In the everyday back-and-forths between customers and the people who serve them, we’ve found some moments that are more confusing than a puzzle missing a few pieces.
A customer was exasperated because their ice cream melted on a hot day, despite being told that ice cream tends to do that. Or how about the person who wanted a refund for a book, not because it was damaged or not as described, but because they realized they didn’t like the author’s name? These aren’t your usual complaints; they’re the kind that make you think you’ve stumbled into a funny show.
I used to work at Starbucks. A lady ordered a mocha and I forgot to add the mocha syrup. Dumb mistake so I fixed it of course. She put it back on the bar a couple minutes later and said “It doesn’t taste right, I want a new one.” Okaaay, I thought, don’t know what else I can do, but sure I’ll make a new one. I get started on it and she goes to the restroom. She gets back from the restroom before I’m done making it but sees her old drink on the bar that I hadn’t taken back yet and thinks it’s her new one. She looks at me and says “Ah, it looks better already!”, takes a big drink and says “Now see, that’s perfect” then leaves before I can tell her I didn’t do a d*mned thing.
I used to work at Tim Hortons throughout university. We had a guy come in once very angry because we f*cked up his coffee when he came through the drive-thru. Instead of sweeteners, we added sugar. This wouldn’t have been a huge issue to fix and generally, people are level-headed and realize that mistakes do happen. However, he was throwing a hissy fit claiming he was a diabetic and that spoonful of sugar would have surely killed him had he ingested more than one gulp of the coffee.
Because he was freaking out like a rabid dog, my manager stepped in and offered him any other item on the menu for free (because he wouldn’t accept just a redo of the coffee.) Buddy decides he wants a dozen donuts. No problem. I pack up the dozen and hand it to him. He then proceeded to eat not one, not two… but THREE lard-sugar-fat glazed donuts in front of my eyeballs even though he just claimed he was severely diabetic.
I was managing a restaurant years ago, and a woman came in b*tching that the 3 prime rib dinners she got taken out last night, with baked potatoes, etc were disgusting, and made her whole family sick.
The hostess called me over, I verified what she said. Then had to inform her that we have never sold prime rib, or baked potatoes, and I was calling the police.
A woman bought a white shirt. She then spilled red soda onto the shirt. To fix the stain she used a tide-to-go pen. She rubbed so hard it tore a hole in the fabric. Her husband tried to return it after they stained and tore the garment claiming that it must have been a manufacturing problem. No. Sir. That’s not how it works.
I used to work at a lube oil change franchise, and we had some incredibly stupid people pull in. My favorite was The Chick With the Volvo.
So, it was a slow day. We didn’t have anything going on, and this woman pulled up in a fairly nice Volvo. She pulls up to a bay, We ask her what she wants, and she says an oil change. We get her info, take down the mileage (50,467, I will never forget that number), and pull her car into the bay while my manager talks up the extra services. She gets over the pit, I pop the hood and open the oil cap.
Black, billowing smoke comes out.
I call down to my pit guy and ask him to pop the oil pan. He starts coughing.
Black, billowing smoke comes up from the pit.
I get my boss and tell him we’ve got a problem. He comes out, sees the smoke, and says, “Don’t touch a F*CKING THING.” He walks back into the office, and I follow out of curiosity. He looks at the customer and says, “Ma’am, there seems to be a very serious issue with your car. You might want to get hold of whoever did your last oil change and get their info for a warranty claim. Who did your last oil change?”
This lady looks him square in the eye and says, “Nobody. This is my first scheduled oil change.”
We both stare at her in shock. She’d gone over FIFTY THOUSAND miles without an oil change. My boss stares at her some more while slowly trying to explain that cars are supposed to be serviced every 3k-5k miles. This lady starts screaming at him; who the heck does he think he is, he’s not a mechanic (he’s ASE certified powertrain and electrical), he ruined the car, it even says so in the owner’s manual that it’s every 50k!
Well now.
So, we asked her to get the manual. She does, looking all smug, like, ‘Now I’ve got these a**holes,’ written all over her face. She whips it open, looks for the maintenance schedule, and finds the part we’re all waiting for. She’s not letting us look at it yet, and we can tell reality hit her because her face falls a bit. Then, she has the nerve to tell us that we’re wrong anyway.
My boss looks at her and says, “Lady, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna pop the cap back on and leave the FACTORY FILTER on your car. We’re going to top off your washer fluid, and we’re not going to charge you anything. Then, you can go down to the Volvo dealership and tell them what you did to their $55k paperweight, Have a nice day, and get out of my shop.”
The kicker is, we got a call from the dealership a couple of days later, and the service writer is laughing his a** off. Says this really b*tchy lady came in and complained that our shop had ruined her car. They took one look at it, figured out what happened, and said they were going to have to charge her for a crate engine. SHE B*TCHED TO THE SERVICE MANAGER that they weren’t going to cover it under warranty!
I used to work at Mikasa (back when they had actual stores). I’m ringing up a customer, she uses her 20% off any one full-price item coupon that they mailed out when you’re on the mailing list (the coupon value is important here).
Next woman comes up with a $2 thing from clearance and demands that I give her a coupon to use. I try to diffuse with ‘If you sign up for the mailing list you’ll get them pretty regularly’ NO she wants THAT coupon and she wants it NOW for this item. I tried to explain that I could not rescan that coupon (or pull it out of the drawer) AND she couldn’t use it on her purchase anyway since it was for a regular price item, not clearance.
She loses it, starts yelling at me that she’s going to get my a** fired, she’ll have everyone in the store out of a job, she’s going to have the whole operation shut down (over 40 cents, just let that be known, this is happening because I’m denying her a whopping 40 cents off her 2 DOLLAR item). I try to explain that I can’t give her the coupon, I can’t I don’t have the power to, I’m just a cashier (though I was seriously tempted to just pay for the f*cking thing myself if it would make her leave). She is still f*cking losing it, her friend is pretending she doesn’t know her. My manager comes over and gives the lady the senior discount of 10% knocking a whopping 20 cents off her massive purchase, she smiles smugly at me and goes “SEE I always win” Okay lady get down with your bad self, you just accosted a minimum wage employee over 20 cents and look like a crazy a** to everyone in a crowded store…yep you’re the winner here.
Working at a hardware store, overhear my manager and a little old lady’s conversation an aisle over.
Manager: “Can I help you ma’am?”
Lady: “I hope so, you’re all out of my size of air filter!”
Manager:” Which size was that ma’am?”
Lady: “10×20”
Manager: “Let me see here.” The manager looks around the shelf. “Here you go.” Hands the Lady a 20″x 10″ air filter.
Lady: “I said I need 10″20″!”
The manager keeps quiet, takes back the air filter, holds it out in front of him, rotates it 90 degrees, and hands it back to her with a sh*t-eating grin.
I worked in a sandwich/wing place several years ago. Had a woman order hot wings for delivery. After they were delivered, she called raging that “those hot wings made her baby cry!” The manager politely offered to send her mild instead…
We ran out of medium-sized fountain drink cups at the place where I work, so we were giving out large ones instead for the price of a medium. A lady flipped out and demanded that she get the drink for free since it wasn’t the size that she wanted.
I used to be a lifeguard. This happened every single day. No, every single hour.
The pool wasn’t deep enough to dive anywhere. Some young teenagers thought they were too cool and need not follow the strict, NO DIVING rules. We catch them. Tell them they have to sit out the next time they do it. Of course, they think we are stupid and blind and do it again. We sit them out for 10 minutes, kindly inform their parents why they are sitting out and if they do it again, we will kick them out.
Parent: “Good for you guys. They need to learn their actions have consequences.”
Thank the lord! Somebody is on our side!
Well, 10 minutes is up. The first thing these kids do is dive headfirst into the pool.
Lifeguards (to the kids): “I am going to have to ask you to leave the pool for the day. You dove headfirst into the pool numerous times after we already told you it was against the rules. Next time you come back, please do not dive headfirst into the pool, you could seriously injure yourself and possibly those around you.”
Lifeguards (to the parent): “I am sorry but your child dove headfirst again, we are going to have to ask you to leave the pool area for the day.”
Parents (yelling): “Are you kidding me?!!!! I took the time to bring them here so they could enjoy the pool! You guys are making this up! My kids are good kids! They would never do that! I am never coming here again!”
I once worked at a grocery store, and oftentimes at the customer service counter, which typically handles refunds, exchanges, complaints, and other odds and ends (like cigarettes and lottery).
This man comes up with a block of cheese still in its package. I ask how can I help him. Then, our conversation goes something like this:
Customer: This is the wrong cheese.
Me: All right. Would you like to exchange it for another kind of cheese or would you prefer a refund?
Customer: I don’t want it.
Me: OK, I’ll put through the refund for you. [I proceed to take the cheese, enter the refund into the computer, and hold out the money we owe him]
Customer: What? Where’s my cheese? I don’t want a refund.
Me: So, you want your cheese back?
Customer: Yes.
[I proceed to ring the cheese back into the computer, put the money back in the till, and give him his cheese back]
Customer: Where’s my money?
Me: You said you wanted your cheese instead of a refund, so I rang it through again.
Customer: But it’s the wrong kind of cheese.
Me: So, you want to exchange it?
Customer: No. I don’t want to bother with it. I’m just telling you it’s the wrong kind.
Me: So…what do you want me to do?
This still perplexes me, but he ended up throwing a little hissy fit and took his wrong cheese home again.
I imagine this will be unpopular, but I work at a bank and hear this all the time:
“My interest rate is too high, so I’m just going to not pay back the 30,000 dollars I borrowed.”
Listen, b*tch, you opened the credit card, you signed the disclosure with the agreed-upon interest rate, you decided to spend 30k on a bunch of useless sh*t, and I know it’s useless sh*t cause I can see what you spent it on.
How anyone can feel justified in violating a contract and not paying back many thousand dollars because someone is doing exactly what they agreed to do in a contract that you f*cking signed is beyond me. I don’t care if it’s a bank, credit union, friend, or relative. If you borrow money, pay it the sh*t back.
And I’m not talking about an increased rate. I work at a bank that actually does not raise your APR if you fall past due.
I worked at a local ice cream store in high school and we always had some pretentious customers. On a summer afternoon, a lady came up to me and showed me that her ice cream had melted and wanted another one free of charge.
I gave her another cone, but this time I made it sugar-free. B*tch had it coming
While working in retail, a woman who had come in the day before was furious that we had not bagged one of the items she had paid for. She claimed to have paid for 4 sets of boxers but only 3 were in the bag. We looked up her receipt on our register and saw that we only charged her for 3. We even looked back at the security tape to see that she had only brought 3 to the register.
After giving her a call back saying that she had only purchased and paid for 3, she blew up. Racial slurs, profanity, and threats were made about how we were scamming her. In 20 minutes, she came to the store with her receipt to prove that she paid for 4. We counted. 1, 2, and 3. Instead of accepting the facts, she ripped up the receipt and said that she paid for 4. She started knocking down clothes on the racks on her way out and demanded her set of boxers. The owner just gave it to her and told her not to come back.
This guy came up just yesterday and complained that he had ordered extra butter on his popcorn, but when he DUMPED IT OUT He got it all over his wife. He said
“I asked for extra butter but there was too much butter.”
I failed to see the logic in the situation. He asked for extra butter and got it. Then he knowingly dumped out the bucket onto the floor and spilled out the extra butter. I had NO IDEA what he wanted from me because all he was doing was complaining about how the concessionist had done EXACTLY what he wanted. Then complained about his own stupidity.
During my sophomore year of college, I worked at a Baskin Robbins. While I worked there I gained a little reputation as being the guy who gave double scoops for the price of one. Everyone loved it because ‘let’s face it’ Baskin Robbins is a rip-off for the scoop size.
Every Friday night around 7:30, wave after wave of parents accompanied by their loud messy children would come in and order copious amounts of ice cream. After about a month of working the same shift, I began to recognize the regulars. One larger fellow with his family would come in and order the Banana Royale, with just about everything on it. I mean everything! Nuts, gummy bears, caramel, peanut butter, various fruits, whatever we had. If we didn’t have it out at the front, he would ask if I could check the back for whatever he wanted. Being the nice guy I always checked, even if I knew that the store didn’t have any.
During one late Friday shift around 9 p.m., the larger fellow showed up with his family and ordered the usual. While him and his family ate quietly in the corner. A drunken woman entered the store and proceeded to shout that she was “here”. After announcing to the world that she had arrived, she continued to scan the thirty-one flavors. I swear she must have been ‘out of her mind’ because she took about 15 minutes to decide that she wanted strawberry cheesecake, a more popular flavor.
Once she had finished ordering her ice cream she asked if she could give me a tip. I directed her attention towards the small tip jar which had been filled throughout the shift. She looked at it for 20 seconds, and then she checked her wallet. After realizing that she didn’t have any cash she asked if we accepted tips through debit or credit. Unfortunately, the Baskin Robbins I worked at had a policy to not accept tips through any means besides cash. This was because of previous workers stealing from the people using cards to tip.
The woman in her drunken state attempted to convince me that our store policy allowed it. I politely stated that I was fine with not receiving a tip (Let me make it clear the room is filled with children and their parents). A brief moment of silence; it was as if she didn’t comprehend what I had said. The woman then erupted with anger saying that our store accepted tips through debit or credit. She then proceeded to scream ‘F*ck you’ and ‘I’m reporting this to your manager’. For two minutes she cursed me out; going through the entire list of vulgar words. I stood there listening to every word, attempting to calm her down, while the entire room was in silence. Some parents were beginning to approach the woman.
At the third ‘f*ck you’; I was done with being nice. In the deepest and harshest tone, which I reserve for the a**holes of the world, I bellowed “Get the f*ck out”. She screamed what’s your manager’s number. I ignored her request and continued to tell the b*tch off. I went through everything that she did wrong; explaining that it was inappropriate behavior, especially in the presence of children. The whole room was silent; even the woman was stunned. In a more calm and collected tone I said “Get out”. She collected her things, walked to the door, turned around and screamed ‘f*ck you’ one last time as loud as she could.
Once she left all the parents thanked me for halting the verbal diarrhea that had a**aulted everyone’s ears. As I began to start closing the store the larger fellow I spoke of earlier approached the counter and put an extra two dollars in the tip jar; then said proceeded to say that I had ‘done good’. It was single-handedly the proudest moment I’ve ever had while working at a minimum-wage job.
Had a customer come in and start rattling off something angrily in a language I didn’t understand for a good few minutes. When my only response was a dumbfounded stare, she exclaimed, furiously:
I worked at an artisan pizza joint for a few years. I believe it was designed so that people with dietary restrictions could enjoy pizza too.
We had this one woman who would call almost every other Friday for a delivery. This woman would make it incessantly clear to me that she had both dairy and garlic allergies, as well as an aversion to several vegetables every other Friday. So every other Friday she would order a large, no cheese, no sauce, pepperoni pizza. Just crust and pepperoni.
Then, like a chip was implanted in her brain, she would call me 20 minutes after the driver dropped off the pizza to complain. Apparently, a crust and pepperoni-only pizza is too bland. She couldn’t understand why we could never do “a little something extra because she was a repeat customer.”
I’ve inquired several times and I still don’t know what that means…
She pulled this sh*t to the point that my manager could no longer offer her any more apology discounts. I would just apologize and say something like “We will try better next time.” I quit that job more than a year ago and still don’t know why we put up with her.
I work for a popular roadside assistance company and had a guy call in wanting to get roadside assistance for his daughter who was stranded. His daughter was not on his membership and there was no room to add her because he already had his wife added. So I suggested he remove his wife for now and add his daughter so she can get roadside assistance and then switch them back afterwards. Apparently, this was the most outrageous suggestion. He went and told my supervisor that I was “making him choose his daughter over his wife and no father should have to make that kind of decision” lol.
At my first IT job, someone was returning a computer monitor and insisted on speaking with someone from the IT department rather than just leaving it in the cage as they were asked.
So I came down to talk with them to see what was going on and she was very adamant that I “double-check” the monitor to make sure all of her information was off of it….
This lady literally thought all of her icons, files, and folders were saved directly to the monitor itself and wouldn’t leave unless I powered it on to show her.
I didn’t even bother trying to explain it to her, she seemed extremely rude and it wouldn’t even be worth my time. So I literally plugged it into the wall, didn’t connect it to anything, and powered it on.
I was working security at a beach-side complex with a mix of vacationers and year-round residents. The year-round residents were supposed to have tags on their cars marking them as year-round so they didn’t need a parking pass. During a routine patrol of the garage, I spotted a car without a pass or a sticker and ticketed it.
Thirty minutes later, one of the year-round residents comes storming up to me, waving the ticket. I explained that she needed to display her tag and she went off on me about how much she paid for the condo, how she paid my salary, etc. etc.
The kicker at the end? “Instead of harassing the people who sign your paychecks, you need to do the job you’re being paid to do.”
You mean, like, ticketing vehicles without a proper parking pass?
It’s definitely one of the top crazy customer stories I have. I was a manager at a taco fast food place at the time and a lady came in the lobby asking a sweet older woman to buy her and her four children some food, the older woman was nice enough to do so, thinking the trashy woman would pick food from the dollar menu, but no, this lady orders about 50 dollars worth of food, which is a sh*t ton of food considering the place it was, her order was so big that the nice old lady had to go to her car and get a change to pay for her own bean burrito. Right after the super trashy b*tch receives her order we see her in the drive-thru demanding a refund. Her complaint is that her kids can not eat cheese, I informed her that we can not give her a refund because she did not pay for her food, but we will remake her order for her without cheese. She starts raising h*ll and saying she doesn’t have time to wait for that and wants the money. I tell her it’s not happening and she drives away. About ten minutes later I get a call from another manager working at a different location, they are asking why I wouldn’t give this customer a refund and I told them the story, they also tell her to f*ck off in the nicest way possible. I have to call all the other locations around us and explain to not give this person any money. I heard she did try a few more locations.
I work for a large food manufacturer that makes all sorts of items. One item we make is a “sugar-free” fruit pie. The secret to “sugar-free” is that we use this artificial sweetener. As long as you have a reasonable portion, you’re fine. However, if you eat too much of this particular sweetener, it can have a laxative effect. We once had a woman call in and demand that we replace the carpet in her house because she had “an accident that ruined the carpet from her living room all the way down the hall and into the bathroom.”
While working at the world’s largest fruit company, I was assisting another customer at the “Brilliant Saloon” when I heard a rather angry customer yelling at someone delivering some bad news. I finished up and decided to go help her out and inquired about her problem. She said she was told she was going to have to pay a very large amount of money to repair her laptop due to liquid damage, but it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t think she should have to pay for the repair. I was intrigued so I inquired whose fault it was (dumb question, it’s always the fruit company’s fault) and she immediately blamed the design of the laptop. Explaining that her ports are always open and her bunny likes them a little too much, he made a mess inside one. I immediately assumed the bunny pee’d inside the laptop, so I began to explain that while unfortunately the bunny pee’d inside the ethernet port when she stopped me. “He didn’t pee inside the port!” she said indignantly, “He had his way with it! Gosh!” I bit my lip just shy of really hurting myself to stop from blasting out loud with laughter. She went on to complain that if the ports were covered this never would have happened, and that is all our fault demanding that we charge her nothing to fix the laptop. I somewhat calmly explained why ports are accessible, and that she will still be responsible for the cost regardless. That’s when she asked for a manager. I very quickly ran to the back room to laugh and inform my manager of the situation. Needless to say, she said the cost stands and the lady took her “LoveBook” away with her.
I worked at a cafe. Received a call from a woman complaining about meat in her salad (she was vegetarian). I assured her that I took her order and our delivery person verified it was vegetarian. She said, “Well, what are these brown cubes then?”
“Brown cubes? We don’t have any meat like that? What is the texture?”
“They’re crunchy. Dry.”
“They might be croutons.”
There was a long moment of silence where she thought about what decisions in her life led her to that moment.
I was at a Starbucks yesterday and the woman in front of me ordered an iced coffee with mocha. After it was made she took a sip I got to witness this exchange:
Woman – “I don’t think this is right, I ordered a mocha iced coffee”
Barista – “I’m sorry ma’am. Let me remake it for you” She promptly remakes the drink.
Woman – “This tastes the same. Are you sure you know what mocha is?”
Barista – “Yes ma’am. For your drink, it’s mocha syrup and iced coffee.”
Woman – “Are you sure you’re not using chocolate syrup instead of the mocha?”
Barista – “Are you sure the drink you wanted is a mocha?”
Woman – “Yes it is! I just had one in a bottle this morning. Why can’t you just make that?”
It finally clicked with the barista that this woman wanted something that tasted like one of those sickeningly sweet Starbucks bottled coffees. I watch her put one pump of mocha and six pumps of liquid sugar into the cup as she remakes the drink.
Woman – “Perfect! why couldn’t you just make it right the first time?”
I was having dinner one evening at a place with patio seating when a couple sat at the table next to mine. It was a bit late, around 9 p.m., so it was fairly dark outside. As I’m looking over the menu, I hear the server greet the couple and the man asks, “Could you do anything about these lights?” I didn’t look up to see what he pointed at, but I assumed there was a lamp from inside of the restaurant that was shining directly in his face or something like that. I hear the server say to him, “Nothing. Those are street lamps, sir.”
I was a cabana hostess at an upscale pool. On my lunch break, my boss found me to tell me that a woman was accusing me of stealing her bottle of champagne. I went back out to discuss it with her and basically apologized that it was missing, but that we were happy to comp her a bottle (of a nicer brand, too). She flipped out on me, making a scene and saying that she could smell the booze on me, called me a wh*re, getting right up in my face and yelling at other pool attendees that I was a thief. Finally, I just told her that I wouldn’t even bother drinking crap like Andre, it is the migraine of champagne and I’ve had better taste than that since I was nineteen. I walked away and had a coworker bring her a new bottle.
Later I found out that her young son had been playing alone in the cabana and moved the champagne from the fridge to the safe. Her husband found me and apologized, and tried to pay for the bottle I had comped along with giving me a decent tip. The woman later came over to the hostess desk, asked for a comment card, and, ignoring me the entire time, wrote a longwinded review about how the pool employed “sl*tty teenagers” (I was like 24, and probably the same age or just a year or two younger than this lady) and gave a very detailed physical description of me and that I should be drug tested. She also complained about one of the lifeguards for wearing too much makeup, because “how can I be sure that the lifeguard would jump in the pool to save my kid when it would certainly ruin her cat eye?”
Because of her complaint, my company banned us all from wearing red lipstick, colorful eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, and pigtails, bows, or flowers in our hair.
It is kind of sad, and I would totally write it off as some sort of depression or other personal issues, but it wasn’t like we were s*xpots or anything… I wore khakis and a polo, and the lifeguards wore baggy shorts and high-cut, loose-fitting t-shirts. All the weird sl*tshaming was not only rude and unnecessary, it really didn’t even make sense.
While I’ve had a couple that were borderline (I wouldn’t accept a fake $20, the customer said my attitude was bad, etc) the one that takes the cake for me is as follows.
I worked a 9.5-hour shift on a very very busy overnight at the convenience store. 7 a.m. finally arrives, I clock out, grab my keys and head to my car (across the parking lot). I still have my nametag on. An older woman comes up to me and asks me if I’d like to go to church with her. I politely declined and told her my wife was waiting for me at home. She then asks what church I go to (which is not an altogether uncommon question in the South). I tell her that I prefer not to give out information about my life outside of work (even to my coworkers). I then said goodbye and thanked her for her offer (it takes me a bit to get out of customer service mode, which is a bit irritating) and went home.
Three weeks later, at my one-on-one meeting with my manager, he told me that someone complained to corporate about me, asked if I remembered a customer inviting me to church, and handed me the complaint (Which I still have hanging on my fridge)
Dear [Company]
I want to express my concern regarding one of your employees. He works Saturday overnight at [Location], and his name tag says [GuardianOfFreyja]. On August 26, as he was leaving, I met him in the parking lot and invited him to come with me to church. While he was polite enough, he declined and then refused to answer me when I asked him which church he attended. It is clear to me that he is an atheist, and I must ask that he be fired. It is a terrible thing to be giving non-believers jobs when there are plenty of good Christian folks who do not have them.
Thank you for your time, [Name Redacted].
I looked up from reading it, and even my manager was shaking his head at it. The response from my company was something along the lines of offering her a gift card, apologizing for the inconvenience, and dancing around the issue that they could not fire me for not going to church with a customer. My manager’s response “Good job at being called polite in a complaint, and remember not to do that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“I have no idea.”
Still the most ludicrous complaint I’ve ever received.
