The Rude Russian
Allow me to set the scene.
I was sitting at my desk, at my job, like one does, high pony intact. It was a Sunday, but I was only there for 4 hours, 1-5pm. The office is always busy with foot traffic, tours, vendors, etc. I had appointments booked for every hour, and even some in between. It was an appointment only kinda day.
In a nutshell, my job consists of showing people luxury apartments and attempting to convince them to lease. Since they are dramatically priced, you can imagine the dramatics that live here, and tour here.
A white family of 3 walks through the lobby doors, a woman with a french bob and a green sundress, carrying a toddler, and a rather short man with his hat on sideways, and a pair of jorts. They approach me, and through the thickness of his russian accent, the man tells me he has an appointment. I ask for his name, and once I have it, I tell him we do not have an appointment under his name, and although we are completely booked today, I can still schedule him for a tour at a later date. Simple enough huh? Nope. Never is.
He begins to get upset with me, shoving his phone in my face saying “You have to tour me NOW, I set up a tour with you.” His phone was showing a promotional email from Domino's Pizza. I politely told him I can't tour him at this time and he will need to reschedule. He continued, show me now, show me an apartment right now! His yelling is beginning to make me wildly uncomfortable, and I do not know how to make pizza. His wife starts cursing me out, calling me every name in the book, so finally I say, “Ma’am, that is a Domino’s Pizza Ad. You do not have an appointment here, but we can set one up.” You dumb bitch.
She snatches one of my business cards from my table, and her and her miniature husband storm off. The next day, I arrive to this email in our shared inbox.
“To the [redacted] property managers,
I am writing to bring to your attention an unfortunate experience we had with your agent, Zoe Arredondo.
On Sunday (05/28) at 1.30pm, my wife, our 4-year-old daughter, and I arrived at the designated time for a tour. However, when we met your leasing agent, she informed us that she didn't see my name in her system, despite me showing her an email. To my dismay, she responded by saying: "You know what? Now I don't feel comfortable showing you apartments.” This was highly unprofessional and inappropriate. Please communicate to your employee that our intention was to rent an apartment and pay $2500 a month. It is her responsibility to show us the available units. We are engaging in a business transaction, and she should not project her personal feelings onto the clients. If she has any personal issues, she can express them to her family or husband, but not to clients. I want to emphasize that throughout the interaction, I was not rude, argumentative, or raised my voice. As a result of this incident, we have decided not to proceed with renting an apartment from your establishment, despite the fact that our close friends are residents and recommended [redacted] to us as a great place to live. As an employee of Apple Inc., we have the means to comfortably afford this type of lifestyle. I kindly request that you investigate this incident and take appropriate action.”
Listen guy, if you were actually serious about getting me in trouble, why didn't you include the fact that you were indeed showing me an email from goddamn Domino’s? Super convenient, and a little silly, that you left that out. The only thing inappropriate was your outfit choice. And the fact that your wife may be into dwarfs. But that's neither here nor there.
Super typical to leave out all the harassing and comments made during the short interaction that it was. People are liars, and in the business I'm in, you learn that alot. Also, I don't care that you work for Apple, you're short, prolly give bad dick, and seem extremely miserable, taking the toddler into consideration, and frankly, the sideways hat. “To my dismay-” like shut the fuck up dude, this email is not going to save the fucking world so lets just all relax.
I know some of you who are reading this are like Zoe what the fuck, why didnt you put his ass in his place?? LOOK, if I could do so without losing my very stable job, I WOULD. Also, who knew angry Russians are actually terrifying?
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But it doesn't end there. It never does in the apartment industry.
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I had a 40 something year old woman call me once while I was working, she called our office line. She lives where I work, on the fifth floor, and has been having some trouble paying rent lately, but instead of getting THAT handled, she calls asking for a storage unit to be added to her lease. And yes we did have some available at the time, so I explained to her what's able to rent what's not. At the time, I was still fairly new to the property, so I was still getting used to the rentable items system we use that tracks availability and all that.
I kind of stumble over my words speaking to her and she starts to ask me why I keep stuttering and telling me I need to talk right. I told her that her comment was off topic and irrelevant to the conversation, just trying to swerve this fucken thing she's throwing at me. She starts going off on me and I mean offff. I'm sitting there in silence, and wait until she's done spouting, and when she stops I say, Are you done? She did not like that response at all. I was asking a simple question though, like are you done bitch? Been yelling for 20 mins, need some water hoe?
She tells me she's gonna come down there and talk to my manager. She actually never came down. So fast forward a couple months she comes down asking about the wifi password to the clubhouse, so I give it to her, and she was really nice about it all, and went on with herself. I didn't recognize her at first, but It just felt like any other interaction. She comes back to my desk all upset about some charges on her account. I explained the charges and she asked me to remove some and I told her I couldn't do that. So she says, i wanna talk to your manager, CLASSIC! So I tell her where his office is (right goddamn behind me) and to feel free to step in and discuss with him. She tells me it's not her job it's mine.I give her a look like ooookay bitch, then proceed to get my manager. He comes out after I explain to him how she's acting, and omg she goes off. She tells him I'm a liar, I'm putting words in her mouth, and that I better not catch her outside. I was like ladyyyyyyy. How old are you?
She is, in fact, 39. That was the last interaction we’ve had.
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To every motherfucker who thinks it's okay to verbally abuse customer service workers on a daily basis, you deserve nothing but the worst.
Like why do you care so badly, I am 20 and you're pushing 40 like what is this really about babe? What do we think is the root of the problem here? Because I promise you it’s not me. I just work here babes, I don't run shit at all. And I know you know that. It’s always the middle aged or really old motherfuckers that love to try me. I get called so many things by the people that live in this fucking apartment complex, and best part is, im moving in! Yup, right amongst all of them. I love my job, and I know I'm going to love my new apartment here, but I swear to god. When I'm off the clock and someone wants to try me or my boyfriend, they’re in for a rude awakening.
Okay i'm done going off, but if you take anything away from this, please take this:
Call out your friends who mistreat service workers. Call out your family who mistreat service workers. Lose your boyfriend if he’s rude to your waiter.
xo, zo
