A few ramblings of Shorty's mind.

[BRWombat]

Now let's talk about guests with cell phones on the bus. I just love the guest who is oblivious to everything when on the phone. They talk like they are the only ones present. The other day, I had one woman who was criticising everything at Disney, and then me in particular. Seems she was soo involved with her conversation, she missed her stop at the Dolphin. This in spite of the announcement from disembodied Dave and then my own announcement. We are now at the YC and she could easily get off there and it's a very short walk back to the Dolphin, NOOOO she insists I drive her back to the Dolphin. It was all MY fault she missed her stop. Of course I tell her no, I'm sorry but you can get off here or at the BC or even BW and walk to the Dolphin, I am not going to inconvenience the rest of the guests because your phone call was more important to you than getting off at your resort. She argues with me, no I'm not budging. Finally she sits down and continues her conversation on the phone but doesn't get off.

OK with me, you are going back to DTD (but I don't tell her that) Now I had to stop at the gate at BW on the way back and pick up a bunch od DTD bound guests from a bus that had a signal 4 with the gate and a manager was there. As I'm loading those guests, I mention to the manager what happened with this woman and pointed her out. (she is still on the phone) He tells me to bring her back to DTD and inform her that she will have to take another bus to the Dolphin. Then he says, in fact, I'll tell her for you. He then gets on the bus and tells her that because she did not listen to any of the announcements, she will need to transfer at DTD. He did not cave in to her when she went off on him, and then other guests who did hear me told her to shut up and sit down.

She finally hangs up and sits down, doesn't say another word until we get back to the marketplace. Getting off the bus, she says to me, "I hope you are happy, I missed my dinner reservation." My response, "I'm sorry that you are late for dinner, perhaps next time you will pay more attention to our announcements."

What did we do before cell phones?

Sorry for your aggravation, Cranbiz, but that's a pretty funny story! It always brings joy to see SG's suffer as a result of their own stupidity (especially since it seems to happen so rarely). Good for you and the manager for how you handled it -- serves her right.

From my own 2005 trip report, ironically on a bus ride to DTD (from the Beach Club): Another passenger provides amusement - unwittingly on her part - talking loudly on her cell phone to her husband about their dinner plans: "Set the oven to 350 degrees. … Okay, now take off the Saran Wrap. … No, turn the oven to bake. … Bake. B-A-K-E." It takes her two separate calls to fully convey these instructions. :D:

[Cranbiz]

I haven't heard the complete story on the bus. It was a training bus and I will find out from the trainer what happened. It was either the trainee was too quick in pulling out or the gate came down on the bus. There was no damage to either that I saw but it was a big deal because there were guests on board.

[Shorty82]

What a day! Man, today was LONG. Started work at 8:00 this morning. Around noon or maybe a little earlier we got SLAMMED, customers lined up and more coming all the time. Everytime it looked like it was slowing down more people came in. There were only 4 of us in the store and that wasn't nearly enough people for how busy we were.

One of my coworkers left about 1:00, an hour early as he missed his lunch break, leaving only three of us to handle all the customers. I was supposed to go to lunch then but between being super busy and short handed that didn't happen and I was already hungry. Finally about 2:00 another coworker came on and though we were still busy I ducked out to lunch as I was starving and if I didn't eat soon I would get a migraine (if I wait to long to eat after getting hungry I get migraines). Normally missing lunch wouldn't be a big deal as I would just eat a bag of chips (I always bring some with me) but we were so busy I never got a chance.

We get an hour for lunch but we were so busy I came back on 20 minutes early and one of my coworkers who was supposed to leave at 2:00 went home so there was still only three of us. We stayed so busy I wasn't able to leave until about 5:30, an hour and a half after my scheduled time to leave. We were so busy most of the time there was barely time to breath. I don't think my store manager who opened and was also supposed to get lunch at 1:00 ever did get to go eat.

Surprisingly I personally only had two stupid customers. First was a woman who came up to my register after I finished ringing a bunch of people up and told me she had parts on hold. I told her she needed to get in line at the second counter behind everybody else. This was during one of our super busy times so there was a long line. There is a huge sign over the registers that says "Checkout" and a huge sign over the parts counter that says "Parts" or maybe "Customer Service" or something like that. I remember talking to this woman on the phone earlier in the day and putting the parts on hold. I remember telling her to come to the second counter like I tell everybody I put parts on hold for (checkouts are on the first counter and parts is the second counter). I think she was just trying to skip the line but it doesn't matter if you have parts on hold or not, you have to wait in line like everybody else. We can't look up holds, parts, or anything at the registers anyway.

I can't remeber right now the second stupid customer, just that there was one, so I guess they weren't to stupid.

Also, this morning I called our help desk to try to order a new label printer and normal reciept printer to replace a set on the parts counter that hasn't worked in months. I call but have to hang up as we got busy but the guy I was on with said he had already opened a ticket which would make it easier when I called back. I call back a while later and got somebody else, I tell her I already have a ticket open and the details and she transfers me to somebody else (I assume a tech). I tell her the same thing and she wants to try to troubleshoot the printers. I tell her these printers haven't worked in months and we have already tried toubleshooting them then but haven't had a chance to order new ones but she wouldn't listen. She wanted me to hook the normal printer to the one pod (pods are what the normal/label printer combos are called, there are two of them) that we know works but I tell her this is Saturday and we are way to busy to do without our one working pod. She was just to stuborn to just send us new printers. I think the first guy I talked to was going to send printers with no problems but since I had to hang up I couldn't finish with him.

It isn't always this hard to work with the help desk. I called them a few days ago to get a register that hasn't worked in months working (wouldn't even boot) and had an easy time of it. At the same time I ordered a new keyboard for it as it didn't want to work and also ordered a keyboard for the commercial sales terminal as it was missing keys. Later that day I called back and ordered a printer for the same register and commercial as both had quit working and had no problems doing so. Got them all only two days later and installed them without a problem.

I'm the one that usually winds up calling the help desk as I am the computer savvy one of the store and can understand their instructions better. Normally I can get things fixed with minimal fuss and time spent. We are a busy store and normally if it can't be fixed in about 10 minutes then we have to let it go and live without it as we don't have the time for someone to be tied up on the phone with the help desk for to long, especially on a Saturday. That is why it took us so long to finally get the register fixed and to try to order new printers. I'll try again later in the week when we're slower and hopefully get someone who will send us what we need without a fuss.