This happened in the early 1990s. A customer bought a stereo VCR. He came back a couple of days later with a problem. He’d hooked the audio-out jack of the VCR back into the audio-in jack, and couldn’t understand why the sound wasn’t playing through his stereo.

He was a 30-ish male in a nice suit, basically looked like a stockbroker, and he hooked the VCR into itself — which, surprisingly, did not blow anything up — and wondered why he wasn’t getting sound from a device that was not in any way connected to it.

I explained to him that if he connected the audio-out jack to his stereo — I think I even drew him a diagram — instead of back to the VCR itself, it would work much better. He thanked me and left.

I was the manager of a leather store, and one of the things we offered was leather stamping workshops for Cub Scouts. It was not uncommon for a den mother to bring a stray younger sibling or two along with her son and the other boys. I gave them a little piece of leather to stamp things on, just like their big brothers, and they were happy. I should also mention at this point that I am female.

In this particular case, we had the usual group of a half-dozen or so Cub Scouts, plus the den mother’s daughter, a little girl about five years old. After I’d done my talk about different types of leather, etc., we got to what the boys had been impatiently waiting for: the chance to hammer on things. As usual, I gave the little girl some tools and a bit of leather, too.

Her mother promptly took it away from her and told her, “No, honey, that’s only for boys.”

(It’s a slow day and it’s just me and the deputy manager on duty. I’m working the registers when a usually-friendly customer comes in with her boyfriend. They buy a six pack of beer and get a top-up voucher for her phone. The voucher prints out with the receipt. She seems grouchy and declines the receipt, so I tear the voucher off and hand it to her before throwing the receipt away. I think everything’s fine until she comes back thirty minutes later.)

Customer: *storms up to till* “You! You never gave me my top-up!”

Me: “I what? I could’ve sworn I handed it to you.”

Customer: “No, you didn’t. You threw it in the bin!”

(I’m not used to being shouted at, so I’m doing my best not to get upset and to keep my voice level.)

Me: “I remember handing it to you. Is it possible it fell out your pocket somewhere?”

Customer: “No! I told you I didn’t want the receipt and you just threw it away! Get me my voucher!”

(Due to the way the system works I can’t even refund the transaction to get her money back, and if I printed a new one my till would be short. So, instead, I start rummaging through our receipt bin, just in case I did accidentally throw it away. Unfortunately, a line has started to form behind her.)

Me: “I’m so sorry. I will find your voucher, but do you mind if I serve these people?”

Customer: “Fine. Just hurry up!”

(She steps out of line and continues to glare at me while I serve other customers. My deputy manager wanders by and I flag him down to help, so now we’re both sifting through old receipts while I apologise both to him and to the customer.)

Me: “I’m really sorry. I could’ve sworn I gave it to you!”

(I’m panicking now because we’ve been through the entire bin with no sign of the voucher.)

Deputy Manager: “Hang on. I’ll be right back.” *goes through to the back office*

Customer: “This is ridiculous! You’ve practically stolen from me! It’s in that bin. Check again.”

Me: “I’m sorry, it’s not here. Is there any way you just misplaced it?”

Customer: “No! You’re useless!”

(The deputy manager comes back.)

Deputy Manager: “You put it in your coat pocket.”

Customer: “I’m not wearing a coat.”

Deputy Manager: “But you were when you came in earlier. I just checked the CCTV. I’m guessing you left it at home before coming back here? I’m sure if you check it’ll be there.”

Customer: “If it’s not, I’m coming right back!” *she leaves*

Me: “Please, God, don’t come back.”

Deputy Manager: *while laughing* “Go and have a cup of tea. It’ll be fine.”

(She did come back a few hours later to apologise, and she even gave me £1 to get myself a treat to make up for it. I suppose it was good of her to come back and do that, but I’ve never felt comfortable around her since then.)

I just took a flight. Since the duration of the flight was only one hour, they did not serve any hot meals to the passengers. This was announced before the flight attendants brought out the food cart.

A middle-aged gentleman was sitting right in front of me, and he ordered a sandwich. A flight attendant handed him his sandwich and continued her service.

Once the man finished his sandwich, he summoned a flight attendant. Once he came to the man, he started getting angry at the flight attendant, because “his food was cold.” The flight attendant apologized and informed him that since it was a short flight, they could not serve hot meals. The man seemed to let it go.

After a few minutes, when the flight attendant was passing by, he told him, “You know what? When you serve food like this going forward, you should probably also give a stick with it, so that we can push it down our throats.”

The flight attendant smiled and handled the situation gracefully, but I don’t know what the man was expecting!

This story is part of our Terrible Airline Passengers roundup!

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(I work doing tech support for a company that makes satellite dishes for RVs and campers. This is the first call of the day. Here are some snippets of conversation I had with him. These quotes are VERBATIM. He’s in the guide.)

Me: “Exit out of the guide.”

Customer: “What do you mean, ‘exit out of the guide’?”

Me: “Hit the exit or back button.”

Customer: “What do you mean, ‘hit the exit or back button’?”

Me: “What model receiver do you have?”

Customer: “What do you mean, ‘what model receiver do I have’?”

Me: “Okay, is your remote silver and black or just solid black?”

Customer: “Solid black.”

Me: “Okay, you have a [receiver]. In the upper left corner, hit the back button”

Customer: “There’s only a menu and input button over there.”

(He’s describing the other type of receiver remote, which is called a ‘211.’)

Me: “Okay, you have a 211. Your remote is silver and black.”

Customer: “Yeah, it’s silver and black.”

(I get him to finally exit out of the guide.)

Me: “Okay, please hit 1-4-0 on the remote control.”

Customer: “What do you mean, ‘hit 1-4-0 on the remote control’?”

(ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It’s not rocket science, man. After fifteen minutes, I got him to the screen with the phone number he needed to call to fix his problem.)