Chasing the Wind

I hit the gym on the way home, and on the Bally’s entry door is a poster I’ve not seen before, something about a sweepstakes and I need to get a card punched. All I have to do is exercise 12 times between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’m probably halfway there already. All the service people at the desk are busy, so I go do my workout first.

Later, I stop by the desk; one girl is on the phone and swiping people’s cards, so she’s too busy to talk to me. The other girl is at a copier, copying pages out of a book.

“Excuse me,” I say.

“Yes?” the girl says. She had a nametag, but I’m going to call her… Ms. Nohelp.

“Can you tell me how to participate in the sweepstakes listed on the door?” I ask.

“Not really. If you’ll leave your name and phone number, somebody will call you,” she responds. I’m thinking that’s an odd reply; a sweepstakes entry form shouldn’t require some sort of corporate approval. In fact, I bet if I walk in off the street to join, they’d find somebody to take my money, so why would they need to call me later?

“I have a few moments,” I say, “and don’t mind waiting if there’s somebody else that can explain it.”

“Just a sec,” she says. She walks over to a door labeled “Manager,” and 20 seconds later returns. She pulls a punch card from under the counter and hands it to me. “Bring this back next time and we’ll stamp it.”

“I don’t know if I can get in 12 more workouts before Christmas,” I say. “Can you look up my record and see how many times I’ve already been here since Thanksgiving?”

“I can look it up, but I can’t stamp it,” she says.

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense to me. Could you…”

“OK,” she interrupts and turns her back to me. Whoa. She really doesn’t want to talk about this; turning her back on a customer is like hanging up the phone without saying goodbye.

Think. Ok, I walk over to the same “Manager” door. Some large man with biceps the size of dumptrucks is sitting there. I knock and say, “Howdy, I’m looking for somebody a little more helpful.” I ask if he can look up my record and stamp my card.

He says, “Ms. Nohelp can do that, just ask her…”

“No, she can’t,” I say. “At least, that’s what she told me.” Mr. Biceps stands up and we walk to the front counter. He glares are Ms. Nohelp as he walks by. She jumps back a little when she sees him, then she glares at me. Mr. Biceps looks my record up and credits me 5 stamps on the sweepstakes card, then glares at Ms. Nohelp who’s still glaring at me.

“Thank you,” I tell Mr. Biceps, who’s still glaring at Ms. Nohelp. I think he’s going to have a word with her after I’m gone. Maybe he’ll change her name to Ms. Bah Humbug.

Surly customer service people amuse me. 😛