Parking 103

Also this week, I had an experience I’ve never had.  Customer pays with a credit card, then refuses to sign the authorization slip.  What?  Because  if he doesn’t sign, we have no authority to charge the card.  Except we already have, and I can’t undo it until at least the next day.

So the cashier enlists my help, and I say to the customer (a big, hefty-looking Bob Marley-ish character), okay that’s fine.  You don’t have to sign, but in that case you have to pay cash to leave.  He says, well, in that case, are you going to give me a refund on the card?  I said yes.  Tomorrow.  Naturally, he refuses.

So calculating the risks versus the rewards, I said, you know, never mind–and raised the gate.  It wasn’t worth arguing over $2.00.  I said, Now you are free to exit.  He said, I’m not leaving until you give me my receipt.  I said, I can’t give you a receipt, because technically, you haven’t paid.  He says, You can’t refuse to give me my receipt.  That was the tipping point for me.  When I went from Customer Service mode to Ninja mode.

I said, You need to leave.  He said, I’m not leaving until I get that receipt.  I said, Oh yes you are.  If you don’t leave this minute, I’m calling the police.  He said, What?  What?  Bitch, I’M calling the police unless you give me that receipt.  I said, Good idea!  Go ahead.  Then I’ll have them ask you why you won’t sign this authorization.  That seemed to shine a new light on the situation.  (Only later did it occur to me that the card is probably stolen.  Somehow he thinks that using a stolen credit card is okay unless you actually sign for it, which would be like….double fraud? More traceable fraud? It’s true what they say–criminals really are idiots.)

In the end, he contented himself by saying, You don’t know who I am!  What is your name?  And then left.

The security guard came in about 30 minutes later, and was alarmed when I told him the story.  He said, Where I come from, “You don’t know who I am” means, “I’m sending my people to get you.”  Well now that you mention it, me too.  I must have come from the same place.  It’s just that it didn’t occur to me in the heat of the moment.

I was ready to come through the window at this guy.  All 5’2′ and 114 pounds of me.  Which would have been completely nuts.  So I still have a modicum of control.  But I long ago decided that if you threaten me or try to hurt me, I will fight you tooth and nail until you have to kill me.  Mostly because passivity doesn’t work–you just get hurt worse.

So my attitude may someday kill me, but it will be worth it.