Help Desk

One day while I was working at the customer service desk,  two women approached and announced they "have a problem." A full 75% of the people who come to customer service have problems of some sort,  so that wasn't any manner of a surprise. Just another day and another 99 problems.

They asked for the number to the police station. It was more of a demand,  really. I didn't know what the problem was, but instead of having been mugged or in an accident or something else worthy of law enforcement involvement, it  turned out they'd locked the keys in the car, which belonged to the daughter's boyfriend. They wanted the police to come open it. 

It seemed easier to me to call the boyfriend/other key holder. I don't even think the police handle lockouts anymore. I also didn't know if there was a non-emergency police number or if everything went through 9-1-1.

The older of the women,  the mother,  got a smidge huffy when I said I had neither a phone directory nor the number to the police. She acted like it should be a condition of opening for business that we have the walls plastered with a number for the police department and stacks of phone books even though most people nowadays use the Internet to look up phone numbers along with everything else.

Then she said maybe the fire department should be called. Um, I don't think so. Should they bring a ladder truck?  Then she grumbled something about what the store would do in an emergency. Ummmm, duh. In an emergency, which this clearly was not, we'd call 9-1-1. A locksmith was the sensible, though probably expensive, answer right now. 

I went into the office to look for a phone book, and when I said what was going on,  another associate came to the service desk and offered to call AAA. That's when the mother rolled her eyes and made a crack about having to "wait three hours for AAA." It still seemed like a better solution than tying up public safety resources. 

When AAA was on the line,  they asked for info about the car. The daughter had gone off somewhere leaving the mother with us.  I wonder why .... no, actually, I didn't need to wonder at all. The mother got all huffy again, grumbling about why AAA needed info about the vehicle.  

Ummmm, hello? Don't you think they might need to know what they are coming to service in case they need anything special for instructions, equipment, or technology? I bet it helps when driving around a busy parking lot to know what vehicle they are looking for. Or are they supposed to just wave a magic wand? 

And seriously,  my colleague was going above and beyond trying to help. It wasn't our doing that locked the keys in the car, so there was no need for the queen mother to get bitchy at us. I was shaking my head.

Luckily, the boyfriend and owner of the car showed up and rescued the damsel and her damned mother. My colleague got off the line with AAA. She looked at me after they'd left and said, "Wow. That woman was pretty cranky, and I was trying to help."

Yes,  ma'am. Welcome to my world.