WWYD?

During my lunch break, I went to the library, as I frequently do. But having planned ahead and made my list of the books I wanted, along with their call numbers, I was in and out in about 10 minutes, which I think is a personal record.

Then I went to a store whose name rhymes with Pig Plots to buy a 3-ring binder and a packet of notebook paper (total with tax: $2.04). When I got to the front to pay, there were two open lanes. One had a miffed-looking customer using the phone, and a harried-looking employee slowly checking people out. There was another line with just two people in it. I got in the latter line. The guy who was at the check stand in front of me (the kid with the 2 bags of snack chips left) bought 3 things for a total after tax of $3.64. He swiped his credit card through the little machine, and the cashier saw a message on her monitor to call for authorization.

She asked the other checker what to do (it was just her 3rd day there). That checker came over, looked at the screen, agreed that she had to call for authorization, but the phone was being used by miffed-looking customer at the other checkstand. So my checker used her cell phone and called for authorization. She hollered to the other worker asking what their merchant ID was, and punched it in. Then she punched in the guy’s credit card number. There was an error. She had to call again. Now there are 2 people behind me, and there is a line of 3-4 people with lots of stuff at the other check stand.

The harried-looking checker called a managerial sort to come over. He came over, looked at the screen, and agreed that he had to call for authorization. There was a phone over by the furniture section, so he went to use that. By this time, the people in line behind me had gone over to the other checkstand, but I was confident the problem was about to be solved. I saw him hang that phone up, and walk over to the harried checker. He had to use that phone, he said.

At that point, I decided to go get in the other line, which by then only had one person in it. As I was standing there waiting for my turn to pay for my items, managerial type turned to the miffed-looking customer on the phone. “I have to call from this phone.”

She stared at him, steely-eyed. “Well I’m not hanging up.”

He tried explaining the situation, and she still refused to hang up. So he hung up for her. As he was then calling for credit card authorization on the guy’s card, miffed woman demanded the number for their corporate office and his name, because he was treating her like cr*p and they owed her money.

I paid my $2.04 and left the store. As I walked to my car, I found myself wondering who was right: the managerial sort who hung up the phone for the miffed customer so that he could take care of another–by then–miffed customer and keep more customers from getting miffed, or the miffed customer, who had been on the phone with her bank trying to get a problem resolved that was allegedly the fault of Pig Plots.

I can’t decide. I don’t really think either of them handled it right, but I don’t know what right would have been. I sympathize with miffed customer, obviously, but as one of the other customers who was held up for a ridiculously long amount of time, I also sympathize with managerial sort.

What would you do?

Oh, and I got a tuna sub from S*ubway afterward. Their tuna is tastilicious. It helped make up for the annoyance at Pig Plots. And fish is supposed to be brain food, so I was hoping it would help me decide which person was right. It didn’t. I still can’t decide.