Never a Dull Day...

I always joke that I have so much hope in humanity until i go to work and deal with the general public. That actually held true today. There are a few things i just can't understand, such as how people think they can bully someone into getting what they want for free, and feel perfectly entitled to do just that.  I realize its a bad time out there in the economy right now, but really enough is sometimes enough. Some days, all i want customers to understand is that we are a business and not the local soup kitchen. Hopefully you all get that instead of just thinking i'm insensitive. Anyway, enough of my ramblings and on with today's jilly adventure....

Today was going normal enough. I guess that should have been my first clue that something interesting was lurking around the corner. You see, normal isn't really my style. The day moved slowly...too slow for my taste. So i sent everyone home and then promptly got kicked in the tail.  Apparently everyone in my delivery area decided that 10 pm was prime dinner time. I must have missed that memo...probably floating around somewhere in my office. A few minutes before close the phone rang. Some students ordered $57 in food. 6 pizzas, 3 orders of wings...paying cash. Now i've been in this business for a long time. An order that big for some students this late at night to that school and paying cash...it reeked of scam to me.  I instructed my people to hold off making the order until i could do a call back to confirm the order. I called the number they gave us and was immediately sent to voicemail. I left a message and began cleaning up the store while i waited. After 10 minutes and no call back, i decided to try again. This time i got them on the phone, they confirmed and i made the order.  I thought no more of it until about 30 minutes later.  The phone rang and i answered explaining we were closed.  It was the students.  The girl on the phone claimed that they just received her order and all of the pizzas were ruined like they had been dropped upside down and she would like her money back. No problem, our policy is to remake or refund...and my oven had been off for 25 minutes so refund it is. I thought it interesting that all of the pizzas were ruined so i asked her to send pictures to my cell phone of the pizzas so i could show the driver and question him about his handling of the pizzas. I told her that once she did that i would call the driver and have him turn around to return her money. 5 minutes went by without receiving the pictures. Finally she called back and said she sent the pictures to me. I told her i didn't receive them. She didn't address that at all, and instead said:

Her: So i was thinking...we deserve 6 new pizzas.
Me: Okay, so you'd like a remake instead of a refund?
Her: No, i still want my money back. But i'm unsatisfied and your job is to make me happy. So i also want 6 new pizzas. That would make me satisfied.
Me: (realizing something is off here) So how many of the pizzas were ruined?
Her: Well, two. But because we were inconvenienced i want all 6.
Me: (dang my temper). Okay, first of all I explained you could get either a remake or a refund. I want to help you, but you do not have the right to call me up in a threatening tone and make ridiculous demands that i cannot and will not do.
Her: Excuse me? In case you forgot, i'm the customer. And the customer is always right.
Me: I will give you the money back for the pizzas that were ruined, but not all of it.
Her: (She begins yelling and everyone in the background...around 15 people...is cursing at me now)
Me: Ma'am, if we are going to work this out I need you to stop yelling and listen to what i am saying (I always say this to a yelling customer, and it almost never works. I use this as a precursor to hanging up on them, because once they are yelling and out of control like that, no progress is ever made. just fyi.)
Me: Ma'am, i need the yelling to stop or i will have to hang up the phone
(She hangs up so i don't have to)
(She calls back)
Her: I decided i'll just take all the money back. I'm willing to drop the 6 pizzas.
Me: Well, like i said, I can give you the money for the ruined pizzas. But the chicken was fine and so were 4 of the other pizzas
Her: You act like you don't trust me. I just spent 57 dollars for some food, why would i try to play you?
Me: Because you just spent 57 dollars and you are a student.
Her: Well i want my money back. all of it.
Me: I tell you what. Since we are having a disconnect here, i'm going to give you the franchise office number and someone will call you tomorrow about getting your money back
Her: No i want it tonight. I'm coming up there.
Me: Well ma'am, we won't be here. We're getting ready to leave for the night.
(She hangs up)

It's really a shame a typed up version of a conversation cannot portray tone properly. That was the key in this conversation for me. I knew what she was trying to do. Trust me, i've done this long enough. I was sitting in the office, finishing up some end of the day stuff when i hear some banging at the door and one of my drivers say "Jill, call 911."  I peak my head around the corner and sure enough, a guy was trying to pull the locked door open and shouting "you better open this *&^%* door!!!". Um....no thanks. I saw the three girls behind him and new we had our lovely student group here to get their money. I picked up the phone and called the police. While i described the situation to the dispatcher, they kept yanking on the door so hard i thought it was going to come off the hinges. And they kept pointing at me and yelling for me to open the door "or else." Imagine their dismay when two cop cars rolled in.  The officer came in and i explained what was going on. He said they had the pizzas with them. I told him i would be willing to reimburse them for the ruined ones, which i had explained to them on the phone. I told him what they had demanded, and he said "well, that's ridiculous! no business can just give stuff away like that!" EXACTLY!!! Ah, i love it when the police take my side. (its happened twice this week).  Anyway, he brought that one girl in, we talked, i offered a partial refund and she accepted. I noticed how quiet she was. Where did the bully go? I took the time to nicely explain to her why i was only offering a partial refund and where this whole situation went wrong. She looked at the floor the whole time and simply said "well if you would have just told me that"........? really? I only told her that how many times?  I gave her the money and had the police remove them from the property. The officer came back and said to me..."Listen, i deal with the public just as much as you. Don't people just baffle you? Some people you just can't get through to..." Amen, sir. Just another interesting day in the books. And that's part of the reason i love my job...its always different. Not that i like all that drama. I remember when i was in utah a guy was upset about a pizza and threw a bottle at me so hard it dented the wall behind me...really dented it. He had aimed for my face but luckily i ducked and it missed. I remember watching the slow-mo replay from the cameras and one of the drivers saying "nice reflexes!" I guess i owe it to playing all those sports growing up. I just can't imagine why people get so upset about pizza that they are willing to do things worthy of being thrown in jail? I mean come one people, its just some dough, tomato sauce and cheese. Is that really worth it?