Continuing some of my more memorable retail horror stories from my days at Blockbuster and/or Toys R Us…
It’s absolutely amazing how angry people can get over four-dollar late fees. After two and a half years, I had been called every single name you could imagine. But there was one day that will always stand out in my mind.
This lady who thought of herself as very well-to-do (you could tell, because her earrings cost more than my entire outfit… and her fur coat probably cost more than my house) was mad at me because she returned her movies something like two days late. The entire time I worked there, Blockbuster’s late fee (or, “Extended Viewing Fee”) policy was that if the movie was late, the renter had to pay for a full extra rental period. The fees weren’t pro-rated or anything; After the movie was over 2 hours late, it was an extra four bucks (I have no idea what Blockbusters EVF policy is, now, but I know they’ve changed it a couple of times since).
But this one lady, man…She was SO MAD about the fact that she couldn’t remember when to return movies, she took out her Blockbuster rental card, and tried to rip it in half, right in front of me. And when she couldn’t do that, she THREW IT AT ME, and it hit me, RIGHT IN THE CHEST!
Not like it hurt or anything, as it was just a 2″ x 3.5″ laminated card, but still – That lady ASSAULTED me, because SHE couldn’t be bothered to return her movies on time!
She demanded that I cut her card in half, and proclaimed that she would never do business with Blockbuster, again. So I charged the late fees to her credit card on file, and deleted her account.
In hindsight, 9 years later, I see that I may have acted a bit hastily in deleting her account, but, seriously…