Moronic Customers - It's A Numbers Game!

[Red Baron]

This is my theory. I've been trying to figure out why there seems to be a lot more customers who're morons at my car wash than there is in our roofing business. I've concluded, there isn't -- it's a numbers game.

I'd guess that 1% of my car wash customers are idiots. But, I'd guess I have 400 regular car wash customers who come to the wash weekly. Thus, I'm exposed to those 4 morons every single week. In the roofing business, the morons probably still account for 1% of the customers. But, in a commercial roofing operation you may only have 10 customers. Thus, less than 1 of them are morons. And, you deal with them maybe once each year, not every week. Plus, it's a lot more practical to tell that less-than-one guy to find another roofer and not be exposed to him at all.

Now I feel better about my car wash customers.

 

[Washmechanic]

Couldn't agree more. You know it's true when one of them confronts you with something and then one of your regulars comes up to you and asks" what's his problem" or observes that "that guy is nuts". It reasures you that it isn't all in your own head.

 

[MEP001]

I've noticed a similarity in the moronic percentile. I learned a long time ago that those few undesirables are such a minute fraction that it's far easier to ask them never to come back than deal with them again. For every person who doesn't like me asking them to change their vulgar music, or to not wreck a bay by washing nails or paint out of their bed, I have at least a dozen telling me what a great wash I run. The bad ones just don't get under my skin anymore.

 

[Red Baron]

Yeah, man, just had that this morning. Same pickup has created a problem twice in the last 2 weeks. The first time a local PD officer talked to him about it - and here he is again! Life is too short to tolerate morons like that.

Caught a guy with a greasy tranny setting on my pit grate last week. The goober had grease everywhere in the bay. When I told him that my No Greasy Parts signs mean just that, he said "What signs?" I pointed to the one you almost have to touch to get the wand out of te holder, and the big one on the end wall of the bay, and the one on the opposite wall. I told him "I don't know where else I have to put them for you to see them."

I think I can do without the quarters that 1% brings.

 

[MEP001]

I had it last night too, guy comes in with a truck that I've seen before on the video blowing trash out of his bed, but this time he has a small tractor with a shredder on a trailer. He spends only the minimum to rinse grass and dirt all over the place, making the bay unusable, and when I told him "I can't allow you to do that here" he didn't even acknowledge that I was there. Now that he knows, he'll get a criminal tresspass warrant against him next time.

Don't you love the "What signs" guys? I was filling up with gas at the convenience store next to the wash, and watched two guys each with dump trucks pull up in the back of the wash. They both walked around the front, looked and pointed at the front of the building while they were talking to each other, then one of them backed his truck into a bay. By then I'd pulled into the wash and told the other guy that we didn't allow trucks. He walked back to the front, looked immediately at the "NO TRUCKS" sign and said "Oh, I didn't see the sign." It was all I could do to not call him an effing liar.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I thought my stupidest customers were the occasional one that would fold up a dollar bill and shove it in the coin slot. Well, I found the stupidest of them yesterday. A customer told me that the rear vacs would not accept his dollar on two different occasions. I asked him if he meant dollar coins, like the decal with a picture of a dollar coin, a token, and a quarter states. He said "no, dollar bills, I have put them in twice and the vac doesn't come on." I asked, " how did you get them in there", to which he answered "just folded it up and stuck it in". I really don't know which is stupidest, actually doing that twice or telling someone that you are that stupid.

 

[MEP001]

Wow, and I thought the people who fill the acceptor with nickels and dimes until it jams were dumb...

 

[Danny]

I thought my stupidest customers were the occasional one that would fold up a dollar bill and shove it in the coin slot. Well, I found the stupidest of them yesterday. A customer told me that the rear vacs would not accept his dollar on two different occasions. I asked him if he meant dollar coins, like the decal with a picture of a dollar coin, a token, and a quarter states. He said "no, dollar bills, I have put them in twice and the vac doesn't come on." I asked, " how did you get them in there", to which he answered "just folded it up and stuck it in". I really don't know which is stupidest, actually doing that twice or telling someone that you are that stupid.

This is why I could not do what you guys do day in day out. I would snap on people like this after a point. I've said it once and I will say it again...I will take working with business owners and managers anyday over the general public! When will common sense become a common?

 

[MEP001]

When will common sense become a common?

Right, it should be called "superior sense" or something, because it's not at all "common."

Guy straddles the treadle, dragging the wash arm across his hood and roof: "Why didn't it come on?"

Guy deposits four quarters and Dixmor reads 04:IN "Why won't it start? It says four minutes!" right next to the Deposit $1.25 decal. "It's indicating how many quarters have been deposited." "But it says four minutes!"

Guy says "There's no soap coming out of the brush!" I check the switch and he has it on high-pressure soap, the position right next to the one labeled "Foam Brush"

"The quarters just keep rolling back out!" as she tries to deposit more into the credit card reader.

Guy actually presses the Stop label at the top of the rotary switch instead of the flashing red Stop button for the credit card system, then asks me why it didn't stop running.

"I put 50? in the vacuum and it didn't come on!" "Ma'am, it's $1 to start." ""A dollar?!? How long does it run for that?" "Four minutes." "Well, you should be giving 30 minutes for 50?! Can I get my money back?" then pulls a 12-volt vacuum out of her trunk and cleans her carpet with it.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Wow, and I thought the people who fill the acceptor with nickels and dimes until it jams were dumb...

I can actually top that one.

Back years ago when my SS start-up was $1.25 I had a coin acceptor (SlugBuster II) jammed. It took forever to pick out what was jamming it, one of my $1 off automatic coupons folded around a quarter.

 

[MikeV]

I have a guy that comes in and uses the drip from the wand to wet down his car, then uses the foam brush....dry ...to wash it, then uses the drip from the wand again to rinse it off...never drops a quarter in. That ended the last time I saw him do that. To boot...he is a cop. He flashed his badge and told me I should give him free washes. If he wasn't such a cheap a$$...I would have. When you're stupid, you suffer.

 

[MEP001]

He flashed his badge and told me I should give him free washes.

He should be fired for that.

 

[pitzerwm]

I would have had his ass written up, or gone to the newspaper with it. Our chief od Police was 5 minutes away from being fired as a result of my efforts. They decided to make him apologize. After that I got the best response time you could imagine. The regular cops hated him.