Horror Stories from Beyond the Desk...

[jopperm2]

That was me shooting myself in the head.. (I actually made that part up for dramatic reasons.)

[oozae]

Originally Posted by jopperm2

That was me shooting myself in the head.. (I actually made that part up for dramatic reasons.)

Ah, I see.

[Magrus]

Originally Posted by jopperm2

I'm saying my customers are dumb.

It's not that they're dumb, it's the, oh well. Yeah, no being nice and going around it. People are morons.

I had one lady who came in wanting bread, and barely spoke any english, she was chinese. She wanted french bread, and there was some out on display so I pointed to it. She pointed to the rack of bread I was pushing in the back. I tried explaining that the rack full of bread was old bread which hadn't sold two days ago we were donating and I couldn't sell it to her. She started arguing, accusing me of refusing to sell her "hot bread" and how she wanted some of the "hot bread".

I got frustrated, argued back and I ended up spending 10 minutes arguing and was late so I finally just handed some to her from the rack and told her to have a nice day. I'm sure she loved it, things could have bruised her if I hit her with one they were so hard. She was thrilled to have won our argument though.

[Georgi]

Originally Posted by jopperm2

What do you do now Georgi?

I'm a subtitler for a 24-hour news channel. And sports channels occasionally, but not if I can help it.

At the call centre I was talking about, we also used to get calls from kids who wanted to subscribe to get the free gift, so they'd pretend they were 18+ although they clearly weren't, and ask if they could pay in cash when you asked for their credit card number...

People also used to ask if they couldn't just buy the free gift. I kind of wanted to beat them over the head, yelling, "Don't you see? The free gift is the incentive to subscribe! Don't you people recognise a marketing ploy when you see one?!?"

[jopperm2]

What kind of free gift we talking about here?? Sounds pretty in demand! I think they just wanted to talk to you Georgi.
@Magrus, that's a funny story. I had some instances like that when I used to work in restaurants.

My customers are the bottom of the barrel kind of dumb. I actually service customers from five companies that are all owned by Ford. One of those companies is for "high-risk" financing. People with credit so bad they get interest rates as high 33%! This is on new vehicles too. Anyone who buys a NEW car but has to take financing at 33% is a moron IMO.

Anyway, the kinda stuff you have to do to get credit that bad is beyond the realms of bad luck or decisions. You almost have to try to get bad credit. We finance people just coming off Bankruptcy for 15% and that is supposed to be the worst thing you can do to your credit.

[Maharlika]

Since this thread involves all the not-so-nice things about work, expletives are normally involved.

May I suggest that one refrains from using acronyms for profane words as well as relying too much on the forum filter?

I would suggest using something like this --> [insert expletive here].

I know it's kinda long considering the original term(s) may be way shorter, but at least you dont break any forum rules and yet not sacrifice the context of your message.

Thanks.

[Georgi]

Originally Posted by jopperm2

What kind of free gift we talking about here?? Sounds pretty in demand! I think they just wanted to talk to you Georgi.

Lucky me Let me see, it was a whole gift set - it had some kind of collector's tin, and then it had stuff like a headband and various other plastic things I guess. The magazine was Jackie Chan Adventures. There were these medal things that came with every magazine too, and people used to phone up demanding to know why all their medals hadn't arrived, because they thought they came with the free gift thing.

[Macleod1701]

As if the job your doing isn't bad enough what about the job you just applied for, the stress of the interview and trying to convince them that you're really dedicated to work when really you just want to be paid more for something that wont bore you to tears. Then there's the waiting for the yes/no phone call/letter......if you couldn't tell I'm waiting to hear if I have a new job and I'm incredibly stressed out. Now this is a horror story!

[jopperm2]

Ahh yes, the job offer.

Applicant: I'm willing to accept X amount of torture in exchange for Y amount of money.

Interviewer: No thanks, you scream too much for that proce.

[Macleod1701]

Almost equally as bad is interviewing someone for a job, you read their CV and invite them thinking their good and then the day comes and.........the hunchback of notre dame walks in reeking of BO and booze, barely able to string two words together and you wonder whether they killed the real applicant and are just impersonating them.

[Georgi]

Originally Posted by Macleod1701

As if the job your doing isn't bad enough what about the job you just applied for, the stress of the interview and trying to convince them that you're really dedicated to work when really you just want to be paid more for something that wont bore you to tears.

Interviewer: So, why do you want to leave your current job?
Interviewee: The job's really boring, they don't pay me enough, my colleagues are all incompetent and the management don't have a clue what they're doing.

[Macleod1701]

Yep that's about it, and all those times your parents told you it was wrong to lie when you were young and then encourage you to 'embelish' the truth at interviews.

[Georgi]

LOL

Interviewer: And why do you want to work for us?
Interviewee: Because I'll get paid more, and the job sounds so easy I could do it standing on my head...

I think it's one of the reasons I hate interviews - those stupid interview questions where you know exactly what they want you to say, so even if it is blatently untrue, you could make up an answer you know they'd like. And I hate BS-ing in interviews. But really, you'd have thought those questions would be useless for actually picking someone to employ, because everyone's going to say the same thing.

Interviewer: How do you feel about working as part of a team?
Interviewee: You want me to work with other people? *gasp* But I have no social skills whatsoever, I hate every other human being and there's no way I can co-exist with them in an office environment...

[Magrus]

I actually got fed up going around in circles with interviewers on why I'd quit my last job and told them the truth. They didn't appreciate hearing it, as I was trying to get my job back at the same place as they were clearing it out of worthless employees. I told them I'd heard they were attempting to finally improve things and in that case, it might be worth working for them again rather than cleaning up the messes middle management left me to work with every night. I didn't get the job, they still have a help wanted sign out and have for months.

They keep getting robbed by new employees and my friend who does work there still keeps begging them to let me work there again. Apparently they want liars who DON'T steal.

[Georgi]

@Mag I don't think they like to hear the truth about stuff like that

When staff leave our company, they get an exit interview in which they're encouraged to say why they're leaving, any problems they had etc, and it would be really tempting to rant about how incompetent the whole place is... But it's always better to keep on good terms with your ex-employers, you never know when you might want a reference.

Our place is kind of shooting itself in the foot too, when it comes to getting freelancers in to work overtime. See, quite a lot of people have left to go to a rival subtitling company where they pay better and just have a bettter quality of life and those people are now banned from coming back to do overtime, even though we are really short-staffed at the moment, and could do with any help we can get.