Holiday Part-Timers...

I had the most frustrating phone conversation today.

I called up this jewelry store for my mom today to ask for the availability of this particular ring she was looking to get. It was unavailable at the closer location, so this lady kindly wrote down the details of the ring for us.

This is where it begins. I called up the other location... I get an obvious heavy Chinese accent salesguy on the other side. It starts off as usual, I enquire about the ring that was shown in their catalog. He disregards my question completely and instead asks me what my name was. And I was thinking, don't waste my time guy, and so I asked back, "Why do you need to know my name?" He answers it helps him serve me better. Grr okay fine, I give him a name, and then he goes into a full introduction of himself. AMG.

He continues, "So how can I help you today?"

"..." I thought, I already told you when you first picked up.

Okay, he asks me for more information about the ring, say, how it looked like.

Okay, wait, what was this serial number the other lady at this other location wrote down for me?? Apparently, the number is largely USELESS. And better yet, the "name" of the ring written down for me said, "10KW FANCY RING". Apparently that wasn't the NAME, in fact, it was a "description" the other lady probably wrote down that only SHE understood.

So here we have one or two useful clues, it's 10K and it's white. Obviously not enough information for the salesguy. So I went on saying it was a thick band, with jewels only on the front, and had small jewels etc... Again, he ignores what I say, constantly saying, "I'm sorry, I do not know which one you're talking about."

Well, sir, if you listened, maybe you would know.

He asks me for the first few numbers of the serial again. And he then asks me where the ring was located. I told him it was located at the front of the store and he was like "no, that area's 438," my ring being 418.

"That was where it was at the Richmond center location."

"Are you a salesperson working there or a customer?"

"..." Would I not address myself as a salesperson at the beginning of the conversation if I really was one? "No, a customer."

Then he prompts me to tell him where I saw it in the christmas catalog. 3rd.. 4th page maybe, I didn't remember.

"3rd page are all coloured."

"Then 4th page."

"No, there isn't any 10K white jewelry on this page."

Holy shit then look for yourself FOR ME, why don't you.

He gives me the description of a completely different ring. No, didn't the information I've given you already tell you enough that it's completely white??

He then throws a question at me, "Is it a channel ring?"

The first thing that crosses my mind was, you mean that ring in Tales of Destiny I had no idea what it was for? Channeling ring was it?

Mister, don't use terminology your average, typical jewelry-dumb customer would not know, so I ask "What's a channel ring?" And he tells me to ask a sales person what it was. I was like, uh, I'm not at the store right now... so he goes onto explaining it.

NO, it's not a channel ring. I JUST said the jewelry is only on the front half.

He asks another question using terminology I didn't know, though I don't remember what the word was (started with a g). The word had to do with whether the jewels were small or big. I already said they were small the first time.

So... this rant being longer than I expected, he finally did find the ring and kept it on hold. Judging by the time he got off work, he was a part timer for the holidays. So perhaps it was a good thing I didn't get to see who he really was. Dear Allen.

The actual ring, btw, looked like total crap. Didn't end up getting it.