Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken

The other day I took my wife's car in for an oil change and lube job. Getting Sally out of that car long enough to even check the oil is a chore, so I usually have to finally throw myself over the hood and yell, "No! You're not going anywhere! We're going to get your oil changed!"

We went to a local establishment that sells tires and does oil changes, amongst other services. The guy putting our information on the computer told us it'd be about 30 minutes, so we wandered off, coming back in about 35 minutes. We showed up at an empty cash register. I could see the car was done, but I wanted to pay the bill and get my key back. A woman standing to the side of the counter near me said, "There was a girl here a few minutes ago, but I don't know where she went." A technician came out of the back, said, "I'll go look for her." He was gone about five minutes, came back, said: "I'm still looking," and took off again.

After standing like this for about 10 minutes--and feeling the fuse of my dynamite temper start to sizzle--one of the other technicians came out and said, "Sorry, I don't know where the girl went, so I'll ring you up." I noticed his name tag said, "Hi! My Name Is LLOYD." He gave me my bill and then proceeded to talk to the woman who was standing by the counter, telling her he couldn't get the rims off her car because he didn't have the proper tools. Huh! A tire shop without the proper tools to get a rim off a car…? Say what? Anyway, I was trying to run my debit card through his machine but he was doing something that caused the transaction to cancel. He went back and started over, but in the meantime never stopped talking to the woman about his tools and her rims (that sounds dirty!)

By now I was muttering things like, "You folks are something else…" and then the girl who was supposed to be behind the cash register showed up. So he proceeded to tell her where she had gone wrong. She got sullen and defensive, said something about going on break, to which he said, "You didn't have anyone to cover for you," which made her more sullen. He was yakking at the girl and talking to the woman while I was trying to get my card to work. With my wife hovering nearby I knew better than to say anything but what I wanted to say was, "PAY ATTENTION, LLOYD, GODDAMMIT. I'M THE ONE MAKING THE PAYMENT. QUIT TALKING TO EVERYONE BUT ME AND LET'S GET ME OUTTA HERE." I would have also added, "GO BACK TO PLAYING WITH YOUR TOOL, LLOYD, AND LET SOMEONE CHECK ME OUT WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING!"

Sally said when we left, "It doesn't do you any good to say anything. It only makes you look bad." Oh yeah…? Who was looking bad in there? Lloyd or me? I decided not to have her decide because I knew her answer. I just swallowed my mad, damped the dynamite fuse in my brain. In a few minutes it was over and I was glad I hadn't said anything. She was right, as usual.

By coincidence two days later my son handed me a CD by a Scottish band named Camera Obscura. The first song on the album Is "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken." So for Lloyd and all of the other people who have forgotten their lessons in customer service, I present this video.

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