One
of those nights. I didn’t get out of there until at least a half hour
after I was supposed to. Cars needing a jump start, diet Pepsi
running out and a few other things that are hard to take care of when
you are the only one there, and I didn’t want to leave my coworker alone
with them.
But taking the cake was Mr.
Ballistic. I have never seen a customer get this irate, and the
worst was after he left the store.
He came in, we
were a little busy, and he got up to my coworkers till, slammed $15 on
the counter, said “15 on 15.”, turned around and walked away.
We’re used to this, no big deal. Except that he went to the
bathroom before going out to pump his gas. It took enough time
that his pump timed-out. They’re set up to do that so that if
someone forgets to pump their gas (and it does happen more often than
you’d think) the next person to pull up to that pump won’t get their it.
So,
he’s sitting out at the pump and it’s not working. He doesn’t hit
the “help” button. He doesn’t come in to tell us that his gas
won’t pump. He starts telling other customers, on their way in, to
tell us that his gas isn’t pumping. When another customer tells
me he’s out there waiting, I hit the “Authorize” button, which
un-times-out the pump. But, he’s already half way in the store,
comes up to my coworker and says that he wants his “f*#$ing 15 dollars
worth now.” I try to tell him that I already reset it, my coworker
is offering him his $15 back and all he can say is “make it f*#$ing
work!” and walks out.
My coworker says that he is
going to follow him out to the pump to make sure it works for him, but
he didn’t even make it halfway out before he meets the guy on his way
back into the store. Tries to get the guy’s attention, but the
customer is too focused to even notice.
He gets
to my till, tells me he wants his “f*#$ing $15 dollars back. I’m in a
f*#$ing hurry. I’ve got s%#t to do and I can’t f*#$ing
wait.” I open the cash register, pull out a $10 and a $5, hand it
to him and say “Here you go.”
As
he’s walking away I start ringing up the next guy, a pretty big, buff,
guy in shorts and a t-shirt. Mr. Ballistic says to me, on his way
out, “thanks for f*#$ing nothing!”. I say, not even trying to
sound sarcastic, “You’re welcome.”
Ohhh, that did
it. He turns around, starts yelling about how he wants the
manager’s phone number, he wants to call corporate, he wants to complain
about “them hiring people that can’t speak English and make a (yes, the
f-word again) gas pump work.” (Oh did I mention that my coworker
is hispanic, has an accent, but speaks perfect English). I turn
around to get the book with Corporate’s number in it (no, I would never
give out the manager’s home number) and he’s heading back to the counter
yelling the f-word along with some other stuff.
The
big guy in shorts and t-shirt turns around, stands right in his way and
sticks out his finger to stop Mr. Ballistic. I didn’t hear this
part because t-shirt guy was speaking softly, but from what Mr.
Ballistic yelled back, he must have said something like “I’m an off duty
police officer, and you need to calm down.”
“You
(f-word again) assaulted me! You F-ing touched me before you told
me you were a cop, that’s assault. What’s your name? What’s
your badge number? Never mind, I’ll just get your license plate
number.” Fortunately the cop was dealing with it from here.
My coworker was back and we returned to ringing up customers.
Mr.
Ballistic followed Off duty cop out into the parking lot as he went to
his car, doing a perfect imitation of a 1960’-70’s “you ain’t gonna push
me around, you f-ing nazi pig” rebel.
A woman,
who was on her way into the store heard what was going on. I’m
assuming she was in law enforcement too, because she turned around and
got into the fray. It was pretty busy at this point, because both
my coworker and I were ringing up customers, so we didn’t get the whole
conversation, but we did get bits and pieces. Let’s just say that
it involved a lot of swearing and, at one point, up to 3 customers other
than Mr. Ballistic. Next thing I knew they were all
gone. Mr. Ballistic never did get Corporate’s number, not that I
was worried. What was he going to tell them, that the pumps
weren’t working right? That I said “you’re welcome”?
Funny thing was, I never felt threatened by this guy, like the worst he would ever do is complain to my boss.
I
never did get to thank the police officers, so I’ll do it here.
Thank you. You were awesome, you handled that guy like a pro.