I’m a front-end supervisor. It is nearing closing time and I am in the office counting the tills and starting other closing duties. I have one person working as a cashier. She calls me to open another till as the line is starting to get a bit long. I head out and call the next person in line.

A lady a few people back from being the next in line decides she needs to be first in my line. She picks up her basket and comes rushing over. In her rush, she trips over the basket of the shopper behind her. I don’t see this as I am quite short and there is a rack blocking my line of view.

After getting up, she comes to my lane and tells me what had happened. After making sure she is okay, I go to the office to grab an incident report sheet. It asks very basic questions, i.e. the weather, lighting conditions, etc., and a basic report of what happened. They have camera footage that they can look at, as well.

I basically put down that the customer tripped over another customer’s basket when proceeding to my till, floors are dry, weather is clear, etc. She’s not happy with this.

Customer: “You don’t care that I fell! How can you be so neutral about this?! I demand that you write a more detailed report. It’s your fault I fell. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been in your office instead of helping customers!”

I grab a piece of paper and write out something more detailed and give her a copy.

When I come into work for my next shift:

Manager: “What happened? This customer left me ten voicemails complaining about you.”

I explain what happened.

Fast forward a week; my manager approaches me again.

Manager: “The customer from the other day is demanding an apology from you. I have this generic one written out. Will you sign it?”

Me: “Sure, as long as she stops coming in and harassing all my coworkers, asking about my name, how to contact me, when I’m working next, and so on.”

My manager, who had no idea that this has been happening, crumples up the apology letter, stomps on it, and picks it up and mails it to the customer.

A few months later, a friend and I are shopping at the only other grocery store in our town. I am standing in line, and a cashier opens the lane next to the one I’m in and calls the next person over. Who should go running? The same lady that tripped in the store where I work.

Me: *Shouting over the counter* “You shouldn’t run in grocery stores; you could trip and get hurt!”

Late at night, my brother pulls up a third-party delivery app and orders a meal from a nearby fast food place.

When the order comes, he takes the burger and drink, handing some fries to me. A few seconds later:

Brother: “What the f***?!”

He showed me that his burger had no patty; it was just cheese and bun.

Thinking it was a mistake in the kitchen, I offered to help him get it fixed because he didn’t know how, but I soon discovered that it was actually a mistake on his part; he’d somehow hit the option for no meat by accident and didn’t read his receipt before accepting.

Nevertheless, I both called the restaurant and went to customer support on the third-party app, but both agreed that since he’d already gotten the food as ordered, they couldn’t refund or replace it.

This would have just been an unfortunate and funny story, except that next, my brother called up our parents, who were out on a drive at the time.

I overheard him speaking very loudly to them, complaining that the restaurant didn’t give him what he ordered and refused to fix it. I tried to speak loud enough to correct him, but they couldn’t hear me, and eventually, they told him that they’d call the restaurant and ask for a manager when they got home. I was so upset thinking about that poor manager who would have to listen to my mother complaining about something that wasn’t their employee’s fault.

Luckily, when they got home, I managed to explain what had actually happened before they got to that point. My brother still doesn’t understand why it’s his fault — he insists that the app he used somehow changed his order after he paid — but my parents knew it was his fault and saw the humour in him making such an obvious mistake.

I get a call one evening around eight, while all of my drivers are out on delivery.

Me: “Hello, this is [Pizza Place]. How can I help you?”

Customer: “My pizza is cold!”

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. We will get that fixed right away. What was the name on the order?”

Customer: “[Customer]! I didn’t have time to open the box right away, but it is stone-cold now. It shouldn’t be cold!”

I look up the name, but it doesn’t match any of the orders we have out.

Me: “You are right; our pizza should be delivered in a warmer to keep it hot. I’m not seeing your name. This is the [Street] location of [Pizza Place]. Is that where you ordered from?”

Customer: “Yes, of course, it is! Do you think I don’t know where I ordered?”

Me: “Not at all, I’m just trying to find the order. What time was the delivery for?”

I figure that might get me more results than implying that she doesn’t know what name she ordered it under.

Customer: “Ten.”

Me: *Confused* “Oh, did the driver deliver the order early?”

I start paging to see if we have orders queued up for later delivery.

Customer: “What? No, I got it at ten, but I didn’t have time to eat it last night, and now it’s cold.”

Me: *Realizing exactly what she is saying* “Ma’am… are you calling to complain that a pizza you left out overnight wasn’t hot when you opened the box?”

There were several seconds of silence before she hung up, apparently realizing just how foolish that sounded when it was voiced aloud.

On my way into work, I stop at reception to show a friend a drawing I did over the weekend that is saved on my phone.

Receptionist: “Wow, that’s really good. You missed your calling. You should be an artist.”

Me: “I— I am. That’s literally my job here.”

She blushed so quickly I was worried she was going to pass out, but then we both laughed.

I work at a coffee shop that sells donuts.

One evening, shortly after my manager leaves, a customer comes in and asks for two chocolate dips. My coworker, a young woman who has just started there, chooses one with chocolate and one with white dough. The customer turns bright red and tears open the bag, yanking the one with chocolate dough out and waving it in her face.

Customer: “What is this?! Does this look like a chocolate dip to you?!”

My coworker started tearing up. I stepped in quickly and replaced it with the right type of donut, muttering vague apologies.

My coworker had gone to the back to cry. I said something about the customer being a jerk and told her that she could stay in the back a bit longer.

The next day, when I told our manager, she was furious and declared that if that guy came back, she would give him a piece of her mind.

He did come back, but not when she was there. He was generally miserable but never yelled at anybody else. My coworker, and a few others, started a contest to see who could make him smile. Some weeks later, the contest had been won. It was the coworker he’d made cry who finally did it. It wasn’t as satisfying as kicking him out, but none of us had the self-confidence to do that, and it did make everyone feel better.