Monday, March 23, 2009

I am a Racist!

A few weeks ago I had a customer call and complain about me, to none other than.......me.  I was the manager on duty and took the call only to find out that the guy was complaining about me!  I recognized his voice and knew exactly who it was.  He said that I acted like I didn't want to help him and suggested that I be fired.  This conversation went on for quite a while and I bit my tongue until he finished his rambling.  He proceeded to tell me that my name was "Ah-beesh", which I found pretty humorous since I answered the phone "This is Abish, how can I help you."  He had no idea he was talking to the person he was complaining about.  Let me explain why this man was so mad.  He was mad that it took a few minutes for me to come over an help him and then thought I had a bad attitude while I stood there and waited for him to finish his conversation on his cell phone in order to tell me what book he was looking for.  Once he got off the phone long enough to tell me he was looking for books on "biker gangs" he proceeded to get back on his phone the rest of the time I helped him.  The whole time he was on his phone, he flapped his yap about how he taught law at the university and was so "busy".  Blah blah blah.  If people are rude enough to talk on their cell phones while I'm trying to help them, I'm going to show my irritation for them wasting my time.  Maybe they'll get the clue, or maybe they'll call and complain about my irritation.  Go figure!  A few days later my boss tells me on her way out the door that there is a certain customer she wanted the Assistant Manager, Denise,  to know was in the building.  Turns out the customer comes in and complains a lot and changes his identity each time he complains.  He also smells.  I relay the message to Denise and she pulls me aside to show me said customer.  I turn around and, what do you know?  It's the same guy.  He goes over to customer service and complains to Denise that all the employees in our store are racist.  He's Middle Eastern.  The next day, he calls the store and complains to another manager about me and another employee.  I didn't even do anything to the guy this last time.  He just saw me and decided to complain about me again since I didn't get fired the first time.  He proceeded to call me Pakistani and racist.  After talking to a few managers, I came to realize that this guy has had several incidents in our store claiming racism.  Recently a manager had to intervene between him and a customer after he started yelling at a lady for staring at him.  He yelled "What?!  Are you surprised that I speak English?!"  and then he called her racist while she stood there in shock and tried to explain that she wasn't staring at him and wasn't racist.  She told him that her husband was hispanic but this didn't stop him from continuing his idiotic rant.  After thinking back to my experience with him, I wouldn't be surprised if he pretended to talk on the phone just so I could hear him talk about how he taught law and was apparently an important person.  Why else would he repeat this fact 20 times to his wife?  I am not looking forward to future run ins with this jerk.  Especially since some of my friends now call me "Ah-beesh the racist Pakistani".  He can take his biker gang books and shove it!

1 comment:

steve-o said...

I've always thought you were racist, too. Now we have proof.