Me: “****** Frame Shop, how can I help you?”

Lady: “Hi. I have a problem with a mat I ordered.”

Me: “What is the problem?”

Lady: “Well, I wanted the mat to fit over a puzzle and on the puzzle box it says it is supposed to be 20″ by 28″, so that is what we ordered.”

Me: “Okay.”

Lady: “But I am putting the puzzle together and it is only 20″ by 23″.”

Me: “Well, if there is a problem I can always re-order the mat for you…”

Lady: “But the puzzle is supposed to be 20″ by 28″! Now it won’t fit in the frame I bought from you!”

Me: “Do you have the puzzle all put together?”

Lady: “No, not yet.”

Me: “…then how did you measure it?”

Lady: “I measured the edges!”

Me: “Are there any pieces with flat sides left?”

Lady: “Yes, but they don’t fit.”

Me: “Hmm, I see….”

(I spend the next 15 minutes trying to explain to the customer that all of the flat pieces belong on the edges of the puzzle, without offending her or snickering.)

Customer: My wireless network’s down. The modem says it’s connected but none of us can browse.

Me: “Can you ping the modem? … No? Ok, I’ll need you to connect to the modem with a cable, and log into the configuration page. Great. Now click on the ‘wireless’ tab.”

Customer: “There’s no wireless tab.”

Me: “What model of modem do you have?”

Customer: “An Open 624.”

Me: “Not the 624W?”

Customer: “No, I told you, the 624.”

Me: “Um…that is not a wireless capable modem.”

Customer: *exploding* “Don’t bulls**t me! You sold me this piece of crap! It had wireless until yesterday and now it doesn’t!”

Me: “Did any of your neighbours move out?”

Customer: “What the h–…Oh.”

Me: “Shall I put you through to the Modem Sales department?”

Related:
My Neighbor Broke, Can You Fix It

(A woman calls in, telling me that she rented Good Luck Chuck for her young son’s sleepover without watching the movie first. She showed the movie to a party of young boys, and then had to call their parents to apologize.)

Woman: “I need to know how I can prevent this from happening in the future.”

Me: “Well, if you bring the movie up to the counter, chances are that somebody has seen the movie, and if they haven’t we can point you in the direction of a movie that would be appropriate.”

Woman: “This movie says ‘unrated.’ It should be okay!”

Me: “Actually, ‘unrated’ means that things have been put into the movie that couldn’t be shown in theaters.”

Woman: “What? I’ve seen CARTOONS that are unrated.”

(I assume she’s talking about ‘not rated,’ but decide that telling her that there’s a difference will just make her angrier.)

Me: “Well, if you flip over and read the back of the movie, under the rating it will tell you what it is rated that for–”

Woman, sounding angry: “Yeah, I know, I read it. It says, ‘Nudity, Strong Sexual Content, Drug Use, and Adult Language.’ EVERY movie has that.”

Me: “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. All I can suggest is that if you’re not sure, you can bring the movie up to the counter and we can help you. Would you like me to put a free movie on your account?”

Woman: “I don’t think you should even carry this movie on your shelves, it’s disgusting.”

Me: “I’m sorry, we only get what Corporate sends us.”

Woman: “Who can I complain to?”

Me: “All I can do is put a free movie on your account for the inconvenience. Our company gets the movies with the ratings from the production companies–”

Woman: “How can I call the production companies?”

Me: “Um, I guess you could search for them on Google?”

Woman: “Good, I am going to call the production company right now and complain.”

Me, trying desperately not to laugh: “Okay, I’m really sorry for the inconvenience, have a nice night.”

(She hung up the phone and I immediately burst out laughing–apparently a label saying, “UNRATED - CHUCKED UP EDITION,” in giant letters, as well as all of the warnings on the back and just the plot of the movie are not enough warning. Does she want us to put up a sign saying, “DO NOT RENT THIS MOVIE FOR YOUR SON’S SLEEPOVER?”)

Me: “911, is this an emergency?”

Caller, screaming: “I have been trying to call you on the CB radio for an hour!”

Me: “We don’t monitor CB radio, do you have an emergency?”

Caller: “Of course you have CB radio, I see the cops talking on them all of the time!”

Me: “Those are police radios; they operate on a different radio frequency band. Do you have an emergency?”

Caller: “F*** you! F***ing lazy b*****d, this lady’s house is burning to the ground while you watch Showtime and ignore the CB!”

Me: “What is your location, sir?”

Caller: “I am–”

(At this time I hear a large BANG and the phone drops. A few moments later the man picks up the phone and tells me that his truck was fully involved and that was his tires exploding. He had parked his truck at the door of the house to load belongings while he tried to call on his CB. Both the house and truck were a total loss.)

Woman: “My screw fell out of my glasses. Can you replace it?”

Me: “Absolutely.”

(I go in the back, replace the woman’s screw and bring it back.)

Woman: “This is all wrong.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “This screw is silver. My screw was gold!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but the only screws I have are silver.”

Woman: “But my screw was gold. This thing is cheap.”

Me: “To be fair your screw wasn’t gold. It just had gold paint on it just like your frames.”

Woman: “How do you know?”

Me: “Well, I looked at the other screw.”

Woman: “I thought this frame was solid gold.”

Me: “I’m afraid not. This is a $120 dollar frame. It’s not going to be made of gold with gold screws for $120 dollars.”

Woman: “Well, can you give me a gold painted screw?”

Me: “I only have silver, ma’am.”

Woman: “Well I don’t want it.”

Me: “Would you like me to take it out and give you back your broken glasses?”

Woman: “No.”

Me: “Than I suggest you take this screw.”

Woman: “I don’t want it!”

Me: “Then I’ll take it out for you.”

Woman: “No! I need them to see.”

(I hand her back her frame, still fully repaired.)

Woman: “I DON’T WANT THAT SCREW!”

Me: “Well if you find the screw that fell out, I will be happy to put it back in for you.”

Woman: “I’ll never find it, it fell out a week ago!”

Me: *bangs head on wall*

Related:
Customer: Impossible

(A lady walks into the cafe, i just happen to be standing by the counter with my coworker.)

Woman: “I’ll have *order* please”

Coworker: “Okay, that’s $1.47.”

(I make the coffee.)

Woman: *leans in and whispers to me* “Excuse me?”

Me: “Yes?”

Woman: “What exactly is an ‘Emo’?”

Me: “Thank you for calling ****, how may I direct your call?”

Lady: “Can I get your Orient kitchen?”

(I put her on hold, page the kitchen. 30 seconds later, the phone rings.)

Me: “Thank you for calling ****, how may I direct your call?”

Same lady: “Yeah, I was holding for the Orient kitchen, I think I got disconnected.”

Me: “Just a sec.”

(I put her on hold again, page the kitchen again. 30 seconds later, phone rings again.)

Me: “Thank you for calling ****, how may I direct your call?”

Same lady: “You keep hanging up on me! Every time I call for the kitchen, you hang up on me.”

Me: “Ma’am, I am putting you on hold.”

Lady: “No, you keep hanging up on me. You say hold and then there’s silence.”

Me: “If I was hanging up on you, you would hear a dial tone. The silence is you being on hold. So if you wait a minute, I will get the kitchen for you.”

Lady: “Okay.”

Me: “Now, there is going to be silence. This isn’t me hanging up on you. You are being put on hold. Just wait and someone will pick up the phone. ”

Lady: “Thank you.”

(I put her on hold and turn to see my co-workers laughing at me behind my back. I question the state of humanity.)

(Where I work, all cashiers are taught to ask how the customer’s day was, and if they found everything alright. Simple, easily answered and pleasant…usually.)

Me: “How is your day, ma’am?”

Customer: *quite happily* “It’s great, I can’t complain.”

Me: “That’s good, did you find everything okay today?”

Customer: *suddenly angry* “NO, I couldn’t find product X or product Y, nor did you have any of product Q in stock, so far in the past three weeks of me shopping here, I have come in and you haven’t had ANY in stock!”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry about that, I could get a manager over and see if we could solve this prob–”

Customer, cutting me off: “NO, this is absolutely unacceptable! I guess I’m just going to have to go to competitor A from now on!”

Me: “I’m very sorry about that, ma’am.”

Customer: “YOU should be, it’s YOUR paycheck!”

Me: …

(I’m standing behind my counter when a man comes up to me with a prepaid phone and airtime card in his hand.)

Me: “Can I help you sir?”

Customer: “I wanna buy this.”

(I usually make people tell me what they want before I just “hop to.”)

Me: “That’ll be $63.55.”

Customer: *sets check down in front of me* “Just fill that out for me.”

Me: *thinking about writing a check for $20 over for a tip*

Related:
The Problem With Blank Checks

(I worked tech support for a major software company, specifically with their digital media products. This call was about their video editing software.)

Me: “Thanks for calling ***** tech support.

(The customer gives me her info and has a thick accent I can’t place.)

Me: “Great! What can I do for you?”

Her: “Yes. I am trying to edit dees beedio, and eet’s blue and blue on de ting.”

Me: “So…it’s blue, and blue…on the thing?”

Her: “Yes.”

Me: “Where is it blue?”

Her: “On de ting.”

Me: “By ‘thing,’ do you mean the Computer screen or your camera?”

Her: “Yes…de ting.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t see what you are looking at so you’ll have to tell me the name of the thing that is blue.”

Her: *getting angry* “DE TING!!! Eeet’s BLUUUUE AN BLUUUEE ON DE TING!!!!”

Me: “What exactly is blue? The video on your monitor? Are you outputting to TV? The viewfinder on your camera?”

Her: “Yes.”

Me: “Yes…which one?”

Her: *yelling* “DE TING!!!!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry but I don’t understand where you are having a problem.”

Her: “THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!! I SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH!!! MY HUSBAND TAUGHT ME HE WILL BE VERY VERY ANGRY WIT YOU!!! I DEMAND RESPECT!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!”

Me: “Ma’am, I agree. You speak english very very well. The problem I am having is you are not telling me where you are seeing blue video.”

Her: “ON DE TIIIING!!!”

(This exchange went on for a while before she got frustrated and hung up. The best part is, my call was being listened to by some higher level support guys. They created an internal troubleshooting document that appeared as follows:)

(And so on and so on…)

From the Not Always Right store:

De Ting (retro) Tee

De Ting (techno) Tee