Mini Chapter with the Customer: Christmas Special

A customer arrived at the Box Office with a pre-adolescent child 8 minutes after the show-time...

Me: May I have your last name please?
Customer: Smith. [Her real name is not used]
[I started searching for her tickets in the 'S' compartment in the ticket box]
Me: And your first name?
Customer: Jane.
[Weird...No tickets under that name.]
Me: Might the tickets be purchased under a name of a friend or family member ?
Customer: What! You can't find them! Shit! I'm going to be late because you are f*cking disorganized!
[She pounded her purse on the counter surface.]
Me: (Wh-at? I'm pretty sure that you arrived late to begin with...)May I have a look at the credit card the you've purchased the tickets with.
[She tossed me her card which my supervisor grabbed to run a credit card search in our ticketing system (to locate her transaction) while I search the Master List for her name...which I still could not locate; all the while, the constant execration and purse pounding did not tire her. The computer was taking a while to run the credit card search so I wrote her a pass for emergency seats under the best judgement that it's unlikely for further ticket sales to take place at that point since the show has already started and that we could also hunt her down during the intermission if we could not locate her purchase, which would mean that she did not buy any tickets.

Turns out, she did bought the tickets and they were purchased online. Unfortunately, she inverted her fist and last name when checking out her basket items. Consequently, we had her tickets printed and filed in the 'J' compartment under the name of Smith Jane.

I don't know if customers are aware of the intensity of their abusiveness could send the customer service person, who is helping them, further into panic mood, which hinders our ability to think clearly and problem solve. In all seriousness, it has always been our preeminent pursuit to strive to be calm, level headed and collected.

That being said, I'll keep in mind for the future to search under the customer's first name when I couldn't find their tickets under their last name. Lesson learned.]