Labels and Decision Making

In public, you will run into many different types of personalities. Recently, while working, I ran into perhaps one of the least desirable. A customer of ours has little to no ability to make a decision of his own. To make matters worst, he monopolizes the time of the staff to make these decisions for him.

Here's the scenario: People are coming into the store on a weekday afternoon to rent movies. Meanwhile, Opinion-Master is running around the store, picking up titles at random, and asking the closest employee their opinion about the movie. However, he asked the opinion by yelling across the store, and simply screamed out the name of the movie. "Have you seen 'The Good Shepard?' Is that a good one?" Meanwhile, we're helping other customers, who were actually waiting in line and polite.

Once the other customers were helped, we were more than happy to assist Opinion-master with looking for movies. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to appreciate our honest nature, especially when we hadn't seen the movie. If we said we didn't see the movie, his response was: "But you work in a video store." Seriously. By that logic, someone who works at a restaurant has eaten every dish on that menu. I haven't seen plenty of movies, mainly because I don't want to see them. They're not my taste. I'm not going to spend 2 hours of my life watching Pride and Prejudice just so I can give someone an opinion about it. I know that I'm not going to enjoy it, so why waste the time?

After 25 minutes, Opinion-Master comes to the counter and asks me about the "Rent 3, get 1 free" special that we always have. If you rent 3 movies that are 5 night new releases, then you get a 5 night new release for free. These movies are marked with a Purple and Yellow sticker which says: "5 Nights, $2.59." Easy, right? He told me he was interested in this deal. So I told him what to look for, complete with holding up a small sign with 4 of those Yellow and Purple stickers on them. I emphasised the sticker, and told him what to look for. (While pointing to my visual aid.) He comes back to the counter with 4 movies...3 of which AREN'T 5 NIGHT NEW RELEASES! I didn't want to make him feel like an ass, but he obviously didn't listen to a damn thing I said. I offered to show him around the store to show him where the 5 night new releases are on the shelves, but he declined. Instead, he started talking on his phone. He motioned for me to hurry up, yet he hadn't given me his name or phone number. So I waited, not wanting to interrupt and be rude like some other people in the store... (OPINION-MASTER RUDE GUY!)

He got off the phone, and wondered what his total was. I told him that I was waiting for his phone number. We squared everything away, and he ended up only taking 3 movies, none of which were eligible for the 5 night new release special. I was glad to see him go, but I know he'll be back. But, chances are good that I won't see him again...
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People haven't been butchering movie names quite as much lately. Maybe its because there are so many big-name movies coming out. No one is really going to mess up Shrek or Ocean's 13. (Well, at least beyond comprehension.) So I took to looking at the way movies are designated in the Family Video System for a new source of hilarity.

Some movies just aren't in the correct order. For example, "Return to House on Haunted Hill" is listed as an "H" movie. Officially, its "House on Haunted Hill - Return to" in FamVid Land. The labels only hold so much information, so some movies are made to be extra hilarious.

We have a wide array of Scooby Doo movies. The best thing about these movies is that they are mostly in the Free Kids' Movie section. The bad news is that many of them have really, really long titles. I think the most hilarious label belongs to a Scooby Holiday movie called "Scooby Doo: Merry Scary Holidays!" The label clearly states:

SCOOBY DOO: MERRY SCARY HO!

I knew Daphne was a bit skanky. I guess the eggnog brings it out a little more.

Other titles benefit from a listing of their stars. Movies that are subject to popular names or multiple remakes feature the name of actors or directors on their labels. (For example, Halloween (Carpenter) vs. Halloween (Zombie).) Well, I found my favorite one, which reminds me of breakfast when I used to go camping...(Ok, that one time I went camping...)

The movie is called "Trapped". It stars that guy from Footloose from which everyone is 6 degrees removed. Yes, the label says: "Trapped (Bacon)". Isn't that the way bacon is supposed to be? Who wants bacon just running free?