What am I? Fly paper for freaks!

**Matt Bleck** · 15th April 2007, 13:12

Great stories Sniper!!!

**Sniper** · 17th April 2007, 09:36

Don't some folk get it??

This morning (so far) is a doozy. And its going to get alot worse before it gets better. At least its not monday.

We run another company under us Called Roadtrip rentals. All our "aged" cars go to them. General criteria for a Roadtrip (RT) car is cars over 150000kms and 1995 to 1997. Because of this RT can offer cars for as little as $17 per day. Everyonce in a while, we don't have a suitable road trip car for someone and we give them one of our own cars. Not my ideal idea, but I know better than to argue with the powers that be.

Anyway. Last night I had a RT customer phone me on the RT cellphone (I forgot to convieneintly turn if off like I usually do) round 2130. Answering the phone was a mission in itself, it wouldn't stop ringing and after the 4th time it started ringing in 10 minutes I decided to actually answer it. This involved me dropping the drill I was playing with (To a large sigh of relief from MissSniper) and turning System of a Down off (To the relief of the neighbours) and actually finding the phone which had conviently made its way through a hole in the pocket of my jacket and deposited itself underneath the armpit. Apparently this looked funny from the way MissSniper was laughing so hard, I was not impressed.

Turned out Miss Spencer (Not her real name of course, one I just made up cause I can) had managed to prang her car into the side of a mountain in Milford sounds. On top of this she wasn't happy as she was wanting to be in Te Anau that night and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I wasn't in the moods to boot up the laptop to sign into work and find out her story and I told her there was nothing I could do at this particular time as Im at home in Christchurch and I do not have a computer to check her hire, she would need to find her own way to Te Anau and phone us in the morning. I was expecting an argument, but she was really compliant and said she would call in the morning around 8am. Cool! First time that anyone has happily said they will contact me the next day after an accident and organise their own way to accomodation.

So I hang up (and turned off the phone) and went in search of my new drill I was playing with before the call. Somehow, the drill had mysteriously dissapeared from the workbench and any pleas I lodged with MissSniper were met with a smirk and a rather innocent (How the fuck can a female so guilty make themselves sound so innocent???), "I really don't know hun." I knew she was lying when she started putting the med kit back in the cuboard. That kit only comes out when Im around power tools, knives, sticks, my best mates, scissors, general car maintenance and any other object or work that can be even remotly dangerous and the fact it was being put away was enough to tell me that my drill was hidden and it will take a while to find. After a little search (I checked where I had it last in case I missed it) MissSniper said I should come to the bedroom as there is a surprise there for me, I forgot completely about what I was looking for and sprinted to the room in anticiapation only to find that the "surprise" was the electric blanket was on. Really sweet I know, but not what I was hoping for.

Anyway, get to work this morning (0710 as usual) and the phone goes at five to eight. It her and she seems more unhappy than she was last night. Here I was hoping a nice sleep would refresh her mind and make her come to realise just how much she needs to do before we would even come to the party. Turns out that it took her an hour to find accomodation in Te Anau, and the room was way out of her budget and she wanted us to compensate her for the inconvenience. As well as that, she needed to head south and across to Dunedin and when was her next car going to get to her so that she could carry on? There was a brief spat and carry on while I told her that we are not bringing a car to her, she needs to get to our depot in Queenstown where we can get her to fill out an accident form. If she gets another car is completely up to the branch manager in Qst and I would be chatting to him shortly to let him know she was on her way.

As Im sure most know. You always have an excess on insurance and on our rental cars, the excess is $1000. She knew this and as parting words mentioned that, "Im deducting all of what you owe me out of the excess before paying it" and then hung up. What I wouldn't give to be down in Qst today when she turns up and chat to her face to face....

More on this as it goes along.

**Beemer** · 17th April 2007, 10:29

You are SO deserving of bling for those stories but unfortunately I've been a bit of a slapper with the old bling today and I can't give any more out for a while! I will return...

**Sniper** · 17th April 2007, 10:30

Originally Posted by Beemer

You are SO deserving of bling for those stories but unfortunately I've been a bit of a slapper with the old bling today and I can't give any more out for a while! I will return...

Cheers Beemer. Hopefully some folk can get a laugh or two out of these stories. They only seem funny to me when I read them

**Beemer** · 17th April 2007, 11:22

I think you and my husband would get on well - he works for NZ Post so you can imagine the type of customers he gets on occasion. He - like you - is very good at telling stories about funny things that happen to him at work and he includes all the silly voices, hand signals, etc!

His favourite right now is what he terms the lost cause - trying to convince people that sending money overseas to release funds they have won in lotteries they didn't buy tickets in is a scam. One lady told him to mind his own business (and she's what he believes to be a seemingly rational businesswoman in her 50s) when he suggested that sending thousands of dollars (yes, it's not always $20 or $30) to some guy she'd never met in Nigeria was a rip off. It's not just little old ladies who fall for it!

And his stories about the local guys sending money over to Russian brides are so funny! One guy has sent money over for at least three but none have turned up so far. They'll be terribly disappointed if they do - he looks like a shorter, skinnier, older, uglier version of Baldrick! With a cap... and a very high-pitched voice... loverly!

**buellbabe** · 17th April 2007, 12:07

Great stuff... sitting here on my lunch break shaking my head and chuckling with the occasional "guffaw"...FARK! some people really do have shit for brains.
Many many years ago I was in a customer service job and I learnt very quickly to grit my teeth, smile sweetly and be nice as pie while explaining why things were NOT gonna happen the way they thought.
Bugger that... my patience or LACK of it couldn't cope and I eventually lost the plot... at my boss!!!

As someone said, you have the patience of a saint... and you're a brilliant story teller too!
bet you can talk your way out of most situations??? ha ha ha

**Swoop** · 17th April 2007, 13:29

Originally Posted by Beemer

... the local guys sending money over to Russian brides are so funny! One guy has sent money over for at least three but none have turned up so far.

Possible expiry date problem with the merchandise, perhaps?
Maybe they have been shipped to the wrong address? Hmm, this might explain SARGE's absence recently!

**alexthekidd** · 17th April 2007, 18:27

Oh more Sniper, please, more i beg

**Sniper** · 18th April 2007, 10:22

Well, we haven't seen nor heard from the lady yet.

Im giving her until lunchtime before charging her card and waiting to hear back.

**Krayy** · 18th April 2007, 11:51

I am loving these tales of others stupidity that I can't help but chuckle at....encore, encore!

**Beemer** · 18th April 2007, 13:42

Originally Posted by Krayy

I am loving these tales of others stupidity that I can't help but chuckle at....encore, encore!

I just hope Sniper never leaves his job, I am so enjoying these tales!

**Sniper** · 19th April 2007, 11:39

If they don't come to you, you force them to come out.

So as I said yesterday, if that lady had not contacted me by lunch, I was going to charge her card. Now before you legal bushmen start your unfair dance, she did sign a contract which clearly states she is liable for all and any damages and that we have the authority (within reason) to charge her card for any losses we take up to $1500 unless the police get involved and she is charged with anything.

Anyway, me being the son of a bitch (according to her) that I am, I charged her $1500 on her credit card. Now heres the funny thing.... It took her less than 7 minutes to phone up and demand that we put the money bac on her card. So I figure that I obviously have disrupted her finances enough that the payment she was just about to make on her "Bitches Elixer TM" didn't go through, and as we all know, that means she must have been suffering serious withdrawl symptoms. Pity none of them were common sense and the ability to shut up. Anywhoo, I told her that I shall not refund any money and that we still require her to fill out an accident form. I was told that on no uncertain terms would she fill out a form without me refunding her money first, and I just replied that unless she fills out the form, we would charge her the full the amount of the damages.

So, not liking what she hears (Tough shit) she hung up on me. Now in all my preious stories you would have read that I should learn that this does not signal the end, yet what does yours truely do??? Guess, I bet you can't be wrong. So I hang up and breathe a sigh of relief whilst mumbling under my breath, "Good riddance" (See, told you Im a slow learner, or just thick) and I go back to reading my book after pulling the ethernet cable out of the bosses PC. I really enjoy watching him get more and more frustrated and then we he goes to ask someone who knows, I quickly plug it in. I know the day is coming when I'll be caught, but right now I find it too funny to worry about consequences.

Anyway, along come 1500 and Im mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of paper work I should get done before I leave and also stay motivated enough to study when I get home and in walks this women and a couple of guys. Now they weren't big guys, but you know when guys are just there to intimidate instead of anything else. Now, female species, I know you don't really understand, so I will try and help. When a guy is intimidated, there are 2 paths, only 2, no others. 1 is to bow down and take it up the rectum (Hehehe, damn near killed him) and the second is to stand up and become difficult. Now the standard criteria that you use to make your decision is that

1.Are they bigger than you?
2.How many are there?
3.What if any objects are they carrying that will hurt if they hit you?
4.What are their intentions?
5.How long before lunch/dinner/beer ect?

Now my mind was made up pretty quickly that they were purely there for ornimental reasons and that they would not do anything, I mean, who in their right mind comes into a rental car office to use force to get their way? I don't like fighting, I find no need to fight to make myself feel like a man and I admire those that have the same veiws.

Back to the story..... So she starts on that she wants to speak to Stuart, NOW! I hate it when folk yell, but somewhere in the dark inky depths of my mind, there is a little voice laughing at my stupidity in thinking that the phone call was the end of the matter with this women. So after beating the little voice in my head with the other, larger voice that propmts me to drill a hole in that bit of wood instead of the bit Im meant to be working on (Its the same voice that tells me anything can be made to fit with the right amount of force) I told her that Im am he and how could I help. (By this time, the guys are sitting down which is a good sign)

So she starts ranting and raving that we have taken money off her card when we shouldn't have and now she cannot afford to get a ticket back home and her Visa is due to run out. I can almost understand where she is coming from, and might have felt sorry had I not (in a previous story) nailed the door shut where that blasted "Sorry for folk" emotion used to sneak in. But as far as Im concerned, she drove into a side of a cliff, wrote off our car, refused to co-operate with me and we are paying to get the car back to us, so after conveying my thoughts to her, I asked her why she thought we should then (effectivly) just pretend nothing happened, give her another car and carry on? I explained that according to the contract she signed, we are allowed to take the excess of her, regardless if she is present or not, and under no circumstances are we obligated to give it back. I think at that stage she (and I) realised that I was going to be as difficult as possible and she looked at one of the guys obviously looking for support. You could tell he knew the same thing and they were pushing at a lost cause and he told her that if she signed a contract, then its her problem.

Obviously not getting what she wanted from the chaps she brought in, she then lept into stage 2. She was going to report Apex to the Tourism board and the Fraud squad and the goverment and the police for either in-convienincing her holiday or stealing her money to which I just smiled and offered her my best wishes at doing so because she won't get very far. Hell, if Fair Go couldn't do anything to us, then she couldn't. So she grabbed my card off the desk (didn't even ask, the bitch. That card cost me nothing) and stormed out. The most amazzing thing was the guy she turned to stood up, came over and apologised for her. I almost felt a bit of guilt, but then realised what the intention was behind her bringing them and told him not to worry, its not his fault, but I don't want her back in the building.

Pretty average wednesday if you ask me. Please excuse the bad story telling today, bit knackered.

**Forest** · 19th April 2007, 16:03

Unbeknownst to most it seems, New Zealands busiest time for Tourists is between 20th to 25th Jan to 15 to 20th March. Not many people realise this because they think once the school holidays are over it means the whole world stops just for them to go on holiday. Our Rental car company owns over 1500 cars NZ wide. This time of the year we have 99.3% utilisation of all our vehicles of all classes. Great fun when it comes to people wanting cars just for a day.

Wonderful stories - I really enjoyed reading them.

But I was wondering something. If you have 99.3% utilisation of your vehicles then doesn't this mean your business doesn't have enough vehicles to meet the demand? Or is it just an averages game? (to cover the reduced demand in the low season)

**Sniper** · 19th April 2007, 16:46

Originally Posted by Forest

Wonderful stories - I really enjoyed reading them.

But I was wondering something. If you have 99.3% utilisation of your vehicles then doesn't this mean your business doesn't have enough vehicles to meet the demand? Or is it just an averages game? (to cover the reduced demand in the low season)

In truth, yes we don't have enough. Hard to imagine 1500+ cars out on the road not driven by the average NZ'er, but quite often durning those time, we turn buisness away becuase we don't have the vehicles for it.