A report from Ted the Henchman™, which, I should point out, is entirely fictional:

We had two guys come in to the store today and offer to clean our parking lots for cash. I almost got defensive... Hey, that's my job! Except, you know, it's not.

But those guys were just minor curiosities. The real nastiness today came from this woman who harangued me for a full half hour because she wanted to return a phone that she'd bought three years ago, which was still under warantee. We'd replaced it a few months ago, and she said it didn't work anymore, but she wouldn't take a replacement. She wanted her money back. Basically, she just wanted money, and she was using the old "abuse the help until they give you what you want" routine. Now, I've used a variation on this in the past, which is just to refuse your options until the only one left is to get cash, but this woman (whose name is Dolores; hi, Dori, you raving bitch...) was just incredibly mean. Now, I'm still in the traning phase here, and the other employee who was there did what she always does, which was to give me blank looks whenever I ask direct questions and then disappear. And the manager was gone, so I was stuck.

Finally, I lost my temper with this woman, only a little bit, which was bad, but I had no idea how long this abuse was going to go on for, and at that point I hadn't caught on to her game. This, of course, was just what she wanted, and I wisely backed away from a confrontation, but then she wanted to report me. My first thought was, if they want to fire me over this, then I don't really want to work here. No, scratch that. I don't want to work here anyway, but if this is what I have to put up with, forget it. I'll clean parking lots for spare change.

I made a few calls to my overlord's cell phone, and she didn't like any of the options he presented to me, so I told her she had to wait until he got back. She didn't like this, and insisted upon calling the customer service number, which I happily gave to her, along with my name. She dialed the number, and from what I can tell, wrestled with the computer for a bit and then stormed off without lodging any real complaint. And, oddly enough, for the rest of the day, I was in a much better mood, though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was just that the rest of the oddballs we get in there seemed easy by comparison, or perhaps it was that I hadn't let Dori get the best of me. Who knows?

On my drive home, I came up with all sorts of imaginative phone pranks I could have played on Dori, but I resisted the urge because I suddenly saw myself, a grown man, making prank phone calls. Actually, what I envisioned was just quitting the damned job, which would remove me from all legal obligations, thus allowing me to call this woman and tell me what I really thought of her. In the end, this scenario seemed less satisfying than it seemed at first, so I just let it go. With my luck, I'd wind up with a restraining order and 500 hours of community service or something...

©2003 Ted the Henchman™