I’m the acting service manager at a major supermarket. It’s 3:00 pm on a busy Friday afternoon and I’m attending to the customer service desk. A lady walks up and I can tell by the look on her face that this is not going to be great.

Me: “Can I help you?”

Customer: “Yes! I came through before and bought this banana and the stupid girl charged me twice.”

Me: “I’m sorry about that. Let me fix it for you.”

I take her receipt and scan it to do the refund.

Customer: “Don’t you guys ever answer your phone? I’ve rung six times to try and sort this. Now I’ve had to waste my fuel and come all the way down here!”

Me: “I’m really sorry, madam, but it’s down to us here at the service desk to answer the phone and it’s been a really busy afternoon, so I haven’t been able to answer the phone.”

Customer: “Hmph… ridiculous!”

Me: “I’m really sorry about the hassle. Here’s your refund. Have a nice day.”

The customer snatched the money and stomped off. The total amount of her double-charge refund? Forty-five cents! Lady, the cost of the phone call and fuel would be more than that refund!

Related:
Refunder Blunder, Part 57
Refunder Blunder, Part 56
Refunder Blunder, Part 55
Refunder Blunder, Part 54
Refunder Blunder, Part 53

I ended up working in a team with three Johns for a while: John Jones, John Wang, and John Patel. To avoid confusion, each of them went by their surname. This worked out perfectly fine until we hired a fourth John: John Todd. At this point, the great debate over what to call an existing team member, Todd Black, began.

For some reason, Human Resources got wind of this and worried about potential hurt feelings and bullying. They continued to worry until they came down and demanded that John Todd be addressed as “John.”

This was a completely logical solution, which was why no one agreed with it.

And so, the response came back from the team that they couldn’t possibly call Toddy-J “John,” as that was what everyone called me.

Yes, the solution to having a team of eight where half the team members’ first names were John was to give the name to the only woman on the team.

When I left a few years later, all the other Johns had already moved on. And yet, my farewell gift was a mug with the name “John” on it, and all my farewell card messages were addressed to “John” — except for Todd Black, who remembered the history and addressed it to “Johnita”.

I work for a bottle shop. Where I live, we have very strict rules on buying alcohol; you MUST have a permit to purchase it, and on top of that, in our store, we are not allowed to accept licenses more than two months out of date. We can be fined and fired and have the business’s liquor license revoked for doing so.

A customer comes in attempting to buy several bottles of wine. She hands me over a license that has expired outside of the okay range.

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ll have to refuse this sale. Our company policy doesn’t allow us to accept licenses that are this expired.”

Customer: “The new license is in the mail! I have the paper right here saying so.”

Me: “I can’t accept that. We have to use in-date photo IDs, and this paper is not that.”

She leaves in a huff without putting anything back. I hope this will be the end of it.

But a few days later, the woman comes back. She comes up to my register with her items and starts accosting me.

Customer: “I can’t believe how you wasted my time the other day! I had to go out of my way to get my new license. [Other Shop] let me use my old one! And your coworker let me use it, too! You’re just not very good at your job.”

She continued to grumble about how bad I was at my job.

The other shop we mentioned isn’t affiliated with us at all. My coworker admitted to the customer that letting her use her old ID was a mistake on his part, and that if he had caught it, he wouldn’t have served her.

I am fairly new at motel reception and haven’t checked in a lot of guests before. This weekend, we are fully booked as it’s the end of the school holidays. Every accommodation place in town is booked out and we have had to turn guests away. I have a guest who is a last-minute booking and was lucky to find somewhere to stay at all. She marches up to the counter before I can check her in.

Guest: “This motel is fifteen minutes from the city centre!”

And then she glares at me. I’m thinking, “Does she want me to move the motel?”

Me: “We are five minutes from town. If you drove fifteen minutes, you would be in [Rural Township].”

The guest continues to just glare.

Me: “Are you using public transport?”

Guest: “No, I have a car.”

Silence, as I am still trying to figure out what she wants me to do.

Guest: “Well?! I wouldn’t have booked here if I’d known it was so far away. I’m here to see [Popular Tourist Attraction]. How far is it from here?”

Another guest walking past chimes in.

Guest #2: “Oh, it’s about twelve minutes away.”

Guest: “Another twelve minutes?! So… half an hour from here.”

Guest #2: “No, it’s only five minutes from here to town and twelve minutes to [Tourist Attraction].”

The guest still glares at me some more.

Me: “Would you still like to check in?”

Guest: “Well, can I get my money back if I don’t?”

Me: “No, you are already here, and we have a cancellation policy.”

Guest: “I guess I’m stuck here, then. Check me in!”

I STILL don’t know what she wanted me to do. I can’t relocate the motel or check her in somewhere else. Maybe look at a map of where you are staying before you book?

I was looking after a friend’s child and had three of my kids with me, so I had a double pram, one child on a scooter board on the back of the pram, and the tiny baby in a sling. I needed to go to this kitchenware store as something essential for cooking dinner had broken and needed replacing.

It was one of those stores where the entire stock and then some is out on the floor. There are huge, teetering piles of saucepans and boxes of drinking glasses all over the place and the cashier is right at the back. It’s dangerous for someone in my position, but the kids were being awesome and I was feeling positive.

I told all the kids to keep their hands in the pram and explained that we’d do this quick shop and then head to the playground. I then carefully navigated my way through the maze to the desk.

I spoke to the cashier, found what I wanted, and was about to pay when one of the kids picked up something small from the huge pile of tempting, colourful trinkets at the counter.

Me: “Oops, [Kid], put that back down, please.”

She put it down, immediately, without my having to intervene.

The cashier snapped loudly, right at the two-year-old:

Cashier: “You don’t touch things in here or you’re going to be in big trouble! I’ll be very, very mad if you touch!”

Me: “Um… I’ll do the parenting, thank you. I think we’re done here.”

I started to reverse my load back through the maze, putting my wallet back in my bag and leaving my item on the bench.

Cashier: “What? It’s my shop! How about showing me some respect?!”

Me: “Ah, how about showing your customers some respect? We won’t be shopping here again.”

She kept shouting after me until we were out of sight. Passersby were staring.

Luckily, the supermarket next door had what I needed. That shop has had about five “closing downs” and “reopened with new management” in the last few years. I still can’t bring myself to go back.