Snappy Answers to Stuipd Questions

[Jimmie Higgins]

I love people. Then I go to work and suddenly loathe EVERYONE! I work in Berkeley and most of the customers I have to deal with probably have never had a service job and have the most absurd questions and concerns and it irritates the shit out of me and I don't fully know why I can't let it go.

Here's an example, my pet peeve for tonight - unclear questions:

Customer: "I have a question."

Me: "Yes"

Customer: "I parked over there"

Me: "...OK?"

Customer widens eyes expectantly: "...Well!"

Me: "...um, your question?"

Customer: "So I parked over there"

Me: "Are you asking if that's the right place to park."

Customer (annoyed): "Yeah!"

Me: "Ok, yeah that's right"

Ok, here's number two - a woman wearing the ubiquitous "middle aged rich white woman in Berkeley" scarf.

Customer: "I have sort of a strange question for you."

Me: "Sure, how can I help?"

Customer: "So I was looking at a registry online"

Me: "Ok"

Customer: "And this place wasn't listed."

Me: "Ok"

Customer: "Well..."

Me: "I'm sorry, what's the question?"

Customer: "Well why didn't they list it?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I don't know why that is"

Customer: "Well, I'm sorry too because I thought this was a business and I thought you might want customers in the future"

WTF? Unless she was a shill for some online representation PR company, why the fuck does this bother her? Like I have any control over what Yelp or Google puts on their registries. And why didn't she just bring it up like a normal human would: "I was looking for you online and I couldn't find a listing".

For this last one I was really tempted to just make up a bullshit story. Even more tempted to reply to her comment about "wanting customers in the future" with something like: "No, I don't want customers to come here in the future. I'm setting up a competing business and trying to lure clients away from here - now that you've discovered my plan, I will have to take some - unfortunate - measures."

------------------------

When I was a kid MAD magazine had a regular section called "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" and, at the time, I thought it was a lame section - and this comeing from an 11 year old who still thought that "MAD" and even "Cracked" were hilarious.

Anyway, later in life when I had to get jobs, this old strip came back to me because of the sheer number of completely idiotic questions I would be asked at various jobs. I'm sarcastic as it is and so I always have to bite my tongue and not give "snappy answers"... because I would get fired.

Here are some of my favorite stupid questions I've repeatedly been asked:

"I love the service you guys provide so it must be fun to work here!"

"You close at 11pm! Why can't you just stay open until midnight tonight?"

"$3.25 for this? Why can't you charge me $3.10 because that's what the competitor across town charges."

"Why isn't the parking meeter outside working?"


Please add you own as well as your own "snappy" answers to these common moronic questions service people have to put up with.

[gorillafuck]

Q: "Does something smell funny in here?"

A: "I don't know, stupid!"

[#FF0000]

Q: "Hey can I get less ice in that s-"

A: "Shut the fuck up"

[Sam_b]

Wow that's really stuipd.

[AK]

I had work experience at a supermarket.

*standing in the pet food aisle, surrounded by pet food* Customer: Excuse me, where is the pet food?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I still loathe them all; it didn't help:(.

[MarxSchmarx]

You know, I understand that there are some real dunces out there.

But really this is a ploy by management to divide the workers from the customers.

See both customers and workers harm the management's bottom line. It's not about pleasing the customer - it's about ripping them off. And customers understand that, but they take it out on the worker.

I hear peristently about people who either complain about idiotic customers, or customers who complain about idiotic salespeople/staff. At first it was just annoying, but really it's your bosses way of driving a wedge between you and the people that pay your salary, skimming some fraction of it for themselves.

Believe me I have worked in about as low wage service jobs as they get for a long period of time and 99.99% of customers I dealt with were sympathetic and decent; this didn't stop my coworkers from whining endlessly about them, instead of *****ing about the capricious boss.

And having been on the other side of those transactions, I know how frustrating it can be because you don't know the stupid policies of the chain store, or the way they do things.

[Hiratsuka]

A lot of people are just plain ass hats who feel entitled to everything from stellar service at the local Quick-N-Go to being able to speed up and cut you off on the highway. These are the same jerks who will the let the door close on your face, or will lazily cross the street as an entitled pedestrian, or will mow their lawns at six o-clock in the morning.

I work in education, and it's the epitome of craziness. Some parents just lose all resemblance of sanity when their children are disciplined.

One time, after the school program had ended and all the kids were either gone or out the doors:

Why did you punish my child?

He threw poop at my face.

Why were you watching him go poop!

I'm a special ed supervisor. I have to watch my student go to the bathroom. Your son just happened to be in the next stall.

That's not acceptable! What were you thinking?!

Shit.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I worked for a call center for a while, fundraising for liberal non-profits. I came to hate both the job and the company. There was an enormous amount of hypocrisy, the company rountinely kept a big chunk of whatever money was donated, and increasing numbers of people hated being called. I had to completely agree with them on this one; the frequency of calling kept increasingly until we were virtually harassing people. Donate $10 to the Humane Society, PBS, the Sierra Club, or the ACLU and you'll be hounded for the rest of your life, with us keeping a big chunk of the proceeds.

I was in the odd position of having to defend something which I didn't believe in myself. I developed some creative rebuttals.

person being called: "Why the f*&^k are you calling me?"
me: "I have to pay rent and buy groceries".

person being called: I'm sorry, Mr/Ms is working right now, can I take a message?
me: Don't be sorry, you should be glad he/she is working, so many people are unemployed right now.

person being called: He/she is not here...any messages?
me: no messages
person being called: Its very rude not to leave a message
(people often got pissed off when I didn't leave a message, so...)
me: Okay, here's the message. The president's motorcade passes by at 2. Tell him/her to give Lee the package and wait by the Book Depository.(goofing on the JFK assassination)

people would usually hang up after that. I'm totally amazed that I wasn't fired earlier than I was.

[Il Medico]

I deliver the newspaper.
So....

One night I pull into a CVS pharmacy. I bag their papers and toss it out the window to the front of the store. Right as I do this a cop pulls up and say to me
"What are you doing"
I, sitting in a car filled to the brim with newspapers and having just thrown one right in front of him say:
"Same as you"
and he replies
"Oh, yeah? What is that then!"
"Being a douche bag" :cool:

He then tried to make me give a full explanation of why I was there and threatened to arrest me, but he never suspected that I payed attention in my high school law class. I lost about ten minutes of my time though. But god it was worth it.

[Hiratsuka]

I worked for a call center for a while, fundraising for liberal non-profits. I came to hate both the job and the company. There was an enormous amount of hypocrisy, the company rountinely kept a big chunk of whatever money was donated, and increasing numbers of people hated being called. I had to completely agree with them on this one; the frequency of calling kept increasingly until we were virtually harassing people. Donate $10 to the Humane Society, PBS, the Sierra Club, or the ACLU and you'll be hounded for the rest of your life, with us keeping a big chunk of the proceeds.

I was in the odd position of having to defend something which I didn't believe in myself. I developed some creative rebuttals.

person being called: "Why the f*&^k are you calling me?"
me: "I have to pay rent and buy groceries".

person being called: I'm sorry, Mr/Ms is working right now, can I take a message?
me: Don't be sorry, you should be glad he/she is working, so many people are unemployed right now.

person being called: He/she is not here...any messages?
me: no messages
person being called: Its very rude not to leave a message
(people often got pissed off when I didn't leave a message, so...)
me: Okay, here's the message. The president's motorcade passes by at 2. Tell him/her to give Lee the package and wait by the Book Depository.(goofing on the JFK assassination)

people would usually hang up after that. I'm totally amazed that I wasn't fired earlier than I was.

My one stunt as a call center jockey was hilarious. I hated the whole two times rule - you need a customer to reject your offer twice before even considering the call done - but I had a very chill boss who allowed us to take full autonomy over dealing with the true jerks.

Man (after I completed my pitch): Okay, you listen to me - uh, what is your name again? What's it, Jaine or something? Josh? Jackie? Oh fuck it, it doesn't matter. Okay, you listen, Jaine. I don't want your shit. Your company has called me six times this week. And I don't want it. It's fucking annoying. You heard that, right? It's fucking, fucking annoying. Just leave me alone. I don't want the shit you got. I have my own shit. Plenty of shit. Plenty of fucking, FUCKING shit. Okay? (He's now yelling) I'm just trying to eat my CHICKEN SANDWICH. Do you realize you called an hour again? (I try to chime in...) Bla bla bla, apologize to my ass. I'm done, Janie. I'm done. Take me off your list.

Me: That's fine, sir, but are you sure you wouldn't be interested?

*Long Pause*

Man: You're a cocksucker.

*Click*

Granted I can sympathize with people like him, but I think it was overkill, haha.

[ChrisK]

When I was a kid MAD magazine had a regular section called "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" and, at the time, I thought it was a lame section - and this comeing from an 11 year old who still thought that "MAD" and even "Cracked" were hilarious.

Anyway, later in life when I had to get jobs, this old strip came back to me because of the sheer number of completely idiotic questions I would be asked at various jobs. I'm sarcastic as it is and so I always have to bite my tongue and not give "snappy answers"... because I would get fired.

Here are some of my favorite stupid questions I've repeatedly been asked:

"I love the service you guys provide so it must be fun to work here!"

Very.

"You close at 11pm! Why can't you just stay open until midnight tonight?"

If it were up to me we would.

"$3.25 for this? Why can't you charge me $3.10 because that's what the competitor across town charges."

If it were up to me we would.

"Why isn't the parking meeter outside working?"

No clue.

Please add you own as well as your own "snappy" answers to these common moronic questions service people have to put up with.

My answers are in pretty red. Remeber, lying is your friend.

Here's some of my favorites

"Why is it going to take the pizza an hour to get here?" (Always asked at 7:00, when there are three lines on hold, pizza's spewing out of the oven, there are 12 deliveries and two drivers).

"How late are you open?"
"One"
"Good" click
12:58 AM
"I called earlier, can I get a delivery?"

[Jimmie Higgins]

But really this is a ploy by management to divide the workers from the customers.

I agree with your premise, but I think this argument is a straw-man in this case since I posted it in "chit-chat", it's supposed to be humorous, and it's coming from a revolutionary who does look at the systemic situation and knows that his boss and the capitalist system is the real enemy.

If we want to get into the bigger picture, I'd say in my experience, there is a difference between working a high-end service job in Berkeley (where most people who I deal with are professionals who have lived only within academia and don't even understand the dynamics of a regular service job or who made their money in private law practice and the like) or working a job where you deal more with working class people. IMO in working class areas, people who treat you like shit feel like they should be allowed to because they get treated like shit - or they are young and have not experienced work - or they are lumpen and mad at the world. In Berkeley I had, for example, a woman told me to say open later and I told her I had to go home, and she replied, "And do what? You have nothing better to do". That's the kind of elitism that happens.

Yes, customers are in no way the cause of my economic exploitation or the cause of capitalism. But the elitism of many people is a direct result of that system. By portraying service workers as inhuman drones, happy to serve, or as kids who don't really need the money, companies like Wal-Mart and so on have driven down wages and denied workers benefits. If service workers are just high school kids, then what do they need health care for - why do they need a living wage when they live with their parents? Well for one thing most service workers are not these people, many are mothers with children to feed.

Again, customers are not the source, but telling a service worker not to be offended by people who assume they are uneducated or assume that they are in high school, or that these workers are not worthy of consideration as a human is like saying that a woman who was called "girl" or "chick" shouldn't be offended or frustrated because the system and ruling class is the real source of sexism, not the random man who reflected the sexist attitude.

Ultimately what will change this? A worker's movement that demands and shows in practice why workers are to be supported and respected. Not that being a regular worker now is the same as being black under Jim-crow, but the kind of invisibility that workers get from society, and the kind of elitism is IMO a taste of how it was. When Jim Crow was dominant, most white people didn't loathe blacks, they probably didn't consider them much at all, they took their drinks and were served by them and then didn't think of them as people with their own problems and lives worthy of consideration or that there was any anger or resentment about the state of affaris. The only thing that changed that state of normalcy was struggle and a movement. When there is a labor upsurge and Starbucks workers and Wal-Mart workers are organizing and making demands, they will be really hated by the bosses (who will also convince some customers to join in that hate) but they will also be seen as people - even by the Berkeley petite-bourgeois.

[ChrisK]

Another fun one (from when I worked at Taco Bell):

"Hey, we got the chicken taco's and they cost more than the board price! Why is that?"

"Chicken costs more than ground beef."

"Why isnt' it written up there?"

"It is, its on the bottom. It says, 'Chicken and steak cost 1.25 more.'"

"Well you need to fix that right now!"

"Sir, I can't fix it."

"Well it needs to be fixed. You need to fix it."

"I'll tell my manager."



And the greatest way to take care of a prank caller:

"I'd like to order a pizza"

"Okay, what type?" (I type in her caller ID and she is in her database)

She then proceeds to give the longest fucking order and then yells

"UP YOUR'S COCKSUCK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Click.

So I call her back

"Well, because you prank called us you are on the no delievery list forever, I have your phone number and I know where you live. Have a nice night!"

[Jimmie Higgins]

"Why is it going to take the pizza an hour to get here?" (Always asked at 7:00, when there are three lines on hold, pizza's spewing out of the oven, there are 12 deliveries and two drivers).
The teleportation machine is broken.

Because your pizza was skiing over the weekend and sprained his leg.

Time is an illusion: smoke some more weed and it will be there before you know it.


"How late are you open?"
"One"
"Good" click
12:58 AM
"I called earlier, can I get a delivery?"

Yes, we will cook it for two minutes and then deliver it to you first thing when we open tomorrow at 3pm.

[Tyrlop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwMherli1eE
:laugh:

[Nwoye]

One night I pull into a CVS pharmacy. I bag their papers and toss it out the window to the front of the store. Right as I do this a cop pulls up and say to me
"What are you doing"
I, sitting in a car filled to the brim with newspapers and having just thrown one right in front of him say:
"Same as you"
and he replies
"Oh, yeah? What is that then!"
"Being a douche bag" :cool:
you're my hero.http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_cool.gif

[Sankofa]

I deliver the newspaper.
So....

One night I pull into a CVS pharmacy. I bag their papers and toss it out the window to the front of the store. Right as I do this a cop pulls up and say to me
"What are you doing"
I, sitting in a car filled to the brim with newspapers and having just thrown one right in front of him say:
"Same as you"
and he replies
"Oh, yeah? What is that then!"
"Being a douche bag" :cool:

He then tried to make me give a full explanation of why I was there and threatened to arrest me, but he never suspected that I payed attention in my high school law class. I lost about ten minutes of my time though. But god it was worth it.

Did you honestly tell a cop that...at night? :scared:

If you told a pig that in the U.S. you would've been cuffed, definitely. And you would be lucky if he didn't beat/mace/taze you in the process.

[Foldered]

Man that's hilarious. I gotta use that.

[Il Medico]

Did you honestly tell a cop that...at night? :scared:
Yes.


If you told a pig that in the U.S. you would've been cuffed, definitely. And you would be lucky if he didn't beat/mace/taze you in the process.
I live in Florida.

[Pavlov's House Party]

i do night shifts at a convenience store (in quebec called a depanneur, it sells alcohol and shit too) and deal with a multitude of the most irritating people every shift. your best friend is "i don't know" because you can use it in any situation to deal with customers who are being irritating.

Q: "hey where the fuck is my tabloid newspaper?!"
A:sorry sir, i have no idea

Q: "30$? for a case of beer?! what kind of store is this?!"
A: sorry but i don't make the prices

you get the idea. just remember that youre just some drone working the cash and you have no idea of anything at all, and you can immediately get rid of any stupid questions at all. and if you lose a shitty customer, then its just your boss's loss ;)

[Chambered Word]

I deliver the newspaper.
So....

One night I pull into a CVS pharmacy. I bag their papers and toss it out the window to the front of the store. Right as I do this a cop pulls up and say to me
"What are you doing"
I, sitting in a car filled to the brim with newspapers and having just thrown one right in front of him say:
"Same as you"
and he replies
"Oh, yeah? What is that then!"
"Being a douche bag" :cool:

He then tried to make me give a full explanation of why I was there and threatened to arrest me, but he never suspected that I payed attention in my high school law class. I lost about ten minutes of my time though. But god it was worth it.

My friend worked as a paper boy when he was around 12. He reckons one time he just dumped the newspapers in the bush, lol.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Not that i would wish to bring politics into chit chat, but the Big - M came up with a pretty good one when some fool asked him who would sweep the streets in communism,

he raged and went like "YOU!!!"


Owned

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah Marx would have kicked ass if they had "Yo' mama" competitions in 1840. I love the section in the Manifesto where Marx and Engels take on the common criticisms of communism.