A tall man around his sixties wearing a wool jacket who looked as if he was some bigshot rich retiree walked in to Ritz the other day. I approached him to offer my assistance which the man accepted explaining to me his need for new batteries. I brought him over to our battery stand and showed him some rechargeable AA's, "These batteries will work for your camera although they are not the same brand" the man took the batteries from my hand and slammed them down on the counter and yelled "Damn it! I just want some batteries that will work for my camera I bought my camera here just give me some that will work. Don't show me any that wont work!" "Easy man, you don't have to get so mad" I said to the irate customer. "These batteries will work, all I said was they were a different brand not that they weren't AA's. He got me fired up enough that adrenalin started to pulse through me because I feared he might hit me if I was not careful. He proceeded to call me a brainless fool after I explained to him that the difference in brand had nothing to do with whether the batteries in question would work for his camera. "just tell me how much they are!" is what he ordered next as if trying to cover up his lack of self control. I have never been forced to deal with someone who was so intolerable. I had to force the thought of hitting him way down in my mind because he was really pushing me to the edge and of all the things I hate most it's people that are rude. So instead of hitting him I just said "Excuse me?! where do you get off treating me like that?"... that's all I could really do. I was quite shaken up by this incident, so much so that I explained what happened to the innocent customer that was there waiting just so that I could vent (bad idea by the way).
Advice to everyone else, never be the slightest bit timid around customers because they will get the crazy idea that you don't know what your talking about. I always find myself saying something in contrast to what I had just said which confuses the hell out of people and makes them think I am clueless. I'm just trying NOT to anger people but beating around the bush isn't the way to do it... *sigh* life is difficult.
