(The auto shop I work at has an online store that is completely separate; we are owned by corporate and have no control over the website at all. An older customer comes into the store.)

Customer: “I want the [Cheapest Brand] tired. Just one.”

Me: “Okay, the tire runs $65.99, mount and balance is $15.50, and the valve stem is four bucks. After tax, your total is 94 dollars.”

Customer: “What? The tire was $55 online. Why do you have it for $66? And then all this other s***, why is it all so expensive? $94 for a $55 tire?”

Me: “Sir, the online cost is before shipping. If you go all the way to checkout, it includes shipping; our cost in-store includes the price of shipping them to us. Everything else is just what it costs to put the tire on, and that’s all the same price as online.”

Customer: *complains very loudly and with liberal use of profanities about how we are screwing the customer and how we are going out of business*

Me: “Dude, I make $5.85 an hour plus commission. I have nothing to do with any decisions made here. If you want to complain, take it up with corporate, because I’m done listening. I can’t change the price, so either buy it or leave, because you’re cursing up a storm and making a scene, and there are other customers here.”

(The customer ended up buying the tire; he shook my hand after I said that, and told me I had stood up for myself, I was right, and he was sorry for making an a** out of himself.)

I arranged to drive three friends to Adelaide — about an eight-hour drive — on Thursday night, and head back on Sunday night. We were meeting friends there, we had hotel rooms booked, and we had booked a laser tag session to run from midnight to dawn on Sunday morning. 

Yeah, this was a while ago and the nearest laser tag was 800 km away. We were young; it seemed like a good idea.

My car was running poorly and some major part needed to be replaced — like the differential. I took it to a mechanic, who agreed to do it on Thursday. I chose Thursday for the repair because I was going to pick up my friends straight after work, so I would have to drive that day anyway. The mechanic was near the office. I specifically mentioned that I needed to be sure it would be ready, as I was driving to Adelaide straight after picking it up. 

When I went to pick up the car, the job was done — hooray — but then, he handed me a piece of paper with the instructions for running the new part in! And they were pretty incompatible with blowing a quarter of the way across the country overnight. I can’t remember the details, but it was something like not exceeding 80kph for the first 500km, and letting the car cool down for half an hour after each hour of driving.

I was ropeable! I specified to the mechanic exactly why I needed the repair and exactly what my driving plans were. Surely if he knew his job he would have known about the running in that was needed. I don’t remember what I said but I was furious. If I had known about this I could have had the work done earlier, found another car, or found us places in the other cars that were driving across. But this late in the day, there was nothing to be done. I was going to let my friends down. We’d been planning this trip for weeks.

The mechanic looked at me, confused, and asked, “Do you have a stressful job?”

ARGH!

But after that, there was just such a blissful ignorance about the man — he could not understand why I was angry — that my anger started to dissipate. It was fruitless; we were where we were, and shouting wasn’t going to fix it. He did the sensible thing and put me on the phone with the parts supplier. The supplier understood why I was angry and agreed the mechanic was an idiot. Then, he talked me through how to run the part in on our road trip.

It meant that instead of four drivers taking turns to drive straight through with only a toilet break, we spent a lot of time waiting by the roadside for the engine to cool, or sitting in roadhouses drinking coffee we didn’t want. Instead of arriving at the hotel at one or two am, we got there at nine. Oh, well, we can sleep all day. Yeah, no. The temperature quickly rose to 40C in our cheap and un-air-conditioned hotel room, and the busy building site across the street had already started its day’s work. We never did make up the sleep deficit over the weekend, making the drive back on Sunday a whole different kind of adventure.

When I had to bring collision-damaged cars into my shop, many times the steering wheel airbag had been deployed. The bag would get caught up in your arms or the car’s equipment when you tried to drive the car, so it was easier to just cut the bag off the wheel with a knife.

My hands and clothing were usually covered with paint and colored dust, and I had to be careful not to get it on the inside of people’s cars. So, when I noticed some strange colors on one of the airbags, I became concerned, and as I lay the airbag out flat to inspect it, I saw the complete impression of a woman’s face on the airbag.

All of her makeup had transferred onto the bag when it deployed.

So, I cut out the section with her face on it, framed it, and hung it on the wall in my office.

Over time, I collected about five or six on my wall. When I asked my customers what they thought the pictures really were, everybody thought it was some kind of new concept art, but boy, did they laugh when I told them what they were looking at.

(I’m the assistant manager of an auto repair shop. A regular customer of mine calls on a Saturday afternoon, one of our busiest days of the week.)

Customer: “Hi, [My Name], I just bought a new car. Is there any way I can bring it in today for an inspection?”

Me: “Is it a new, new car? How many miles are on it?”

(If the car is brand new, it will typically take a lot less time.)

Customer: “No, it’s a 2017; I think there’s about 49,000 on it.”

Me: “Okay, if you can bring it down soon and drop it off with us, we can get it done today, but we’ll need to keep it for at least a few hours. Of course, we can get you a ride home and pick you up when it’s done.”

Customer: “All right, I’ll be there soon.”

(When he shows up to drop the car off, I am not at the counter, and he talks to our general manager.)

Customer: “Do you think this is going to take long?”

General Manager: “Well, [My Name] said you were going to drop it off, right?”

Customer: “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure she said it would only be an hour to an hour and a half.”

General Manager: *who had been standing three feet away when I took the customer’s call* “I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure she told you at least a few hours. Let me get you that shuttle ride home.”

(It amazes me how many people try things like that; do they really think we don’t talk to each other?)

(I work in a well-known UK car retailer store. During my first week, the duty manager is on with me and two other new starts. We decide to play a prank on one of the guys. The manager hides in the back room and phones the store asking for information on a “flux capacitor” — a fake car part made famous by the “Back to the Future” movies. We expect our coworker to catch on, but he thinks it is a genuine car part. Instead of asking for help with something he knows nothing about, he proceeds to bulls*** the “customer” with a story of how we don’t have one, but another store does, and quotes them the price of £39.99. Well, this is interesting! We have literally caught the guy in a lie, and so our innocent prank grows arms and legs! Instead of coming clean, we decide to have a bit more fun with him. The duty manager has a conversation that goes something like this:)

Duty Manager: “Did you speak to someone about a Flux Capacitor?”

Coworker: “Yes, I told them [Other Store] had one.”

Duty Manager: “[Other Store] is on the phone saying they don’t have one but we do, so they’re having to send the customer back to us! Also, he’s saying something about being quoted £39.99?”

Coworker: “Yeah? That’s what I told him.”

Duty Manager: “They’re £400! What were you thinking? We’ve got to give him the lower price now and we could have got a bonus with that £400 sale!”

(He is horrified that he has made such a “mistake,” and what is even funnier is that he can’t admit he just made up the prices and stock levels or he’ll be in deep trouble. We let him stew for a while, as he is clearly upset and worried about this irate “customer” who might appear. We do plan to come clean that night, but during that same shift, we have a completely unrelated incident — it kind of turns into the shift from Hell, actually — which results in us having to call the police. After close, we are all giving statements and while my coworker is giving his, his mum turns up. I explain that we have had a minor incident tonight and her son is just finishing up with the police.)

Coworker’s Mum: “Oh, is that the problem with the flux capacitor?”

(I assured her it wasn’t while trying not to laugh in her face! We had no idea he had been so upset by his behaviour that he had called his mum! After telling the manager about it, we agreed that we were all in too deep to come clean about the prank now. Unsurprisingly, our little coworker did not last much longer in the job and he left none the wiser about the truth of the flux capacitor! Hopefully, he at least learned never to lie to customers again. The manager and I always had a good chuckle over the story for the six years I worked there.)