There is a woman who has been coming into the store for as long as I've been working there. Apparently, she doesn't have enough hobbies, because all she comes in to do is harass the employees.
Every time she comes in, she targets a different salesperson. The transaction starts off like any other.
And invariably, at some point in the sale, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. I had been lucky enough to dodge her for two years. Never had to speak to her; some poor newbie always jumped in before I could be saddled with her.
Guess who the target was last month.
Like an utter dumbass, I decided to ask if she was doing okay when I spotted her walking around looking for a register at which to ring up her copy of Win98. And pleasantly enough, she informed me that she did. We got to the register. I rung up the software. I quoted a price with tax. With a smile, she handed over her credit card. I couldn't believe it. She was being civil. The four horsemen must have been saddling up. As is standard procedure, I asked for her ID.
And the Gates of Hell opened. I'll spare the details. There was much yelling involved, amid threats to call Marvin Zindler and have the whole sordid affair covered on the local news. Managers were called over to defuse the situation. The customer was very politely reminded of her past tantrums and just as politely asked not to shop at this particular store again. The phrasing of that bit was priceless. "Ma'am," the manager began, "Since we can't seem to make you happy here, might I suggest you try a few other retailers in town?" No names were mentioned, but every employee within earshot had the name of a certain competitor immediately pop into his or her head. As usual, she gave in, but not without more yelling. She paid cash. She wrote out a scathing comment card about me, making a few references to her suspicions about my personal life based on my clothing (I wore a button-down shirt and tie at the time). She left. I hope she had to restore her hard drive ten times after Win98 did its thing.
One other thing: this lady likes to make up stories about previous encounters with salespeople she did not like. She pointed to one poor guy and rattled off a spiel about how she had come in three months ago and how rude he had been to her. The employee in question had been hired two days prior to this incident (and quite understandably walked off the job not an hour later), which tipped my manager off that this woman was a few tiles short of a double-word score.
I haven't seen her in a while. Since the hiring of one particularly noisome newbie, I've found myself wishing she would come visit us one last time to give this rookie the what-for.
Preferably on my day off.