pen and paper is shoved back in hand and the pizza is snatched. I say nothing. The woman rolls her eyes at me again and says “Sorry you got lost” and slams the door in my face. Now....this was probably a really bad thing to do but I did say something then. I look at the slip and notice there is no tip. I say under my breath “Thanks for the tip not” and walk away from the door. I don't know if I was heard. Guessing how things went down later she didn't but just putting it out there that I was failing to keep a smile on my angry face. 

I get back to the store and the pizza maker says thanks a lot!!!! Since going to my car and driving off a cliff is an over dramatic option I ask what the hell he is talking about. Momager appears and asks what on Earth I did to the customers. Because calmly asking my side of the story never happens, we have to always assume I am at fault. Momager explains that the customer called back and the pizza maker answered the phone. The customer started off with “Who the fuck just delivered my pizza I am going to kill a bitch”. Now a normal person would hang up the phone, call that person insane, and maybe call the police to get a restraining order. No no, not my co-workers. Momager gets on the phone and this is what happens. The world according to insane people. 

Apparently the customers were waiting outside because they were concerned that I got lost. They wanted to make sure I got there safely. Since I was dumb and got their address wrong when they ordered. When I get to their house I nearly run over their mailbox and am too busy talking on my phone to accept their apologies about the address mix up. One woman goes in the house to get a pen to sign the slip and I just roll my eyes at them and don't accept their heart felt apologizes. So naturally it is time for them to call up the store and say that I am lucky to be alive, that they wanted to kill me because I was so rude. I look at my Momager and pizza maker and ask if this story makes any sense. Since the Momager was the last person I was on the phone with she realizes that no, no it does not. So I explain my side of the situation, the truth side. I tell them the entire story, including how I mentioned no tip. But since I was super rude and said nothing they didn't hear that part. Everyone is still confused on why there is so much anger but we go about our day. 

Or at least we tried. The phone rings a few hours later. It is the customer's mom. Apparently the person who called and made the order while she was at work and had the credit card. So we already notice a problem yes? I was not the one who took the order earlier yet I was accused of taking her order wrong. Now it turns out the two people at the house weren't even on the phone! But anyway the mom has gotten home from work and was told about my grave mistake of...well getting up that morning and going to work. That she has never heard of such awful customer service in her life and demands to speak to the owner. Of course the owner is a loser and is never there so Momager says that she can take the woman's name and number and pass the message on. Not good enough. The woman wants corporates number. Now...we are a small mom and pop store, hole in the wall. Only one store. There is no corporates number. We don't even have a computer. Momager explains this. 

Shit hits the fucking fan. Momager cannot cuss. No really she has cussed like 10 times in her entire life. Of course 5 of them were directed at me.....but yes she tries to avoid this at all costs. So when the woman starts screaming at her that SHE, Momager, is a bitch for lying about the phone number, Momager can't handle it. She starts rambling about how the daughter before called and accused the driver of being rude and threatened to kill her (me) because she (the woman on the phone) gave the wrong neighborhood name and that none of this drama is worth it over a tiny mistake. Well clearly that is just fuel to the crazy train and this lead to more arguing and noise making. I start looking at the map to find the that cliff again. Finally the phone is hung up and Momager looks to the fresh staff that just came in for support, that she was called THE B WORD! Um excuse me they said they were going to kill me, but I guess we can make it about you. 

They call back. Yeah they do. One of the drivers answers. He is 18 and this is his first job ever. No idea how to handle the crazy. Apparently the woman has contacted her lawyer. And we all better get ready because there is going to be hell to pay. Unless I am fired, apologize, and/or kill myself we are going to be sued. SUED! Never before has she/her family had to deal with this level of poor customer service. The woman keeps screaming, the poor pizza driver wants to hang up the phone, and I am sent home before I make things worse. Because apparently you can sense when people are rolling their eyes over the phone...when they are not on the phone.

And that my friends...is my Taylor Chapman story. I feel really bad for this employee. All the employees really. No one deserves any of that, whether or not they had a clue or to have racial slurs thrown at them. This just goes to show you how the customer is always right saying has gone way, way too far and businesses need to start putting their foot down. People are people, humans with jobs. We are not punching bags. Especially over minor or nonexistent problems. For real.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello @Christina

I feel sorry for that employee at Dunkin' Donuts. Or anyone who has to deal with that nonsense.

It seems like the state of Florida has attracted many crazy people.

I mean, in news, you hear about all these crazy stories of people and animals! :O

Like, police officers playing video games while on duty. Man eating another man's face. A shark rides a train and dies in Miami. Crazy rude customers like you mentioned. Lawyer challenges his wife to a sword fight while naked. Iguanas in toilets because the sewer system sucks. And many more silliness.

Even Conan O Brian made fun of that state.

Christina, I hope you find a job working in an anime store. Or a pet store. Less crazy customers there I guess.


End comments