I’ve committed a gross retail error by accidentally announcing the wrong store name to a customer due to working two jobs. After I apologize and inform the customer of this, they do not look impressed.

Customer: “You think you’re special working two jobs, do ya?”

Me: “No, sir, I simply made a small mistake. I’m not making any excuses for—”

Customer: “If you worked harder, you wouldn’t need to work so much!”

Tired as I was, I was aware enough to know that sentence made zero sense.

Customer: “We got real life trillionaires now! They know the power of hard work!”

Me: “Oh, is that all it takes? Awesome! So, if we take my current wage of $15.92, which is minimum wage for the state by the way, and…”

I get my calculator out…

Me: “So let’s be generous and say our trillionaire friend works every day of the year. Also, let’s assume they work twelve hours a day as I do. That’s a rate of about… $228,310,502.28 an hour. Let’s be generous and say you give $10,502.28 an hour to charity. That’s $228,300,000 an hour, which is about 14,341,111 times more per hour than I currently make.”

Customer: “…”

Me: “Since you’re an expert and all, please tell me how I can work 14.3 million times harder than I currently am?”

Customer: “Well, obviously there are some rounding differences…”

And before y’all come at me in the comments, I KNOW that’s not how the wealth of the billionaire class works, but if he wanted to attack me with an oversimplification, then I could defend myself with one.

Caller: “Hi, I’m looking for [specific item].”

Me: “Yes, we have twelve of those in stock.”

Caller: “If I buy all twelve, can you quote me your best price?”

Me: “Yes, if you buy all twelve, that will come to $109.”

Caller: “Can you give me a discount?”

My Brain: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Me: “Do you know what best price means?”

Caller: “Yes but I haven’t had a chance to ask for a discount yet?”

Me: “Okay, I’ll put the price up to $119. Ask again.”

Caller: “Wait… what are you doing?!”

Me: “Having this conversation out of order, just like you are.”

This story reminded me of an almost identical occurrence, except in person.

I’m having a face-to-face meeting with a client. The building starts to shake.

Client: “What the f*** is that!?”

Me: “That’s an earthquake, sir. The alarm will sound in a moment.”

Literally a second later, the evacuation alarm starts, ordering everyone to evacuate the building.

Client: “What do I do?!”

Me: “The evacuation muster point is the main square outside the building entrance.”

We both start walking to the door to the office. The client looks at me with a strange look.

Client: “Oh, you have to go too?”

This isn’t the Titanic, dude! It’s not clients and customers, first!

Related:
Quake It Or Leave It

I go to a diner that serves some pretty good food. As I’m talking to the waitress serving at the counter/bar, I spot a sign on the wall.

Me: “Ouch.”

Waitress: “You okay?”

Me: “That sign sounds like it comes from a few painful experiences.”

She turns around to see the sign I am looking at:

Sign: “The filet mignon is steak, not fish. You’re thinking of the Filet-O-Fish.”

Waitress: “Oh, haha. Yeah. The boss lets us put up a sign if the same mistakes keep getting made. This complaint came from the same customer three times. He ordered it three times, expecting a McDonald’s fish burger.”

Me: “Yup, painful experiences. I was right.”

We laugh, and I order my food.

I come back a couple of weeks later, and there are now two signs:

New Sign: “The calamari steak strips are not beef steak.”

I say “ouch” again.

Waitress: “Oh yeah. New sign. Same guy.”

Since the pennies have been discontinued from being manufactured, we get all kinds of gems from customers about it, despite our having had signs for over half a year explaining this to them.

One that stood out, however, was this one that came in while I was working the Customer Service Desk.

Me: “Greetings, welcome to [Store], how can I help you today?”

Customer: “I’d like to donate these pennies.”

And this lady hefts up an actual SACK of pennies onto the counter.

Me: *Stares in stunned silence for a moment.* “…Ma’am, while we appreciate the thought, we are not accepting… donations of pennies at this time.”

Customer: “What?! But you’re out of pennies! It says so right here!”

She taps at the sign that explicitly says that and how [Store] is rounding up or down accordingly.

Me: “That is correct, ma’am. The penny has been phased out, but we are not, nor will we ever, be wanting customers to donate their pennies to us.”

Customer: “But you have no pennies!”

Me: “Yes. And neither do multiple other businesses. If you don’t want to keep your pennies, I suggest taking them to a bank. They, at least, can give you proper bills in exchange for them.”

Customer: “But that’s who’s hoarding all the pennies!”