(I’m in a large, well-known store, waiting in line at customer service. The next customer is called.)

Customer Service Agent: “How can I help you?”

Customer: *loudly* “I need to pay for this with my gift card and the cashier wouldn’t help me. You need to do it.”

Customer Service Agent: “I don’t see why there would be a problem if you have the money on the card. The total is $[total]; go ahead and scan your card.”

Customer: “I don’t have it with me.”

Customer Service Agent: “That is a problem, then. I can’t use the card unless you have it with you; you’ll have to go get it if you want to use it. Do you have another form of payment? Or, I can hold this for you while you get your card.”

Customer: *starting to yell* “You just said I could do it; now you have to! All these people heard you say you could use my card!”

Customer Service Agent: “We have to have the gift card to use it. We have no way to access the card information or balance.”

Customer: *yelling* “My card is at home. H-O-M-E, home! I rode the bus for two hours to get here to buy this, and I’m not going home without it.”

(The customer suddenly lunges forward, reaches over the counter, and grabs and yanks the agent’s shirt, causing her to lose her balance and fall. The second agent at the desk grabs the phone and calls 911 as another customer rushes forward to pull the first customer away from the desk. Within moments, a police officer is present, as there is a substation actually in the store. The offending customer is still yelling about not riding the bus home to get the card as he is led away, now in handcuffs.)

Police Officer: “No, you aren’t going home to get the card. You’ve earned yourself a free car ride, and it’s not to your house.”

(The agent said she was okay, but she was checked by EMTs, as she’d hit her head on the edge of the counter when she fell, and then was led away by store management. All of us in line had to give our names and phone numbers to another store employee in case they needed to contact us for a statement, but I never got a call so I don’t know how it ended.)

The regional manager of the national chain I worked at had just announced his retirement and was taking something of a final tour of his stores to close out his tenure. Even though I’d worked the night shift the day before, I decided to come in early on my day off to see him speak. I accidentally showed up late and ended up standing in the back, where I could barely see him, but overall his talk — more of a town hall Q and A session, really — was pretty good.

Just as I was heading out, though, I bumped into one of my supervisors who asked me to cover a morning callout. I hadn’t hit my hour cap for the week yet, so I said yes, and ended up covering the opening two hours of the day as a greeter, aka the guy who checks receipts. Since we’d only just opened and there were barely any customers, it was an incredibly boring job, and I was pretty sleep-deprived to boot.

At maybe the hour-and-a-half mark, an older gentleman wandered past me with a large [Store] bag. I could tell from his body language that he was just looking at the displays, so I let him go about five feet or so beyond the security gates. When he started approaching the doors, though, I got antsy. He reached T-minus three feet from the exit bar, and my sleep-deprived brain yelled out, “Excuse me, sir. Can I see your receipt for the bag real quick?”

He turned around, shooting me a look of bewildered amusement, and I heard what sounded like the entire store bursting into laughter. I turned around to find not one, not two, but all twelve department managers, RSMs, and the general manager absolutely losing it behind me. They’d been giving the regional manager a tour of the building — the same regional manager I’d just gone ahead and receipt-tagged.

He was very nice about the whole thing, and he, in fact, had not just blatantly stolen from his own company. And I got a commendation from Asset Protection for representing our store’s security. I’m still embarrassed about the whole thing, and I’ve never worked morning shifts since.

(I am working as the only computer and networking tech in my army unit. This means supporting over two hundred end users all alone. A brand new lieutenant walks into my office on a particularly busy day.)

Lieutenant: “I need a brand new laptop now!”

Me: “Excuse me, sir?”

Lieutenant: “I said I need a brand new laptop. Time: now!”

Me: “Okay, sir, what exactly is going on with the one you were issued?”

(I just issued them a laptop that morning.)

Lieutenant: “The one you gave me is too old. It doesn’t even connect to the Internet, and I need a new one to work.”

(Cue a feeling that they’re doing something stupid.)

Me: “Well, sir, give me a few minutes, as I am working on the commander’s laptop and that is my current priority.”

Lieutenant: “I DON’T GIVE A D*** IF YOU’RE WORKING ON THE PRESIDENT’S LAPTOP! I NEED A NEW ONE NOW AND THAT’S AN ORDER!”

(Deep breath.)

Me: “All right, sir. Before I can, I need to properly diagnose your system at your workstation. If you’ll show me your desk…”

(We take a short walk down the hall to another office where several officers and NCOs are working. The lieutenant shows me his laptop and I immediately find the problem. At this unit, all WiFi is disabled, so the only way to connect to the Internet is via a hard line which, in this case, is not connected to his laptop. Holding up the disconnected cable, I turn to the lieutenant.)

Me: “Sir, you need to plug this in for the Internet to work… as I explained this morning when I issued this laptop to you.”

(I dropped the cable on his desk and walk out back to my office. I could hear the other officers and NCOs laughing all the down the hall.)

Related:
Laptop Flop, Part 26
Laptop Flop, Part 25
Laptop Flop, Part 24

(I love my aunt, I really do, but sometimes she doesn’t grasp the concepts of customer service, as the only job she’s had is being a teacher for high-schoolers. I have to call her out on her complaints about customer service; this one I particularly remember. She’s visiting my family in Denver; she and her husband are staying at a hotel nearby. They pick me up one day to go shopping, and we are riding in the car.)

Aunt: “I’m so pissed off at the hotel. We are not getting what we are paying for.”

Me: “What happened?”

Aunt: “They didn’t clean our room while we were out yesterday.”

Me: “That’s weird.”

Aunt: “We had to call down and ask for clean towels.”

Me: “Did you complain?”

Aunt: “Yes, but they said we had our ‘do not disturb’ sign on the knob to our room.”

Me: “Well, did you?”

Aunt: “Yes.”

Me: “Did you leave it there by accident?”

Aunt: “No, we wanted it there; we didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Me: “So, you’re mad they obeyed the ‘do not disturb’ sign?”

Aunt: “They should clean the room!”

This story is part of the Visiting Relatives roundup!

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(My lead cashier calls me up to tell me about a return a customer tried to make. The customer had a suitcase — with the security devices still on it, I might add — that she said she’d bought, but didn’t have the receipt for.)

Cashier: “Her story seemed kind of far-fetched… She told me she tried to return it to [Competitor] first, but they told her it wasn’t theirs and sent her over here, despite the fact that there is a very large price tag on it that says, ‘[Store].’”

Me: “What about the security tags? We don’t normally miss something like that.”

Cashier: “She said that we forgot to take them off. Either way, she said she’d go find her receipt and left the suitcase here. That was about an hour ago.”

(I went to check the cameras, just in case her story was true. I’m glad I did, because what I found still has me laughing. The customer had walked into the store, empty-handed, to the place we keep items that customers don’t want. She then grabbed the suitcase and immediately stepped into the return line. After my cashier had taken the suitcase, she lingered around the store for fifteen minutes before leaving. Probably the stupidest, most half-a**ed scam I’ve ever seen!)