Customer: “I need a radio capable of getting broadcasts from the Middle East.”

I show her a few. She purchases one and asks me to help her tune it. I find some stations from various Middle Eastern sources and tune them, and she stands there with this puzzled look on her face.

Me: “Is there anything wrong, ma’am?”

Customer: “How am I supposed to track terrorists if they don’t speak American?”

With minimal speaking, I refunded her money and went on the only smoke break I’ve ever taken.

Related:
They’re Terrorizing Themselves

I work in a hotel. A week or so ago, a newly hired housekeeper found a .357 Magnum with the hammer cocked in one of the rooms and freaked out. She called the head housekeeper, who grabbed it without gloves (she got in trouble for that) and took it to the office. The police were called and they took it away.

Our hotel is a budget hotel and used to be a lot worse where violence, drugs, sex work, and crime in general are concerned. Our new management has been cracking down on that and issuing Do-Not-Rents as necessary — a lot, sadly. The last gun violence that occurred here was two years ago when a murder fugitive had a shootout with police and died. Since then, we’ve had the occasional high-strung guest point a gun at staff, but nothing beyond that.

Today, a young guy with multiple facial tattoos walks in. There is a ton of cursing on his side but I’m not going to type that all out; it’s in nearly every sentence.

Guy: “I stayed in room last week, and I forgot my gun. I need it back.”

Me: “Okay. Can I have your ID, please?”

I know the room wasn’t registered to him; it was registered to a single female with no other guests listed.

Guy: “Why? I just need my gun back.”

Me: “I need to verify your identity before I can give out information for your room, sir, for security purposes.”

Guy: “What?! That’s stupid. I forgot my gun. I told you it was there, and I know you have it. No one else asked you for a gun, just me, so why do I need an ID?”

Me: “Again, sir, it’s for security purposes and the safety of our guests. I am not allowed to release private information to anyone other than the registered guests. I am not going to violate that policy, especially where firearms are concerned. If you cannot produce a valid ID, I cannot release any information. I’m sorry.”

Guy: “I know you have my gun, and you’re not going to give it to me. That’s stealing! I’m going to stand here until you give me back my property.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t allow loitering.”

Guy: “I’m not loitering! You’re not giving me my stuff!”

Me: “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I call the police and have them escort you off the property.”

Guy: “Then call them! I don’t care!”

So, I called them, and they arrived fairly quickly. After forty-five minutes or so, they arrested him and took him away. I’m guessing he either had a warrant or was a felon in possession of a firearm. I’m not sure why it took so long to identify him, though.

I work in the produce department. There’s a kid in there named Bobby who has a really good sense of humor. He takes a call from a customer.

Customer: “I found a spider in my grapes!”

Bobby: “Sometimes bugs do come in on the fruit. We’re very sorry that happened.”

Customer: “I’m bringing it in so you can test whether it’s poisonous or not!

Bobby: “We don’t do that… and she hung up.”

The customer comes in later with a spider in a Tupperware container. She comes up to me.

Customer: “What are you going to do with it?”

As I’m backpedaling my way through the conversation, Bobby walks up.

Bobby: “OH, YOU’RE THE SPIDER LADY!”

He grabs the container and notes how big the spider is, which freaks her out a little bit.

Customer: “What are you going to do with it?”

Bobby: *With the most serious tone* “Probably going to shake him up and see if he’ll fight the other ones we have out back.”

Then, he just walked away. The customer went ape-s*** on me, but I wasn’t even mad.

I work in customer service for a health insurance company that mainly administers benefits for Medicare and Medicaid populations. In my state, members who receive benefits through state Medicaid have access to medical transportation to and from medical appointments. Unless you have a certified disability or other specialized need, that medical transportation normally goes through regular cab companies.

A notable percentage of our Medicaid membership suffers from psychiatric illnesses and other behavioral health challenges, and because of this, getting cursed out and/or threatened is not uncommon. It’s the nature of the beast, and we’re all trained to understand that and not get frazzled or mirror their energies.

My specific job is to take escalated phone calls. This one happened recently.

Me: “Hello there, thank you for holding. How can I help you?”

Insert unhinged screaming, with no discernable words.

Me: “I can hear that you are clearly upset and that something is wrong, but I can’t understand what the exact issue is. Could you repeat yourself?”

There’s more unhinged screaming about seemingly nothing in particular, followed by:

Caller: “You dumb c***, I am former FBI, so GET AWAY FROM ME OR I’LL HAVE YOU ARRESTED!”

Me: “Ma’am, I work from home and can assure you that I am nowhere near you. Could you please fill me in on what the issue is?”

Caller: “I made a hurricane that destroyed the whole world! Do you really want me to do that again?!”

Me: “I certainly don’t, ma’am. I can help you, but I need to know what’s going on.”

Caller: “You’re parked outside my house!”

Me: “Again, ma’am, I am talking to you from home, and I am definitely not parked outside your house.”

Caller: “There’s a [Cab Company] car outside my house!”

Me: “Did you request a medical ride for today?”

There’s a pause before the caller responds in a surprised, chipper voice.

Caller: “Yes! I have to go to the pharmacy today!” *Click*

Yes, ma’am, you go get those meds.

Years ago, I had a coworker in my office who always seemed to have some kind of drama going on. Frequently, she was absent from work or would be in the manager’s office for hours each day sobbing about what was going on.

Here’s a list of different things she was apparently experiencing:

1. One week, she claimed her brother had gone missing and that her family was “beside themselves with worry”.
2. A week later, she claimed her mother had been rushed to the hospital and needed major heart surgery.
3. She claimed her husband was being abusive to her, but she couldn’t tell anyone in her family because, apparently, it was a secret marriage that her family could never know about.

Oddly, whenever she would mention these apparently distressing events, she would stop talking about them shortly after and never bring them up again. Whenever we would ask her how she was doing or about any of the situations, she would be very evasive or just change the subject.

One week, our manager informed us that this person would be off work sick for an undetermined length of time for “personal reasons”. We later found that she had called up and told our manager that she had just voluntarily committed herself to a mental health facility; otherwise, she would have been sectioned under the mental health act. We felt bad for this girl because, clearly, she was having a hard time, and we never want to see anyone struggle that badly. For months, we picked up the slack and got her work done. People from the office were checking in with her and hoped she would recover soon. Then, this bombshell happened…

I came to work one day after being off the previous day. One of my coworkers came up to me and told me the following in total disbelief.

Coworker: “Hey, [My Name], you won’t believe who I found working at the checkout at [Supermarket]! Well, it was [Sick Coworker]!”

Me: “Sorry… what?”

Coworker: “Yeah, it appears that all this time, she’s been working while was off sick from this place!”

Me: “You’re kidding me! Wait a second… Don’t we have a [Supermarket] right around the corner from here?”

Coworker: “Yup! That’s where I found her! You should’ve seen the look on her face. She saw me, got that deer-in-the-headlights look, and then ran off to the back! She apparently thought it was a smart idea to work right opposite the place she was scamming!”

Everyone in the office was a mixture of extremely upset and baffled. Apparently, one of the senior managers went down there and confronted her and told her under no certain terms that she was sacked immediately. We later found out that the company had reported her for benefit fraud.

The funniest part is that she apparently demanded that we give her a good reference when she was applying for new jobs. From what I heard, our manager gave her a reference, but it wasn’t a glowing one. 

Many of our coworkers have since said that, looking back, a lot of things about her stories just didn’t add up or that more questions should have been asked by management. I still don’t understand what was going through her head the entire time.