It's a strange world we live in. Nowhere is that more evident than in retail. For those of us who work in retail, we have the strangeness of people in our faces all day, every day, for forty hours a week. In that time, we encounter the odd, the unusual, and the downright dumbfounding. People who behave in such a contrary fashion that we have no choice but to scratch our heads and wonder how their minds work.
I do mean that literally, too. So, a story.
One day, I was working the customer service desk when I had a gentleman come in to return an unused can of paint. Normally, an unused item can be returned without issue. Paint, however, has some stipulations. This customer became visibly distraught when I told him I wouldn't be able to return his paint. He asked me why.
1) Paint only lasts so long before it solidifies and you can't use it. His was very, very far past that point. It was expired because...
2) He'd purchased it two years previously. The store had a 90-day return policy. Two years is way outside that window.
3) It was a brand of paint the store no longer carried. In fact, the entire company no longer had any kind of relationship with that brand.
4) It had been custom-tinted. Tinted paint is always clearly marked on the label as non-refundable. While the label was faded with age, it was still clear enough to read.
When I was done explaining, he was near-inconsolable. Thankfully, a manager happened to be nearby and offered him a discount of half off a new can to replace the old one. He refused it, claiming it wasn't enough of a compensation.
Under normal circumstances, this is where the story ends. However, if you were paying attention earlier you will recall that I mentioned customers sometimes do things so strange they leave us pondering how their minds work. What happened next is where I completely fell off the train and lost all ability to comprehend his thought processes. He was upset about the replacement being offered at half off. He claimed it wasn't enough. So he then went and purchased the paint the manager had offered him...
At full price!
You read that right. He brought up a new can of paint, I proceeded to ring him up and discounted it as the manager was still standing right there, and this customer lost his mind. He yelled, he screamed, he cussed, and he demanded we ring it up at normal price. I have never had a customer so vociferously refuse a discount. It wasn't even that he was running some kind of scam. After all, paint isn't something you can just take to the nearest pawn store.
I think that both the manager and I wondered just who had lost their minds that day.