The Joys of Customer Service

As a college graduate, I work at a video store. This would frustrate many people, myself included, but I can still function. I'm not getting pulled down or slowly becoming insecure about my abilities. See, I'm a full blown optimist in times like these, and I'm only seeing improvements in all possible categories: Job satisfaction, utility, significance of work, income, etc.

This retail job has perks. Video rentals are 1/2 price, unless you're an amazing employee like me, who gets rentals for the next month completely free. But there's also opportunities to make extra money in the form of commissions. Help a customer save money with one of our many deals or movie packages, get a dollar. How cool is that? A reward for someone who looks out for others. But the best perk of all isn't mentioned in any handbook or training video or company mandated seminar. By the time I'm done, I'll have volumes of stories about the people that visit our store. Notice, I didn't refer to them as "customers", since many of the people come in to family video just to hang out. Or talk to someone. Or just watch the free movies that play on the 14 TVs around the store.

If you've read my past blogs about Lafayette, IN, you know that I can't stand the place. And for me, the geography means nothing. In fact, the deciding factor about a place is its people, its spirit, and the culture surrounding it. Perhaps Lafayette got screwed since I started in Cleveland. It has the Rock Hall, museums for art and science, sports teams, and it's residents have an air of confidence about them, despite the city's nickname of "The Mistake on the Lake." People truly love Cleveland. Lafayette... well, not so much. No unity, no pride, no culture. Just chain restaurants, spread out communities, and Purdue University in the middle. Now Meadville has two very distinctive cultures: The college crowd and the townsfolk. And the two are miles apart in terms of their attitudes.

The most noticeable difference is education. Higher education institutions are likely to attract more intelligent and book-learned people. The townsfolk don't really have these attributes. I can go on and on about the differences, but mainly the college crowd has more structure, discipline, pride, and confidence than the others. And its all a product of their past failures and successes. I have the feeling that not many of the Meadvillian lifers have had many successes, for whatever reason.

Let me make this blatantly clear: I like Meadville so far. And I like the people from both distinctive classes. I am, however, biased towards the college crowd since they are the most like me. So when I see the other group do something that I don't agree with, or find strange, I don't immediately add it to my list of things that I dislike about the other group. I just rack it up as a one-time occurrence of an individual that happens to be in that group. And I can make that difference because of how personal and intimate this environment is. People go out of their way to say "hello" to other people. They aren't afraid of interaction. Its really nice.

The whole point of this is to point out some of the craziness I've had at the video store, in just about the most roundabout, long-winded way I know how. So, let's cut to the chase.

We have a regular customer who rents a LOT of movies at one time. She's probably in her mid-30's, and she's a very likable person. But she's the stereotypical blond: All looks, no logic. She claims she never had a use for books or school, or anything like that. When she visits the store, she immediately asks about the movies that were recently released, which will drive a busy store employee nuts. (Basically, a guided tour around the store describing everything that's on the back of the movie box.) I overheard her asking someone the other day if they had seen a movie. "Az-alum. Have you seen it?" I scratched my head. I had never heard of that movie before. Az-alum? I walked over to where she was standing, and saw the movie title: Asylum. Like a mental ward. Oh boy.

This is something we run into a lot. People don't quite know what they're looking for, or sometimes how to pronounce it. But, as long as they're in the ballpark, we can deal with it. Perhaps that's why such a menial job requires a high level of problem solving skills.

A teenager came up to me the other day and asked if we had a game in stock for rental. (He didn't ask in that sophisticated of a manner, for the record.) He said he was looking for the game "Metalpod." I'm pretty savvy when it comes to video games, as I pride myself on my hand/eye coordination and have played my fair share of video games in the past... and present. So Metalpod didn't ring a bell. I told him that there wasn't a game called Metalpod. He insisted there was. "METALPOD! ITS CALLED METALPOD!" he said. I looked in the computer again. Nothing. I showed him the screen. No freakin Metalpod. I told him to go get the box for the game he wanted. He ran back to the game room, and gave me the box.

It was for METROID. Not metalpod. I pointed it out to him. Just to let you know, you can't name something in your head and expect other people to know about it. That's why there's a label and a title to things. I could call that book about the whale "Whale hunter man" but no one will know what I'm talking about until I call it "Moby Dick." See how that works?

So I have to constantly adjust my thinking to decipher what people want. It took me a solid day to figure out that "Road Hogs" was actually people looking for John Travolta's "Wild Hogs." The Potter? You mean Harry Potter. Asking about "The Four Surfers Movie?" You want the Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. And any combination of 4 numbers? (Like 1813?) Chances are good that they want "1408", the new Stephen King horror movie.

I propose that I get a dollar for every movie I find for someone with a mispronunciation or crazy title that's given to me. If that happened, I'd be able to retire by next Friday.

We also had something happen the other night which was a bit disconcerning. A lady walked in with 3-4 little kids, who just ran amok in the video store. This is a nightmare for someone who has to keep things in order. Add the fact that many of the movies are just barely perched on their ledges, and that's a recipe for disaster. So movies are off the shelf, in the middle of the floor, and placed on wrong shelves. But that's nothing. Apparently, one of the little girls "had an accident" on the floor in the middle of the store. Yes, a human child peed on the floor of the video store. With an audience. And someone had to clean it up. I'm not a parent, but if my kid peed on someone else's floor, I'd clean it up for them. But no. She left in a hurry, and pointed out that there was a smelly puddle o' urine on the carpet. Her advice: "Just get a paper towel, and step on it to pull out the stain."

Wow. Is this an indicator that I need a new job? Because I think so. While I'm a great alphabetizer, (and at making up words!), jumbled title figure-outer, and child pee extractor, I don't find pride or satisfaction from those activities. But I'll do them, because that's what we need right now until something else comes along. Until them, I'll record them here just to keep my mind sharp and perhaps to get a little chuckle out of whoever manages to read this. Believe me: there will be more. There already IS more. But I have to watch my free movies now. Next up: Martin Scorsese's award-winning "The Departations" and the story about Sparta, "450". (The townsfolk recommended those ones.)