It is the early 2000s, and I am working at a customer service point in a store for a large retailer. Two customers approach the counter wanting to return a CD. Our return policy states that as long as a CD has been taken out of its cellophane wrapper, we can’t return it unless it’s faulty, in which case we exchange it for the same title. This is done to counter the effects of unlicensed copying.

These two customers approach the counter, hand the CD case and the receipt to me, and begin talking to each other whilst expecting me to give them their money back. I open the case and find that there is no CD.

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, but there’s no CD in here.”

I am about to mention the policy when one customer suddenly snaps at her other half.

Customer: “You idiot, you left it in the PC when you were copying it!”

I hand back their item and log their receipt.

Me: “Thank you for shopping at [Retailer]. Bye-bye now!”

I work in IT for a retail company, supporting the employees. One big thing that is stressed as much as possible is to NEVER SHARE YOUR PASSWORD. Unfortunately, a lot of the store users either don’t see a problem with it or just think it doesn’t apply to them. Whenever we find out that someone is sharing passwords, we’re supposed to reset the password that’s being shared and submit an incident report to our security team. The user whose password we reset needs to call in for a new one, and they’re given a reminder that they shouldn’t be sharing passwords.

When I am still new to the company, I get a call from a user who says she’s having trouble with her email. We go through some remote troubleshooting, and I end up having to reboot the computer. It comes back up and I get reconnected to the workstation.

Me: “Okay, go ahead and sign in. I want to see if the error continues to pop up before you access your email.”

The user enters credentials that don’t match her account information on the call ticket in front of me.

Me: “Um, you’re [User], correct?”

User: “Yep.”

Me: “Okay, but it looks like you didn’t enter [User’s account username].”

User: “Nope. It’s my manager’s email that’s having issues, so I’m using her account.”

Me: *Head-desk* “Is [Manager] your manager?”

User: “Yes.”

Me: “Is she in the store?”

User: “No, she went home for the day and wanted me to get this fixed.”

Me: “Okay. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to reset [Manager]’s password and end this call. I’ll also be submitting an incident report to our security team, and the two of you may be contacted by them. You’re not supposed to be sharing credentials like that. She’ll need to call us to get a reset.”

User: “Well, she said it was okay for me to use her account to get this fixed.”

Me: “I understand that, but she was mistaken. It’s not okay to share credentials. If she’s having email issues, she needs to call us while she’s having trouble so we can investigate.”

User: “She doesn’t have time to do that, which is why she told me it was okay.”

Me: “Unfortunately, this is company policy. You are not supposed to be sharing credentials, and I am going to be resetting her password and ending this call. She’ll need to call us back to have her password reset.”

User: “You know what? Fine.” *Click*

I fill out my call ticket and note what happened. I also reset the manager’s password and submit the incident to security.

The manager does call back later that day to get her password reset. (We have a Single Sign On setup, so the manager was trying to check something from home and couldn’t. Also if I had to guess, the user I was talking to called and complained about me as soon as she hung up my call.)

I’m not there when the manager calls, but my coworker takes the call and tells me about it the next day.

Manager: “Someone from your team reset my password earlier for no reason! She should be fired!”

[Coworker] is able to see [Manager]’s account status, and he was sitting right behind me when I took the initial call, so he knows what happened.

Coworker: “I see that your password was reset because you gave your credentials to [User].”

Manager: “Well, of course! She was the only one who had time to call you and fix my email! The girl she was talking to shouldn’t have reset my account! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, you should not be sharing passwords. That’s why your password was reset.”

Manager: “I told [User] it was fine! I said it was, so she can use my password! Why did the girl earlier reset it like that and not give me a temporary one?”

Coworker: “Because you were no longer in the building for us to verify. I can provide you with a temporary one now and help you reset it; I just need to ask a couple of verifying questions.”

Manager: “Why do you have to do that?”

Coworker: “Company policy. I need to confirm your identity before I can reset your password. And you should not be sharing it with anyone else.”

Manager: “Ugh. Why not? I told [User] it was okay!”

Coworker: “It’s a security measure, ma’am. Just like the identity verification. It helps ensure that you’re the only one actually signing in with your credentials.”

The manager apparently grumbled but finally went through the verification steps, and my coworker was able to get her reset with another warning not to be sharing credentials. I did not get fired or even talked to or written up for doing my job, so there’s that.

Customer: “I need to return this.”

They place a carbon monoxide detector on the desk.

Me: “What’s wrong with it?”

Customer: “It keeps going off.”

Me: “The alarm keeps going off because you have detectable carbon monoxide levels in your home. You can get sick from that, so you need to get that looked at.”

Customer: “Well, I don’t want it; it keeps going off.”

Me: “So you want to return an item because it’s working too well?”

Customer: “I don’t want to have to deal with it! I don’t have time!”

Me: “But you have time to return it?”

Customer: “Ugh, you’re giving me such a headache.”

Me: “That’ll be the carbon monoxide…”

Related:
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 2
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm

The worst manager I’ve ever had is unfortunately my most recent one. While I’ve had other bad managers before, and I know there have been worse, he makes me consider quitting on a regular basis.

He is one of those control freak managers who must always dictate what other people are doing, and he tends to ask us to do useless menial tasks like scouring the store for garbage or wiping the tiny stains off of cooler doors. Infuriatingly enough, he will even do this while we are already preoccupied with more important tasks. I have had to leave customers waiting because he needed specks of dust vacuumed that minute — and he will usually demand it be done right then. He isn’t nice about issuing these orders, either, typically speaking in a snarky fashion, especially when he seems to look down on people, such as our sanitation clerk.

He’s also incredibly lazy. The dictation is basically all he does. More than one worker has caught him chatting casually with vendors or customers or watching shows on his phone. He will do this instead of responding to our calls for him. He’s pushed off customer requests for a manager onto supervisors more than once, even when this makes the customer angrier.

The list goes on; I could submit more than a few stories about this guy. But there’s one incident in particular that solidified my dislike of him.

One time, a customer approaches me asking about someone who works in the store. She doesn’t work in my department, but I know her in passing as a girl who could easily pass for a minor. This customer begins asking red flag questions about her — how old she is, where she is, when her shift ends, etc. He’s also getting aggressive when I try to evade answering his questions, so I offer to get a manager, hoping he’ll kick this guy out.

I go to [Bad Manager]’s office so the customer won’t hear any conversation. This guy is in there watching what sounds like a superhero movie, and I tell him about what happened. He sounds annoyed as he tells me the words don’t sound concerning; maybe this guy is a fan of hers, basically. He tells me not to make assumptions but says if I’m “really” concerned, I should get our other manager, who is thankfully in today.

So, I go to track down our other manager. By the time I find her, the customer has hunted the poor girl down and started terrifying her. [Other Manager] approaches him, asking what’s wrong, and the customer launches into a strange tirade about how the girl from the other department ruined his life, he’s suing her, and he’ll have her arrested.

[Other Manager] says she’ll look into it and then subsequently kicks him out, telling the girl nothing will happen to her.

The girl approaches me the next day to thank me, telling me she’d never seen the guy before, and that when she talked to our jerk manager, he only asked her to do menial tasks and didn’t acknowledge what happened.

I reported him for that one, but unfortunately, nothing came of it. He still acts like a tyrant, and most people I talk to actively dread him coming to work. I’ve already decided that if I ever find a job that pays well enough for me to quit this place, I’ll be letting him know exactly what I think of him in my notice.

I work at a baby supplies store. We have one couple that is notorious for returns.

About a week after they purchase a bunch of baby formula, they return with the empty formula containers.

Customer: “I need a refund.”

Me: “We can’t offer you a refund because the containers are empty.”

Customer: “That formula was spoiled when I bought it!”

Me: “It appears the expiration date wasn’t wrong.”

Customer: “It must have been because it smelled weird!”

Me: “Then where is the formula?”

Customer: “I gave it to the baby.”

Me: “Even though it smelled weird?”

Customer: “He was hungry.”