People who think CS is "NotAlwaysRight.com"

[Ree]

So anyways...

Yeah...

People posting obviously embellished stories. That sucks.

[MadMike]

I don't know if the obvious bullshit stories started with Vinegar Boy, or if I just never noticed them before. Not to say that the Vinegar Boy story is bullshit. I did question it somewhat at the beginning, but everything fit together way too well to be a load of crap, plus if I remember correctly, the OP didn't have a habit of posting outlandish stories like that. The rest of them were pretty normal occurrences.

But apparently we have a lot of people who are trying to one-up that particular story, and there are some people whose posts I don't even bother reading anymore. I get it, sometimes strange things happen. If I hadn't experienced it myself, I would never have believed that anyone would be stupid enough to ask an employee, in full store uniform plus name tag, if he or she worked there, but it happened to me more times than I can count. I never would have believed that someone would want a discount on an item, not because there was something wrong with it, but because he simply "didn't feel like paying that much." I probably wouldn't have believed that someone like my former co-worker "James" could be completely and totally incompetent in every possible way, and some which I thought were impossible. I probably wouldn't believe that a group of guys would come into a store, pick a fight with some random customer, and then sit out on the bench by the front entrance even after being told the police were on their way. And I probably wouldn't have believed that any customer could be so heartless as to harass an employee into going back into the deli area after everything was cleaned up and put away, and then scream at her after she slipped on the freshly mopped floor, and fell down crying in pain because she re-injured her knee that had just been operated on.

Yes, I experienced or witnessed all of these things, and I posted about every single one of them. But I also posted a lot of somewhat run-of-the-mill stories. Some of these people post nothing but one outlandish stories after another. With some of them, I find myself believing the first one or two, and then after they keep coming, I stop believing. Then there are some that scream "Bullshit!" from the very first post. Back when I was looking for smilies to add to the site, I came across a "bullshit" smiley. I briefly considered adding it, but then came to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea.

[Peppergirl]

Bingo, Mike. That's the key. I've seen, heard and LIVED more fuckery in CS than I'd have ever believed I'd see in a million years. I've also talked about those things, but also run of the mill things, like you said.

That's what makes the difference. EVERY single story and interaction one has is just not, by law of averages, going to be an OTT screamfest where the person cusses you out, and you deal them a dose of karma or retribution. Doesn't happen.

(All general *you* of course)

[HYHYBT]

I'd think time would be a factor as well. If I'd never heard of CS until now, and went there for the first time, the stories I'd post would be filtered by time: the stupidest/rudest/most bizarre things I ran into over the course of fifteen years, without the more ordinary stuff. That's what still sticks in the mind, and those are the stories most worth telling. They'd also be a bit vague about certain details, often exactly how something began or what, if anything particularly, followed after or resulted further on. That could easily give the appearance of making things up, especially to someone who didn't realize they were collected over time.

[Racket_Man]

This is one of the reasons I do not make very many posts on CS unless I get a week long string of SSDD idiots/dolts/mindless numb brains or someone pulls something way out of the ordinary.

I do not embellish as I feel that takes away from the story/situation I happened to be in/witness.

I have, on occasion, had FTSTS pulled on me that did get out of hand even when I carefully explained the story AGAIN. Even with explainations and repeated "this is how my company does this even thought your suggestion is fantastic and logical" or "there are policies and procedures in place for a VERY good reason" I got repeated "BUT TELL YOUR COMPANY TO DO THIS THIS WAY" OR other such phrases and again I explained I am JUST a peon and the upper people do NOT listen to us even IF our idea is great and logical.

I still have a permanent mark on my CS account because one member choose to keep pushing the point and I lost it a little and got somewhat harsh in a reply to make my point about policies and procedures INSTEAD of just reporting their post.


I can not pown a customer as that would lose me my job cause the customers I interact with would call and complain not to just the store but to the corp. corp. office and they do NOT take kindly to really smartass employees.

most of the stuff that happens to me is routine stuff with no real excitement most of the time.

[Gravekeeper]

I still have a permanent mark on my CS account because one member choose to keep pushing the point and I lost it a little and got somewhat harsh in a reply to make my point about policies and procedures INSTEAD of just reporting their post.

I have two from being unable to stop myself from responding. Though I think one expired. >.>

I don't even remember the exact circumstances. Only that my tongue was sharp and seemed closer than the report post button at the time.

I can not pown a customer as that would lose me my job cause the customers I interact with would call and complain not to just the store but to the corp. corp. office and they do NOT take kindly to really smartass employees.

Exactly. I can only really mess a little with a caller if its obviously a prank call. Otherwise professionalism and job retention take precedence.

[Lace Neil Singer]

There's often giant gaps between my stories, simply cuz the vast majority of the customers I encounter at work are decent people. Only a few are obnoxious/stupid/insane. Thing is, a petrol station naturally attracts SCs, or so it seems. I encountered far less at the pet store and country park, and about the same amount at the pizza place and supermarket. However, I haven't really posted anything like notalwaysright... only thing that comes close are the double bannage stories. Basically, we banned two customers in a row, but that was funny to me mainly cuz we never ban customers... and then, we banned two in a row. XD

[Mr Hero]

I'm giving this a bump to express my annoyance at one of the sister sites, Not Always Romantic. More specifically, the entries entitled "'Til Undeath Do Us Part" If we take most of the stories at face value, those are at least naturally occurring. There seems to be so many of the Undeath stories that they're starting to feel forced.

[Ginger Tea]

I think it's due to them having themed months.

A fair few tales being posted are from last Christmas on working/right, you sat on the story waiting till December to tell your tale of woe on Christmas eve, it's not against the law to post about Christmas horror stories in January.

And how many really know the periodic table that well to make or understand witty puns, I know of it but never had to use it in every day or working life, so the most I can really say is H2O.

The jokes I only know of due to reading them, I've never looked at the table specifically to make a pun, yet they have "Paging Dr Sheldon Cooper #589" up days after a nigh on identical one was posted. It's almost as if people read the joke, told it to their SO who in turn told it to "Not always".

But as I said, it's possibly due to the themes they run, "how I was fired month" will get more tales of sackings and quitting's than any other time of the year, but sometimes reading about a "Do not work here" tale will jog a similar memory from the reader, at the time of the incident the site might not have been known and when it was, the tale was forgotten about.

[Kara_CS]

Its still getting worse is it? I barely read CS at all anymore as I don't trust half the posters. >.>

You just made me realize I haven't strayed from Off-Topic in something like a year and a half. But apparently I'm not missing much.