The Missing Girls

I'm sure everyone has now heard of the Cleveland women that were missing for 10 years.

That's not far from us at all. I remember 9 years ago putting up flyers on our front door for one of the women that went missing. She was 14 at the time and it was scary. I remember customers commenting that she was probably a runaway. It's sad that so many people thought that. She was alive and being tortured the whole time, along with two others.

The house that they were found in is not located in the greatest area. There are tons of other houses around there boarded up and vacant looking, and that's probably why the house didn't really seem out of the norm around there.

Anyways, I'm glad that scumbag is caught and I hope he rots in hell. Reading about what he did to them for 10 years makes me sick.

This story makes me think about how we don't really know anyone. We could have customers that come in our store now that are hiding someone they kidnapped. We'd never know. It's creepy.

And then there's stories like this woman who was closing up at her gas station job and appears to have been abducted. As of now (two weeks later), she still hasn't been found.

This is why at the sign of anything strange at my store I'm always on the phone with the cops. Many think I overreact but I don't care. Any creepy motherfucker that comes in is always watched by me until they leave the store. And even then I write down their license plate just in case.

But even looking or acting creepy doesn't mean they are doing anything wrong. It's these "normal" ones that have everyone fooled.

I'm just still in shock that those girls were found. It's made me even more suspicious of people though, that's for sure.

Not Cool, BP. Not Cool.

Our night shift girl was working the other night and got a phone call at 11pm.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, I got $10 worth of gas there today and my credit card was charged $70. Why is that?"

"I'm not sure, you'll have to come in while the manager is here."

"So you don't know why my card was charged then?"

"No, sorry. I'm just the night girl. I don't work in the daytime."

"I want to know why I was charged $70. You're going to tell me ad fix it. See you in 10 minutes."

And with that he hung up on her.

She spent the rest of the night scared that some crazy guy was going to come in and harm her.

In the morning, I told her she should have called the cops. So I decided to look up what happened.

It showed on our caller ID that the call came from the BP gas station about 20 minutes from us. Once I saw this I got pissed and called around until I got the manager.

I explained to her what happened and wanted to know if it was a disgruntled customer really calling us or if some of her employees were fucking around on night shift.

She told me she'd look into it and would call me back.

A few days later, she finally called. And it was just like I expected. Her employees had called our store (as well as many others) because they were bored.

I didn't ask what she planned on doing with them, but i told her that it was hard enough to find people that wanted to work night shift and that we didn't need anyone trying to scare them. Especially people from another gas station.

If any of our employees pulled that, I'm not sure if I'd fire them or not. If they were a good worker but just got bored, I'd make them a list of crappy jobs that need to get done and have them do it. If they were a lazy ass and I knew they weren't going to last long, I'd probably cut their hours and wait for them to just quit.

But in either case, if they ended up making those prank calls again after I told them not to, they'd definitely be fired.

People piss me off sometimes. Do your fucking job instead of scaring other people. We're all in retail, we shouldn't be working against each other!

Do You Want the Job or Not?

I seriously don't understand people.

Once again, we are looking to hire someone. As usual, I get the job of calling the potential applicants.

"Hello?"

Me: Hi, is John there?

"Depends. Who wants to know?"

Me: Nevermind. I must have the wrong number.

Or, this last one I just called:

"Hi, is Steve there?"

"Uhhh, ..............yeah."

After I get done explaining who I am and what I'm calling for, I try to set up a time for him to come in for an interview.

Me: Will 10am Tuesday work?

Steve: *HUGE SIGH* *then a pause* Yeah, I guess so.

Me: You guess so?

Steve: Yeah, that'll be fine.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with everyone. You apply for a job and then act like it's inconvenient for you to come in for an interview?

Seriously so sick of people lately.

If only there were three of me we could run EVERY shift and not have to hire anyone! ;-)

Sandwich Woes

The reason I asked yesterday's question about the moldy sandwich was because we had this happen with a customer a few weeks ago.

He came in, bought a ham sandwich and a drink. About a few hours later, he came back to the store DEMANDING to see a manager. Naturally, I drew the short straw and had to go help him.

I walked up to a man in his early 30's who looked distressed. His brows were furrowed and he was running his hand through his hair multiple times. The sprinkling of dandruff coming off of his head was lightly coating his black jacket and reminded me of the snow we still have here in Cleveland.

"Excuse me, are you the manager?" he said, rushing up to me.

"Yes," I replied, not wanting to talk any more than I should until I knew what the situation was.

He shoved a partially unwrapped sandwich at my face. "Here, take a bite of this," he said.

I pushed the sandwich away. "Please get that out of my face," I said politely.

"See?" he yelled. "You wouldn't eat it either!" He appeared to be hopping around daintily on his feet.

"What is the problem here, sir?" I just wanted to get this over with and not play games with this guy.

Suddenly he became very calm. Almost too calm. It was like someone flicked the off switch on his back. "I bought this sandwich this morning and I went to eat it at lunch and noticed that the wrapper was open and it's moldy. What are you going to do about it?"

He held out the sandwich once again and I grabbed it by the corner of the wrapper. Peering inside the sandwich, I noticed that it was definitely moldy. "You said you noticed that the package was open when you went to eat it?"

"Yes, I think someone opened it on purpose."

"Well, that's possible, we often get kids coming in and opening things--"

He cut me off. "I asked you once and you didn't answer. What are you going to do about it?"

I could tell this guy was going to be an asshole. A big one. "I will give you a refund on this sandwich."

He stared at me in what looked like disbelief. "Are you serious? That's it?"

"Umm,...what else did you want me to do?"

"I'd like something more than my money back. I mean, that moldy thing almost touched my lips!" As he said this he started gagging and I had to resist the urge to laugh. Watching people gag is probably the funniest thing on the planet.

Once he finished his dry heave dance, he straightened himself up and looked right at me. "What else are you going to give me?"

"I'm not going to 'give' you anything except for your money back, like I already said."

"That's unacceptable.I deserve at least a $50 gift card."

"A $50 gift card? No. A refund is the only thing I can do." By this point I had gone to the register and pulled out $1.99 to give back to him.

"I should be better compensated for this. If I had taken a bite, I could have gone to the hospital! Then you'd have to pay me a lot more than what I'm asking for!"

I didn't really give a shit about this customer by now since he was being a dick about it. "Like I said, sir. This is all I can do."

"Fine, I'll be contacting the news, then," he said. He threw the sandwich on the ground and stormed out.

I think it's funny when people say they'll be contacting the news. I hear this all the time, even in other places that I'm shopping at. Seriously. 99% of the time the news station won't give a fuck what you're complaining about unless you are an old person that is sending your life savings of $64,000 to someone in Nigeria.

And on top of all this the guy wanted a $50 gift card. Listen, I've gotten hair in my food at pretty much every restaurant within 10 miles of me and I'm not asking for anything. I simply tell the manager, get my food taken off the bill, and don't go there again until I forgot why I don't go there. Things happen. To me, hair is A LOT grosser than some mold on a sandwich.

What do you think this guy should have been given?

Sandwich Question

Let's say you were at a convenience store and bought a sandwich.

When you got home you realized the sandwich was moldy (because the package had been opened and you hadn't noticed that in the store).

What would you expect the store to do?

Spoiled Milk, Spoiled Customers

We don't run many specials in our store, but we're trying to change that.

Currently we have a milk special going on. 3 half gallons of milk for $5. That's a pretty good deal around here.

However, we've barely sold any. Why?

Because customers think we are trying to sell them milk with dates that are expiring soon.

Do places do this with specials? I would have never thought to put milk on sale if it was going bad soon. We usually just throw it out when it expires.

Anyways, this pisses me off. We're trying to bring new customers in the store and our usual shitty ones are asking us why we have it on sale. Fuck you.

I hope you take home a jug of this:

Not from our store, of course.

No Loyalty

Business has been slow lately, but it usually is this time of year. Our regular customers come in as usual, but those are slowly dwindling away, too.

Why?

Because our regular customers are starting to steal.

Theft has been out of control lately, but that was from people we had never seen before. I took pleasure in kicking those assholes out of the store.

When our regular customers steal, that pisses me off. Where's the loyalty? These customers know it's a family business and comment all the time on how they love coming into the store because of the friendly atmosphere, blah blah blah. Now I guess I just won't trust anyone.

We have a redheaded lady that comes in every day. She usually comes in and buys a coffee. Lately she's been buying a doughnut, too.

The other day I was just randomly watching the security cameras (probably because I didn't want to do my work), and I saw this redhead shove a doughnut into her purse. No bag, no tissue, just the doughnut. At first I thought I was just seeing things because who shoves a doughnut in their purse without anything covering it? Is it still enjoyable when it has all the debris and lint from your purse stuck to it?

So I just sat there and watched as she came up to the register to pay for her coffee but not mentioning the doughnut at all.

Normally I'd race right out from the back room and confront this bitch, but Aunt Flow was visiting so my stomach cramps kept me confined to the back room.

My guess is that she's done this before since she so stealthily slid the doughnut into her purse. Right.

I've told everyone I work with and we're all on alert for the next time she does it. And there WILL be a next time. There always is.

It just really pisses me off because this isn't the first time a regular customer has stolen from us lately. It's happening WAY more than it should.