Genial Geriatrics

Here's a fun story from my days of working for other people.  I just submitted it to Clients from Hell, because I love that site.

An adorable, frowning little old lady walks in to the shop. I say “Hello, what can I do for you?”

“What did you say?”

“What can I do for you?”

“What did you say?!”

“What can I do for you?”

I am promptly given a list of my faults.

My faults, as dictated to me by Mrs. M.

1. She forgot her hearing aid.
2. That I, foolishly, repeat what I have said after she asks “What did you say?”
3. She can’t hear what I’m saying.
4. I don’t greet customers.
5. Did I mention she can’t hear what I’m saying?
6. I grew up in the wrong time.
7. I am not 98.
8. I don’t know anything.
9. I did not go to college. (I did.)
10. I am not smarter than her.
11. I work with computers.
12. I did not put three kids through college.
13. I don’t know how the world works.
14. I didn’t learn how to greet customers at the store she worked at in college.
15. I have no respect.
16. My mother didn’t teach me anything.
17. My employer didn’t teach me anything.
18. I can’t have learned anything because I didn’t go to college.
19. I don’t know how to make change because nobody knows how to make change because of computers.
20. I am young.
21. I am not 98.
22. I am not helpful.
23. I am not friendly.
24. I have no common courtesy.
25. I work at a business.
26. I do not occupy a different time.

During this six minute jaunt into a bad situational comedy I have not spoken. I don’t know why this woman is here, yelling at me, but I am trying my very hardest not to smile. At some point near the end of her diatribe she makes a halfhearted suggestion at an apology, but immediately rescinds it because “then you wouldn’t learn anything.”

She turns to storm out. Pauses. Realizes that she probably came into this strange business that occupies the present for a reason. Digs through her purse and slams a prescription bottle on the counter.

I stare at it. She is immediately furious. “Well?! Don’t you know how to do your job?”

I do not attempt to tell her that this is a photography studio.

Another monologue is launched. I listen. Partway through she realizes her error and digs out a roll of film. “SEE!” she yells angrily, “Even I make mistakes.” The wind is momentarily taken out of her sails. She must fall back and regroup.

Twenty minutes later she has called the studio, and this time she can hear. Again irate at my youth, my stupidity, and my lack of basic human social skills. I let her fill out the form wrong and could I PLEASE just fix it so she can be done with it. She has not filled out the form wrong. I watched her fill out the form. All the necessary data has been transcribed. But I clearly do not know how to do my job, because how could they possibly know what kind of film it is if we do not write it on the package.

“They are a photo lab.” I say.

Wrong. Answer. Again, this shining deity sees it fit to shower me with gossamer threads of wisdom for another twenty minutes.