Radio Shack employee charged with punching customer
(Credit:
Alcor Films)
It got ugly in Eau Claire the other day. That's Eau Claire, Wis., where a Radio Shack employee is facing disorderly conduct and battery charges for allegedly punching a customer.
What happened? Well, according to the AP wire report, a customer was trying to return an item Sunday. But the employee said no. The customer then requested to speak to a manager. "That's when the 52-year-old male employee began punching the man," the AP says. A "bystander" then called 911.
I don't know what the guy's defense will be when he heads to court on May 19, but it's too bad "preemptive strike" won't fly because let's face it, who hasn't walked into Radio Shack--or some other electronics store--and thought it might come to blows? I've had some rough experiences as a customer, but I've also watched customer service reps trying to deal with really obnoxious, unsavory characters. So I'm not passing judgment either way here.
Question: Anybody have or witness a particularly ugly customer service experience in an electronics store--as an employee or customer? Let's hear about it.
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter. 
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People are retarded.
Blah. I feel sorry for the radioshack guy. Do you know how awesome it would be if the radioshack employee won?
Was the guy right? Probably not if he swung first. Was it justified? Maybe not, but who knows what was said. All I know is that from working years of retail and dealing with face to face customer interactions, I hate talking to people I don't know anymore because I realize what a lot of them are like when they don't have their "going out face" on.
He look at me and smirked. I laughed, and informed him about the mini police station in the mall, and that if he didn't pick up every little piece I would have him locked up for disorderly conduct. I said, "buddy, you've been demoted from customer to criminal... please, test me."
I handed him a broom and a scoop and he picked up the recorder.
I am RadioShack manager and have work in retail for nearly 25 years. If you want to see why you toaster has the warning, "DO NOT USE IN THE TUB," work at a RadioShack for a month or two. I am always amazed how stupid people really are, or at least, hot stupid they choose to be.
I have two favorite stories that I tell, but this one edges out number two by just a couple of tenths of a point.
A self-proclaimed electronic engineer starts stacking he purchase on the counter. Top of the line 6X9 Car Stereo Speakers, Speaker Boxes, Gold Plated Banana Plugs, Speaker Grills, Top of the line Speaker Wire, top of the line Car EQ, top of the line Sub-Woofer, the largest Amp in the house and he points at the top of the line Car Stereo. As I am ringing up his sale he is spouting off on how he is saving hundreds of dollars over a bookshelf system and it would fit into he rather small apartment. He was patting himself on the back for going to have more output and better sound than the previously mentioned bookshelf system. And actually, he did have parts for a pretty good sounding system.
As I was ringing it up, I added some Solder, Solder Wick, Iron and a package of connectors. The last item that I scanned was a TV power pig-tail (a two pronged 120V plug on one end, raw wire on the other). I said, "Oops, that must have been left behind by the last customer." The self-proclaimed electronic engineer said, "Boy, for someone who is around this stuff all day, and worse a manager, you guys sure dumb-*****. I'm not going to drag a bunch of car batteries into my apartment, I'm going to plug it in. Geeze, you people are a bunch of idiots!"
After trying for ten minutes to make this -genius- understand he was making a mistake. I just added a line to his receipt stating he was warned about plugging a 12V appliance to a 120V source, and if he damaged the merchandise, there would be no refund. I had him initial the receipt and sent him on his way. Okay, after he left I figured he had already built the power supply and just needed a 120V supply cable. No one could be that stupid.
The next day I was sitting in my office and smelled this unmistakable smell and heard shouting in the front of the store. As I open the door, I was nearly knocked down by the smell of vaporized solder and molten circuit board. It was the self-proclaimed electronic engineer leaning over the counter screaming at my new employee. He tried, and succeeded, to plug a car stereo into a wall socket.
Piled into, stolen-I might add, milk crate was a mass of smoking-smoldering and hopelessly unrecognizable carcasses which once was a car stereo system. I was an amazing sight to see. I regret that I did not take pictures. Nevertheless, RadioShack, the spineless dolts which they are, settled our of court of an "undisclosed amount."
As a RadioShack manager, I have been spat upon, had various items bounced off my body and had a gun pulled on me, been hit in the head with a desk phone and had a 4' 11"man climb over the counter in an attempt to punch me. Of course I am 6'5" and 300 pounds and could have swatted him like a fly.
The bottom line, I do not blame the RadioShack employee. People are unreasonable and think that because you are standing behind the counter, it is open season to be abusive. On my counter it states, "If you choose to use abusive or profane language, you WILL NOT BE SERVED." The customer is USUALLY WRONG!
I used to be a Customer service rep for a good 7 years. I've had the weird and the down right frustrating. when I worked for a PC outlet the customer called in berating me about being cheated on a laptop she bought. She stated the Laptop was supposed to have 2 gig or ram and only came with 1. She demanded we send her the 2gb of ram. The funny thing was I had purchased the same exact laptop from the same outlet just a few weeks prior and it was never sold with 2gb of ram and so I told the lady : "Ms I have the laptop in question right in front of me we don't sell it with 2gb of ram, could you please check your receipt to see if you purchased the wrong item?" She started screaming at me and demanded to talk to my manager. i did so and he kindly asked her to send in the ram to see if the serials match the model in question and if so we'd give her the 2gb ram . She quickly cursed and hung up obviously trying to get an extra GB of ram from us w/o paying for it.
On another service calls I did when working with a cruise lines I've had people call in to ask what time the midnight buffet started, argue over the lyrics of a song we had on a commercial we aired, and ask which side of the ship do the whales appear on our Alaska sailings. I've always answered these questions promptly and professionally but my faith in humanity died a little every time I'd get these type calls.
I used to be a Customer service rep for a good 7 years. I've had the weird and the down right frustrating. when I worked for a PC outlet the customer called in berating me about being cheated on a laptop she bought. She stated the Laptop was supposed to have 2 gig or ram and only came with 1. She demanded we send her the 2gb of ram. The funny thing was I had purchased the same exact laptop from the same outlet just a few weeks prior and it was never sold with 2gb of ram and so I told the lady : "Ms I have the laptop in question right in front of me we don't sell it with 2gb of ram, could you please check your receipt to see if you purchased the wrong item?" She started screaming at me and demanded to talk to my manager. i did so and he kindly asked her to send in the ram to see if the serials match the model in question and if so we'd give her the 2gb ram . She quickly cursed and hung up obviously trying to get an extra GB of ram from us w/o paying for it.
On another service calls I did when working with a cruise lines I've had people call in to ask what time the midnight buffet started, argue over the lyrics of a song we had on a commercial we aired, and ask which side of the ship do the whales appear on our Alaska sailings. I've always answered these questions promptly and professionally but my faith in humanity died a little every time I'd get these type calls.
Customers have little reason to take "no" for an answer. If complaining doesn't get you exactly what you want, it will often get you a coupon or a gift card.
I even had one customer tell me he would be waiting for me when I closed the store and he would proceed to kill me at that point. That was my cue to exit left....It was time to find a new job.
- by scorpionswr April 30, 2009 8:16 AM PDT
- Wow, it's so awesome to read all these comments and learn just how unqualified all these Retail/Customer Service people to do what they're supposed to do. Poor you, store employees, customer service reps, and hospitality workers, I really do feel for you. How dare these awful people who call themselves customers make your job difficult for you?! Here's what I'm thinking; no one forced you to do what you do and I hope you realized that you may come in contact with upset/furious/dumb customers who will ruin your day BEFORE you decided to do what you do (or at least had an eye-opener the first time it happened). Obviously you thought the fact that you'd be paid for it was worth it, otherwise you wouldn't have taken the job or walked away shortly after.
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Showing 1 of 7 pages (203 Comments)So please, do stop crying and moaning and saying crap like "good for you, Radio Shack guy". These customers you hate so much, are really not furious with you, but rather with your employer, but you happen to be the face of the company so you are responsible for being courteous and professional at all times, regardless of how bad your PMS is. I'm not saying that all customers are always great and are never @$$holes and you're just whining, but honestly comments like what I've read just makes me want to point and laugh at you. The guy who punch the customer is wrong and will be punished. Nothing, NOTHING, the customer did justified that response.