Stupid Carnie Tricks (and non stupid ones too)

[vixen101485]

As in traveling carnival workers. If this is in the wrong forum, move away. :)

I need to vent.

OK, so the carnival came to Podunkville this week. Big deal since there aint much here. Anyway, Donnie is off today so we thot we would shell out the $20 for 2 wristbands for him and Meghyn to get a bit of a break in routine. Dont normally like to feed carnivals pockets but Meghyn enjoys it and Hey, we are stimulating the ecomony with the money the government sent us. ;)

So we go pay, guy and lady at the windows of the ticket booth, we get the guy, hand him the money and he puts Meghyn's band on first. I tell him to watch not to put it too tight. She has a tiny wrist and it is hard to judge on kids. I say this nicely. I look away briefly and he puts Donnie's on immediately after. In the meantime, Meghyn is whining and I look down and this thing is LITERALLY CUTTING INTO HER WRIST I am not kidding within a span of maybe 45 seconds and the child already had a mark on her arm. I tell this guy they need to give her another one as this one is too tight. I cannot hear a word he is telling me thru the apparently broken speaker. 3 TIMES I ASK! Nicely, and firmly, "ya need to give me another one, it is too tight and it is hurting her arm" Still cant hear him. "do you have something to cut it off with?" Meantime I am trying frantically to find the damn end of the thing so I can get it off her arm.

I finally get it off and he actually tells me I cant take that off. Yeah, now he speaks clearly . "Excuse me? Did you just tell me I cant take something off MY daughter's arm?" "I want my money back and NOW!"

Now the woman on the other side selling tickets is listening to all this and just up and leaves the customer she is waiting on to rush over to his side and says I will put it on. So I figure ok, we will give this another go but as I start to show her not to put it too tight by putting my fingers on top of Meghyn's wrist so there is a space enuf to "breathe", this witch actually grabbed my 2 fingers with enuf force to toss my hand to the side. WTF! So my gut reaction was as would be with any one who acts like a little brat by touching me is to slap the top of her hand. YEAH YEAH, I know, wrong, but she assulted me first, and I didnt hit her hard. Well hell, I couldnt reach her head thru the slot to slap her upside that. ;)
Then she has the audacity to tell me to move my hand out of the way so she can put the band on Meghyn. UMMMMMM>>>>NOOOO! No way are you putting that thing on my DD after what you just did to me. She actually tried to force one on Meghyn's arm and I made sure to keep my hand where she couldnt put one on her. " I WANT MY MONEY BACK" Lady you have picked the wrong time of the month to mess with me (get my drift ;) ) Not to mention, my momma bear has already been awoken on top of it. LOL

She is complaining that "SHE" is not wasting 2 bracelets/bands. OH FOR GOD"S SAKES, they are stupid pieces of paper and if you hadnt been a jerk they would not be wasted. "I want my money back" The older gentleman she just up and left witnessed all this and says to me, "she is being really nasty" So of course, I pipe up nice and loud. "yes I do agree that she is being really nasty about this" AGAIN...."I WANT MY MONEY BACK" It takes a mountain to move this girl when she is pissed and I have no qualms about holding up a large line of ppl when something could have been resolved quite easily to begin with. And not to mention I have decent lung capacity and can project my voice across an auditorium of ppl (ty, mrs. B and 4 years of choir) "I want my money back"

Finally she caves and tells ditzy guy to give a 10 back. OH NO! "I want ALLLLLLLL my money back" This would include the money for Donnie's wristband. What the hell did she expect us to do? Have Meghyn stand there while she watched her dad ride everything...DUH! "I am not giving you your money back for his bracelet. You have already had me waste 2 of them and I am not wasting a 3rd" You have got to be kidding me lady. Sorry but my butt aint moving until I get all my money back. Gee what a shame, she was calling someone to come take care of it. GO RIGHT AHEAD!


See next post...dont want this too long :D: :p:

[vixen101485]

CONT>>>

DAH DAH DAH!...here comes the calvary, all 4 of them. They seemed decent enuf, asked us to step to the side so they could determine what was wrong. SIGH FINE! I did feel slightly guilty about holding up everyone else.

We explain what happened and how we did ask nicely for a replacement band for Meghyn and why and was refused then assulted. (and yes I did tell them I slapped her hand, but I told them I treated her like I would treat any small child who does that to an adult) :twisted: Ok I am evil, but I AM fun. :D: Hey the one older guy was trying not to smile, I saw you dude, I may be pissed off but I am still observant...lol

Anyway, she comes bursting out of the booth and starts ranting about how we wasted alllllllll these bands. (get over it lady, they not made of gold) I am just picky about how they go on since I had to have one cut off my very swollen wrist once, not fun I tell ya. Back to story.......
The dimwit actually was dumb enuf to admit to, as she put it, (gently lift my finger away from my DD's wrist) HORSE PUCKYS! Well witch, you just burnt your own behind there. DUH! you just admitted to physically touching and without permission one of the carnival guests. <<is it assult or battery when that happens? I can never remember.>>>>>

MAN O MAN, was she pissed when the main manager told her go get $10 for us and take Donnie's band in with her and put an x on it and put it under the drawer. HUFF HUFF HUFF..off she goes! GIGGLESNORT!

We told him that the older guy customer even said she was nasty and the main manager actually admitted to us that they have had other complaints against her. OK, so it wasnt just "Aunt Flo" being cranky, good to know I am not the bitch I thot I was. LOL

Steve(mgr guy) wanted to know what he could do to make it up to us. "dont worry about it, we'll just go find something else to do tonite" Home sounded good at this point to me. He was very insistant that we at least take some VIP bands. "no that is ok, we really dont want anything else" He actually almost begged us to and did that "for the kid" :) thing. OK, but only because she was standing there going "momma, are we not going to ride rides?" I did refuse it 3 times (actually I did 4 :confused :) and I did offer to pay the money for them. He was very cool about it and said "no they are on us" Sent the other guy to go get some. I told him dont worry about one for me as I dont do spinny rides. :D: He was actually very nice and funny. We thanked him and I made sure to put Meghyn's on for her. He had no problem with that and understood completely...lol They were the plastic ones (like the EMH kind that snap) and it took me a sec to figure out how they worked..LOL He also told us they are good not only for tonite but for the rest of the week, tomorrow.

Thank you Steve, you did a great job of handling things and TY again for the bands.


OK>>>>>I am all done now. Thot you guys would like to see how well Disney actually does training to treat a guest compared to this type of venue. And I am also guessing that grabbing a Disney park guest's fingers (with witnesses) would pretty much be grounds for some serious reprocussions with the company. ?????Curious??????

[Lasolimu]

This just proves something I enjoy pointing out, that common sense isn't. When working a customer service job you never treat customers that way, it is simple common sense. Back when I was working for Arby's we had no training on how to treat the customers, we just knew. We were taught store policy on dealing with special cases [such as people who won't let you get a manager to help them because they did something stupid and only a manager can do what they are asking for (good story, but I don't recall posting it here, maybe later:p :) ]. I think most of what you did was good, but maybe you should have asked for a higher up earlier in the situation. They may not have agreed at that point, but from the story, I believe that if they kept trying to correct the issue themselves it would have reached the same conclusion. Plus if you asked for someone higher and they refused, it is no longer your fault for holding up the line.

We are all the customer at some point. When working customer service you need to keep in mind how you expect other people in customer service to treat you as the customer. It is common sense to treat a customer how you want to be treated as a customer, or is that just me?

[JugglingFreak]

Austin Powers: Only two things scare me and one is nuclear war.

Basil: And what's the other thing?

Austin Powers: what?

Basil: What's the other thing that scares you?

Austin Powers: Carnies... circus folk.. small hands... smell like cabbage..

[vixen101485]

I think most of what you did was good, but maybe you should have asked for a higher up earlier in the situation. They may not have agreed at that point, but from the story, I believe that if they kept trying to correct the issue themselves it would have reached the same conclusion. Plus if you asked for someone higher and they refused, it is no longer your fault for holding up the line.

It is common sense to treat a customer how you want to be treated as a customer, or is that just me?

In hindsight, I should have but everything happened so fast, I just gut reacted to the momma bear instinct. This was all total in the span of maybe 2 -3 minutes, incuding holding up the line. When the witch woman got on her walkie I told her go ahead and call someone, be my guest. The managers were there in about 1 minute or so.

I worked for Radio Shack at one point and they had a great customer service training bit. Most of it was common sense and courtesy but it is a shame that quite a few ppl nowadays sadly lack. (LOL..I sound like a crotchety old lady referring to you youngsters..LOL)

Austin Powers: Only two things scare me and one is nuclear war.

Basil: And what's the other thing?

Austin Powers: what?

Basil: What's the other thing that scares you?

Austin Powers: Carnies... circus folk.. small hands... smell like cabbage..

ROFLMMEO....Thanks JF, needed that. LOL

[Theme Park Where]

My carnie story:

I worked as a volunteer at the Merry Go Round museum in Ohio. One of the paid employees was an old carnie who was responsible for restoring the horses and maintaining the merry go round. He was the stereotypical carnie, prone to disappearing for a few days on a bender. When he failed to show up for work on a particularly important day, the museum's director, who was a woman, was sent to knock on his door to remind him he needed to be at work. She went to his apartment and knocked. He answered the door - completely in the nude! She just looked him straight in the eye, told him to get dressed and get to work or he was fired, turned around and left. :sick:

[Tara_Lee3]

My little sister heard the word "Carnie" somewhere... on TV I guess. We Don't get many traveling-circus-type things out here in the rockies.

Anyway, I took her to the State Fair one year, I believe she was about 6 years old at the time, and we wandered past the ski-ball and dart games and she pauses to look around thoughtfully and says:

So.. if the guys who work at carnivals are called Carnies....

.... Are these guys called Fairies?


I love my little sister. :p:

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

My little sister heard the word "Carnie" somewhere... on TV I guess. We Don't get many traveling-circus-type things out here in the rockies.

Anyway, I took her to the State Fair one year, I believe she was about 6 years old at the time, and we wandered past the ski-ball and dart games and she pauses to look around thoughtfully and says:

So.. if the guys who work at carnivals are called Carnies....

.... Are these guys called Fairies?


I love my little sister. :p:

And now we know where faries come from!!!!

[hobie16]

So.. if the guys who work at carnivals are called Carnies....

.... Are these guys called Fairies?

Hahahahahaha!!! Your sister has a bright future ahead of her.