People Divulge Their Most Frustrating Customer Experiences
55. You Found A Spider In Your Grapes? Let's See If He'll Fight The Other Ones
“I worked at a Stop and Shop in the produce department part-time for a few years. There was a kid who worked there named Bobby, who sold substances from time to time but had a really good sense of humor.
One day, we get a call from a customer saying she found a spider in her grapes. Bobby answers and handles it properly, explaining that sometimes bugs do come in on the fruit and that he was sorry that happened.
She, however, says that she’s bringing it in so we can test whether it’s poisonous or not. The problem is, we don’t do that. It’s a bug. Kill it.
She comes in 45 minutes later with this spider in a Tupperware container and starts asking me what we’re going to do with it. As I’m backpedaling my way through the conversation, Bobby walks up saying, ‘Oh, you’re the spider lady!’
He grabs the container and notes how big the spider is, which freaks her out a little bit. She asks him once again what we are going to do with it and, with the most serious tone, he just says, ‘Probably going to shake him up and see if he’ll fight the other ones we have out back.’
Then he just walks away.
Lady went crazy on me. I laughed my head off.”
54. When The Customer Isn't Always Right, It's Your Job To Set Them Straight
“Worked at EB Games when I was 18, in a city in Canada known for its rednecks.
A man in his 40s came in and spent at least three hours browsing every single title on the wall. He refused my help several times and eventually came up to the counter with five brand new games on almost every system we carried. After ringing in his selection of Cabela’s hunting, Nascar racing, and UFC fighting, he paid and left.
Several hours later, the man returns! He throws open the front door (it was a stand-alone store) and yells, ‘What kind of crap are you running here?’
He is red in the face and stomps towards me and throws his bag of games onto the counter. ‘None of these work!’ he yells. ‘This is a crap store! What kind of business…!’
This man continues to rant and yell at me for a minute or so before he decides to take a breath.
I decided to ask him a question. ‘So, you tried the games in your Xbox, PC and PlayStation and none of them worked?’
His reply was, ‘I just got that new player from Wal-Mart this afternoon and none of these games work!’
Of course, he doesn’t know the name of the ‘disc player’ that he bought. After several painful minutes, he showed me the Wal-Mart receipt that he took out of his pocket.
He bought a DVD player.”
53. Next Time You Need To Complain That Something Isn't Working, Push The Only Button First
“I had just started working in a car stereo shop. I was maybe 16 or 17 and had just gotten through training. I was still answering phones and sweeping floors.
I answered a call from an irate woman saying the portable Garmin GPS we hardwired into her car wasn’t turning on.
I asked her questions like, ‘Is it firmly in the dock? Are the wires tight?’ Et cetera, et cetera.
She pulled one of those, ‘I’m not an idiot, let me speak to your manager’ rants, so I relented. He (out of habit) asked the same questions. She hung up on him, screaming.
She calls back a few minutes later. New manager, same questions. She was livid, and on her way down.
Half an hour later she shows up, screaming, ‘I’m not an idiot and if one more of you jerks tells me to push the power button, I’m going to slap the heck out of them!’
I, the new guy, get thrown under the bus and sent to her car to check everything out.
I hop in the car, start it, push the power button, and it turns on.
She looks at me, dumbfounded, and asks, ‘What did you do?’
‘Don’t slap me, but I pushed the power button,’ I said, and I pointed to the only button on the GPS.
Still dumbfounded, she pointed to the big shiny eject button on the mount and asked what that button was then.
‘The eject button—it’s the same logo as the eject button on your radio. See how the unit comes out when you press it?’
She promptly, and very red-faced from embarrassment, ordered me out of her car and then peeled out of the lot.
I’ve never laughed at someone so hard.”
52. Accuse Me Of Being A Greedy Salesperson? Here You Go, Ma'am, Problem Solved
“I once had a customer service rep call me to the front of the store because a couple was screaming at her, saying that I sold them the wrong game for their console.
I went up to the front, and they shifted their screaming back and forth between the two of us, but it was mainly directed at me, because I was apparently a greedy salesperson who purposely sold them a game that was incompatible with the Nintendo DS (that I had also sold them) just so I could roll around in my filthy lucre while cackling away at their misfortune.
Anyway, in between the yelling, I managed to glean from them that their issue was that the game cartridge wouldn’t actually fit into the console. So, I picked up the game cartridge and slid it into the machine with no problems. They both shut up and stared at it for a second. The wife began to yell at me again (something about tricking them and making them look bad) while the husband shushed her and apologized. He explained that they had gone home and handed the whole lot to their 4-year-old to figure out, but their 4-year-old kept trying to put the cartridge in backward.
Apparently, it never occurred to them to look into the matter themselves, as their toddler had things well in hand, and the obvious conclusion was that I had sold them the wrong thing. On purpose.”
51. I Know You Didn't Have To Do It At Home, But This Is Staples, Ma'am
“I work in the print center at Staples.
Some older lady brought in her laptop and asked if I could print an e-mail off for her. She booted it up and proceeded to get angry because her Internet wasn’t working. I explained that she would need to connect to our store wi-fi to work.
No, she told me, that was unacceptable and ‘made no sense.’ After all, she ‘didn’t have to do that at home.’ She proceeded to start yelling at me that I did something to her computer to delete her Internet.
I hadn’t even touched her computer at this point.
She pushes her laptop toward me and says, ‘Fine, you do it then.’
I connected her to our wi-fi. (Oh, her computer was a mess. Her desktop was completely covered in icons). I gave it back to her so she could get to her e-mail. ‘See, this is my Internet. I told you…’ she half mumbles, in irritation.
Now, she doesn’t know where her e-mail is.
‘Usually, it’s automatically on there,’ she says. I ask her what e-mail she uses. Gmail? Yahoo? Hotmail? She looks at me like I’m stupid. ‘Why does that matter?’ she asks.
At this point, I’m getting annoyed. I have several other customers waiting on me. I mess around on her bookmarks, hoping that it was on there somewhere. Thank goodness, it was. I connected her to the Comcast e-mail site.
She doesn’t know her password. After a few botched password guesses, she decides to call her son to ask him. I help the other customers while she does this. I come back and she gives me the correct password. I get into her e-mail. She doesn’t remember which e-mail it was. I’m going one by one in her inbox. Nope. She then tells me it was from a few months ago. Are you kidding me?
I had to sift through 3 months of spam to find it. It was an EXPIRED spa coupon.
I pointed out that it was expired and she waved it off and told me to print it out. I explained that I would need to transfer it to a flash drive to print off from our computer. She tells me that it should print off from her computer. ‘That’s what it does at home!’ she declares.
I have a headache at this point.
Then, the Windows update thing pops up.
I ignore it while I’m trying to transfer the file over. ‘What are you doing?’ she cries. ‘You can’t ignore that.’
She pulls the laptop toward her and presses update, which requires it to shut down. No, she didn’t postpone it for 4 hours. She does it for right now. I am so annoyed at this point.
The computer turns off and she turns it back on and lets the 100+ updates proceed. She’s there for at least another hour letting it update before giving up and leaving.
She didn’t even get her coupon.”
50. Moral Of The Story? Don't Provoke A Zookeeper Unless You Want To See Something Gross
“My friend, Orin, worked at a zoo in my hometown for a number of years. While there, he acquired a vast reserve of amazing stories about zoos and terrible, amazing things that happen there—generally to the morons who don’t follow the signs and read the rules. This story is not about the idiot employees—this is all about entitled customers and their downfall.
So, picture this, dear readers:
Orin worked a number of jobs at the zoo, but he mostly took care of the herpetology area, so he cleaned out snake cages, handled poisonous frogs (with great care), corralled venomous snakes (with less care, oddly), and helped out with the tortoise enclosure.
This last one is the setting for our tale, where Orin was wandering through the giant tortoise space picking up the random trash that careless zoo-goers throw into the area, when he smelled something a little off.
Investigating further, he found that a rat had died in an area that the tortoises can’t get to (otherwise they would have eaten it), and it was starting to smell.
He didn’t want to touch it with his hands, so he went to get one of the cups that had been thrown into the enclosure so he could scoop up the slightly gooey rat carcass, managing to collect most of it in a single swipe. He then headed quickly for the exit to find a trash can, into which the entire thing could be dumped.
However, on the walkway that winds through the tortoise area, a visitor saw Orin scoop up something out of view and walk quickly toward the zookeeper’s exit.
This visitor was a woman of middle age, quite skinny, wearing big jewelry and big, bleached hair. And she was pretty pushy. She rushed down her little path, slammed open the door, and caught Orin as he was leaving the tortoise area, standing right in front of him and asking, ‘What’s in the cup?’
Orin was a little surprised to see someone confront him about this, and he lifted the cup out of the lady’s line of sight.
‘Look, ma’am, you do not want to see what is in that cup.’
‘I bet you have a baby turtle in there, don’t you? You have a baby turtle and you’re not showing everyone.’
‘Ma’am, this is not a baby turtle. You do not want to see it, it is disgusting.’ Orin was pretty calm and even-tempered no matter what. Perhaps you have to be to work in a zoo.
She became more aggressive. ‘You can’t just hide things like that! I’m a paying customer and I should be able to see the baby animals too. Just because you work here doesn’t mean that you can choose what the visitors can and can’t see.’
‘Ma’am, listen to me. I am not trying to trick you, I am not trying to hide anything. You do not want to see what is in this cup.’
‘I’m going to go find a manager unless you let me see that baby turtle!’
By now, a smallish crowd had gathered around the altercation, as the woman had begun yelling her complaint.
‘Ma’am, it’s not—’
‘Just let me see!’
‘Fine.’
So he did. He lowered the cup so that she could see into it, and she bent over to get a good look at the cute little turtle this jerk had apparently been hiding from her, a paying customer. I’m not sure what, exactly, she saw, or what configuration of rat-slime greeted her when she bent over. What I do know is that she puked right then and there. Projectile vomit, right into the ground, from mouth and nose. Orin leaped back, nimbly as a cat, while the woman stood there, bent over her own pile of sick, both of them stunned and surprised.
Orin turned, found a trash can for the cup of rat, and left so that some other zookeeper could have the fun of hosing down the area.”
49. Every Now And Then, I Still Think Of This Guy When I Look At My iPod
“In 1992, I had a job at the call center for a well-known manufacturer. This particular manufacturer made (and still makes) many consumer products for the home. They used to make home electronics (TVs, VCRs, etc.) but had sold that division to another company a few years prior.
Anyway, one Saturday morning, a man called (no idea of his age, but he sounded a little older—maybe 50s or 60s).
He and his wife had been going around to the local yard sales, and he had purchased a stash of brand-new (as in, never opened) 8-track tapes. He was calling around to different electronics companies to see if he could find an 8-track player for them.
Now, we commonly got calls from people looking for discontinued products, so I patiently explained that our company no longer made electronics at all, having sold that division.
I told him that 8-tracks were an obsolete technology, so he would be best-served checking electronics repair shops or places that sold used electronics.
He couldn’t understand. ‘But these are brand new!’ he kept saying. ‘What do you mean it’s obsolete?’
I told him that people had moved on to better technology; because the 8-tracks tended to jam and the pinch heads tended to cause the audio to be weird, people eventually moved to cassette tapes and then onto CDs (which was the hip, happening technology of the day).
But this guy? He didn’t want to go to a used electronics store. He wanted someone to sell him a brand new 8-track player—in 1992! He did NOT want to hear my answers. In his mind, he had gotten a bargain on new 8-track cartridges, and by goodness, someone was going to sell him a brand new 8-track player.
I kept explaining, and he just got livid, one of the angriest customers I ever spoke to in my six years at that call center. He finally demanded the contact information for the company we’d sold our electronics division to, and before he hung up, he spat at me.
‘I will find a new one!’ he yelled, and slammed the phone down.
Every now and then, I look at my iPod, and at my cell phone that plays MP3s, and I think of that guy.”
48. Yelling At IT Staff For No Reason? The FBI Is Coming To Get You, Buddy
“I work for a Fortune 100 internal IT Help Desk. Our boss answers to the CIO and doesn’t allow employees to treat IT help badly. They can and will be in trouble if they abuse IT staff on the phone. So if a customer yells at us, we can do pretty much whatever because the boss is cool.
Having said that, a work-from-home customer, who was using his personal home wireless internet, was raging mad because his ‘internet was turned off.’ After much discussion, it became clear that he hadn’t paid his personal internet bill and his home carrier had shut off the service.
He couldn’t understand that the IT Help Desk of his employer had no power to shut off (or turn on) his home carrier’s internet. He just raged like he wanted to kill me and made me feel both shell-shocked and then spitting mad.
I finally calmed him down and said in a whisper that the FBI had called us (his company) because he had been downloading illegal stuff and told us to turn off his internet, but that I wasn’t supposed to tell him that. I told him he could try calling the Comcast number on his bill to see if they would turn it back on.
He quietly said, ‘Oh, my God,’ under his breath and hung up quickly.”
47. This Lady Asked For Absolutely Nothing But Still Got Mad When She Received What She Wanted
“I’m a hairdresser. This is a type of customer I get enough of that I can hardly hide my contempt whenever one sits in my chair. Although, I do it anyway through gritted teeth.
This woman scheduled for a haircut with me. No color, no perm, nothing but a haircut.
She sits in my chair and says, ‘I’m bored with my hair and I want something fun and completely different.
But I hate layers, I don’t want any bangs, I don’t want to lose any length and I just want to get out of the shower, shake it out and not have to style it with tools. Go ahead and cut it in whatever style you think will look different, but no layers, no bangs and no length off.’
‘So, essentially you want me to do absolutely nothing, right?’ I tell her.
The woman sitting in my chair goes, ‘Huh? No, I want a new look.’
‘Well, if I don’t cut it in any of the ways you made a point to say you didn’t want, then essentially all I can do is style it with something like a curling iron or a flat iron and that is it in order for it to look different.’
She says, ‘I don’t want that.
I came here for a haircut.’
And then my eyes roll into the back of my head while I try to explain to her that according to her request, she’s asking me not to cut her hair. What happens, in the end, is that if I cannot get her to agree to either layers, bangs, or some length taken off, I usually only end up trimming the tips of her hair.
She leaves disappointed that her hair doesn’t look different and is essentially the same as when she walked in the door.”
46. People Like This Seriously Shouldn't Be Allowed To Purchase Dangerous Chemicals
“In high school, I worked at a local hardware store. We also refilled propane tanks for gas grills. After a summer or two of doing ten or more tanks a day, you get good at estimating how full a tank is just by picking it up.
One particularly hot day, a customer comes in, sets his tank down next to me, and asks for a fill-up. I pick up the tank and inform him that the tank is full and does not need a fill-up.
He looks pretty agitated already with this short exchange and says that he checked that it was empty, once again asking if I would just fill it up.
To this, I inquired how he checked. There are several ways to check—one of them is by the weight of the tank; another way is by using the thermal strip on the side (which his tank did not have).
The last way is to pour hot water down the side and feel where it gets cold.
His reply assured me that this was one blithering idiot lucky to be alive. He said he checked it by holding his lighter in front of the valve and opening it. To this, I replied, ‘You ought to write to your congressman and representative because they saved your life today. This tank has an OPD safety valve on it that prevents the gas from coming out without anything attached.’
He walked out without another word and with a very red face.”
45. When Trying To Be Nice Gets You Yelled At, Give The Customer What They Want
“When I worked at a pizza place, I used to just give people coupons without telling them. Pizza is way too expensive and I was not fond of being yelled at for the prices I have no control over. So I would just punch in a coupon code to drop their price whenever we were busy.
Occasionally, I would get yelled at by the customer for doing this.
‘Why is the price different than normal?’ they would ask.
‘Ma’am, we are really busy right now, so I gave you a discount because your delivery will probably be on the upper end of an hour.’
‘Well that’s bull, you messed up the order!’
I’d simply give them what they want and say, ‘Fine, here. Your order is $20 more now.’
Then I would write something nasty about the customer in the hidden comments, so people wouldn’t be nice to them in the future.”
44. If You Think I'm Being Incompetent, Take A Look In The Mirror (Or At A Photograph)
“A friend told this story in college, and it always amused me.
She worked in a camera store, and this was the early 90s, so pre-digital camera era. This woman comes in, wanting to get some photos developed. She hands my friend the whole camera (not unusual—apparently a lot of people didn’t know how to get the film out after they were done with a roll, so this part wasn’t uncommon).
My friend examines the camera, and this ends up going down:
‘Ma’am, there’s no film in here,’ says my friend.
The woman replies, straight-faced, ‘That’s okay, I still took the pictures.’
‘But there’s no film in the camera.’
‘I know, but I took the pictures anyway, so please get them out.’
‘But, you would have to have had film in the camera first.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ says the woman. ‘I pressed the button. There are pictures in there. Please get them out.’
And so on, for quite some time. It ended with the woman storming off, convinced my friend was incompetent.”
43. If I'm The Stupid One Here, Ma'am, We Might Have A Problem
“Worked in an ice cream parlor. A woman asks for a chocolate ice cream. I ask if that’s scoop or soft serve and she says scoop.
I give her the scoop of ice cream and she says, ‘No, I meant the other chocolate ice cream.’
We had one of those soft-serve machines that produced different flavors, so I pointed to the photo of the chocolate serve on the machine to confirm and she, once again, nodded. When I handed it to her she got really angry and yelled, ‘Are you stupid? That’s not what I wanted!’
After much confusion, it turned out that by ‘chocolate ice cream’, she meant vanilla soft serve with chocolate sprinkles.
She snatched the correct order out of my hands and flounced out in disgust.”
42. Sir, I Think The Red-Labeled Chicken Is As Red As Your Face
“I work in a grocery store.
We once had a sale on a big batch of fresh chicken. The wings were $9.90, and the breasts were $9.95. Weird pricing, I know, but the signs clearly labeled them correctly. There was also a display for close-dated chicken that was $3 off, and these were also clearly labeled.
This jerk-wad guy comes up to my register with three chicken packages and throws them down on the belt.
I smile and say hello, and he says, ‘How come you’re charging me more for some chicken than the others?’
I tell him because the chicken with the red label is close-dated and management needs to sell it quickly, therefore making it cheaper. He then started getting more aggressive. ‘Why in the world did you put out bad chicken? Are you dumb or something?’
At this point, I’m a little shocked, but I grab the chicken and ring it up.
‘Now wait a minute, I never said I wanted that chicken you’re trying to poison me with.’
I ignore him, void the chicken off the transaction, and ask him if he needs help with anything. He retorts, ‘Yeah, dingbat, ring up my chicken.’
I’m starting to lose it a little, but I grab the first package of chicken, which happens to be close-dated, and scan it. I look up and he’s giving me the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen.
I grab the second package—the $9.90 wings—and scan it. Immediately, he claims I over-charged him. I show him the sign and the label, but he still rants on about me ‘over-charging’ him.
Ready to get this guy out of my hair, I grab the last package of chicken, the $9.95 breasts, and scan it. Shockingly enough, he thinks I’m making a conscious effort to rip him off, yet again.
‘Who do you think you are stealing from me like that?’
After a solid 45 seconds of screaming, he finally pays the total and storms out.
The story doesn’t end there, however. He returned the next day. My dad is the manager, and he swung a pretty nice deal on gallons of Simply Lemonade. He bought an incredible amount of lemonade and put them for sale at $1.
Still in a bad mood from the night before, I’m not happy when I see the guy strut up to my register.
He throws the gallon of lemonade on the belt and gives me the glare. I make sure not to greet him this time. I scan the lemonade and tell him the total: $1.07. As you might expect, he says, ‘You over-charged me.’
I reply, ‘No, I didn’t.’
He goes on to tell me I’m dumb as can be, as the sign says $1.
I have to explain to him that his total is $1.07 because juice is taxable unless it has more than 70% fruit juice, and Simply Lemonade is only 11% lemonade.
His reply? ‘You’re just stupid. You’re the reason this country is going down the crap-hole. I don’t want your darn lemonade.’
He proceeded to grab the bottle and throw it at a display of paper towels nearby, causing quite a mess. He stormed out, screaming, ‘I’m never spending a dime here again!'”
41. You Want Me To Check For The Thing I Told You We Don't Have? Sure—We Still Don't Have It
“I worked at a little local burger joint back in high school. For the kid’s meal, there was a burger, fries, drink, and then a little pack of Oreo cookies.
One day, a woman comes in and asks what our kid’s meal includes. I tell her, and she says, ‘They don’t come with toys?’
‘No, ma’am, we don’t have toys, just cookies.’
She then asks if I could check to make sure there were no toys. I said sure, hesitating a bit, and proceeded to look under the counter. ‘Napkins, salt and pepper, ketchup, mustard, cookies… no toys.’
To this day, I regret not just saying ‘Sure!’ and standing there for five seconds, staring at her, and then confidently saying, ‘Nope! No toys.'”
40. You Want A Meat Lovers Pizza With No Meat? Ma'am, That's A Cheese Pizza
“I was working at Pizza Hut when this happened.
Some snarky woman called in and asked, ‘Can I have a Meat Lovers pizza with no ham, beef, pork, sausage, or pepperoni?’
‘That’s a cheese pizza, ma’am,’ I said.
‘No! I want a Meat Lovers pizza!’
‘With no meat? That’s a cheese pizza.’
Woman fumes.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘One Meat Lovers pizza coming up.’
The great thing is, since she insisted, I just rang it up as Meat Lovers and removed the toppings so she ended up paying $5 more for the pizza.”
39. When Your Computer Starts To Smell Like Burning Metal, Maybe It's Time To Stop Putting Coins Into It
“When I worked at BestBuy for the remainder of my school semester, I thought I wouldn’t encounter any ‘crazy’ stuff.
Apparently, I was wrong. A lady comes in with her 12-year-old son and explains her computer is smelling like burning metal. Here’s what went down:
‘Welcome to BestBuy, what can I do for you today?’
‘Yes, I bought my PC about a year ago and my son plays games on it.
Recently, it has been starting to smell like burning metal. It’s gotten significantly heavier since we purchased it. Can you look at it?’
‘Absolutely. Come back in at about 3 or so.’
During that time, I opened up the PC. As soon as I opened it up, quarters and loonies (dollar coins) fell out of the computer. For one, the computer warranty was voided because they did some ‘shell modifications’ but we’ll get back to that in a second.
About 100-150 coins fell out of the computer. At this point, I’m thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ I could only assume that maybe someone played some kind of prank (my only theory).
So later, she came back and asked if it was ready. I explained that I can’t service the machine because there are shell modifications (or something of the sort). The SD-mini and Compact flash slots had no bottom to it when you put it in the computer.
I informed her of this and she said, ‘My son plays HP games all the time on our computer. It says to insert coins for extended play, so we did. After about a week, we got the same message so we figured the coins weren’t getting to HP, so my husband cut out the slots at the top of the computer so that they can be transferred.’
At this point, I want to facepalm and throw myself into oncoming traffic. I explained to her that these ‘coins’ are found online and that you can’t insert real coins into the computer and that it can damage the system.
Needless to say, I told her she needed to purchase a new GPU/CPU/Board because the coins jammed the fans and caused everything to melt. It sounded like an engine revving when you turned it on.”
38. Maybe He's Meditating, Or Maybe He's Just Completely Clueless
“I was working in my partner’s store. He’s a freelance photographer and sells camera equipment and prints. He also takes photos for Visas and IDs.
One morning, a nice gentleman in his 40s walked in and asked if he could take an ID photo. I led him into the studio where there was a chair for him in the center, with a background and lights all around.
There’s a bit of a wait so I tell him he can use the mirror first (some people want to check themselves out before the photo) and then take a seat.
He goes over to the mirror by the customer bathroom—no lights, no background, no chair—and stands there looking into it, focusing. I shrug and leave him to it. Maybe he’s doing some sort of meditation?
I go back to the office, fetch my partner, and we wait another five minutes for this man staring deeply into the mirror.
Finally, I ask if he’s ready and he looks at me, confused.
‘There wasn’t a flash or a beep,’ he says. ‘How do you know I’m done?’
He thought the mirror was a camera.”
37. No, Ma'am, We Are Not Going To Replace All Our Pictures With Robots Because You Said So
“This is a long story, but very much worth reading. This happened just a few days ago on Friday evening. I work part-time at Best Buy while I go to school, doing AP (Asset Protection).
An older woman, around 60-65 years old, looks a little intoxicated. She approaches me at the front of the store and says, ‘A year ago, I bought a tv here and got black tie protection, and it was recently stolen.
So you guys have to replace it.’
‘Sorry,’ I tell her. ‘Black tie is a protection plan against damage or technical issues, not an insurance or replacement plan.’
‘You are honor-bound to replace it,’ she says.
‘No, sorry, but we are not.’
She then wanders over to the Geek Squad desk and tells them the same thing, and they give her the same response. I’m watching her on camera, as I’m pretty sure she really is intoxicated.
She eventually wanders back up my desk, where my manager is now talking to me. She points out a large poster of a woman listening to music, above the Media Department.
‘What is that a picture of?’ she asks.
My boss replies with, ‘A woman listening to music.’
The woman points at a poster of a guy using a laptop. Again, she asks, ‘What is that a picture of?’
‘A guy using a computer,’ replies my boss.
‘You work at BestBuy, so you should know that TVs and monitors look at your face and read your mind. They memorize all of your personal information. However, when they try to read the mind of pictures, they cannot, and they break. So you need to replace all those pictures of people, with pictures of robots.’
My boss still tries to be political and boss-like. ‘Well I appreciate that feedback and we will certainly…’
The woman quickly cuts him off and says, ‘No, you must replace the pictures with pictures of robots, now!’
‘We are not going to do that.’
‘You have to!’
My boss simply says, ‘No.’
The woman wanders off and eventually gets in her car. She drives off—the scariest part of all.”
36. When You Muck Up Your Own Parade, Don't Complain When It's Over
“I used to do IT consulting and I was out at a law firm that had a bunch of older women secretaries.
Well, one day, their scanner/copier/fax machine was completely down. The toner had somehow exploded on the inside and coated every last internal piece. No idea how, since no one would cop up to it and that’s how it was when we got the call.
So, number one, I am not the copier guy, and they had a contract to call when that stuff exploded.
They instead call us to drive out there to call someone else to come fix it. They would not let us call from our office, so we had to drive 20 miles to their downtown office to call the number on the front that was next to big bold letters that literally said, ‘Call Us First If There Is A Problem.’
Anyway, I digress.
I take out the toner and do some spot cleaning just to be nice.
The unit is wide open, all the doors on it are open and the toner cartridge is sitting next to it. This unit is like 4 1/2 feet tall Kyocera, so it’s hard to miss when it’s being broken.
One of the ladies walks up and pushes the filthy cartridge over. It hits the floor and goes poof. Ink goes everywhere. She then closes the doors to it and tries to scan a document.
The unit is off with no power and she yells at me while I am in the service room getting some gloves on.
‘Why can’t I scan?’ she cries. ‘I need to scan! OP, get in here and fix this!’
I tell her that it’s obviously down and the company is coming out to resolve the issue. She storms off and yells very loudly at the partner that I am incompetent.
I sigh. Mind you, the office manager sent out a company-wide email 30 minutes before, saying that the unit will be down for the next day or two.
I then grab a white sheet of legal paper and write on it in giant sharpie letters, ‘UNIT IS NON-FUNCTIONAL, USE UNIT ACROSS THE HALL.’ I then go to grab the toss-able parts, take them to the trash, and come back 2 minutes later.
Another lady took the paper note that I had written, crumpled it up, tossed it aside, and was trying to scan. I was covered in toner. The wall was covered in toner from the previous lady knocking it over and the unit was also covered in toner with the doors open.
This woman goes, ‘Is the scanner not working?’
If I had any humanity left in me, it would have died right at that moment.”
35. Unlucky For You, Lady, But The Manager And The Owner Both Agree With Me
“When I was an Assistant Manager at a drive-thru car wash, I had a lady come up and ask for the manager one day.
I go up to her, and apparently, she sat at one of our pay stations for 10 minutes and no one came to help her (it’s self-service). So she had to back out. In doing so, she backed into a curb and scuffed up her rim, and told me that we had to pay for it.
I was having a bad day and really was in no mood to deal with something like this.
I told her, ‘No, ma’am, we will not be paying for damages you made to your car for your poor driving. If you were to come into our parking lot and harm a small child with your car due to your poor driving, it wouldn’t be us charged with vehicular manslaughter.
It would be you. You hit the curb so you will need to pay to fix the damages yourself. You can now leave.”
She was fuming. She said she would be back. I immediately called my manager and told him what happened and what I said word for word. He laughed. She came back the next day and the owner was actually there. He got a kick out of my analogy as well and told the lady off.
I loved that job.”
34. If You're Going To Complain At A Store, At Least Get The Store Right
“I work in retail and one day during the week after Christmas last year a woman came into the store in a huff. She said she had bought four mini remote-control helicopters for her grandkids. Then, she bought batteries for the helicopters at Walmart. On Christmas, when her grandkids tried to play with the helicopters, they found out that that particular brand of battery doesn’t work with the helicopters.
She was furious that the package the helicopters came in did not specify what brand of battery was acceptable, which I suppose I can understand. But then she wanted me to reimburse her for what she spent on the batteries… that she bought at Walmart. Because it’s clearly the store’s fault that A SEPARATE COMPANY NOT OWNED BY THE STORE did not specify on the packaging what brand of battery to use.”
33. Sorry, Sir, But We Don't Have Whales In The Butterfly House
“I volunteer as an exhibit interpreter at a certain interactive science museum in a major Pacific Northwest city that will not be named.
Since my shift is always rotating between various floor positions, I am pretty much in constant contact with the general public. Although I am no scientific genius and the concepts that the exhibits are made intellectually accessible for your average lay-person, I get my share of bizarre interactions, ridiculous assumptions, and mind-boggling questions.
Here is one of the better ones:
Our museum has an indoor tropical butterfly house and one of my shift positions is to monitor the flow of visitors entering the house and make sure they understand the rules. After reciting my spiel about not touching butterflies and picking flowers, I ask if the guests have any questions.
Once, a guy raised his hand and loudly called out, ‘Is this where the whales are?’
I was at a loss and simply asked, ‘In the butterfly house?’
‘Yeah, there were whales in the fountain outside, so I figured the whales must be around here somewhere.’
‘Sir, do you mean the orca statues?’
‘Yeah, sure.
Just tell me where the whales are.’
‘I’m sorry sir,’ I said, ‘but we aren’t properly equipped to house whales in our facility.’
‘Then why do you have statues of them in the fountain?’
‘I believe they are for decoration… like the dinosaur statues that are out there as well.’
‘Well, it’s deceptive, that’s what it is.’ He then stormed out with his family in tow, muttering about going to find somewhere in the city that did have whales.
I have also been asked by a mother while staffing our ‘touch’ tide pool if it would be okay for her kid to ‘pop one of the hermit crabs out of its shell so he can take the shell home.'”
32. Free Drinks? I Do Not Think So, Crazy Eye-Patch Lady And Co.
“This happened just the other day. I work at a coffee shop.
Two middle-aged women come up to my counter and order their drinks. After ringing them up, I tell them their total and they tell me that they’re going to wait for their friend to pay. Perfectly fine, I tell them their drinks will be waiting for them when they’re ready.
I finish making their order pretty quick and place their drinks by the register.
Five minutes pass and they come up asking if their drinks are done yet. I said yes, I’ve just been waiting for them to pay. They proceed to flip out, saying how they were just planning on coming back and paying with their friend.
So essentially, they wanted me to give them free drinks and trust that they’d come back to pay. I do not think so, crazy eye patch lady and co. I do not think so.”
31. You Can't Have Everything Made Easy For You, Lady
“I used to work at a gym. An older lady asked me to come over to the chest-press machine where she was. I came over and asked what I could do for her.
She asks me, ‘How do I keep track of how many reps I’m doing?’
‘Umm,’ I say, confused. ‘You count?’
‘Why doesn’t the machine do it for me?’
‘It’s just a machine, it doesn’t have any electronics in it.
You just have to count to yourself how many reps you’re doing. Some people even use a phone or notebook and pencil to keep track of how many reps they do at each station, which you’re welcome to do.’
She said nothing, gave me an annoyed face, and left.
I mean, really, you’re mad that you have to count to 12 while you exercise, but this younger generation is the one full of self-entitled, spoiled brats?”
30. Sir, If You're Scared Of Your Wife, Just Say So—But Don't Blame The Employees
“I worked at a pasta shop in high school. When we didn’t sell the fresh stuff within a couple of days, we froze it so it wouldn’t go bad and sold it at a discount, but if there are any frozen ones—which isn’t often—they run out.
One day, a middle-aged man comes in and asks for a large frozen lasagna. I check the freezer and tell him we don’t have any, but if he wants he can get a regular large lasagna and freeze it because they freeze well.
He says no and leaves the store.
About an hour later, there’s a call for our manager, and after a minute or two, she asks us, ‘Were any of you serving a man who asked for a large frozen lasagna?’
So I tell her that it was me. She then asks incredulously, ‘Did you laugh at the man and tell him that if he wanted a frozen lasagna to go to some grocery store?’
I just laugh and say no.
So she tells the woman on the phone so, and we could hear the woman (who, by the way, wasn’t ACTUALLY there) yelling at my manager.
‘Are you calling me a liar?!’ she yells, to which my manager responds, ‘I’m not, but I have a very hard time believing that one of my girls would do that,’ and she hung up the phone.
My theory? Wife sends husband to get one thing. He gets confused by a sudden limitation of options and leaves, but is terrified of his wife and doesn’t want her to get mad at him because he failed to do this one task. So he told her some fib in the hopes that she’d forget about it. She did not.”
29. Don't Be Smug, Because It Can Turn Out You're The Dumb One
“I used to work at a fast food place when I was still in school.
This place lets you substitute fries and the drink for various sides, including salad, onion rings, or chips. Yes, you could actually substitute the drink for a second side of fries or other substantial food. Few people realized this, but those who did normally wanted a drink anyway, because fast food stuff makes you thirsty.
Anyway, some dude orders a combo meal, and I asked him ‘With fries and a drink?’
The guy looked at me like I severely offended him, and shot back with a snappy, ‘Well, what else would I want?’
I pointed to the big picture of all the sides that was immediately above and behind me on the menu, and said, ‘You can have any of those things.’
The guy sheepishly said, ‘Oh, fries and a drink.’
Seriously, even if you think someone is asking a dumb question, don’t be smart, because it can turn out that you’re the dumb one.”
28. The Paper Is Ignored, But I Wish I Could Ignore This Pesky Customer
“We have to weigh what we sell before it is given to the customer. They pick a weight and we weigh it up, or they pick an item and we weigh it as-is and they confirm the weight is okay.
When we do this, we place paper down on the scale. The scale does not weigh the paper—it does what is called ‘Tare.’ If the paper were to (hypothetically) weigh a tenth of a pound, the scale knows automatically to ignore that.
If it doesn’t automatically ignore it, we have a button that can tell it to, or we can manually tell it how much weight to ignore. This means that the weight and price listed is for the food only. The paper, again, is ignored.
One woman refused to grasp this. She wanted some food. I put a paper on the scale.
‘That paper better not weigh down the food,’ she said.
‘It better weigh the same at the register as it does here.’
Now, this is impossible. The register doesn’t know to ignore the paper. The register weighs the whole package, it doesn’t have the luxury of seeing the paper first and knowing what minor weight to drop off.
‘That’s not possible. It will weigh more at the register because of the paper.’
‘That’s bull! You’re charging me more than you say you will be!’
‘No, the printer here knows not to weigh the paper, and the weight on the tag I put on it is the weight you are charged for.’
‘Then why the heck does it weigh more at the register? That means it costs more!’
‘It weighs more because the scale drops the weight of the paper before weighing anything else.
Watch. (I put paper on the scale.) See how it says .03? (I press the re-zero button.) Now it says 0, even though the paper is on there. That means that it’s only going to weigh this. (I put a box of gloves on the scale, the weight comes to .52).’
‘Then why will it weigh more?’
‘Because the other scale can’t know how much the paper weighs.’
‘Well that’s bull! I’m not buying this, then! I don’t want to be charged more than you say I will!’
‘But you won’t! The price is on the tag.
The weight at the register is absolutely meaningless. You scan the tag that I give you here, regardless of how much it weighs at the self checkout.’
She was absolutely convinced that if I gave her a pound plus .03 pounds of paper, weighed at a pound, charged at a pound, the scale up front would decide she owed more when she scanned the UPC.
She did decide to get something anyway, but when she walked away she said ‘If it weighs more up there than back here, I’m telling the store director.’
The guy behind her in line called her a moron within earshot. So that was okay.”
27. I Don't Think That's How Tipping Works, But Thanks For the Dollar, I Guess
“I work as a cashier/shift manager at a sit-down pizza place known for its buffet.
Now, the lunch buffet ends at 2:00 p.m. and the dinner buffet starts at 5:00 p.m. We’re still open to customers between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm, they just have to order from the menu like you would at Pizza Hut (or get take out or delivery). We rarely get any sort of business during this time, it’s mostly people coming in to talk to our store manager about certain things.
This lady walks in at 3:00, and seeing as I don’t know if she is here to eat or speak to the manager, I politely ask, ‘How may I help you?’
She responds by looking at me and speaking to me as if I had a mental condition. ‘I would like to eat. This is a restaurant right?’
I show her to her table, and as I collect her bill, I notice she is exactly $1.00 short. I bring the bill back and say, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, I know my handwriting is terrible, but the bill is $31.’
She then looks at me in disgust and hands me the tip that she was going to leave me ($1.00), leaves and mutters, ‘You would have gotten it anyway.'”
26. If You Want To Lose Your Faith In Humanity, Work At A Pet Store
“This is less a bad customer story than an awful human being story.
I used to work at a pet store, there were times I did not want to sell a person an animal because I just knew I was sentencing the poor creature to an early and painful death. It did not help that the Petco’s in the Boston area did not hire people with any knowledge of animal care.
They could up-sell dog food, but could not keep the rats healthy! So many people just could not register they were taking on the responsibility of caring for a living breathing creature and instead treated their ‘pet’ as little more than a fashion accessory.
The worst has to be the uptight witch who came into the store with a noticeably-abused guinea pig. She dumped the tiny fifthly cage on the counter and demanded her funds back as her children had stopped playing with it.
It was only my lack of coffee that allowed her to continue breathing. We are not legally allowed to take back animals and gave her the information for the local animal shelter.
A few hours later, someone came in and told us there was a guinea pig in a tiny cage out in the parking lot!
It took me two months to nurse the little guy back to health and regain his trust. Fidget had the most amazing personality, I trained him to use the littler box and he had a grand old time playing with my dog and cat.
Honestly if you really want to lose your faith in humanity, work in a pet store.”
25. To This Day, I'm Not Sure If I Was Getting Terribly Trolled Or This Guy Was The Craziest Person Ever
“Before my current job, I worked at BestBuy for three years. I loved it mostly because the people were amazing, the company was pretty fun and I have some amazingly good stories.
I was working in the computer department of my store, organizing the modem/router aisle because it was messy. This perfectly normal-looking man walked up to me, wearing a suit. He looked pretty concerned, though, so I stood up and asked him what was going on.
He proceeded to tell me about how he had just returned his wi-fi. I asked him to see the receipt, just so that I could figure out what sort of wi-fi he meant—it was a Linksys router. I apologized that it didn’t work out for him and he heaved a great sigh and said this:
‘Actually, it did work out for me, really well. But, my wife is afraid of aliens.’
There was something about that line that intrigued me, so I had to ask him what he meant.
He continued on to tell me that he had bought the ‘wi-fi’ so that he could communicate with extraterrestrial beings that had names like ‘Wikipedia’ and ‘Goggle’ (intentionally misspelled), though he did not really like CNN, because that guy only talked about things happening on earth.
The problem was, though, that his wife was uncomfortable with him talking to these people so much, even though she had put foil on the walls in their bedroom to keep herself safe from their ‘cancer rays.’ He wanted me to show him a device he had read about called Ethernet so that he could talk to his Alien friends without giving his wife cancer, even though he thought it was really worth it to get all of the knowledge. I told him to call Comcast.
To this day I am not sure if he was joking with me or if I was getting terribly trolled, but the simple fact that he seemed perfectly sane otherwise leaves me to believe he was telling the truth.”
24. No, Sir, You Can't Use The Gas Pump As A Parking Spot For Your Grocery Shopping
“I work at a Stop & Shop gas station.
One day, an older gentleman pulls his beat-up pickup truck up to pump No. 6. He walks to the booth and tells me that he’s gonna leave his truck there while he goes into the store to buy a few things. He says he’ll only be gone a few minutes.
It was pretty busy, so I politely explain to him that I can’t have his truck blocking a pump while he’s gone, as it would hold other customers up.
He says to me that he’s very low on gas and that he’s not sure if it’ll start up again if he moves it. He tells me he’ll only be gone a couple of minutes. I tell him how sorry I am, but that if he’s not going to use the pump, I really need him to move his truck since there are already other customers lining up behind it.
Now, he’s angry. He reiterates to me how low on gas he is, and how he’ll only be gone a couple of minutes. Before I can continue to explain to him why he can’t leave his truck there, he walks away toward the store.
I have to go out and tell the customers behind his parked truck that they’re gonna have to move to a different pump.
I put up a yellow ‘NO PARKING’ hobby-horse thing so people don’t keep lining up there. Having that one pump out backed traffic up at the other pumps while he was gone.
A couple of minutes go by. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Finally, the guy walks back with boxes—not bags—full of groceries, and I don’t know why. He gets to his truck and tries to remove the hobby-horse himself, but he picks it up from the middle so it falls apart into three pieces.
I go out there to put it back together and carry it back to the booth as he loads his groceries into his truck. I expect him to get back out to pump his gas that he was supposedly so low on, but instead, he just gets in and drives away.
Didn’t pump a drop of gas. Essentially, he just used pump No. 6 as a parking space while he grocery shopped.”
23. Your Lazy Translator Isn't Translating For You? Don't Worry, I Speak French, Unlike Them
“I worked as a receptionist at an Urgent Care in college.
One night, an old, obese woman came in with an African Refugee family behind her. She began by throwing a file folder at me with abysmal copies of ID cards. She said nothing.
I said, ‘How can I help you this evening?’
‘They’re sick,’ she answered, gesturing over her shoulder.
‘Okay, let’s get started by getting them signed in.’
I passed her the sign-in chart while she scooped up the contents of the file folder she just tossed on my desk.
It was pretty common to get refugees accompanied by their caseworker, so I asked if that’s who she was.
‘Yeah, and translator.’
She filled in their first names on the sign-in sheet only. She didn’t put the time, chief complaint, or if they were returning patients. I figured I could get that info as we went along. We weren’t busy. Many patients are understandably concerned with privacy, so I didn’t push her to complete the sign-in sheet.
‘Have they been to see us before?’ I asked.
‘I have no idea.’
Some translator. She didn’t even ask them.
‘I can look them up,’ I said helpfully. ‘What’s the last name?’
She dropped the file again. I picked it up and searched for their records. They had none, so I assembled the new patient paperwork.
‘Looks like this is their first time. Please fill out these forms, one for each of them, and return it to me when they’re done.’
She took the file and paperwork without a word and sat down near my desk.
She handed each family member a clipboard and shouted at them as if they were deaf and slow, ‘Fill. These. Out.’
I felt bad for the family, but it wasn’t until I heard them distinctly say, ‘Quoi? Q’est que c’est?’ that I piped up.
‘Je vous-aidez? (Can I help you?)’
The look on the father’s face was one of relief. The two parents practically ran up to me and started asking me questions in rapid French while the caseworker and their ‘translator’ merely stared.”
22. My Apologies, Ma'am, I'll Read Your Mind Before You Order Next Time
“I work at a Mediterranean restaurant where the customers are typically pretty polite, but I did have one woman who apparently thought that as a server it is my job to read her mind.
On the front page of our menu we have appetizers, under the title, ‘Appetizers.’ On the next page, we have a list of sides and above that, a listing titled, ‘Half Appetizers,’ which are half portions of the appetizers listed on the first page (half hummus, half spanakopita, et cetera).
This woman ordered a hummus and a spanakopita. She was sharing an entrée with her friend. A lot of people do this, so I didn’t think anything of it. I brought out the appetizers, she ate them without any word or complaint. After the meal, I brought them their check and then it all went downhill.
‘This is too expensive, I wanted the appetizer portions,’ said the woman.
I replied, ‘Yes ma’am, that’s what you were eating.’
‘No, I ordered the appetizers, you’re charging me too much.’
‘Ma’am, you got the appetizers, just like you asked. Are you perhaps talking about the half portions?’
‘Yes, that’s what I wanted,’ she said. ‘Why are you charging me more?’
‘I brought you the full orders—the half orders are half the size of what you got, which is why they’re less.’
‘Well, you should have known that I wanted the smaller ones.
It’s your job to figure out what the customer wants. I was ordering from the other part of the menu.’
‘I’m sorry, next time I’ll try to make it clearer. However, I did not see which part of the menu you were looking at when you were deciding.’
Then she told me she was going to ‘let it go’ and that she just wanted me to ‘learn from my mistake.’ She left me $1.50 on a $20 check.”
21. I Didn't Give This Lady A Free Sandwich, So She Stormed Out Of The Store
“When I was still in high school, I worked at a Subway deli.
A nice (or so I thought), little old Russian woman who didn’t speak English very well came in one slow evening and ordered a foot-long tuna on Honey Oat.
I scooped the four scoops of tuna onto the bread and that just set her off. She pretty much begged on her hands and knees for more tuna.
I knew this was going to be an ordeal so I put a couple more scoops on. She still wasn’t happy. Before we got to the veggies, there were eight heaping scoops of tuna on that sandwich. Of course, she loaded it with veggies.
So now we’re at the cash register. I ring it up and the total price escapes me right now but it was something like $6.70.
I thought she was going to faint. She told me in broken English that she wasn’t going to pay that.
I give her the senior discount. -5%. Still not happy.
I give her another discount. -10%. Still not happy.
I give her a third discount. -20%. Still not happy.
One more discount just to get her out of the store. -25%
I told her the final price of $2.68. She straightened up, started swearing at me in Russian, told me what she thought of me and my place of business, and stormed out the door.”
20. Customers Get Angry At Me Because They're The Ones Who Lost Their Receipt
“I worked at the register and Information Centre of a big electronic store in Europe (like Best Buy in the US) for a few years to pay for my tuition fees.
Now, I had a lot of dumb customers, but what I hated the most were people coming up to my counter explaining to me they want to return something or exchange—but, unfortunately, they lost their receipt.
Without the receipt, there is nothing I can do for them, but one thing. I can go through the logs of all of our registers and see if I can find their receipt, but I need to know the exact date they purchased their item. I also need to know the amount they paid and which register they checked out at because otherwise, I would need to look through every single receipt, and since our store had about more than 600 customers a day, it would take weeks—if not even months—for me to do so.
This conversation always ended the same. I was yelled at because they lost their receipt.
There was this one time where a man came up to me, explaining the same thing: he needed to exchange something but lost his receipt. I told him how it goes and he could in fact remember the date and the amount of money but not the register. I thought I could give it a try and started searching in my log’s system.
It took me quite a while because the date he named was a busy day and there had been more than 1000 customers coming to the store buying stuff.
After half an hour he got restless, sighing and rolling his eyes. I told him several times that it would take me a while and if he wanted he could go look through the store or come back later.
I even offered for him to leave his number so I could call him because I knew it would take a while, maybe an hour or two. He told me no, he wanted to wait.
Well, it got busy so I had to attend to some other customers, too, since I was the only one working the Information. After 45 minutes, he snaps and yells at me and demanded to speak with my manager because of my unprofessional and totally useless behavior.
In the end, he just stormed off, angry at me because he lost his receipt.”
19. This Man Harassed A Flight Attendant For Simply Following Orders
“Witnessed this on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Paris a few months ago.
A couple was traveling with their kid, who was probably around 12. The kid was behaving like a brat the whole time before takeoff, screaming and harassing the other passengers, and the parents seemed not to give a crap.
When the time came for takeoff, the (young) flight attendant told the father of the kid that the kid could not sit on his lap during takeoff.
The guy flipped and started insulting the attendant, saying that he would report him and that if anything happened to his kid, he would sue him, and other stuff like that.
The whole thing went on for some time (delaying the departure of the flight) until the other passengers started complaining. I’m not sure why the attendant didn’t just call the captain and have the guy along with his spoiled brat and his seemingly catatonic wife kicked off the plane.
In the end, the guy budged and the kid screamed his head off in his own seat during the whole takeoff. Of course, the whole argument started over from scratch at landing time.
I don’t know how the flight attendant managed to keep his calm with this guy. I think I would have kicked the crap out of this jerk and his dumb kid.
12 years old and you throw a fit if you can’t sit on daddy’s lap for 10 minutes?”
18. I Couldn't Help But Look On In Awe At The Audacity Of This Old Man
“I worked at a grocery store for several years and this one still rings as one of the dumbest and ignorant customers I ever encountered.
Our city’s newspaper sold for 50 cents if you bought it in a store at face value. This old man came in and wanted to buy the paper for 40 cents, because I guess he, at one point, had a subscription so that’s how much it cost him.
We argued for about five minutes that the paper is 50 cents, as it clearly states on the first page. He ended up going to some dumb produce clerk to complain about me, and the clerk ended up giving him the paper at 40 cents.
As he was walking out the door, he looked towards me at the register and mumbled, ‘I got my paper.’
I just looked on in complete awe. Old people.”
17. This Lady Demanded Fresh Chicken And Still Got Angry When I Gave It To Her
“I work at a deli. We have a hot foods section. One of the more popular items is fried chicken.
When we make the chicken, it goes through three steps: fryer, warming cabinet (metal case with pans that is kept at 140-170 degrees), then display/warming case. Some customers want ‘fresh’ chicken, which is essentially chicken that hasn’t been sitting in the display/warming case for 2 hours, which is completely understandable.
Many of these customers seem to think that ‘fresh’ chicken comes from the warming cabinet. There is one specific lady that comes in from time to time that refuses to accept chicken that has been taken out of the warming cabinet ‘because it isn’t fresh.’ She once caught me in the dastardly act of giving her chicken that I was putting into the display case at that exact moment (I had taken it out of the warming cabinet less than a minute ago, as she watched). She became irate and demanded that I get her chicken from the cabinet.
When I said that this chicken was from the cabinet, she demanded to be served by someone else because I was incompetent.”
16. No, Sir, Our Computers Are Not Demonic—That's Just Merlin
“Ages ago when I worked at Staples, a gentleman approached me saying he needed a new typewriter. So we walked over to the typewriters. We sold one model, but several word processors.
I asked him what he needed it for and he explained how he was re-translating the Bible into English. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I had the forethought not to ask. I recommended a computer and brought him over to the computer section.
I showed him a few models, and Microsoft Word. I loaded Word and the Office Assistant, ‘Merlin the Wizard,’ popped up. The customer took a step back, made the sign of the cross, and declared that computers and wizards were demonic.
He immediately left the store.”
15. A Duct-Taped Copy Of Microsoft Office? Yeah, That Won't Get You A Refund, Mister
“Back in the day, I was the Customer Service Lead at Staples. I was basically the manager of the front end/customer service area and frequently worked as a go-between when it came to angry customers—it was my job to shut them up and give them what they wanted without getting an actual manager involved if it could be avoided.
One day, a man comes in wanting a refund on a copy of Microsoft Office.
Immediately, red flags go up for me, because under no circumstances were we allowed to refund software unless it was faulty in some way, and even then, we could only do an exchange for the same product. Any actual returns had to be processed through the manufacturer, and all their information was printed on every box of software.
So I walk this guy over to the customer service desk where I examine the copy of Microsoft Office he threw on my counter.
It was obviously opened and had been duct-taped back together. Now, I’ve worked in retail for a long time and have seen people do all kinds of stupid, backhanded stuff just to get their funds back, but this guy didn’t even try to make the package look unopened. It was duct-taped shut, plain and simple. This guy was not eligible for a return.
I, very politely, try to explain this to him and he completely loses his cool.
He swears up and down that’s the condition he bought it in, and that I have to refund him. Yeah, okay buddy. I decide to call over a manager without him even asking me to because I know that sometimes just a manager’s say-so will shut up the rudest and most ridiculous customer.
So my sales manager comes over and I calmly explain the situation to him while this guy is screaming his head off about how we’re trying to rip him off to anyone in his vicinity (other employees and shoppers are now staring at this point).
My manager tells the guy that there is no way he’s walking out of this store with a refund, but he’d be glad to do an even exchange for the same product. This dude continues to flip out and go absolutely nuts, shouting racial slurs and all.
This goes on for maybe ten minutes, until finally he got fed up, threw his duct-taped copy of Office on the counter, pointed right at me, and screamed ‘That wasn’t easy!’ (‘That Was Easy’ being Staples’ motto, of course).
I laughed in his face, told him to have a nice day, and he stormed out. There are many other stories, but the duct-taped open-software guy takes the cake for me.”
14. News Flash, Lady—Adding More Ingredients Will Make Your Burger Cost More
“I work at McDonald’s.
I have this lady come through my drive-thru and order a few McDoubles and a McChicken. Only she wants lettuce, tomato and bacon on the McDoubles and cheese on the McChicken. She was absolutely flabbergasted that her order of 5 dollar menu sandwiches was over 10 bucks.
She asked me with this look of complete and utter disgust, ‘Why is my order so much?’
I proceed to read off her order, including the extra costs for bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cheese, plus the tax.
She is still confused. She just cannot wrap her mind around the idea that when you put extra stuff on the sandwich, it costs more. She even saw the extra costs on the little screen on the drive-thru.
She refused to pay. I had to get my manager over to deal with it. Eventually, she just used the old-standby ‘They don’t charge me at my other McDonald’s’ excuse and then drove off in her crappy car.
I hate people.”
13. No Matter How Many Cards You Pull Out, Sir, We Still Only Accept Cash
“I work at Cafe Du Monde in Mandeville, Louisiana, which is about 30 minutes north of New Orleans.
For the longest time, we did not accept credit cards. So this guy walks in on a Sunday morning, our busiest day of the week. He orders a bunch of stuff for his family, and when he goes to pay, he hands me his credit card. I tell him we only accept cash.
He then starts going through his list of credit cards. After each one, I tell him we only accept cash.
So after the 4th card, I finally look at him and say, ‘Look, it’s cash-only, meaning you can only pay us with real funds. If you don’t have any, there is an ATM right behind you.’
He then says, ‘I don’t have Capital One.’
At this point, I’m ready to tell him to leave.
I have a ton of other people waiting and we are getting backed up.
So finally, my boss comes over and says, ‘Sir, either pay with cash or get out of line. I don’t have time to deal with your stupidity today.’ He puts his wallet away, collects his family, and leaves.
I look at my boss and say, ‘You are my hero!’
She just says, ‘What a dumb guy.’
Sadly, stuff like that happened all the time.”
12. For The Millionth Time, This Is Sea Bass, Not Tuna
“One night, when I was working as a line cook in this upscale, fine-dining place, there was an elderly couple that wanted to speak to ‘the chef.’
The Executive Chef wasn’t there since it was about 10:00 pm and I had been cooking a majority of the food that night, so I went out to talk to them. They both said they ordered the Sea Bass. I remembered their order from 25 minutes previously and I cooked everything myself.
They were insisting that they had received Tuna instead of Sea Bass. I assured them that I cooked everything myself and I was 100% positive it was Sea Bass and not Tuna.
They just kept insisting, ‘This sure tastes a lot like Tuna. We were here a couple of weeks ago and got the Tuna. This tastes like that did.’
I explained that Ahi Tuna was not even on the menu anymore and furthermore, there was zero Tuna anywhere in the entire restaurant.
They still refused, saying that I must have accidentally cooked Tuna. They were slow-witted and old, but nice, so I wasn’t getting too angry, just frustrated.
I tried to say that Chilean Sea Bass and Ahi Tuni are two different plates with completely different types of fish. I said I’d been here since 2:00 P.M. and worked the entire dinner rush. I was literally cooking every single piece of fish for over 150 other people that night, and no one else had complained.
They just kept laughing and disagreeing with me. A little over 20 minutes later, I finally gave up and manage to break the never-ending conversation by asking, ‘Well, did you enjoy your food?’
They responded, ‘Oh yes, it was quite wonderful.’
‘Thank you,’ I said with the best smile I could manage. Then, lying through my teeth, ‘I hope to see you again.’
On that note, I quickly walked away before they could drag me back into their conversation death grasp.”
11. Want To Criticize Our Food? Our Other Customers Have Our Back
“I’m a restaurant manager, and even I run into people I can’t do much about. I mean, everyone has a boss.
This old man started coming in about a year ago. He would politely sit at the bar-top and make conversation. I talked to him at first, and he seemed pretty nice. He came in the next day and had dinner again because we were all so nice, and the food was great.
Well, it was almost great. If we could just grill his salmon with a little less smoke on it, it’d be even better (live firewood grill here, not much we can do). We started baking his salmon instead. The kitchen’s not really set up for it and it takes a few extra steps, but we make it happen. Well, he comes in the next day and asks for something else.
It was like giving a mouse a cookie, he always wanted something more.
Flash forward to six months later, he’s back at the bar top, but now he’s rude and he talks over people whenever anyone engages him in conversation. All he wants to do is talk about his life and his dad’s ailing health. Oh, and his food is always crazy. Everything on the side, with substitutions, and cooked in ways we don’t normally do.
But hey, we’ve done it for him before, right?
Well, his salmon came out with a little color around the edge, and he legitimately freaked the heck out. He was saying it was inedible and started getting really, really upset, asking us how we could mess it up when we do it all the time for him.
The guy next to him at the bar-top leans over and says, ‘Hey pal, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but that looks great. You should just shut up and eat your food.’
It made my week. My proprietor just lets this bar guest do whatever he wants, and it was nice to see someone tell him how big of a jerk he is.
Though this guy wasn’t particularly being clueless, he was being a raging uncaring jerk and got told what’s up by some random stranger.”
10. How Silly Of Me, Ma'am, I Should Have Just Told You What I've Been Telling You The Whole Time
“This lady bought tickets for a movie for her, her daughter, and her husband for later on in the evening.
She came back later and told me her husband couldn’t make it, so she wanted a refund for his ticket. Simple enough, right? Apparently not, because she was with me for over half an hour.
I refunded the ticket and handed her the receipt. She freaked out because it said that she had been refunded $8.25 to her card.
She told me that was too confusing for her because her total had been $21.75. I kindly informed her that I only refunded her husband’s ticket. But no—that was wrong, she informed me. She needed all $21.75 back and then she’d buy the tickets again. Our computers don’t work like that and I tried to explain it to her.
After she accused me of trying to rip her off, I refunded the rest of her payment.
Now she had 2 refund receipts: one for $8.25 and the other for $13.50. Together, she had her $21.75. Problem solved.
No. Problem not solved. This confounded the lady. It made absolutely no sense. She needed one receipt with the entire purchase on it. I tried explaining that since I had already refunded her husband’s ticket, it would’ve been impossible to get one receipt for her. She screams at me, calling me an idiot, and demands to speak to my manager.
Exasperated, I called my manager and he dealt with her outside for about half an hour. When he finally gets her to calm down, she comes back to the box office to buy her tickets again.
‘The two receipts added up to my total, obviously. You should’ve just said that,’ she explains to me.
I smiled sweetly at her. ‘How silly of me. I apologize for taking up your time.’ I had only explained that about 15 times already. But oh well.
That was the most recent disaster. I almost tore my hair out that afternoon.”
9. Think We're Being Unfair? You Can't Even Read The Bingo Numbers
“This happened two days ago. My friend and I were volunteering at a home for the elderly. It was time for Bingo so we were told to manage that for the day. We had everything set up and we began.
I was calling out the numbers as my friend went around and helped elderly folk that couldn’t see that they’d gotten the right number or weren’t capable of placing the tokens on the numbers.
I would wait for him after every call just because we wanted everyone to have a fair chance, so we were basically doing everything for a few people.
Soon enough, there was this elderly lady who was certain we weren’t playing fairly. That made me smile and then she accused me of laughing at her. This went on for the next hour, her constantly saying, ‘I see what you’re doing.’
Then she had us move closer to her so she could make sure we weren’t doing any funny business. Turns out, the lady couldn’t even read the damn numbers on the balls so there was no way to prove anything.
I got quite annoyed, but we lied for real at the end just so she could win.”
8. Going To Mess With The Cashiers Doing Their Job? Not On My Watch, Pal
“About a year ago, I went into Arby’s. I love their beef and cheddars.
Anyway, I come in, trying to decide if I want two sandwiches and a Jamocha shake or the combo meal. I’m not really paying much attention, but this really tiny guy, like 5’3”, is in front of me and is digging through his bag.
He ordered the junior roast beef, but wanted the regular roast beef.
He wanted to pay $0.99 for a $3.00 sandwich. He flipped out at the cashier. ‘I demand to see your manager!’
Then, he kept complaining about not getting what he paid for. The female manager said to him, ‘Your ticket says you ordered a junior roast beef. That’s what you got and what you paid for.’
The guy literally had no argument against her. Then he said, ‘I want the name of the regional manager.’
So she handed him a business card with the manager’s number.
He stands there in line, holding me up. By this time, I’ve noticed what he’s doing and I’m starting to get annoyed.
No one answers because it’s like 11:30 at night.
Then he starts complaining about how his dad is in the hospital just down the road and that he’s tired and wants to get his food so he can go back. His dad’s had a heart attack and he ‘wasn’t in the mood to be messed with.’
So the manager finally has enough and starts ignoring him.
The cashier takes my order. I got two sandwiches and the shake, by the way. And he walks out.
We all have a nice laugh about it. I haven’t paid yet, because we’re still discussing how idiotic he was. When all of a sudden, he comes back in with his parking deck pass from the hospital. ‘Here it is,’ he says, ‘Clear as crystal, proof my dad is in the hospital.’
The manager looks back at him and says, “Sir, if you don’t leave, we’re going to call the police.”
He shoves his finger in the air, then shouts, ‘I’m calling corporate!’
I walk up to him and calmly say, ‘No you’re not.
You’re going to get out of here and enjoy the sandwich you paid for. Sorry about your father and all, but these ladies here are simply doing their jobs.’
He bows up at me, which is laughable because I’m half a foot taller than him and twice his size. He opened his mouth to say something and I calmly said to him, ‘Get out before I drop you.’
And he backed off and left the store.
The ladies behind the counter started clapping and I got my dinner for free.”
7. This Lady Really Tried To Buy Food With Her Bus Pass And Still Fought Back
“On Friday mornings, I work alone at a take-out counter. My usual routine is: I take the order, they pull out their credit/debit card, as they’re paying, I place their order, then pack it up and give them their order and receipt. I’m fast and the kitchen is fast so this whole process after they order takes around two minutes.
A lady comes in and places her order.
I let her pay and walk away. Two minutes later I get back to the counter and she’s angry and yelling at me. ‘Where were you?!’ she cries. ‘It won’t accept my card!’
I’m very calm because I deal with this five out of seven days a week and ask her if she had a chip on her card.
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘But it won’t accept it! I’m not stupid, you know!’
‘Ma’am, may I see your card please?’
I check the front.
Mhm. I check the back. Mhm. I hand it back and look her dead in the face with a very neutral face and kindly inform her, ‘Ma’am, this is your Metropass.’ (A bus pass).
By this time there was a line behind her and she knew how stupid she looked after yelling at me and continued asking if I was sure she couldn’t pay with her Metropass. It was a joke but it just kept wasting my time and made no sense. She could’ve apologized for yelling at me, but she just continued to waste my time.
I wish someone had called her out.”
6. You Want Music From When Music Began? Ma'am, This Is Barnes And Noble, Not The Stone Age
“I was working in the music section at Barnes and Noble when I noticed a seemingly kind, gentle old woman who was wandering around aimlessly. I asked if she needed any help and she responded with a very abrasive no.
About 10 minutes later she comes up to the register, very exasperated, and asks me where she can find ‘music from when music began.’ I didn’t really understand what she meant so I asked her to go into more detail about what she was looking for.
‘You know! Music from when music began.’
‘Well, ma’am, what do you mean exactly? Like classical music?’
‘Music from when music began. Old music.’
‘Um, okay. Well, music has been around far longer than we’ve been able to record it. Do you want older, folky, Americana stuff or classical music?’
Again, she says, “Music from when music began.’
‘Ma’am, humans have been making music since we were living in caves. Can you explain a little better?’
‘I know what song I’m looking for.
It’s called ‘Boomerang Biscuit’. It’s from when music began.’
So we go to the Barnes and Noble listening stations, I search the database and Google trying to find this ‘Boomerang Biscuit’ but find absolutely nothing even close to the song title. I ask her to describe what the song sounds like and her description sounds very bluesy so I take her to the blues section.
Mind you, this whole incident has been taking place over the period of about an hour. At this point, we both just start scanning every CD in the blues section, trying to find something that even sounds like what she is looking for.
Finally, we come across a record. Turns out, ‘music from when music began’ was actually just Rubber Biscuit by the Blues Brothers.
By far the most stressful and annoying customer I ever dealt with in retail.”
5. Sometimes Even Being Perfect Isn't Good Enough For Customers Like This
“I work in retail, and as I was ringing up this woman’s giant pile of clothing, she swipes her credit card. I’ve never seen somebody do this. Right in the middle, she tries to pay. She puts her card away and assumes she’s finished. (Our store logo displays on the swipe screen until the cashier hits ‘Total.’ How did she think it was receiving any type of information?)
Obviously, it takes a while to check a customer with a lot of clothes out because we have to deactivate the magnet, take out the sensors, fold it all nice, and find a way to Tetris fit it into the bag.
She starts getting angry with me. I try to joke a little saying, ‘We always try to make it perfect because you wouldn’t believe how many customers want you to refold things after you already have!’
Nope. Not in the mood.
I rush a little to finish, because it’s your fault if you get home and have a wrinkly shirt when I tried to fold it nicely. I hit total.
I read her the amount and she just stares at me. We stare for a good 10 seconds and I have no idea what to say.
‘Well,’ she says. ‘Give me my receipt?’
‘You haven’t paid yet,’ I reply.
‘Yes I did.’
‘If you swipe during a transaction, it doesn’t ring up.’
‘I know your game! You’re trying to make me pay twice!’
And it goes on and on. Finally, I bring her around the counter and show her that the register has not charged her card any amount, and $0.00 has been paid so far.
She swiped, and at my job, we have to ask the annoying questions, ‘Zipcode? Email?’ and then the receipt prints.
Well, as I ask for that, she gets mad and says, ‘You printed my receipt and didn’t put it in my bag!’
‘Ma’am, the receipt has not yet printed. And the very second it does, I will hand it right over.’
It was just miserable. Not to mention, her bag beeped at the door (bag from another store) and she assumed it was ours. We swiped the bag over our sensor, it didn’t beep (it was all deactivated), but she yelled for a long time about how I was incompetent and left all her sensors on.”
4. Sorry, Being Named Halle Berry Won't Get You Into A Movie
“I manage at a movie theatre and my worst customer experience happened the night of the midnight release of the very last Harry Potter movie. We had completely sold out all our 14 auditoriums for the midnight shows and we also had one theatre that was showing the previous Part 1 movie before the midnight showing that had been sold out for weeks.
This woman comes up to me with a 13-year-old-looking girl and says she had one ticket for the Part 1 showing but couldn’t get another for the girl.
We can’t oversell since it breaks the fire code, so I offered to let the girl watch a different movie until Part 2 starts and I would change her mom’s ticket into a different auditorium for Part 2 so at least those two could sit together.
So to get everyone on the same page, because this sounds a little confusing so far, the mom would watch Part 1 in the sold-out theatre and the daughter would watch a different movie, but they would have tickets to the same auditorium for Part 2.
The mom takes her daughter to the kids’ movie and 2 minutes later, I have the mom yelling at me that the theatre is completely empty. I tell her that Thursday nights are not super popular times for kids’ movies and that her daughter is the only one who has a ticket for it so she would be alone. She yells that this is a safety hazard to have her daughter all alone in the theatre and that we need to provide one of our employees to babysit her kid through the whole movie.
Yeah, no. We are not a babysitting service. I told her I would be happy to refund her ticket for Part 1 and have her watch the movie with her daughter and they would still be together for Part 2 but we could not spare one of our employees during the busiest movie of the year, especially just because she didn’t plan out her plans enough.
She clearly came in expecting us to just let her daughter into the sold-out screening even though she admitted to calling ahead of time and knowing there was no way her kid could get in there. She yelled at my GM and I for about 30 minutes and she just could not understand the concept that if she didn’t want her daughter to be alone in a movie, she had to be the one to be with her.
Best part, the girl and I were alone for a minute while the mom was talking to my GM, who sided with me about us not babysitting her kid, and the girl told me, ‘My name is Halle. Halle Berry.’ It took all my self-control to not laugh in her face.
I feel so bad for her since she clearly wanted me to be impressed that her parents named her after a famous actress.”
3. Ma'am, I Can't Help You With Something That Is Physically Impossible
“I worked the help-desk at a community-college computer lab for a few years and encountered all sorts of stupidity—this one stands out above all the rest.
A middle-aged woman walks over to my desk and wants help opening a document she saved on a 3.5” floppy the other day.
‘No problem,’ I said, and I follow her to the computer she was using.
We get all sorts of problems with people and their disks here so this is pretty run-of-the-mill.
When someone occasionally inserts a 3.5″ floppy backward and upside-down into the zip drive, this becomes ‘run-of-the-mill.’
We sit down at her computer and I open the disk. It’s blank. Not only is it blank, however—it’s brand-new unformatted blank.
‘This is a blank disk. It’s never been used. Are you sure this is the right disk?’
‘Yes, it is. I bought it yesterday. I was in the other lab and they said they were going to erase all those computers that night and I needed to save my work to a disk.’
‘Well, this disk is empty.
It’s never had anything saved to it. Are you sure you saved it to the disk?’
‘I did! I put the disk in and clicked save.’
Yup, I know what happened now. She never actually saved it to the disk. This is pretty normal around here.
‘They must have erased my disk!’ she exclaims. ‘They said they were going to erase everything on those computers that night and they erased my disk!’
‘Did you leave your disk in those computers overnight?’
‘Of course not! It was in my bag at home! They must have erased it!’
‘That’s not physically possible—there is no way they could do anything to your disk when you have it at home in your bag, you must have not properly saved your document to the disk. Would you like me to format this disk and show you how to do it for next time?’
The woman promptly storms out.”
2. Next Time You Threaten With A News Corp, At Least Use Something A Little More Credible
“I used to work at the bank and worked the drive-thru often. Now, in the drive-thru, you could not cash out your check if you didn’t have an account at this bank. We needed your fingerprint on the check. An older gentleman in his mid-50s came by and wanted to cash his check, but he didn’t have an account. I explained why I couldn’t cash it for him and he lost his cool.
He started cussing at me and called me lazy.
He then proceeded to tell me that he’s handicapped and it’s a pain for him to get himself out of his car and take 50 paces into the back to cash his check. Then he threatened to call FOX News and tell them how this bank did not want to help out a handicapped man. My Assistant Manager was near and literally ran to the front and ripped off one of the ink pads used for fingerprinting off a desk and brought it to the back for him.
So we’re doing this jerk a favor and as he’s marking his fingerprint on his check he goes on about how our bank panders to illegals and that’s why the economy is in such a slump. Blah, blah, blah.
My supervisor leaves and as I’m wrapping up his transaction I said to him, ‘Sir, next time you threaten with a news corporation, please use something more credible than FOX News.’
He had a hissy fit and drove off. I was shaking, but it felt amazing.”
1. Get The Hint, Guy, I'm Not Here To Ring You Up
“While working at a toy store, an old man came in to exchange two Lego sets because he didn’t buy the correct sets to get a BOGO offer. We told him several times he could get any set he wanted as long as it wasn’t Harry Potter or Star Wars, as those were excluded. He originally bought one Star Wars set and one normal set. We told him he would have to exchange the Star Wars set for a different set to get the sale.
After about 30 minutes of shopping, he comes back up. With a Harry Potter set. We told him again he couldn’t get that one and he went belligerent at me and started yelling to other customers about how horrible I was and how I was ‘very helpful’ in a sarcastic voice. He had some other items to ring up and threw them on the counter at me.
I was working security, I couldn’t ring him up. That sent him over the edge.
Working security was the worst that Christmas. Lots of customers were angry that I was just standing around, despite my yellow shirt in a sea of red-shirt employees. Get the hint—I can’t open another line and ring you out, I’m standing around watching for people who will be stealing things from us.”
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