Lying won't help you...

[stanthedevil]

I work at a small community theatre and we're having a very popular national touring show for fourteen performances.  All of the performances except on afternoon matinee are now completely sold out.

When we opened this morning we had almost 100 tickets remaining for one evening performance.  In less than an hour they were all gone.  At about 4:30 this afternoon a woman walked in the to the box office, credit card in hand.  "I need to pick up tickets for Liar Pantzfyre."  I asked when she had ordered the tickets and she said that she called in right at noon.    I looked through the tickets for the performance, I looked through the unfiled tickets, and I looked through the tickets that hadn't been charged yet.  I see no tickets for Pantzfyre.  I look her name up in the computer.  I see one record for her back at a production in May.  I ask her if someone else order the tickets.  She was adament that she had ordered the tickets at noon and talked to a "girl".  While, there are only three of us in the office, two women and a man, and neither of us remembered taking an order from Pantzfyre (or an order for eight tickets).

I looked her order up by phone number in case we had misspelled her name.  No sale under either of her phone numbers.  In the entry for her name, there is no phone number listed which means that in May she purchased tickets in person.  That sounds a little warning bell in my mind.  If she had called and ordered tickets, we would have taken a day time phone number.

I ask her if we took a credit card and she said that we had.  I carefully look through the orders we took one more time.  All the while she is insisting that talked to a girl at noon and ordered eight tickets.

I ask if perhaps she ordered tickets at the wrong theatre (a more common occurance than I would like to think about).  No, she insisted that she called our box office and rattled off our phone number from memory.  Another little warning bell went off.

In the end she left (in tears) without tickets because we literally do not have a single ticket left.  My co-workers and I have a theory:

She told her group of friends that she would get tickets for the show.  Then, she waited and din't order the tickets and/or the group didn't get their act together on time.  Then, she either called and were told we are sold out or when she drove up she saw the sold out signs.  When she realized that she couldn't get tickets, she figured she'd bluff her way into getting tickets by pretending that it is our fault.

Too bad it didn't work...

[Ko-Ko]

Well, I suppose that is the price she has to pay for procrastination. While it might be possible for her to have actually ordered the tickets, it seems unlikely. It sounds like you thought about everything that might have happened. And shame on her for trying to lie.

Ko-Ko

[Rose2Bear]

Like Ko-Ko said, you definetly did all you could to try to find a record of her ordering tickets.  I'd say you are most likely correct in your assertion that she was trying to scam some tickets by placing the blame on you.

Question though - people really call the wrong theatre company to order tickets? Don't they realize this mistake right away and call the correct company, or do people accidently order tickets for plays they dont really want to see?

[stanthedevil]

Question though - people really call the wrong theatre company to order tickets? Don't they realize this mistake right away and call the correct company, or do people accidently order tickets for plays they dont really want to see?

Oh yeah, more frequently than most people would believe.

There are five community theatre organizations.  Three share the same facility and two have similar names.  People will often call my theatre for tickets at the one with the similar name.  Many people have poor listening skills and don't listen when I answer the phone, "Community theatre box office, this is Stan, how can I help you?"  They also don't listen to the show name when you ask them, "Two tickets on January 10th for Popular Musical, right?"  They usually catch it by "You're all set for two tickets to Popular Musical on January 10th at 7:30pm.  We recommend that you arrive..."  By that time most people cut me off and say, "Wait, I wanted tickets for Comedy/Drama.  Isn't this Community Theatre II?"

We also get people arriving at our facility for shows at other theatres.  They usually realized when they get inside that they are at the wrong theatre.  However, I had one woman stand in the will call line and throw a fit when I couldn't find her ticket.  After several minutes, I happened to mention the name of the show and she finally realized she was at the wrong building.  In many people's minds, all five organizations are the same even though we are all separate organizations.

[blue_bunny_paz]

I used to have things like this at work. People seem to think you can magically put in more seats if they kick up a fuss. You have to wonder whether she thought her name might magically appear if she insisted hard enough.

[Lunadiana75]

The definition of insanity is doing the samething over and over and expecting a different result.  From my years of working with the public, I can say with certainity, the majority of people out there are completely toppings of the shilling.

[aj_prettiful]

I once, when working at a restaurant, had a man come in and complain to my manager that he wanted a free dinner.  He said that he had been there for lunch and the girl behind the counter was very rude and that made him unhappy, so he deserved a meal ticket.  He described the rude girl in full detail.  She was a college-aged brunette girl with short hair (a boy's haircut, he kept saying) and green eyes.  Funny that the only girl working in the front was a high-school aged African American girl with braids well past her shoulders.  The only other girl working was me, but I was in the back, and even if he had seen me, I had long (past me shoulder blades) brown hair with brown eyes and thick glasses at the time.  None of us remember seeing him earlier.   We figured he was either mentally unstable or saying anything to get a free meal.  You would think if he was trying to get a free meal, he'd at least describe someone in less detail ("darker hair and eyes, girl") or just point to one of us and hope that we were there for the lunch shift.

[Alida]

I worked for a medical lab many years ago.  One Monday morning, I had an irate nurse call the office, the echo telling me that she had me on speakerphone, saying that they didn't get the specimen they ordered and how could we have disappointed their patient?!  After all, they'd called and left a message!

I kept myself from laughing.  "Nurse X-," I said in my most professional tone.  "I am ever so sorry, but if you left an order on an answering machine, it wasn't ours.  We do not have one.  I can't imagine who you must have called!"

She sputtered a bit and I was off speakerphone.

Gee.  It would help if you had a clue, lady.  We didn't have an answering machine because we wanted to avoid issues just like that!

[IndianInlaw]

Speaking of promising tickets to one's friends, when I worked for the fairground administration, my boss decided he would get free tickets for his mom and her friends.

This was before scanners and wristbands, so my coworker had a big roll of tickets.  She would tear off as many tickets as needed and send them to the exhibitors, so they could get in.  My boss saw this big 'ol roll of tickets and helped himself when nobody was around.

The next time the lady went to send tickets, she saw a huge gap in the serial numbers, from where she left off.   She told the boss she had to account for the tickets. (By the way, she could have had his job, but she didn't want to travel).   Since the tickets had been given away, he had to pay for all of them.

This was the same idiot who ran his personal Christmas cards through the office postage meter and sent one to the treasurer.

[Cellardoor14]

I once, when working at a restaurant, had a man come in and complain to my manager that he wanted a free dinner.  He said that he had been there for lunch and the girl behind the counter was very rude and that made him unhappy, so he deserved a meal ticket.  He described the rude girl in full detail.  She was a college-aged brunette girl with short hair (a boy's haircut, he kept saying) and green eyes.  Funny that the only girl working in the front was a high-school aged African American girl with braids well past her shoulders.  The only other girl working was me, but I was in the back, and even if he had seen me, I had long (past me shoulder blades) brown hair with brown eyes and thick glasses at the time.  None of us remember seeing him earlier.   We figured he was either mentally unstable or saying anything to get a free meal.  You would think if he was trying to get a free meal, he'd at least describe someone in less detail ("darker hair and eyes, girl") or just point to one of us and hope that we were there for the lunch shift.

I had a similar thing happen in retail.

A woman came in and wanted to make a complaint about  a transaction she had earlier in the day with the "sales girl with short blonde hair and funny accent"  Unfortunately, there that only been two of us working that department, me (with red hair at the time and no accent) and a man.

We went on and on some sort of bizarre comedy for a bit.  Then when I politely ventured that perhaps she had her stores confused. (People often got our shop and similar one at the other end of the mall confused.)  She got a strange look of her face, called me a name not normally used in polite compnay and rushed off.

Ah... the joys of working with the public.

(I've also worked in a number of theatres and helped with box office and have seen all of it too 

[ccnumber4]

I have a phone number that is one digit off from a nice lady named Cheryl.  I have never met Cheryl, but she will sometimes leave me messages like "Johnny will not be at his piano lesson tonight" or "The vet needs you to call him back" or "Your mother called."  She has been known to play along on occasion, though, probably when she is bored. 

She once cancelled my window washers when they called because she said she had scheduled a babysitter.  Fortunately, they called back (the correct number this time) and we got it straightened out. 

The weird thing about that one was, the window washer actually heard me correctly, but assumed the mistake was mine, because he had never heard of anyone with my prefix, while mixed-up prefix is pretty common.  So instead of clarifying with me, he went ahead and wrote down the number he thought I should have. 

 

[T'Mar of Vulcan]

We've had parents insist that they've paid their school fees when they haven't. (School fees are mandatory here unless you get exemption, which you have to apply for and go through a whole process.) "I gave my child R2,000 to give to the teacher, so therefore I don't owe anything!" And the secretary has to explain that, no, there's no record of it.

Teachers are told to keep careful records of ALL money paid in - we have sheets to sign, boxes to put the money in, etc. And we must keep our records for a year afterwards. This is due to a parent who pulled this, saying he'd paid R3,000. And the teacher knew darn well that he hadn't, but she had thrown away all her transaction sheets, so there was no proof. The school had to take him at his word and credit him with R3,000 when we knew he hadn't paid. (He was one of those notorious parents who never paid a dime because "schooling should be free". Yeah, and I want world peace; deal with the fact that it's not gonna happen anytime soon!)

[Lizmo]

I work in guest services at an amusement park in the summers, and stuff like this happens all time freaking time.  It's amazing the people who actually will outright lie to you about something just to try to get something for free.  Of course, that may not be exactly true in your case, but a lot of times that's what these people are out for.  We have the biggest problems with "Will Call" tickets--people order over the phone and their tickets should be there waiting for them.  THey think there is no way to verify the exact number of tickets they ordered, the exact price they should pay, or the exact person they talked to.  When a ticket is ordered though, it's not only written on a paper order form, but then entered into the computer system, and then the paper is filed away for safekeeping.  You don't know how many times someone tries to claim nonexistent tickets, or tries to tell us she talked to a "gentleman" when the only people she would have talked to are female!  I could go on forever.  But I LOVE my job.  There truly is something about proving people wrong...with a big smile on your face and a pleasant attitude.