Blockbuster is filled with bitches.

Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005 ~ 4:27 p.m.

On Friday, I went to Blockbuster. You know, on a Friday night, you don't want to deal with bitches, really. Especially when you work in a customer service job where it is basically your job to talk to bitches all day long.

I had gotten a letter from Blockbuster a couple of weeks ago that said that the balance on my account was $13.74 or something foolish like that. I figured it was "restocking" fees, but it never indicated on the letter what it was. I figured 'Alright, I'll just go in.' -- I had had a movie for WAY too long because every time I asked my mom to take it back, she 'forgot', so it was over 30 days late.

I strolled into Blockbuster, selected my filmes du jour, and moseyed up to the desk, and said something to the effect of 'I know I probably have like $15 in late fees.' The girl looked at me with a confused look and said 'Well there's a movie still out on this account.' I started to panic right there, and looked back at mom who was with me, who assured me she had dropped it in the slot, something like three weeks ago.

The girl says 'The Wedding Date?', I say 'Yes, I returned that three weeks ago.', 'Well, it doesn't show returned on here.' She says nothing as to whether the $13 is late fee or charge for the movie, she still has me panicking because the movie was 'not returned' -- if she had explained to me that after thirty days, the movie was charged to the account, and not checked in by the system, but rather in a brown box under the counter, and this $13 was the charge for the movie, things would not have gone so downhill from this point as they did.

I am just about panicking. Some bitchy girl with long black hair comes by and says 'Well if you don't return it before 30 days is up, we charge it to the account.' Mom says 'Was that on the first flyers you put you? I don't remember having read that.' Very politely, in my opinion, and believe me, I have seen mom get rude when it comes to customer service things. Well, not rude per se, but very aggressive toward getting what she wanted -- this was hardly rude.

'Well I have the flyer right here,' the girl juts her chin out very aggressively. 'I can show you where it says that.'

This kinda took me aback as her tone was very condescending, like 'you are a four year old child, let me show you how it's done, and this is the only way, and you're stupid for not knowing in the first place.' I kinda looked at the second girl. The first one who had originally been helping me said 'So what do you want to do?' And I looked at mom again and said 'I think I'd rather go across the river.' (We have two Blockbusters, one on the North side (the one I was at) and one on the South side, and I used the Southside one all the time when I was there, they were great to me.) And she looks at me real snotty and goes 'Well they'll just call us about the charge.' I wasn't pissed off at that point about the charge, but rather about the way that the girls were talking to us.

And she looked at me again, and I said 'I think I'd rather not rent here.' And walked away, bringing mom tailing behind me.

Once we got into the car, I felt bad because I had promised Shay movies, so I sent mom back in to get them, with the resolve that I won't ever use THAT particular Blockbuster again.

God. She could have handled that a million times better, just in the wording. If she had said, 'I have a copy of that flyer right here, why don't we look at it?', I would have been fine, it was just the rude, disrespectful tone she used with mom that really bothered me.

When I have a customer that is telling me something I know is wrong, I act a little bit like they might be right, kinda like confused, like "Oh, well I've never heard of that, but let me look at it.", to give them the benefit of the doubt and not to be so damned abrasive toward them. Yeesh.