We are a bunch of contractors working for a small machine shop. A walk-in customer has come in asking for a custom part. We run through the details, and he agrees on a cost.

Customer: “What if I needed the part today?”

Coworker: “There’s a rush fee of [total].”

Customer: “That’s fine; just hurry.”

Coworker: “So, that’s [total].”

Customer: “I’ll run to the bank to get the cash. Please just get started as it’s urgent.”

This should be the first red flag, but some customers do pay with cash, so we get started. He comes back and we have the part ready for him, but when he hands over the cash to my coworker…

Coworker: “This is only half the amount.”

Customer: “Yeah, things are tight right now. Just don’t be a d**k about it and I’ll get the rest to you.”

Coworker: “We can’t give you the part unless you pay in full up-front.”

Customer: “My dad gets stuff from you guys and pays you back all the time.”

Coworker: “It’s likely he’s an established client with an earned amount of credit. You’re a walk-in customer we don’t know.”

Customer: “Well, we need to do something because I need the part now. I’ll pay you the rest in a month or so.”

Coworker: “Fair enough. 

And with that, my coworker steps behind the counter, cuts his part in half on one of the industrial saws, and gives him one of the halves!

Coworker: “We’ll give you the other half in a month or so.”

Cost to us: an hour or so of labor and a couple of dollars of material. The look on the client’s face? Priceless.

I work in transportation logistics. We make sure that freight is delivered on time. We have a customer that is… difficult… to say the least. They are the type of company that wants to complain about anything. If we deliver every load we have for them, they want to complain about how we can’t deliver the freight that is still on a freight barge in the middle of the Ocean and are “refusing to deliver their freight”. If we miss a load, they want to complain about how we can’t do anything right.

They decide to go overboard one day and send me to a breaking point. Something that needs to be known about this customer: they will only allow us to deliver ten loads a day. Period. End of story.

We just received sixty loads we have to deliver to them. Okay, this is easy; ten loads a day means it will take six days to deliver all the freight. Ten times six equals sixty. Well… at least I thought this was easy.

The customer has a literal fit when we tell them this. They tell us that we are “refusing to deliver their freight in a timely manner”. They demand a call with us.

Customer: *Screaming at the top of their lungs* “This is unacceptable! How can you even tell us it will take six days to deliver all our freight?!”

Me: “I am not sure I am following. You will only allow us to deliver ten loads a day. We have sixty loads. That will take us six days to deliver.”

Customer: “Unacceptable! How can you be so stupid?! Six days. Can you even do math?!”

Me: *Slightly agitated but still professional* “Apparently not? Please advise what you mean and how we are not making the delivery timely. Again, we can only deliver ten loads a day to you. Has this changed?”

Customer: “No, it hasn’t! You can only deliver ten loads a day. I mean…” *Frustrated sigh* “Six days. I cannot believe how f****** stupid you are. I demand a call with the president of the company!”

Me: “Absolutely. Let me get with him and we can go from there.”

I call the president and tell him what is going on. The president is shocked and annoyed by what I’m telling him. But, as the customer (who does a lot of business with us) is upset, he agrees to a call at 2:30 that afternoon.

We have the call. The customer is still irate and screaming that we are being too slow and that they cannot believe it will take six days to deliver sixty loads. My president and I do everything we can to try to explain to them that ten times six equals sixty, but the customer refuses to accept it. We ask them five different ways if we can deliver more loads a day. This is always met with a resounding “No!” The customer is also not supporting any counter-offers for how we can deliver more quickly in their eyes. They are simply appalled that… ten times six equals sixty?

We spend TWO HOURS on this conference call, and nothing is resolved. Frankly, we are at an impasse in any negotiations. My customer simply refuses to accept that ten times six equals sixty. We end the call with the fact that we will deliver the loads, ten a day, and that is the best we can do based on the parameters the customer has set. I leave the office that day frustrated and upset.

The very next day, the customer sends us an email. When I read it, I literally start beating my head on the desk.

Email: “After the call yesterday, we still do not understand your incompetence. However, we must ask: if we allow you to deliver twelve loads a day, will that shorten the timeframe for you to deliver all the freight?”

UUUUUUGH

Related:
Math Is Your Friend, Part 11
Math Is Your Friend, Part 10
Math Is Your Friend, Part 9
Math Is Your Friend, Part 8
Math Is Your Friend, Part 7

When I am fresh out of college, I work for a company that produces and sells meters, switchboards, and testing equipment. We sell to suppliers, contractors, the military, etc.

A client calls looking for a specific meter for a factory.

Me: “Sir, the amps you’re requesting won’t work with the scale you want.”

Client: *In a very condescending voice* “Well, okay, honey. Why don’t you just put your boss on so I can finish my business?”

I’m irked, but I walk to my boss’s cubicle and tell him the story.

Boss: “Stand here while I talk to him.”

He picks up the phone, and I listen to him “uh-huh” and “hmmm.” He then says:

Boss: “Geez, I don’t know if that would work, but I can put you on with our chief engineer, [My Very Female Name].” *Winks at me*

Smug had changed to sheepish when I got back on the phone!

This was 1986 in the Midwest, and I never forgot it.

As part of one of my odd jobs, I once worked as an errand boy for a marble workshop: whenever they needed me to bring something from the workshop to a client’s house, I was there with my three-wheeler to deliver. 

I used to meet many people there, and I made actual friends with a couple of them, but this story’s about the only one there I hated to see around. He was a barely middle-aged guy who used to work for a rival marble workshop before the owner died childless and apprenticeless, and he was hired as extra hands for the sculpting area of our workshop.

You wouldn’t be able to tell as a person from the outside because he acted as if he owned the place; between shouting at the exact brand of tools used even though most were equivalent, the automatic berating of any high school-age apprentice that came into the workshop for the pettiest reasons, and his absolutely endless homophobic jokes directed at me because I didn’t drive “a manly van”, he made the workplace absolutely unpleasant.

Then, one rainy day, I was called to load some boxes of “scrap crafts” (that is, statuettes and other things made out of the bigger chunks that break off blocks) for a shop in town. During that time, the owner’s younger brother was there helping out with carrying stuff around.

Sculptor: “Hey, Fruity [My Name], are you going to take all day to load this, or are you waiting for your lover to come about?”

Me: “Give a man a moment, will you? I’ve just stepped into the shop.”

Sculptor: “Well, pick up the pace, then. No one here can afford to wait around for your loose a**.”

Me: “I’m literally going to load these boxes on my three-wheeler right now. The h*** do you want from me?”

Sculptor: “To do it quicker, you [ableist slur].”

Then, there was a loud groan. I turned around in a snap.

Owner’s Brother: “You. Must. Shut. UP! [My Name] comes in every other day to haul boxes and statues, does it without b****ing, and doesn’t even ask for that much. You don’t do anything but chisel like you’re wanking and scream at teens that want to learn how to do this job. The only reason you’re still here is that [Owner] wants you to have the dignity of retiring with something, but I’m not so generous.”

Sculptor: “Well, f*** you, too! Fine, but don’t come back crying to me if this shop goes down because you waste marble on some r****ded teens and slow-a** f****ts who don’t haul.”

During all of this discussion, I managed to load two boxes. Apparently, [Sculptor]’s retort was enough to convince the owner to put the guy on probation, but I think he just relegated him to odd hours, as I didn’t see him again but did hear him shout from elsewhere in the workshop from time to time afterward.

Many years ago, I worked the second shift with someone who was a borderline-effective worker. One day, he took the early part of the shift off to go to court for a DWI (driving while intoxicated/impaired). It was not his first, and if I recall correctly, he still had another DWI pending trial. (This was in the late 1980s when DWI crashes were still regarded as accidental; while there were some calls for cracking down and taking it seriously, there was still plenty of resistance to that.)

He was very firm that he’d be at work before dinnertime.

Dinner came and went. He didn’t.

Night Plant Manager: “That’s it. He’s out of here.”

Half an hour later, [Coworker] finally showed up… handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.

The police had stopped him for speeding while on his way to work. He failed a field sobriety test. When they ran his license and the plates on the motorcycle, he came back with a bench warrant for failure-to-appear and the motorcycle came back as stolen.

He hadn’t gone to court; he’d gone and gotten drunk. And apparently, when the police were questioning him, he not only admitted this but admitted that he knew or suspected the motorcycle was stolen.

At [Coworker]’s request — begging! — the cops had swung by the plant on their way to the county jail — I suspect partly so they wouldn’t have to deal with people trying to find out if he’d been in an accident.

After a bit of discussion, they went on their way to the county lockup.

As I understand it, the next morning, [Coworker] called the owner begging to keep his job and have the owner bail him out… again.

Coworker: “You gotta bail me out! My job is all I have!”

I was told that the owner looked at the phone in disgust.

Owner: “Your job is all you had.”

And he hung up.

Several weeks later, we were outside for the start of shift, and [Coworker] drove up in his old rattletrap of a flatbed pickup. It had taillights improvised from a pair of cheap clearance lights; there were at least three violations just in that. He was applying for work across the street!

Me: “You’re lucky you have a license!”

The twit grinned cheekily.

Coworker: “License? I have a fishing license!”

Me: *Long pause* “Does anybody know this clown?”

There was a chorus of “No!”

He grinned again and drove away.

And that is when I learned he’d gotten out of jail three days prior. He had gone to where he was living to find the locks changed and all his stuff piled on the porch — something to do with more than six months of unpaid rent. (His roomie worked at the same plant and had kicked him out.)