There are days where I do wonder if 'playing nice' was the best option to have taken.
Like I'm not one for conflict and if I get caught up in something I tend to try and be the peacemaker and try and make everyone happy.
But sometimes I wonder if it's 'worth it' to make 'everyone' happy.
So towards the end of my shift we had three customers come into the store.
A mother and her two grown up daughters, where at least one daughter had kids of her own.
As she had come up from a couple of hours away looking for a 'shark-like fish' and a fish tank to put it in so she could give the shark to her son for Christmas.
And my coworker was the one who interacted with them first. And informed them that the 10 gallon tank they'd picked out for the sharks would be too small for their fish.
At some point during this conversation the customers said that they would be getting a bigger tank. And told my coworker that it would be 'down the line' aka a year or two from my coworker's understanding.
Apparently the customers didn't like being told "No." and hadn't 'ever been told they can't buy something before.' and so were kinda making a bigger deal of it.
And as they were looking at fish and tanks and such, my coworker approached me seeking advice on what to do.
And they explained the situation to me as they were preparing to grab some feeder goldfish for the second grown daughter for her turtle.
And we'd been keeping our voices down low...but something about our demeanor waved a flag in front of the mother's eyes as the group had walked by to go down a different aisle to look at tanks there.
And she practically whirled on us and was like "Are you seriously talking smack about us right now?! In front of us! My daughter is looking for a bigger tank! But if you're going to treat us like that then we can go to your competitor. There's one around here isn't there? We can go there! You can't talk about us like that!"
Which my original gut instinct was to be 'helpful' and be like "Oh yes, the competitor's store is another ten minutes down the road, here's the directions. Bye."
But the next instinct was to try and figure out the situation as I couldn't quite see why the mother was being so aggressive to us. Or well more particularly to my coworker.
As I told the woman that they'd been asking me for advice on the situation and was updating me on it.
And the customer was like "Well you should have come to us and approached us if there was a problem! Not gossip about it!"
Like...how could I know there was a problem if my coworker doesn't tell me there's a problem. I was being told of the situation and if needed would have stepped in and talked to the customers themselves if needed.
And it was frustrating because the mother called the daughters over to explain their side of the story and they were like "We're going to be getting a bigger tank next week." as apparently the one daughter was giving her 40 gallon tank to the other daughter (aka her sister) then.
Which wasn't what my coworker had been told and she tried to say so, but the customers were adamant that they'd explained it would be next week they'd be getting the tank.
*exhales*
The situation was rather aggressive with the daughters too. Especially when they couldn't understand 'why they couldn't put other fish in with the sharks when there were 'other fish' in with the sharks in our tanks already'
Which they seemed to mellow out when I asked for clarification on what they meant as they had used the word 'integrated' and such.
I ended up clarifying the situation and helping the customers figure out what they really wanted and what tank they wanted to get and how to decide which fish to get etc.
But my coworker was soo....idk upset? Which they had a right to be because the customers basically just called them a liar and said that they'd misunderstood what they meant...
When I'm pretty sure the customers were just making things up to make my coworker look bad.
And my coworker was upset that they caused 'trouble' and had to get me involved.
And I was like don't be. I want my coworkers happy and if I have to deal with the stupid customers who have to be difficult I will be, but I don't like seeing my coworkers hurting.
Especially when they're so upset that they're shaking so hard that they end up spilling goldfish all over the cart.
Which seeing that happen also seemed to chill out the customers as well as they were okay with me leaving them to go help my associate and such and were a bit nicer -at least to me- afterwards and more understanding.
At least the daughters were.
The mother just had this uppity attitude the entire time and I barley interacted with her after that point.
But it sucks as it took like an hour to get them happy with their fish and their tank and send them on their way.
And in the meantime I'd sent my coworker on their lunch to get them off the floor--but got stuck helping a bunch of customers so I couldn't check in on them for another twenty minutes to see how they were handling things.
And like...it sucks. Because my coworker ended up bursting into tears because of how the situation had spiraled out of control and they didn't like that they'd caused so much trouble and such.
It took a lot to calm them down.
And I'm just irritated that the customers thought it was okay to be such beasts and lie about what my coworker had heard and that the customers listened to me when I told them the exact same thing my coworker had told them but hadn't listened to my coworker in the first place. *exhales*
>_<
Like....I can only hope that they don't come back.
And I can only wonder how their whole fish buying experience will go. As we recommend not buying fish the same day that you set up a tank -but I didn't bring this up because I could tell the customers wouldn't like that answer having driven 'so far' to get here.
And like...I didn't tell them about our return policy with the fish either. So if the fish die...I hope they don't think to call the store at all, or at least choose to go to a different store.
We'll see I suppose.
But hey, if they get mad they'll have to get mad at me because I was the one who helped them out through the rest of the transaction and caught their fish for them. And I was perfectly helpful and nice to them (even if I wanted to punch the mother in her uppity face) so they have nothing against me.
We'll see.
I hope they never come back.
Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
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