I sell safety supplies, and I’ve run into some strange customers.

Customer #1: *On the phone* “I want a four-gas monitor to prove that masks are killing kids. I want to go disrupt an upcoming teacher meeting!”

And then, there was this one.

Customer #2: “I need a hazmat suit. The government is going to release microworms in the air that could kill you!”

I’ve been working in different call centres for the past ten years. I’ve been at my current one for four years and I’ve finally lost my customer voice.

The health crisis has really made people even more entitled and rude, and I’m done with it. It started a few weeks ago when I was really tired and a family member had just passed away. Some guy was rambling on about how everything was my fault, blah, blah, blah.

I tried to explain how he could fix his issue several times, but every time, I got interrupted by more rambling.

Eventually, I sternly said:

Me: “Will you just shut up and listen to me? Then I can fix your problem.”

He went dead silent and eventually muttered an “okay”.

It was the best feeling ever. I’m trying not to make a habit of it, but it’s very addictive.

 An old guy came into our store after we reopened from the health crisis.

Customer: “Wow! You guys are really on top of things since you reopened! Your boss trained you well.”

Me: “Yeah, she’s great!”

He actually looked shocked.

Customer: “Your boss is a woman?! You let a woman tell you what to do?!”

Me: “Yeah. Our general manager has been a woman for a few years now, and she’s been with the company for like fifteen years. She knows her stuff.”

And he literally shook his head and walked away, muttering:

Customer: “Unbelievable!”

What year was this guy living in?

Our restaurant opened a makeshift patio for the health crisis, and it’s the biggest source of frustration at my job. So many folks come in to order takeout from us, only to walk outside and eat at our tables.

I get it; the weather is nice and they want to enjoy their food. But we have signs and tell customers that the outside patio is full-service and for dine-ins only. Most people understand and pack up and leave when we ask. But sometimes we get difficult people who like to argue. Last night, I had to argue with a group of guys and their wives and baby.

Customer #1: “We just got food. Why can’t we sit here?”

Me: “Do you always get food from restaurants for takeouts and start eating there?”

Customer #2: “We paid for our food!”

Me: “Yes, you got takeouts. This is for dine-ins.”

Customer #1: “We’re not dining inside; we’re outside.”

Me: “The tables outside are the very same as inside: same rules, same policies, same service.”

Customer #2: “Lemme see your policy.”

Me: “Sir, you don’t work here.”

And it went back and forth. Mind you, I gave them three different chances to change their order from takeout to dine-in. I explained to them that the tables outside wouldn’t be available to them. And they nodded their heads saying that, yes, they wanted takeout, all three times.

The thing that got me was that during the entire time I spent arguing with them telling them they can’t eat their takeout there, one of them opened ANOTHER box in my face and started eating that, too. I then told them they had to pack it up or I’d call the cops for trespassing.

One dude then asked:

Customer #3: “If I get some fries, then it’s cool, right?”

Me: “That’s not how it works. People can’t order $100 in takeouts and then sit down and get a side of fries for $5 to sit there. I’m refusing you service. You have to go.”

I called the police.

Also frustrating was when the cops came. They asked me to just get the guy some fries. I had to pull the cops to the side and explain to THEM that it was not fair to my server. If they got some fries, what was the tip gonna be? $0.50 cents? Then we’d have to clean everything else up?

It took them twenty minutes and more talking to the police to finally leave, but they finished their food anyway, so I’m still mad about it.

At Christmas 2020, one of our sons gifted my wife and me a monthly subscription from a fancy coffee roaster business near his home in Toronto. According to the card he gave us at Christmas, it was a six-month subscription for two bags of their specialty roasted coffees per month, with the first delivery in time for Christmas.

Like many businesses in 2020, this coffee roaster had to pivot to incorporate and/or ramp up more online sales for the Christmas season. Based on what happened to us, it seems they had some challenges dealing with the volume of orders for these subscriptions.

The first hint that this was not going as planned was a delay in the first delivery. Christmas came and went, but there was no initial delivery until New Year’s Eve day when a box showed up on our doorstep with not two but twelve bags of coffee: two different flavours, with six bags of each.

We contacted our son to let him know the gift had finally arrived, but not exactly as he had described it. He apologized, and we all wrote it off as an error when placing the order on their webpage. No worries, we said, we got what was intended, just all at once.

Fast forward to the third week of January. Another box from the coffee roaster company showed up, but there were only two bags of coffee this time. There was one of each flavour — the same two flavours as had arrived in the initial box of twelve. We mentioned the shipment to our son and he said he’d look into his emails about the order and sort out what had happened.

February rolled around, and… another box arrived. We got the same two bags of the same flavour coffee. We found that two bags a month matched our caffeine consumption, so we had only made a modest dent in the first box of twelve. As you might imagine, our pantry was slowly being overrun with coffee. Again, our son was surprised that they were still shipping more bags, but at that point, he basically told us not to worry about it and that if they billed him for the extra bags, he would take care of it.

So… lather, rinse, and repeat through March, April, May, and June. Each month, a nice little box of the same two flavours of coffee arrived. By now, the “bottomless coffee subscription” was a running joke within the family as we waited to see how long it would take for them to figure out the mistake, stop sending the coffee, and contact my son. But they never did.

We certainly enjoyed the coffee, but we confessed that we were getting tired of the same flavours and resorted to giving some bags to other family members as well as our son when he came by for a visit. At that point, we figured the original monthly subscription was done and that was it. But no.

On a Sunday in the middle of July, I was out packing the car with my wife in preparation for our departure on a two-week vacation. A small car rolled up to the curb in front of our house and a young woman on delivery stepped out and walked up the driveway with — you guessed it — another box of the coffees we had been enjoying for the last six-plus months. I thanked her, and we wished each other a nice day and tossed the box in the house before locking up and leaving.

To our muted relief, that was the final delivery. A total of twenty-six bags of coffee for the price of twelve was a good deal for us, and our son never heard a peep from the coffee roasters.

I hope that for Christmas 2021, they improved their internal controls and had better-trained staff picking orders!