Nightmare on 185th st.
I’ve got one particular customer who drives me nuts. Actually, she drives everyone nuts. I am, at the minimum, 5th rep here in the past 4 years. Unfortunately, she seems to really like me. She runs this tiny fish market that her father started 60 years ago. Runs it just the way Dad did. Problem is, everything has changed around her, most notably people, other than the tourists down at Pike Place Market, buy fish at the grocery store now. Seriously, I don’t know how she stays afloat! She carries no fresh fish. What little she does have is either something she couldn’t sell and had to smoke, or it’s frozen.
She’s also insufferably chatty. She uses the royal ‘We’ ad nausium: “We thank you”, “We were wondering…”, “When will we have our fish?”. Who the HELL is “We”? She’s the only one there! And her voicemails, AAAAAHHHHH, they go on, and on, and on, and on. On a side note: to amuse myself I forward every VM to the Norwegian, whom she fired before she ended up with me, really gets his goat. I never call her back, but she’s relentless, just keeps on calling. Seriously, she will take 45 minutes of my time to discuss fish that is not available or too expensive to buy for customers who do not exist. Even if she has no need to talk about seafood she’ll continue babbling about her recent knee surgery, or her personal injury suit, or her boy’s special needs, etc, and how it is affecting her business. There’s no getting rid of her! But I’m too polite to tell her that the reason she’s got no business is that no one wants to buy fish from a lunatic in a run-down shack on a street more known for prostitution than for protein.
Seriously, her average order is only about $250 (By comparison, most of my accounts average over $500). Every time she calls I raise her prices. I kinda feel bad that she’s got no one else that will sell to her. But I feel even worse when I pick the phone up and it’s her! I actually have a physical reaction to hearing her voice, and here is where I begin to substantiate the title of this article:
She and I have been going ‘round and ‘round about some salmon she is unhappy with. Now, we all know that seafood is extremely perishable, so you can understand why we have a 24 hour return policy. She just let me know about this fish she received a
MONTH ago. Not only that, but she also smoked it! There is no possible way that I’m going to give her credit on month-old fish that she’s already cooked! Her problem is that she lost a customer over the quality of the product (so she’s only got four left). This alarms her so much (keep in mind that we have already talked about this credit at great length) that she calls up here leaves me a voicemail while I’m out to lunch, leaves my boss a voicemail, and considers the issue so pressing that she hounds the front desk into giving her my cell number. So begins the nightmare.
I cannot express in words the reaction I had upon hearing that voice on my cell phone. To say I felt violated would be a gross understatement. I nearly ran my truck off the road! I looked at my phone with horror and though “I trusted you, man! How could you let her ring through?!”. I wanted to throw it out the window. Throw it on the floor. Anything to get away from that voice! (In an irony of ironies: as I am typing this paragraph, guess who just called, she’s inescapable!) I felt like I had just been contracted a horrible disease from someone I trusted; I could practically feel my internal organs failing. After hanging up with her I got “The Rage”. I called up the office and blew my stack at the guy who gave her my number, not that it’s his fault, he doesn’t understand the magnitude of pain this woman is capable of inflicting on a salesman. I’m not really mad at him, I’m mad that my ability to evade this person who causes me such discomfort has been stolen from me. She can now get me anywhere, anytime. I saved the number into the phone with her name, so I’ll know if she’s calling. But what if my wife picks it up at home on Saturday morning? I’ll never be safe again!
My cell phone is now infected. It should be quarantined. I am afraid to even pick it up. I want to ask the IT guy for a new one. Is that irrational?
This must be what paranoia feels like.
