The Borders Zone - 2

#2 The Air Conditioning Bandit

So my boss L (yes she goes by L, just like Bond's helper Q) is all about customer service. According to her the customer is always right even if they are crazy and yelled at you. I have never seen her lose patience with a customer. That's why she is the boss.

A couple months ago I got a call that a customer wanted to talk to the manager. I immediately groaned because 99 times out of 100 customers want to talk to the manager because they have a complaint. So I headed out to the sales floor where a tall, lanky guy wearing a long sleeve shirt and shorts was waiting for me. He complained that the cafe was too cold. I told him we didn't control the air conditioning but that I would email my manager about the problem.

Several weeks later we had a big problem in the cafe. The temperature control panel for the cafe storage area had been turned to warm and all of the chocolate had melted. We're talking $300-400 loss. A couple of the refrigerators almost overheated as well. Now the temperature panel happens to be located on the sales floor way up high on a pillar right in front of the cafe. We decided to keep an eye out for tall people hanging out near that pillar.

A couple of weeks later one of the cafe girls called me on the radio to let me know that a customer had just reached up and switched the temperature on that same control panel. I headed over to the cafe and lo and behold it was the tall, lanky guy wearing the same long sleeve shirt and shorts. He had apparently decided to take temperature matters into his own hands. He was sitting down in the midst of all of the other cafe customers and I didn't want to make a scene so I very pointedly pulled a stool over from the cafe and switched the panel back to cool. I was working nearby on the magazines so I kept an eye on him for the rest of the night, but he just coolly read some magazines he hadn't paid for while drinking a glass of ice water from the cafe (also not paid for).

Another night before closing we found the temperature switched over to warm and I recalled that the long sleeve/shorts wearing guy had been there that night. The Air Conditioning Bandit had struck again! Now you may be asking yourself, "Lindsay why didn't you just go talk to this guy and tell him to cut it out?" The answer is that my boss L tends not to back us up in customer confrontations so it's best to avoid them.

Yesterday we decided to cover the temperature switch with duct tape so that it would be harder to move. Then tonight the AC Bandit showed up again (and yes he was wearing long sleeves and shorts). He got his free water and magazines and sat down. I prepared myself for some fireworks.

About half an hour later, L and I were in the office when a bookseller radioed in that a customer wanted to speak to the manager. I stuck my head out and saw that it was the AC Bandit. I asked L if she wanted to talk to him and she said, "I hate that guy. He just sits over there and drinks his free water and ruins our chocolate." This was very out of character for L, but as I mentioned in a previous post this is a stressful time for Borders.

I got distracted with some other stuff but later that night I ran into L and asked how things went with the AC Bandit. She recounted the following conversation with some laughs and embarassment:

L - Yes? (She would normally have sweetly said, "How can I help you?")
ACB - Do you control the overhead play?
L - No we don't. You just need to wear a sweater if you're cold.
ACB - I don't think you understood me. I was wondering if you control the music that is playing. We're in California not Texas and I can't stand this country music playing.
L - Oh...I'll change the song.

L told me she had no idea what came over her and that she had never talked that way to a customer before but she just kept thinking about all of that ruined chocolate. I told her the guy is clearly just a whiner and since he never spends any money anyways she shouldn't worry about it. But that AC Bandit better watch out because there is a new sheriff in town and her name is L (it's really Lorinda, but don't tell her I told you).