A customer leaves a huge pile of crap on the side of our storage building. I know it was him because when I came in, I saw him put the all the same stuff behind his vehicle. My manager has him charged for the clean-up. He later calls asking about the charge. When I explain, he gets angry.

Customer: “You can’t prove that was my stuff. This is totally unfair! I wasn’t even at my storage unit today.”

Me: “Sir, I saw you with that stuff just this morning by your car, and you came into the office and spoke to me twice personally, so I know you were here, and we have you on video.”

Customer: “Well, that doesn’t matter because I didn’t touch the stuff. It wasn’t even my stuff. My mom was working with some guys I hired and they left the mess.”

Me: “Sir, it’s your storage unit, you were present at the time of all of this, and you are the one responsible.”

Customer: “But you don’t understand! I didn’t touch the stuff! I shouldn’t have to pay for the clean-up, that’s my mom’s and the guy’s! It’s the hired guy’s fault! All I was doing was sitting in my car and playing on my phone.”

(We are a company that offers self-storage, apartments, and office space. One of our residential tenants asks about storage for just one night. I explain what we have available but that we only have month-to-month agreements. He does not want to pay for the full month but since he has an apartment right next to our office, we decide to do him a favor and allow him to store about 30 boxes in our conference room for the night at no cost. He promises to have them picked up in the morning. The following morning at 9:00 am, as soon as we open, a man and woman come in.)

Customer: “Hi. I’m here to meet [Tenant] to pick up the boxes he left here yesterday.”

Me: “Great! We’ve put them into the conference room so that they are out of the way. Is he on his way?”

Customer: “Yes, he will be here in just a minute.”

(The man and woman go into the conference room and start moving around the boxes. The tenant comes and goes, but no boxes have been taken out of the conference room. I peek in and see that they have started to unpack the boxes and are looking through all the files on our conference room table. They aren’t hurting anything, so I let them do what they need to do. They even bring food in to eat lunch at the conference room table. After about four hours, they walk out, again with no boxes.)

Customer: “We’ll be back!”

Me: “Okay…? What time do you think you will be done moving the boxes out?”

Customer: “Well, what time do you close?”

Me: “We close at 4:30 pm. You’re planning to be here all day?”

Customer: “We will make sure to be out before you need to leave; we wouldn’t want to take advantage of you letting us leave the boxes here.”

Me: “Uh… okay.”

(They leave for about an hour. When they come back, they are in and out and move about ten boxes to their car. The entire time, I am trying to get through day-to-day activities and helping customers around them.)

Customer: “Okay, we need to close this door. She’s been having people in and out of here all day. We can’t even hear each other.”

(He then closes OUR conference room door to block me out of my own conference room so that they can have a meeting.)

Me: *to one of the owners* “Apparently, I’m disrupting them!”

(They then stay until after 3:00 pm, when I finally have to say something since they still have unpacked boxes in the conference room and are simply in there talking.)

Me: “Are you guys almost all set in here?”

Customer: “Yep, we’ll be out of here by 4:30.”

Me: “Well, our office closes at 4:30, so in order to get everything out by then, you will have to start packing and moving the rest of the boxes out now.”

Tenant: “Yep, we’ll get out of your hair.” *to the couple that have been there all day* “We gotta get out of here, guys!”

(They finish packing up and finally move the rest of the boxes out. Right before I start closing up the office, the tenant is the last one to walk out. He says as he’s walking away

Tenant: “I’ll say it for you, ‘Never again!’ But at least you can say you were part of a CIA investigation.”

Me: “Uh… what?!”

(I’m a manager at a storage facility. We get mostly mundane calls, but two in a row give me pause. First call, the caller ID doesn’t identify the caller as a current customer of our business.)

Me: “Good morning. [Storage Facility]; this is [My Name].”

Caller: *silence for two seconds* “I’m supposed to have a TV delivered.”

Me: “Sir, you’ve called a storage facility… Do you have a unit with us?”

(Sometimes, rarely, we’ll accept large parcel deliveries and hold them in the office if the person has a unit, or, important to this story, a mailbox.)

Caller: “You see, it’s supposed to be delivered on Wednesday.”

Me: “Sir, if you don’t have a unit with us, we don’t offer that kind of service.”

Caller: “Someone might not be home at the address in question. I just want to know if there’s a time the guy will be here.”

Me: “Sir, you’ve called a storage facility.”

Caller: “Do you know when my TV will be delivered? Can you tell me?”

Me: “Sir. I believe you have the wrong number. You’ve called a storage facility. We don’t deliver televisions.”

Caller: “You’re not Canada Post?”

Me: “No, sir, we are not.”

Caller: “But you’re under postal.”

Me: “Yes, sir, because we offer mailbox services. We are not affiliated with Canada Post.”

Caller: “Oh. You can’t tell me when my television will be delivered?”

Me: “No, sir, I’m sorry. I cannot.”

Caller: “But you’re listed under postal…”

(The caller hung up, still muttering about how we should be Canada Post if we’re listed under postal. I then got another call from a delivery company, asking how they could make an appointment to deliver something to one of my customers that I didn’t have a standing order to accept deliveries for. I couldn’t help him, either, except to direct him to call the customer and arrange for them to bring a key to their locker.)

(I worked for a while at a storage facility. One afternoon, a man comes storming in and cuts me off before I can greet him.)

Customer: “I can’t believe this place! I was here first thing in the morning with a moving truck and couldn’t even get in the gate! I’m better not be charged again for this truck!”

(I panic a little hearing this. Our facility is secured with an access gate with specific hours of operation. Our angriest customers are the ones who show up out of the blue, with no appointment, at six o’clock in the morning with a moving truck full of crap. All of these customers are greeted by a closed office and a locked gate.)

Me: “I’m so sorry for the confusion. Was your gate code not working here?”

Customer: “I don’t have a gate code! I’m here to drop off this truck!”

Me: “I’m sorry, do you currently rent storage here? Or were you looking to rent this morning?”

Customer: “I’m not renting here! I’m only here to drop off this d*** truck!”

Me: *beginning to think I understand, but still cannot believe what I’m hearing* “Were you…. dropping off items for a renter here? I’m not really following. That truck isn’t ours. That’s a [Competitor] truck.” *I gesture to the giant sign hanging behind me* “We are [Company]. I’m afraid we cannot keep their vehicle on our property. We don’t even offer a moving truck, to be honest.”

Customer: “Well, aren’t you guys all the same? This is the address my GPS led me to; this is where I’m leaving the truck!”

Me: “I’m afraid I cannot let you into the property, sir.”

Customer: “…”

Me: “…”

Customer: *storms out*

(A woman calls in a few days after her storage unit has come due. There are only three employees that work in this office: me, my best friend, and my fiancé. My best friend answers the phone.)

Coworker: “Thank you for calling [Self Storage]. This is [Coworker]; how can I help you? Okay, what’s the last name on your account? You handed it to a guy? And you made a payment here? All right, I’m going to look over the account for a moment and give you a call back in around ten minutes.”

Me: “What’s going on?”

Coworker: “This lady said she vacated at the end of July and gave a vacate form to ‘a guy in the office.’ Was [Fiancé] even in last week?”

(My fiancé has been in and out of the office for the past month due to a surgery on his ankle.)

Me: “No, he was still on bed rest that week.”

Coworker: “Okay, so that’s a lie. She says she sent in a payment to our facility but she meant to send it to [Sister Storage Company] where she apparently moved her things to. How do I fix that?”

Me: “Um, let me go and check her unit to make sure she actually vacated before we do anything.”

(I go out to her storage unit and find the door open with the tenant’s items still in the unit. As she came due three days ago, her only option is to stay for an additional month and make sure her things are taken out by the end of August. I relay this information to my friend who calls the tenant back while I leave the room to make lunch. I overhear this from the other room.)

Coworker: “No, I cannot refund the entire payment… Because you already came due for this month and didn’t vacate the unit… Ma’am, when you vacate your unit, your things have to vacate with you.”

(I walk back into the room, laughing into my ravioli.)

Coworker: “She hung up on me!”