Showdown at the Tool Rental Corral

Dedicated to my former ASM, Ms. Karen Laster. She knows the drill all too well.

I was in the employees lounge stretched out on a comfortable chair, cap down to shade my eyes from the harsh fluorescent lighting trying to get a little power nap when a member of my team stood over me and started to "ahem" his presence to get my attention. I raised my head up making sure the cap stayed low and said, "Yes?"

"There's a guy at the counter that wants to talk to you."

"About what?"

"He rented a 100' sewer snake earlier from you and claims it has a bunch of kinks in it."

"That's impossible. I wrapped that one up myself. There are no kinks in it."

"Well, he wants to talk to you."

"OK. Let's go."

I got up and put my partial back into my mouth. Without it I have this side lisp that can annoy some folks thinking I'm making fun of them or some stupid thing. I actually had a customer complain to Customer Care, once saying I was making fun of the way they talk. Really? I walked into the department and saw my customer standing off to the side in front of the counter, but he's not the guy who wants a piece of me. It's his short, skinny tattooed friend with beer on his breath asking me, "Are you the boss, here?"

Looking at my customer first and then back at this guy with a little confusion I said, "Yes, I'm the department supervisor. What can I do for you?"

"My friend rented this snake from you earlier in the day and it all kinked up and rusted. This is a piece of shit. I wouldn't rent this out to my worst enemy."

"OK. No problem. We'll swap this out for another one. I wrapped this one earlier in the day myself and thought it to be clear of kinks. The rust part, well, I'm sorry, but that does happen with these. We always try to..."

"No, no, no, man. We ain't taking another without you telling me how you are going to compensate me for my time on this. I'm his neighbor and I'm a professional plumber. He asked me to help him with this project and now your snake is keeping me from my day off. I don't like this kind of thing and you're not going to give me another one without telling me what you intend to do about the time lost, here."

"Sir, store rules say that we are to swap out the defective unit and restart your time and..."

"No, that's not good enough. You know what the guy over at the Orland Park store did for me? He dented the bed of my pickup truck putting a tool in the back and gave me free rental for a year of anything I wanted. That's what he did for me and you should do the same. I know how your department runs. I know all about it. I know..." 

He spoke rapidly as if he had an over abundance of words sitting in his lungs that must be freed at all cost. I figured at this point the best thing to let do was let him talk it out lest he die of some word blockage. Eventually, he's going to get tired and I will do what I want anyway. I looked over at his friend and noticed he was inching away from the conversation and looking very uncomfortable. His buddy kept up his assault believing his message to be so sincere inside that I was weakening and eventually would beg his pardon and eventually do his bidding. I once had a guy attack so hard he managed a $50 gift card out of a manager that couldn't stand the heat. It was generated just to get the guy off the floor and out the door; a reward for being a belligerent threat to the peaceful rhythm in the store. As I went into the conversation I remembered how outraged I was when I heard this happen. It's been known for a very long time that our customers have been trained that if you huff and puff long enough and make a big enough of a scene managers would acquiesce to the most ludicrous demands just to get you to stop the campaign. Managers have to walk a fine line where they are told to service the customer at all costs, but are vilified if too much is given away. Usually, they live in fear of these kinds of confrontations and try their level best to avoid them. People have lost their jobs and careers this way. This is a travesty of the highest order.

My drunk was into his third round of repeated points thoroughly believing he was on the road to success, but still hadn't called for a manager. Things were going well when I absentmindedly itched at my nose with my thumb and forefinger. There that feels better. Oops. There's a light green stringer of a booger laying on my thumb about the size of my thumbnail. I tried to flick it off to the floor in a way that would hopefully remain unnoticed, but failed.  It stuck like glue. Funny how all of a sudden I actually cared enough to keep this sot from seeing the booger on my thumb. He blathered on while I pretended to listen to what he was saying. Instead, my full focus was on getting that booger off my thumb. I rolled and flicked at it. It was now on my finger. I tried a variation on my original flick, but no go. It stayed right where it was. Then, I kind of shook my hand a little to see if it would finally hit the floor. Nope. It stuck to the left the side of my finger this time. One more try with a kind of snapping of the fingers and it arced gracefully through the air onto the front of his dirty t-shirt in front of me. He was so wound up with his passion he never saw it. I heard one of my teammates stifle a laugh and looked over at him. He had seen the whole thing and struggled to keep from laughing. Finally, I had had enough.

"Are you through?"

"Yeah, what are you going to do for me?"

"Sir, you don't have a dog in this fight. You are not my customer. He is over there. I would appreciate it if you would allow me to deal with him instead of you getting in my way and abusing us."

"I'M NOT ABUSING ANYONE."

"I say you are and that's all there is to it. I will get my customer another sewer snake, reset his time and deal with him when he comes back. Understood?"

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"To you, maybe, but it's what's going to happen."

I looked at my associate who witnessed the booger crash landing on the soak's t-shirt. He started to say something, but the silly grin on his face threatened to become a full fledged laugh track. He almost got me to laugh when I said, "Let's go get him another one."

After loading up the replacement in the guy's truck bed with relative peace, they both left to finish their project. About an hour later, the original customer showed up with the replacement sewer snake, finished and ready to pay off his rental fee. I smiled warmly at him.

"I'm really sorry about that guy. He was the one who screwed up the cable in the first place. He was drunk on his ass when he came over telling me to step aside and that he would do all the work. He was too far from the drain and it twisted into spaghetti. After he fucked up the cable he said not to worry that he would get it free for me. I don't really care. I'm just glad the job is done and he's gone back home."

I smiled at him and said, "Thanks for saying that. I don't usually tolerate confrontational drunks well especially when they are not my customer. You might want to re-evaluate your friendship with that guy."

"I can't. He's my neighbor."

"Pity."

My mind was screaming, but did you see the booger I flicked onto his shirt, man?

Dave Tongay