Ninjas of the Night

A customer who'd been messed around by my predecessor at work got cranky on the phone (they're always bitchy on the phone, and then act like your best friend in person) on Thursday, and thought that his external hard drive and backup CDs should be delivered to him in Ladysmith. I have no trouble saying no to customers, and I couldn't care less how much they argue and shout about it. I've seen a couple of girls run to the back room crying when a manager takes over. I have more trouble trying to keep from laughing. I always have had. I always laugh when I shouldn't, and it gets me into trouble. Anyway, usually I'd just hold my ground and deal with it until it is resolved, or the customer asks for a manager. Three of the four managers would back me up, but the one that was working yesterday gives customers whatever they want to keep them quiet. It really bothers me for two reasons. Firstly, we follow policies and such and do what we're told, and then she comes along and tells the customer "yes" when we've been arguing "no" for ten minutes. How does that make us look? Secondly, she's continually telling us how much (little) money our department made today, and how we need to push "class attachments" and "ESPs", and then she goes and undoes all our sales by giving stuff away. The other day I told a guy he couldn't exchange his laptop as it was well beyond the 30 day return period. There wasn't even anything wrong with it - he just decided he wanted a different model after researching the one he'd bought. Oh, and he didn't have the box, which means we can't really resell it. So this manager comes along, and offers him (he didn't even ask for this stuff) an exchange of the laptop, free XP install, in-store setup and data backup. That's $280 of tech work if you include restoring the returned laptop (which we can't really sell) to original condition. Oh, and yes, Sarah can have that ready for you by 5 pm.
Back to Thursday - I was going to go for a ride after work anyway, so I said I'd deliver his stuff. I phoned Hilary, who phoned Amy. We were going to drop his stuff off at the Chemainus Theatre, as he would be watching a play there. It didn't occur to me at the time how wierd this would look.


We left Hilary's at about 7:20 (I was late - I should have known I couldn't get out of work at 6), much to Sean's and Dave's disapproval. I had a decent light, Amy's was of medium brightness, and Hilary had a blinky. We rode slowly along the highway to Chemainus without any major incidents. Amy ran straight through the middle of some fresh road kill, and Hilary mis-judged the down slope of a bridge sidewalk, but we were having a good laugh.
We arrived at the theater a little after 8, and the doors were locked. We knocked on the door, and a man in formal attire motioned to us that he would be with us in a moment. He let us (and our bikes) into the lobby. We told him why we were there. He looked a little puzzled, but the manager understood and took down a note as I handed him an external hard drive and two DVDs in paper sleeves. The first gentleman offered us tea, and we chatted with him a while and peered through the wndow of the art gallery while drinking our tea. I don't know what he put in the tea, but Amy and Hilary ended up waltzing in the bathroom.
We made our way back to town. It was colder, and Amy was shaking like a leaf in a blizzard. On the highway just before OK Tire, Amy realized her tire was flat, so we stopped at Tim Horton's for supper. After another hour of messing around, Trevor showed up with his truck to drive us back to Hilary's.
It didn't turn out to be a very long ride, and we only rode at cruising pace as it was dark, but I think we burnt more calories laughing that riding. We'll have to do it again.

Distance (with A & H): 33.3 km
Distance (Total): 42.6 km
Time (Total): 1:53