(I am working in a box office for a theatre and am on the phone with a customer whose order is nearly complete.)
Me: “Okay, if you could just read out the sixteen-digit card number on the front of your card, please?”
Customer: “Would you like that number from left to right?”
Me: *pause* “Yes.”
(I’m an immigrant living and working in the UK. We’ve just opened and I’m standing at the till. A customer makes a beeline for me from outside and plunks her purse on my counter.)
Customer: Do you have a fiver in your till for change?
Me: I’m sorry, I can’t make change.
(There are a lot of problems with counterfeiting where I live so management is very strict on this point.)
Customer: Oh, just come on, I don’t have time for this!
Me: I’m sorry, ma’m, I’m just not allowed.
Customer: *screaming* Cambridge is a dump! *grabs her purse and storms away, utterly ignoring me as I, for some reason, continue to try to help her.*
Me: But… there’s a bank nearby…?
(So much for that famous British reserve and politeness!)
Working in a small military museum in London, I’m used to hearing a lot of stupid questions from tourists, but the crowning glory had to be from one little old American lady who asked me, “Does your museum have anything violent in it?”. She was clearly missing the point that members of the military, throughout their history, do tend to engage in a fair amount of violence!
Don’t quite know what she expected to find in a regimental museum of a British Army regiment that’s been fighting since the 1600s!
I’m a customer in this story, browsing through a well-known charity shop with my mum when a customer approaches the charity shop counter.
Customer: (slightly brusque tone) Do you sell anything new?
Staff-member: (looking surprised) No, this is a charity shop.
Customer lets out an annoyed grunt and walks out.
This happens at least four times a week.
Customer: What’s in the chicken pasty?
Me: Chicken.
Customer: But what meat?
Me: … Chicken.
Customer: What about the steak bake?
Me: Steak.
Customer: What meat?
Me: … Steak. Cow. Moo!
Customer: I’m not an idiot. Whats in the vegetable pasty?
Me: *headdesk*
