Customer, staring at credit card machine: “I don’t know what to do. What does it want me to do?”

Me: “What does the screen say?”

Customer: “Press the green button.”

Me: “Then…well…maybe you should press that green button there.”

Customer: “Oh, okay.”

Related:
Instructions Are Your Friends

(A guest approaches the hotel front desk.)

Guest: “Um, hi…it looks like there was a pretty bad accident right down the street there…”

Me: “Oh okay, I’ll call 911.”

Guest: “It looks like a cab and a bus.”

Me: “Okay, thank you.” *picks up the phone*

Guest: What are you doing?

Me: “Calling 911.”

Guest: “Look, a lot of people have cell phones, I’m sure it’s fine. What I’m concerned about is that I think that was my cab.”

Me: “?”

Guest: “SO ARE YOU GOING TO CALL ME A CAB OR NOT?!”

(A very old man with a Dracula Transylvania accent comes into the store. I am standing in an aisle restocking something, easily spotted by anyone entering the store.)

Dracula: “HO HO HO!” *it’s summer btw* “Where is everybody? All hands on deck! Can’t I get some f**king help here?!”

Me bewildered: “Uhm, I’m right here. What can I help you with sir?”

Dracula: “I need new razor blades.”

Me: “Okay, they are right over here.” *leads him to display* “What kind of razor do you have?”

Dracula: “I don’t know! Why does that matter? How am I suppose to know that?”

Me: “Well, there are different blades for each kind of razor. If you can look through the razors we have and show me what it looks like, I’ll get you fixed up.”

(Dracula finds his razor and I find his blades.)

Me: “Do you want the 4 count or the 8 count? The 8 count costs a bit more.”

Dracula: “Give me the 8 count! You think I want to come back here everyday? No one works here!”

(I get the blades for him and start heading toward the checkout. He stops me and snatches the blades from me.)

Dracula: “I need to see them first to make sure they’re right! *starts to open them*

Me: “Sir, I’m sorry, but you can’t just open things. We matched them up to your razor. I’m sure they are right.”

Dracula: *opens them anyway* “They’re right!”

(He hands them to me and again I move toward the checkout. Again, he stops me.)

Dracula: “What are you doing? Those are open. I’m not buying them!”

Me: “Sir you were the one to open them after I clearly told you not to. So you are buying these. Next time, don’t open things you don’t want.”

(He grabs another box of the shelf and snatches the open box from me. He tosses it onto a lower shelf and says…)

Dracula: “You need a display anyway! You should have a display so people know what they are buying!”

Me: “Sir, I’m fairly certain that our customers with children would not appreciate an open razor blade display!”

(I snatch them up and sell him the unopened box; at this point, I just wanted him out of the store. We dealt with Dracula twice more.)

(A lady comes in with a bag of shirts.)

Lady: “I need to return these.”

Me: “Sorry we can’t take those back, they’re opened…”

Lady: “Why the hell not!?”

Me: “You can only return the shirts if they’re unopened. It’s the store policy.”

Lady: “Bulls**t, you’re trying to rip me off! You’re suppose to take these back–they don’t fit my husband!”

Me: “If you read the policy you would know you couldn’t bring them back, ma’am.”

Lady: “What store policy?!”

(I point to the store policy above and behind me on a red sign in big white letters. The lady snatches the bag of shirts and starts stomping off. My manager, who was watching the whole time, finally says something.)

Manager: “I’m sorry ma’am, next time you should read the policy–”

Lady: *cuts off my manager* “I DON’T F**KING READ!!”

(The store’s power went out one day so we were using a pocket calculator to figure out totals and writing up paper receipts.)

Customer: “I’m not ready to pay yet, but can you tell me what I will owe?”

(I punch some numbers into the calculator, which returns 26.595.)

Me: “Your total will be $26.59.”

(When the customer comes back to pay, the power has just come back on and our computer system is up and running so I enter her purchase information.)

Me: “Okay, the total comes to $26.60.”

Customer: “You told me $26.59 before.”

Me: “Oh yeah, it’s because it was something like 26.595 and I just truncated the number instead of rounding it, but the computer rounds automatically.”

Customer: “I find it very interesting that it would round in favor of itself.”

Me: “Um, that’s just how rounding works. If it had been 26.594 it would have rounded down.”

Customer: “I just find it *very* interesting that the customer loses out on this.”

Me: “…”

(A guy and his wife came into my store to ask about Wii’s. The conversation went as follows…)

Man: “Where do you keep your Wii’s at?”

Me: “We don’t have any in stock right now.”

Man: “When you gettin’ some?”

Me: “No idea man. They just ship it to us…we are getting them about once a week but no set date or anything like that.”

Man: “Uh-huh…so you know the date but you aren’t allowed to tell us.”

Me: “No…I don’t know the date.”

Man’s wife: “They play it off like it’s a big secret!”

(They leave and the man comes back about 25 minutes later, this time without his wife. He has this giant smile on his face and approaches me next to the counter.)

Man: “Hey buddy, if you let me know when one of those Wii’s come in I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

Me, in a very childlike excited tone: “Twenty dollars?!?! Really mister? That will totally cover all my bills and rent and anything else I need but can’t afford because I’ve lost my job!!”

Man: “Everybody is a godd**n smarta**…”

(A woman had been coming in every day and paying for venti drinks with all the trimmings using service recovery coupons. This went on for about a year and a half, and finally we were told to stop taking them from her. They were old, we had never given any to her, and she could not have acquired so many of them legitimately.)

Me: “I’m sorry ma’am, but we can’t take any of these coupons, they’re outdated.”

Coupon Lady: “…but I use these all the time. They always take them!”

Me: “They’re outdated. There are new ones now, and we’re not allowed to take the old ones anymore.”

Coupon Lady: *pays for her drinks, leaves*

(The next day Coupon Lady returns with her husband and tries the same thing.)

Me: “I’m sorry, I told you yesterday, we will not accept any more coupons from you.”

Husband: “I want to speak to your manager.”

(I go and get a manager; the husband commences shouting at manager.)

Manager: “You’ve been using these coupons almost daily since this location opened. We are not going to accept them anymore.”

Husband: “We know the man in charge! WE GOT THESE FROM THE HEAD GUY!”

Manager: “Sir, if you’d actually gotten these coupons from the man in charge, you would know that the man in charge here is a WOMAN.”

(A group of students come into the bar dressed as cavemen, complete with wigs and squeaky plastic clubs.)

Caveman 1, banging squeaky club on bar: “Ugg!”

Me: *stares at him in disbelief*

Caveman 1: “Ugg! Ugg!” *bang* *squeak*

Me: *still maintaining silence*

Caveman 2: “Are we getting service here or not?!” *bang* *squeak*

(A crescendo of grunting student cavemen start to bang each other on the heads with the squeaky clubs and proceed to upset the other punters.)

Me: “Right, that’s enough! You’re not getting f-ugg-ing served and you’re all f-ugg-ing barred!”

(The cavemen left only to be replaced by a group of student girls dressed as nuns. They all got a free drink.)

(While performing a normal transaction…)

Bank customer: “When is your baby due?”

Me, smiling: “Oh, I had my baby 5 months ago! She’s doing wonderfully.”

Bank customer: *waves her hand around her face in a circle* “Oh, I guess you still haven’t lost your baby fat.”

Me: “…”

Angry man: “This is ridiculous! Look how small these cones are!”

Other server: “Uh…?”

Me: “Can I help you?”

Angry man: “Yeah! Each time I come in here, the cones get smaller and smaller, and the scoops are tiny!”

Me: “Sir, those are standard sized scoops. But if you’d like, I can add on a bit more ice cream.”

Angry man: “It’s not about the ice cream! It’s the fact that you are taking money from people and making everything smaller. This is ridiculous! Don’t you feel ashamed?”

Me: “I’m sorry sir…I’ll talk to my manager about that if you’d like.”

Angry man: “Yeah, well, good!”

(He tries to toss the ice cream cone in the trash, but misses. He picks the cone up off the ground and throws it away. The other server and I try to keep from laughing.)

Angry man: “You’ve just lost a customer for life!” *stalks out, red-faced*

Me and the other server: “Wow…”

(In re-enters a customer with his son who I had just served moments before.)

Another customer: “Don’t worry about that guy. He was just screaming at someone over at the next door grocery store for not having the correct amount of bananas per bunch.”