I ought to pay more attention
As I was leaving work one of my coworkers approached me and asked me if i could help one of our customers real quick, reluctantly I agreed and the following took place:
Customer: “Do you know what the home depot tax id number is?” me:”for what purpose? what exactly are you looking for?” Customer: “well, I am trying to buy something but it needs to be a tax exempt sale” me:”oh, yeah that would be a number that you have which was issued by the IRS. We dont keep them on file unless you’ve registered with us on our website. Once you register with us, we still dont keep it on file but we simply issue a random number that goes into a database that identify you as a tax exempt customer” Customer:”Really? because Lowe’s looked it up last night” me:”that is very cool, but we dont have those capabilities” Customer:”okay, well, uhmm yeah” me:”do you know if your organization has registered with us?” Customer looks at me as if i were an idiot me:”let me show you” At this point I proceed to open my browser and go to our website and show him all the steps that he needs to take in order to register as a tax exempt customer me:”once you do that you can either bring in the paperwork that the website tells you to print and/or at the time of the sale you tell us that you are tax exempt and to have us look you up. We can look you up by either phone number and/or name of the organization. Unless you do this there is no other way for you to get the tax exempt privilege” Customer:”really” me:”Yes, other than that I dont have another way to do so. I cannot sit here and wave my magic wand and conjure it out of thing air, that is the only way” at this point the customer’s voice, body language, and overall demeanor changed and then he just started looking at me really angry. After a few more minutes he seemed “satisfied” with my answer and he walked away. It was at this moment that I looked at his t-shirt closely and realized that he was wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt!!! bwaahahha yeah I think I offended him without even meaning to. Have I developed a sick six sense to be able to offend people without even meaning to? Sometimes I wonder.
dumbass
Okay dood, agreed, however in my defense you must take into consideration the following mitigating factors: a) I was not on the clock, I wasnt getting paid, and he knew that because I told him to before I even started answering any of his inquiries b) he was not a child, in fact he was a man, he must’ve been between 25-30 c) if you are a grownup and you walk around with something that “typically” designed for a kid then you must be able to, or the very least be used to, have people make fun of you for it d) I wasnt aiming to offend him. The fact that i didnt look at his attire carefully doesnt mean anything, besides how many people would know that a big insignia with the writting “gryffindor” means anything? Yeah and stuff