A woman comes in with a blouse to exchange and finds some other items to purchase. She comes in with a return – from a different location – on a super busy day when the tills are lined up, so we know she’s a bit self-involved to start with.

I start to process the return portion and she shouts out in a loud and really snotty tone that I am trying to “disadvantage” her in this transaction because I have to do the return and sale separately (company policy BTW). When I ask how I am doing that, she says “I had a discount on that blouse, now you’re going to make me pay full price.” I say “No, you will get the new one at the same price” and she tells me that this would be impossible and ends the paragraph with “so how will you do that?”
“Same way I would if I were doing this in one transaction, by price-matching the blouse”.

This was not enough. As I told her the total of her purchase, she again began berating me loudly for trying to “rip [her] off”. She insisted that the total I gave her was twenty four dollars too high. I had to get out the calculator (because apparently the cash register doesn’t know how to add) and go over every single item and get her agreement on what the price should be before she finally admitted that she had her math wrong. This is the second week in a row that I have been yelled at by a customer for failing to bend the rules of mathematics to suit how much they think they should be paying. (Last week, it was a woman who refused to believe that 16X4=64.) It was lucky that none of the customers in line behind her suffered an injury from all the head-shaking and eye-rolling going on. There’s a reason we have to keep a calculator beside the tills.

I work in a retail-flooring store that also has a warehouse attached. Earlier this afternoon, we had a large propane leak in our warehouse and we’re in the process of evacuating the building.

A lady walked into our store as we were evacuating the employees out. She looked around and asked us what was going on, so we explained. She then ignored what she had just heard about the gas leak and started asking questions about the flooring that she was looking for.

After trying to guide her to the front door while answering her questions, she started to get very upset. She couldn’t comprehend why we wouldn’t let her back into our showroom to view all of our available products. We once again explained the situation and how dangerous it was for anyone to be in the building, but she wasn’t having it. She wanted to look at every hardwood sample that we had in the building because she had driven 15 minutes across the city and her time was very precious.

Apparently, she really needed that hardwood today if it was worth putting her life at risk. My manager stepped in to prevent her from pushing us out of the way to go look at the flooring. Needless to say, she did not purchase any flooring from us today.

Customer: “Do you have any ice?”

Me: “Yes, we do!”

(I point towards our freezer of ice. The customer opens the door to the freezer and shuffles around a few bags before turning back to face me with a disappointed look on her face.)

Customer: “Do you have any ice less frozen?”

Me: “Um… No, I’m sorry. We do not.”

(I work in the bakery of a grocery store. A customer comes and stands at the employee opening to the bakery, holding a half pie he bought the previous day.)

Me: “Can I help you with something?”

Customer: “Is [Coworker] working today?”

Me: “No, she has the day off. Maybe I can help you?”

Customer: “When does she work next?”

Me: “I’m sorry; I can’t tell you that.”

Customer: *getting agitated* “Why not?”

Me: “It’s against store policy to give out the schedule of employees to anyone. My manager and assist manager are both in today; would you like to speak to one of them?”

Customer: *now angry* Yes.”

(The manager comes down and talks with the customer. The customer takes a new half pie and walks off.)

Manager: “What happened with him?”

Me: “He wanted to know when [Coworker] worked next, and I refused to tell him.”

Manager: “He said you were very rude to him and refused to help him.”

Me: *explains what happened*

Manager: “That makes more sense. Okay.” *walks off*

(I turn around to see the customer hovering by the counter, listening to see if I got in trouble.)

Me: *“Have a nice day.” *smiles at customer and returns to work*

(I found out a week later he called head office to complain about me. Wish I had been a fly on the wall for that call! “That’s nice, sir; here’s a coupon.”)

(This story takes place barely a month after my husband and I returned from our honeymoon and began living together for the first time. My husband is preparing to lead a soccer tour to an African country, taking along a couple dozen students. Understandably, it has been a busy time, and he is dealing with the final preparations. On Friday, the evening before he is set to leave, he gets home from work and decides he wants to park his car in the stall we get at our condo complex, instead of leaving his car on the street for two weeks. Unfortunately, there is someone parked in our stall, and my husband says he’s noticed the same vehicle there before. Slightly stressed with everything that is going on, my husband panics, and sees a sign in the parking lot with a number to call if there are any problems. He calls, and a tow truck comes and tows the car away. Soon after, we get a knock on our door.)

Dude: “Hey, did you get my car towed?”

Husband: “Yeah, you were parked in our stall. Sorry about that.”

Dude: “That was a jerk move. You could have just left a note on my windshield!”

Husband: “I’m sorry about that. I just have a lot going on right now, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m really sorry.”

(Our neighbour gives him a few more choice words after that, says something about living next door to a condo board member and them saying it was okay to park in our spot, and storms off. My husband and I leave the condo for an hour or two afterwards, and as soon as we return, there is another knock on the door.)

Dude: “Hey, it’s going to cost $450 to get my car back.”

Husband: “I’m really sorry.”

(They went back and forth a few more times, the guy getting progressively angrier. The conversation finished with the guy threatening to take us to small claims court. Yeah. Small court claims because he was parking in OUR parking spot — aka stealing. I ended up calling the condo management company and speaking to one of the administrative ladies to explain the situation, just in case he called. As I was finishing my story, I’m pretty sure I could hear her softly chuckling. She ended up calling me a few days later and said she spoke with the person in question, that he was in the wrong, and that the situation was resolved. My husband definitely regrets calling the number, as leaving a note would have been nicer, but at the same time, the guy didn’t have any leg to stand on. He didn’t park in our spot again and my husband saw him only once more after that. It was late at night, around the parking lot, and my husband thinks he was drunk. He said something along the lines of, “That spot good enough for you?”)