I work at a building supply store, as a delivery driver. I’m the only one where I work who is licensed and certified to operate and drive a boom truck – a large transport truck with a crane on it for unloading material.

My coworker told me they’ve been dealing with a customer for several days, who can’t make up their minds on what material they want to use to redo their roof. Today alone, this customer has called five times.

About an hour before the store is closing, the customer finally decides what they want.

Customer: “I want it delivered tomorrow and boomed up to my roof.”

Coworker: “We will be unable to deliver tomorrow with a boom because our only driver licensed to operate the vehicle is off tomorrow.”

I worked five days this week, so this is my weekend off. The customer isn’t happy.

Customer: “Well, that’s no good. I need this delivered tomorrow. I’m sure you can have your driver come in just to do my delivery.”

Coworker: *Snaps back.* “No. We aren’t gonna ask him to come in for a delivery. It’s the driver’s weekend off. He’s worked the whole week. He’s earned his time off. The soonest we can get it delivered if you want it boomed will be Monday.”

Customer: “No good. We need the material tomorrow.”

Coworker: “If you need something boomed, we need adequate notice.”

Customer: “Well, I am giving you adequate notice.”

Coworker: “It isn’t adequate notice because you’re placing your order within an hour of closing, expecting next-day delivery.”

Eventually, the customer backed down and agreed to have everything delivered tomorrow, but it would only be dropped on the ground, and not taken up to the roof.

Customer: “And when I pay with cash, I get a discount right?”

Coworker: *Bluntly.* “No.”

As my coworker was telling me that, I told them they could throw the law at the customer. I had already worked five days and was near the end of my hours for what I am legally allowed to drive with that truck, just in case this customer decided to make things more difficult in the future.

I work at a pizza delivery restaurant in a high-end neighborhood. It’s a slammed Saturday night with a forty-five-minute delivery wait at least, and customers are informed that larger orders are taking ninety minutes. We also explain that takeout orders are done in twenty minutes if the delivery wait is too long.

I am getting a lot of angry calls from customers asking about their pizzas, and one customer in particular, who ordered four pizzas, keeps calling.

Caller: “Why haven’t they arrived?!”

Me: “As we explained, sir, we are exceedingly busy tonight, and—”

Caller: “We have company to entertain with no food! We live literally down the street; we can see you from our house, and you’re obviously not working fast enough!”

Me: “Uh… sorry about the wait, but we did mention that takeout was faster and you could still pick them up…?”

Caller: “No! We will wait, but this is just taking forever!” *Click*

I work as a delivery driver for a building supply store. I’ve never had any issues with those I deliver to, because if something is wrong with their order, I just point out that I’m just given the paper of what to deliver, and where to go, or I admit if I forgot something. They understand that and direct their frustrations at the staff who made the order wrong, or if I forget, they appreciate the effort of me arranging to get their missing item ASAP.

Today, a guy orders close to $3000 worth of material. They are paying cash when I arrive, so our rule is you get the cash first, then give the material.

I get there, and this guy looks rough, like either he had been using drugs for years in his life, or still is. I go through the routine, asking him where he wants it placed, etc, then ask for the money. He starts counting off the bills in batches, handing them to me faster than I can verify the amount.

Customer: “There’s $400.”

Me: “Actually, that’s $350.”

Customer: “No, no, it’s all there.”

I recount it three times and each time it comes up $50 short. Important to note, in order to safely count, I set the money on a cooler which is not directly in sight of the customer, but he is there watching the whole time.

Me: “No, sir, there is $50 missing.”

Customer: “It shouldn’t be out, because I counted it beforehand.”

Me: “Unfortunately, I’ve counted three times, and each time it’s short.”

Customer: *Getting angry.* “No! That’s correct; I counted it all beforehand!”

I hand him the money, saying he can verify. He counts, and sure enough, it comes up short.

Customer: “I don’t understand it, I counted everything. I don’t know what kind of con job you’re trying to pull!”

Me: “I’m not, I am just saying that you’re $50 short, and I can’t leave any material unless I get the full amount.”

He gets madder and madder by the second.

Customer: *Points to his friend.* “He was there when I counted!”

Customer’s Friend: “I only caught glimpses.”

Me: “Everyone is human; we all make mistakes, so maybe you miscounted. I just pointed out how I noticed fifty missing when you handed me the four hundred.”

He doesn’t like that! His voice is getting higher and higher, and he accuses me of taking the money. He’s swearing, saying I don’t know how to count, or that I pocketed the money; just every kind of blame he can think of where I am the one at fault and not him.

Me: *My voice is starting to rise too.* “If you’re just gonna accuse me and say that stuff, I’ll take the order back and you won’t get anything.”

He keeps yelling, so with the money still on the cooler where we counted, I tell him:

Me: “All your money is there. You aren’t getting your order.”

As I’m walking out, he’s yelling:

Customer: “Send someone who has f****** brains and who knows how to count, and is competent! I’m gonna call your boss and get you fired!”

Me: “Go ahead and call my boss. Your attitude is terrible.”

Customer: *Yelling.* “I have a f****** great attitude!”

Me: “You’re throwing a tantrum like a five-year old.”

I get in my vehicle and drive off. As soon as I’m back, I inform the staff what had happened. The customer phones and while the worker is dealing with him, I call my bosses to make them aware of the situation.

They assure me that everything is fine and that I did the right thing. I wasn’t worried about that, I just wanted them to be aware of the situation.

The worker gets off the phone with him, saying she is sending one of our other drivers back so I won’t have to deal with it. I warn the driver that the customer is short on money, so be careful.

The worker dealing with the call later told me what was said; the customer was making it look like he was the victim:

Customer: “He was accusing me of short-changing you, and he wouldn’t let me recount it! He was the first one to start yelling!”

My coworker brought up several points I mentioned about what he said to me.

Customer: “Yeah. I was a little rude. I shouldn’t have said that. But this just ruined my day. Tell the driver I am sorry. I was just angry because I was being accused of not having all the money.”

My coworker pointed out that kind of behavior is not tolerated towards the drivers. And that I was following the rules for not giving them the order when I haven’t received the full amount. 

They told the customer that I am extremely competent, and that I know how to do my job, and that if I say it’s short, they believe me.

My coworker comes back, with the full amount, and the order gone. He explains to me how the fifty dollars was still missing, and that the customer had to go into his wallet for the missing amount. Then the customer went on for another ten minutes about how rude I was, how he didn’t understand why someone would risk their jobs stealing fifty dollars from a customer, and how he never wants to see me deliver to his place again.

My coworker just told him:

Coworker: “I’m just here to drop this off and get the money. I don’t know what happened, what was said, or anything like that.”

I don’t know if he said it to the customer or if it was under his breath, but he said:

Coworker: “As for him not coming back to your place again, the feeling is mutual.”

I was delivering for one of the major pizza chains, and I took a delivery to two pretty young Latinas. They invited me into the living room. I wasn’t supposed to enter customers’ homes, but it was below-freezing outside, so I did.

They were chattering back and forth in Spanish and giggling a lot. One asked in English how much their total was.

Me: “Fifteen ninety.”

She turned to the other girl.

Customer: “Quince diecinueve.”

Me: “No, es quince noventa.”

Both turned white as a sheet. The one that didn’t speak English made a sort of “eep” noise and ran upstairs. The other clearly wanted to do the same. After an uncomfortable pause, she said:

Customer: “Um… We didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”

Here’s the thing: I didn’t. I knew enough to take an order and conduct a sale. But my pronunciation was really good, so people often thought I was fluent based on that. I had no idea if they were saying I was cute or making fun of me.

Me: “I have no idea what you’ve been saying, but you should have some fun with your friend before you tell her that.”

Many years ago, I was a delivery driver and trainer at a popular pizza delivery store. One of our general rules was to carry only enough money to make change from $20. We had lockboxes in the store where we’d drop money (cash or checks) after a delivery. We would get tips (usually) for our deliveries, and we’d put those into the boxes, as well. At the end of our shifts, we’d turn in the money for our deliveries. Any excess would be our tip money, plus the 6% commission from the orders. I would write down how much tip I got from each delivery, rounding to the nearest $0.25. This would usually be within a dollar of my actual tips, which greatly simplified the math.

One young driver I trained didn’t get the concept that you’d get your tips at the end of the shift after subtracting your delivery total from the lockbox receipts. He would meticulously figure his tip, count it out in his car after the delivery, and place it in his own personal lockbox in his car.

When I found out he was doing this, I made a strong suggestion.

Me: “You really should drop all your money at the store so you don’t have over $20 in your car at any time.”

New Driver: “The tips I get are mine. I’ll lose them if I put them in the store lockbox.”

It was simple subtraction to prove that this wasn’t the case, but he wouldn’t listen.

One evening, he took a delivery into one of the sketchier neighborhoods in our area. When he returned to the car and dug out his personal lockbox, a couple of teens ran up to him as he had his car door open and grabbed his lockbox. He gave chase, but they were faster. So, he lost his tips for the night.

He reported it to the manager, who called the police. Sadly, there was little they could do to track down the thieves. The manager gave him the rest of the night off, and I was assigned to check him out.

At the end, he was upset that he only had $6 more than what he started with, which was his commission.

New Driver: “What about my tips?”

Me: “Since the cash was in your car instead of in the store lockbox, management isn’t responsible for your loss.”

I then worked him through how putting his tip money in the store lockbox would not only keep it safe but he’d have that money consolidated in larger bills. I also showed him how I rounded the tips to the nearest quarter dollar, which gave me a reasonable estimate of what my nightly tips should be.

He finally got it, and it just cost him one night’s tips.