Saying What You Mean: THAT’S The Ticket!

I work in a small kiosk selling travel cards for the local transport in my state. You can use either a travel card or paper tickets; however, we do not sell paper tickets as we do not have the system to print them. We direct people to the machine if they wish to purchase a paper ticket.

Customer #1: “I want a ticket to the hospital.”

Me: “You can get paper tickets from the fare machine on the platform.”

He does so. [Customer #2] comes up two minutes later.

Customer #2: “Hi, do you sell travel cards here?”

Me: “Yes, we do.”

Customer #2: “Well, that man wanted one.”

Me: “He didn’t ask for one, though.”

Customer #2: “But he wanted one and you just sent him away.”

Me: “But he asked for a ticket; when people say ticket, we think ticket, not card. There’s a difference.”

Customer #2: “And he wanted a card.”

Me: “And he didn’t ask for one.”

Customer #2: “Well, you should know that he wanted one.”

Annoyingly, [Customer #1] and [Customer #2] weren’t even travelling together. They just happened to meet just before coming to me.